Let’s dive into this next phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, again putting into context:

“Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name” (May you be glorified). “Thy Kingdom come” (Let me live as your kingdom citizen, as part of your group you call the church). “Thy will be done” (Father, I’m showing up for training today. Train me to do your will. Strengthen me to do your will. I submit to you training me today. Grow me today, Lord).

And then the next phrase: “on earth as it is in heaven.” There are different ways people look at the “Our Father.” They’ll talk about the three phrases in one. I’ll be talking about them separately. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” All three can only be done in His strength. When you think about “on earth as it is in heaven” you’ve got to start thinking about what it’s like in heaven. In heaven, we will be completely guided and completely empowered by God. We will completely do His will. He will perfect the journey that we’re on where we try to do His will over our will. Upon death, we get perfected to doing His will because he’s strengthens and perfects that in us.

And the key is that it’s all done through His power. The value of abundant living that we want to identify here is what we call “Gifts.” Gifts of divine enablement are given to all believers to grow God’s church. It’s the value of the supernatural power of God. We are intended to live here and now on earth by His supernatural strength through the Holy Spirit working in and through us so His kingdom WILL come and His will BE done. But it’s only done in and through His strength.

I love this idea of God in increasing measure (less of me, more of Him over time) growing us as disciples deeper in submission, walking more and more by the Spirit and not by the flesh, that more of heaven will be realized through us. Miracles were common in the New Testament, if you look at the Acts 2 Church, many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. It was because God was doing it through them because they learned how to walk by the Spirit. They weren’t in control of any of that; it was all what God wanted to do through His strength, according to His will.

And that is what it will be like in heaven. It will be this dynamic supernatural experience of His love, experiencing and expressing the love of God all the time. So as you recalibrate with His gifts of His power in and through you, I pray that you’ll be willing to surrender to the power of God in a deeper and fresher way today, not only that He would strengthen us but it goes back to where we started: that He might be glorified through us because as He’s doing it through us, people will see His handiwork in and through our lives and bring glory to Him.  They will be in awe of our God.

Let’s pray: Father, that is our prayer: that you will strengthen us. We believe that apart from You, we can do absolutely nothing. So we pray that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Father, give us a heaven on earth experience through Your Holy Spirit as we submit to Your power in our lives today. And we pray that You’d bring much glory to Your name. Teach us how to walk by Your Spirit in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Giv’em heaven!

It’s interesting sometimes to compare the big vision of the New Testament to the one toward which our human nature naturally aspires. Jesus came to give us life and to give it an abundance, to give us joy so that our joy may be complete, to give us the peace that surpasses all understanding. The way St. Paul expresses the grand possibilities of Christian life seems far beyond not only our experience but beyond what we are accustomed to hope for.

Consider this passage from Ephesians: “…that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead…” (Eph 1:18-19) And also this one: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” Eph. 3:20

By contrast, there are times when our highest ambition may be merely to cope with whatever is right in front of us. Life often seems like warfare because it really is warfare. Because of that it is tempting to just hope for escape from life rather than engagement with life.  

There are many thinkers of the past, such as Aristotle, who spoke about the good life, but there isn’t one of them who promised a life that can compare even remotely with the greatness of life in Christ. One only has to examine carefully the promises of God with this in mind to arrive at this conclusion. Quite a few people have actually done that, but then they still come to the conclusion, in essence, that God’s promises are simply too good to be true. The big vision implied by the abundant and victorious Christian life is beckoning to them and yet they haven’t dared to step forward into it.

How then can we adopt the big vision and then engage in it actively? A good first step is to allow God to cleanse us of the gallimaufry of trivial visions that descend on us almost every time we turn on the TV set or walk past a magazine stand. Staring at us at every turn in our celebrity-drenched society are false visions of greatness. Adopting a vision of the life that’s truly life (1 Tim 6:19) involves intentionality, and so let’s decide once and for all not to compromise with these false visions.

The next step is to decide that we are going to learn how to depend on the guidance and power of God, who teaches us that the big vision is the experience and expression of love. It often suffices to keep in mind four words from one of Paul’s letters: “make love your aim” (1 Cor 14:1 RSV). No matter how humble the situation or even dreary the task before us, there is a way to connect it with love of God, love of neighbor, and an awareness of God’s tremendous love for us.

Is there a promise of God that you think is too good to be true? Are you tempted to think that the joy and peace of believing are forever beyond your reach? Then take God at his word and accept his great and valuable promises by which we can participate in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). Begin to thank and praise God that you already have the seeds of these blessings within you; thank Him in advance that these things will soon become part of your experience. Adopt the big vision of the divine nature and discard anything less than that from this day forward and then see whether the promises of God throughout Scripture are in fact too good to be true. You’ll be very pleasantly surprised.

Let’s look at the next phrase of the Lord’s prayer, as we’re looking at how to recalibrate our lives with our Father by praying the way Jesus taught us to pray.”Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be your name.” May Your name be glorified. “Thy kingdom come.” May I live as a part of Your group, Your church, in Biblically functioning communities. Then the next phrase is a very important phrase: “Thy will be done.”

To try and unpack this, I’d like for you to consider that we are sinful people, that if left up to our own devices, we drift away from doing the will of God. We want to do our own will. And so every time I pray this personally, the mental image I have in my mind is: I’ve got my sweatpants on and my sweatshirt on. I’m ready to go to the gym. And I’m saying, “Father, grow me! Train me to do Your will, not my will. I submit to doing Your will, not the will I gravitate towards, the will that my sinful nature makes me hungry for and the will that the Evil One is trying to convince me to follow. So I want to embrace Your training in righteousness, Lord.  Grow me.”

So that’s the value of Growth. This part of the Lord’s Prayer brings out the value of Growth. I like to say that growth is a process towards Christlikeness. So, it’s not going to happen all in one day. That’s why I think Jesus asked us to pray these kinds of statements. “Thy will be done.” It is showing up saying, “Grow me in Your will deeper today than I was yesterday. Help me understand what it means to walk according to Your will. Empower me to know that. Strengthen me. Grow me in habits that grow me to do Your will over my will. And do that daily.”

Let’s pray: Father, God, where would we be without You? We want to show up for Your training today. Grow us, Lord. Growth is a process towards full maturity in Christ. And none of us is ever done. So, Father, help us to know what Your training regiment for each one of us is today as we walk in Your Spirit. Help us to understand the sin that is so easily entangling us and know Your corrective path. We repent from our sin, Lord. We want to choose to walk with You. Thy will be done. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

We continue looking at this devotional series looking at the Lord’s Prayer together. Again, our goal is to recalibrate our lives with the values that God wants us to pray into our lives.

The first value we did was Glorifying God in our lives. That was the first phrase, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

“Your Kingdom Come”
Matthew 6:10 (3:11)

The next phrase, “your kingdom come,” is a very important phrase to understand. We’re praying that we would live under the lordship of Jesus (He’s our King), in his community, within his Kingdom we call the church. So it’s basically saying that “I will live in Biblically functioning community with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I will live as a Kingdom citizen in this world.”

Unfortunately many churches aren’t operating as covenant communities with each other, really living out the commands of Christ together in covenant community as brothers and sisters in Christ. Most churches define churches as “you attend and you give once in a while.” God really didn’t have that vision in mind.

He had this deeper recalibration with him in mind for us. He wants us to see ourselves as part of a community. He wants us to stop trying to see ourselves as  individuals and start seeing ourselves as part of a whole: the body of Christ. And I will play whatever role within that whole that He’s calling me to play, but this phrase “Thy kingdom come” is focused more on the relational dynamics. Thy Kingdom come, in and through me.

So, we’re asking God to give us the wisdom and strength and guidance we’re going to need to build healthy, biblical relationships in this world. The value that this particular phrase gets at is the value of Group. In the Seven Values of Abundant Living, this Group value is defined as “groups of Biblically functioning community provide the optimal environment for life-change.” The Kingdom of God is all about life change. As we commit one to another in covenant community, to be brothers and sisters truly committed to the lordship of Christ, and living out our faith together in community, He transforms our world. We become this transformational community that impacts our culture for good, rather than the culture impacting us and weakening us.

So, let’s make a commitment today: “Your kingdom come, Lord.”

Let’s pray:

“Father, God, it’s our prayer that you would teach us to be your kingdom citizens, your servants, submitted to your lordship. Father, I pray for all the relationships in our lives that might be coming to mind right now that are strained, people that we have to confess sin to, Father that you would give us the strength to do just that, that we would repair and heal the brokenness that we are experiencing. Father, don’t let the evil one separate us. Give us the humility to confess our sin, to walk in your strength, the way you command us to in Scripture. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

Today we start a new devotional series on The Lord’s Prayer.  We will be looking at it through the lens of the  Seven Values of Abundant Living (taught in both the Delta and Omega Courses).  Let’s dig in….

As you remember the story in Matthew 6, the disciples saw Jesus praying and they came to him and said, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” And this is what Jesus said in verse 9, “This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

I like to think that whenever we pray the ‘Our Father’ we are recalibrating our lives with the Father. We are recalibrating our lives with His values. The value that comes out of “hallowed be Your name” is the value of glorification. Glorification is the goal of our lives and the church. Everything we are is about bringing glory to God and showing his transcendant awesomeness to the world, which means we’re going to decrease so that He might increase through us and shine forth His brilliance and His glory! That’s where we start: we recalibrate. “It’s not about me; it’s about You, Father.”

I was just asked to give a talk about this to a group of students at Brown University. What does it mean to serve an audience of one? How do you bring glory to God? What does that really look like day to day in our lives? One of the points of discussion afterwards was about how self-centered we are being trained by our world to live. We are bringing everything into our world for our own benefit, to make ourselves look bigger and better than we really are (given our sin).

It’s the power of the love of Christ, as we recalibrate with His glory, that gives me the freedom to just be who I am. I’m a sinner saved by the grace of God, and I want Him to be glorified in and through my life. And as I submit to His guidance and power, as He moves through my life, and as He expresses His love through me in many ways, He will be glorified. Whoever does something gets the glory for it.

So the key is to understand that you are freely forgiven, and as we walk in that forgiveness and live by faith, He will be glorified in our daily actions.

Let’s pray: Father, God, it is our prayer that Your name would be hallowed, that people would see Your name as awesome, completely different, that You are God and we are not. Father, it’s our prayer that You would give us strength to humble ourselves before You and before others, to declare who it is that saved us and gives us the strength to really live in life, that we would proclaim Your goodness everywhere we go. Father, that our lives would be about bringing You glory, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have a great day and give Him all the glory!

The final beatitude that we want to look at together is the big finish to the “Blessed are…” statements. The last one out of Matthew 5:10-12: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people falsely insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

This can seem like a hard word to embrace, but we have to put everything into context. On this planet, we are just pilgrims journeying to our real destination which is heaven. Now God has come to try to establish his kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God on earth, but the kingdom of darkness is going to press back against the kingdom of light. And we have to be prepared as Christians that, as God guides and empowers us to do so, we would speak forth his truth with grace. Grace and truth. Kindness and mercy, like we heard in the other beatitudes. We need to be willing to stand for the truth and be ready to handle some of the persecution that might come our way.

I remember being in college and standing strong for what I believe to be the truth in Scripture and having some people push back against that in a pretty dramatic way. They didn’t want to talk to me or have anything to do with me. And I remember specifically one of my best friends who was engaging in relationships that were not appropriate for him. with women, and I tried to stand (with grace and truth) and he basically pushed me away.

Two years later, I was working in the business world and got a phone call from this guy who called to tell me “thank you for standing for the truth even though I was really rude to you and mean.” He was my best friend at the time. “Thanks for standing for the truth. It planted a seed that now God has germinated in me. I’ve confessed my sin. I’ve received God’s free gift of grace. And I’m learning how to walk in newness of life. But thanks for being someone who would put a stake in the ground and say ‘This is true. This is right.’ Please believe in it and live because there is life here.” I just kept loving him no matter what. I wasn’t separating myself from him.

But you might have to deal with people who want to push you away because of your life and what you’re saying is standing against their life and how they’re living. So let’s be willing to stand for the truth because great is our reward in heaven and they will come to heaven as God works on their hearts as well.

Let’s pray: Father God teach us to be your ambassadors, to share your truth and grace with a watching world, especially those who will resist that and persecute us and say all sorts of negative things against us. Father please help us to stand for you in your love and it’s our prayer that you would use this to break through their hard-heartedness; turn them around and help them find you, to find the life that is truly life in you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have a great day. Stand for God.

Rev. Jason Pankau and John B. Donovan

A friend of ours, recently retired from business in New York City, downsized and moved to Connecticut. A team of movers arrived at his new home, and when their job was done the head of that team turned to our friend and said, “Are you retired from business now?” Our friend responded in the affirmative, and the head of the moving team said, “Well, here’s the sofa! There’s the TV! You’re good to go!”

Our friend didn’t quite see it that way, even though on the surface of things he felt more in control of his time and his life than ever before. He recognized, however, that he is not the owner but rather the steward of whatever talent or resources have been entrusted to him.

The idea of not owning our personal lives is, at first, disagreeable to us. We spend time and effort looking for ways to have enough time and money to gain more control over our lives. The rise of personal technology, especially computers, has given us even more of the desire – and the illusion – of control. The ideas of “obedience” and “surrender” go down hard in our era. We think we might be just giving up or even negating our personal value.

In this context, it’s worth pondering the command of Christ: “Abide in me.” It is more than a command: it is also an opportunity – an opportunity to be rid of everything negative within us. Andrew Murray a 19th-century evangelical from South Africa said: “These words are the command of love which is ever only a promise in a different shape. Think of this until all feeling of burden and fear and despair pass away, and the first thought that comes as you hear of abiding in Jesus becomes one of bright and joyous hope.”

By contrast, the false freedom of being in control of our own lives can lead to a weariness that needs a reversion back to structure. The 19th century English poet William Wordsworth, and his poem “Duty”: “Me this uncharted freedom tires / I feel the weight of chance desires.”

The fellowship of the Father can be likened to the feeling of being loved by a good earthly father. Again, Andrew Murray: “We have unbroken fellowship with Him. A father never sends his child away with the thought that he does not care about his child knowing that he loves him. A father longs to have his child believe he has the light of his father’s countenance upon him all the day – that, if he sends the child away to school, or anywhere that necessity compels, is with a sense of sacrifice of parental feelings. If it be so with an earthly father, what do you think of God?”

We can connect with the One who owns our lives, and we can do this in a way that doesn’t make us feel as though we are surrendering anything that is rightfully ours. When we do that, it is not pain but rather joy and peace.

Rev. Jason K. Pankau

We’re working through the Beatitudes: the Sermon on the Mount. Here, God is describing the blessed life. Jesus is trying to teach us the life that He is living. He’s saying that if you really want to understand the abundant life, the blessed life, the life that is anointed, the life that God guides and empowers, this is the way you should live. This is the way you should point your ship.

Beatitude number 7, Matthew 5:9. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Are you a peacemaker? Are you someone who people trust enough to confide their struggles in? Do they seek you out for wise counsel to help them move towards one another – to mend relationships? I do a lot of work with couples, both marital and premarital, and I feel that it is the most thrilling role that I get to play in people’s lives as a mentor: to help be a peacemaker. To watch their pride turn to humility, their pain gets healed through forgiveness. To watch people who aren’t even looking at each other turn towards one another and come back to that shalom – that peace remembering that we’re all forgiven under Christ. Remembering that we can all have the power to forgive and learn how to love again. I think it’s one of the coolest things that we get to do as children of God. And this is the calling of everybody who is a Christian. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God”, Matthew 5:9. That’s how people will know that we are truly His children.

In 2 Corinthians 5, it talks about being ambassadors for Christ, as though God was making His appeal through us. Are you somebody who (as we talked about in the last beatitude) has a pure heart and you’re seeing God? And because you’re seeing God, you have eyes to see? You are being filled with His guidance and power. God is moving through you and you’re trying to help other people see that forgiveness is real and that we can be reconnected with God.

We don’t have to stay at odds with one another. Let the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s truth teach you how to love Him and one another again. True peacemakers. The only thing that’s going to last beyond the grave are the relationships and the impact our relationships have had in one another’s lives. Money comes and goes; Power comes and goes; But being a peacemaker – now that’s something to pursue! That truly is the blessed life and I want to encourage you today to live into your full identity in Christ: be a peacemaker.

Let’s pray: Father God, we pray that You would teach us how to be peacemakers. We thank You for Your grace, that we have peace with You, that we have the shalom of God, which connects us with You. We can be at rest. Father, teach us to relate to others in ways that keep us connected to them – at peace. Father, as far as it depends on us, let us live at peace with all human beings, with all people. Teach us how to do that Father. We can’t do it without You. So we pray that You would guide and empower us into that blessed life today. We pray this in Jesus’ holy name. Amen

Go be peacemakers today! God bless you.

 We’re working through the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes and are looking at Matthew 5:8,  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

It makes me think of when Jesus was talking and said, “A farmer goes out and sows his seed. Some fell on the rocky ground and they were taken away quickly. Some fell on the shallow soil so when the sun came, they withered. Some fell among the thorns that choked them out. But some seed fell on good soil and produced a crop of 30, 60, or 100 fold of what was sown.”

Jesus goes on to explain, saying that the seed that fell on the good soil stands for someone with a noble and good heart who receives the word, takes it in, and through Christ produces a crop. Are you the kind of person who’s a fourth soil person today? Do you have a noble and pure heart?

⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” I know a lot of people who don’t believe in the idea that God wants to reveal Himself to us. They feel God is so distant and detached. But you can’t really believe in a God like that and read Scripture with authenticity and honesty. When you read Scripture, He’s a God who is completely involved in the lives of His disciples, revealing himself, speaking prophetically through other people to others, revealing himself through angels, speaking as a voice from heaven, a thundering voice from heaven. God wants to speak to us. You will see God.

It makes me think of the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The apostle Paul was there giving his ascent to Stephen. And they laid their cloaks right at his feet. Stephen who was known to be a man full of grace and power was actually a contemporary of Paul’s. They both studied under Gamaliel as Jewish Rabbis in training. And he found Christ. Stephen found Christ. Then he began to be used. At first he was a deacon in the early church and then he was used of God. He was full of power. Again, God was moving through him in powerful ways. And then because he came and gave testimony to the Jewish leaders of the day, they took him out and had him stoned.

But do you remember what Scripture says? Right before Stephen died, he says he saw heaven open up. And his face shone like the face of an angel. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the father. It was just this amazing face. He had realized his life dream. His heart was to see God. His heart was to do the will of the Father. He was just confused as to what exactly that was until he found truth in Jesus Christ. Are you ready to be that good soil through which God produces a huge crop? I personally believe that that was the beginning of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus who became Paul. And that was a huge crop to be used by God to influence a guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament.

So will you be that kind of a person today? Will you say, “God, if there are thorns in my life, remove them. If I do have shallow roots, Father, deepen my roots. Forgive me for having a shallow faith. And if I’m trying to have an easy (what Bonhoeffer would have called) simple faith or cheap grace, Father take me to a true, abiding faith in you. As you are the vine, I will abide as a branch in you, and you will bear much fruit through my life. I pray that we might have pure hearts, that we might see God, not only in heaven some day, but hear God moving through our lives and producing fruit and that we would hear his voice everyday.

By: Rev. Jason Pankau and Michael Lee Stallard

This is the fourth installment in a series of articles about Christians who rescue cultures that Jason and Mike have written for Crosswalk.com. The first installment was The Servant; the second, The Courageous Coach; the third, Saving Our Kids. We hope that through this series you will be persuaded of God’s call for you to rescue the cultures you are in, that you will get ideas from the examples of others and that you will be encouraged to take action in rescuing the cultures around you.

If you have found these, or any other devotionals or articles we have shared with you, meaningful or if they have had an impact in your life in any way – we would love to hear from you!  Please send your story or thoughts to our office at mswank@lifespringnetwork.org.

Christians who rescue cultures take risks. Just think of John Wooden, the legendary college basketball coach we wrote about earlier in this series. Wooden stood up against prejudice at a time when it was the norm.  As head coach of the Indiana State Teachers College men’s basketball team, Wooden refused a post-season tournament bid in 1947 because the tournament wouldn’t allow young men of color to participate and Coach Wooden’s team included an African-American player named Clarence Walker.  Wooden’s refusal to participate in the tournament occurred 20 years before the Civil Rights Act was passed in America.  His actions in 1947 and again in 1948 helped open up post-season college basketball to all young men of color in 1949.  You can bet Wooden faced considerable opposition and ridicule.  This had to be anxiety producing and stressful.  Some people probably shunned Wooden for it.  His wife Nell likely felt pressure, too.  What gave John and Nell Wooden the strength to persevere?   We know the Woodens were Christians.  While we don’t specifically know how they coped, it’s likely that they turned to the Bible for strength, courage, wisdom and guidance.

Following are three ways the Lord provides help to Christians who rescue cultures and take risks for the Kingdom:

Be Prepared to Expect Adversity. The Bible prepares Christians to expect adversity so they’re not surprised. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12 that “we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

Stay Connected with God. Christians who rescue cultures stay connected with God.  He’s a lifeline to them. The Bible gives us an up close view of this.  Read through the Psalms written by David and you will see that he consistently shared his pain and struggles with the Lord as he cried out to Him for strength, courage, wisdom and guidance.  In Psalm 5 David prayed:  ”Oh Lord, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning.  Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you.  Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.  Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.” Later in the same prayer, David praised the Lord and continued his plea for guidance: “Because of your unfailing love, I can enter your house; I will worship at your temple with deepest awe.  Lead me in the right path, O Lord or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain for me to follow.”

Jesus frequently emphasized the importance of staying connected with Him to produce fruit. In John 15:5-8 Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.  Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.  For apart from me you can do nothing… when you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”

In John 17 beginning in verse 20, we read that Jesus prayed to God the Father that all disciples will stay connected to the Trinity: “just as you and I are one… may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” Notice that Jesus said “may they be one in us (italics ours).”  We are invited to be one with the Trinity, a community of three in one: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This unity of the Trinity points to a third way to gain strength and courage: stay connected to other believers who are part of the Body of Christ.

Stay Connected with Christian Community. Throughout the Bible we see the Trinity loving one another (e.g. John 3:35  14:31, 16:14, 17:1, 22-24).  In Scripture, we also see Christians loving and encouraging one another.  For example, David knew the bond of brotherly love in his friendship with Jonathan.  We see this in John Wooden’s life, especially in his relationship with his wife. Nell was his high school sweetheart, the only girl he ever dated, and they were married for 53 years before she died in 1985.  When UCLA dedicated its basketball court to Wooden he insisted that Nell be included and that her name appear before his. UCLA agreed and today its basketball teams play in the “Nell and John Wooden Court.”

We also need each other for guidance and to grow in Christlikeness. Several verses in Proverbs remind us of the wisdom in seeking the counsel of others.  When others speak truth in love to us, it helps us see our character flaws so that we can pray about overcoming them and ask others to encourage us and hold us accountable in the process. This is key to developing Christlike character.

Is God calling you to be a rescuer of the cultures you are in — your home, neighborhood, church, local schools, workplace, or other places? Pray about it, won’t you?  To follow your calling, be prepared to face adversity, and stay ever connected with the Lord and with Christian community. If you do, God, who David described as his refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble, will comfort and guide you, and provide you with the strength and courage you need to persevere and prevail.