Mike Fisk & Built with Grace

ARC Prayer Focus Day 21

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 4:7-10

In keeping with our thoughts from yesterday, sin is a very real part of our lives. Even the great Apostle Paul lamented that the ‘things he wanted to do he rarely did and the things he hated doing he found himself heavily involved in’ (Romans 7:18-20).

The defining characteristic of being a…

ARC Prayer Focus Day 20

But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God. 1 John 3:8-10

Sin isn’t a very popular topic. Society has worked long and hard to ‘stamp sin out’ by simply approving it as being ‘normal’ and ‘a free expression of our individuality’. The Church has attempted to ‘stamp sin out’ by playing comparison…

ARC Prayer Focus Day 19

May God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon. And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen. 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

There are times when we feel so weak; so alone; so ashamed; so frustrated. We do our jobs, embrace our relationships, and perhaps even minister to the needs of others. Yet, in the midst of doing the best we can the emotion of weakness attacks and we wonder what we need to do to get through it all, or if we can get through it at all.

Paul says strong hearts; holy and…

ARC Prayer Focus Day 18

We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested. Hebrews 2:16-18

“You don’t understand what I’m going through!”

How many times have you heard someone say that when they are going through seemingly incomprehensible circumstances. There is a certain amount of truth to that. We, in our finite, human condition, can’t begin to understand how another person feels. Each of us handles life and life crises in our…

ARC Prayer Focus Day 17

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3

“Set your sights on the realities of heaven…” Really Paul? How can we set our sights on something we’ve never seen? Or do we not worry so much about what we haven’t seen of heaven and focus on what we have seen?

Often we hear Christmas referred to as ‘when love came down’ and that’s a realistic perspective. But it was more than love that came down. It was a taste of heaven.  Society pulls at us to see the meaning and fulfillment of life in…