JourneyCreative

06/15/2020

06/01/2020

Calling all men!!

Tonight at 8:00PM is our Men’s Bible Study on Zoom!

We invite you to join us!

Meeting ID: 982 1527 1355

04/27/2020

Hey all! As we finished up our 7-day Realignment, I felt led to continue writing and studying. It has partially led me the 4 letters to the church from Paul (Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians, and Philemon). Would anyone be interested in doing a 4-week study diving into those letters? Potentially adding in a zoom call for Q&A and Discussion. Please leave a comment if this interests you!

-Tanner

04/19/2020

Well we have made it to our final day of our 7 day realignment. I pray this has allowed us to grow and challenged us to evaluate our walk and relationship with Christ. Today I want us to look at the work of the kingdom of God. How are we supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We read in James 2:14-26 that Faith without work is dead. That shows us that our faith must lead us into a mobilization for the Kingdom. Acts 1:8 calls us “to the ends of the earth” as witnesses of Jesus. So we must expect that our walk with Christ will lead us into a mobilization of action outwardly. Our faith is not ours to be personal and just between us and God. Our faith should always end in outward expression so others may see the goodness of God.

I believe one of the greatest examples of the gospel of Jesus Christ is when He calls the disciples to follow Him. As Peter and Andrew were doing their daily job, fishing, we see Jesus come on the shore. He calls them to drop their nets. He says He wants to make them “fishers of men.” I look at this way. Tanner paraphrase:
“Excuse me, Peter and Andrew could I have a word? I want you all to drop your nets and follow me. You guys have lived your whole lives to fish, sell the fish, and do it again. You’ve spent your entire lives building your kingdom of comfort. Doing things that have led to strictly you or your families benefit. I want to come and turn your life completely upside down and show you my Father. I want to give you purpose. I want to give you love. I want to give you a reason as to why you are on this earth. So drop your nets, and come help me build the Fathers kingdom.”

You see, the Christian Faith is not just a fire insurance policy. Believing in Jesus isn’t a “Get outta hell” free card. It’s an invitation to build the Kingdom of God. It’s an invitation to lay down your burdens and sinful nature forever so that we may pick up the righteousness of God. It’s a way of life to walk in our original purpose of the garden which is to look over this side of Heaven. So we have to lay down our inherent dead life of sin and building our own individual kingdom to instead pick up our cross and build the kingdom of God.

So, as this we are rounding this season together, there is work to be done. What work is there to be done? I’m glad you asked.
Here are a few principles as to what the Christian Faith calls us to do:

Living in Community.
We are called “brothers and sisters” in Christ. So for anyone who has received salvation, we are now family. A big, dysfunctional family full of broken people with one beautiful thing in common, the redemption of Jesus on their lives. But, it’s actually not enough to just know this. We have to act like we are a family. We have to grow together, build up each other, and stand with each other. A major calling in the Christian life is to live in community with each other. Join a small group. Reach out and call your fellow creative team family. Have dinner with people from our church or other believers in the community. We cannot do this life alone, we need a tribe to help us grow and complete the mission set before us. Jesus called 12 men with which he did life with every single day. From that 12 He had 3 in which he shared everything with. He had 3 friends that He trusted with His life. This example isn’t just for the plot lines of the Bible. It’s an example for us! We need to have a church body we invest into. A small group we grow together with and faithful friends that we cherish and sharpen each other.

Using your talents.
God has gifted each of us with incredible talents. Some from playing music or singing. Some with technical or creative minds to produce an incredible worship experience. Some with eyes and hands that can capture the experience to show what God is doing. Let me share a secret with you all though. There is more. Some of us are gifted with the spiritual gift of encouragement. Some with the spiritual gift of prophesy. Or the heart of shepherding. The empathetic heart that can sit with anyone and help them with their issues. Some of us were gifted with strength to help those less fortunate out. We were all blessed with some form of functionality to call someone and check on them. We were all blessed with the ability to connect with others. As we begin to reopen our nation, don’t fall back into your routine. Don’t just do what you’ve always done and never give it a second thought. Find new ways to serve throughout the week. Seek for a different Sunday. Where you see God unlock more things in you.

Tithing.
Yepp, we’re talking money. I can’t say anything better than what our communicators speak every Sunday during our time of giving. I pray we do not check out during that time because we have our “auto-give” set up. But instead, we focus on what God is speaking through those communicators. I also pray that we all get to a point where we bring 10% back to God because it’s all been His from the very beginning. Tithing not only is a biblical principle but it helps the church reach further and dig deeper into the community. As one person I can maybe buy the persons latte behind me. But with bringing my tithe back to the store house, I am able to be apart of a food outreach that feeds 800 families a week! With bringing my tithe back to God I am able to exercise the trust I have in Him. I trust He will provide for my needs and he will multiply what I gave in order for His kingdom to be built.

There are so many more ways we can be living on mission. Jesus calls us to heal the sick and raise the dead to life. He calls us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. But, I believe that as we do these three principles we will see God unveiling more ways to live on mission. I believe God will empower and strengthen us. We are here to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. That has not and will not ever change. I love you all and I am praying for you.

04/18/2020

Day 6:
I can’t believe we are almost done with our 7 day realignment. I pray that these devotions have challenged you and pushed you to closer to the image of Jesus.

Today we’re going to be talking about the word rest. Rest is something that seems now more readily available than a few months ago, but there is a biblical sense of rest that I believe we need to dive in to to understand what God truly intended for us. God himself just like many other times gave us the perfect example of what it is to rest. In the beginning of creation, God spoke the world in to existence, working for 6 days straight. Then on the seventh day, he deemed what he created as good and rested. This clear example of rest is where we began our tradition of the sabbath. In our westernized culture we have strayed from the original intentions of the sabbath and created it as our own. Not that it was inherently bad, but just as humans from birth are, we tend to change and mold things over time to fit our understandings, to fit our cultural standards, and our norms.

If we look at the original sabbath it was a day entirely meant for rest and communion with God. Biblical rest does not exactly mean taking a power nap or sleeping in an extra hour to make it to the later experience at church. Biblical rest actually is taking time to recharge your batteries mentally, physically, and spiritually. Notice a stark difference between our modern definition of rest as naps, sleeping in, and Netflix binging compared to a biblical sense where we create space to commune with God, reconnect spiritually, and charge our batteries.

In the Jewish culture, sabbath is a Saturday. In our western culture, we would consider a sabbath as Sunday morning. Truth be told, going to church doesn’t make a day a sabbath, but instead it just follows a traditional Christian title. A true sabbath would include things such as powering off your electronics, having dinner with your loved ones, family, and friends, spending time in the Word, and devoting portions of the day to prayer and communion with God.
Now the challenging part in our world today, do we have time to actually take a day of sabbath? Do we actually have time to turn off our phones, stay at our household with our loved ones, make dinner together, pray together, and truly rest ourselves? I honestly believe that one of the biggest wins the enemy has taken in the last 20 years, is completely filling our schedule with things that do not build up the Kingdom of God.

Hear me out, we read that in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that we can glorify God with whatever we do, but I think it’s time for every Christian to start prioritizing our schedules to be the most honoring to God. If we cannot take one day out of our week to rest and commune with God and our families, I would boldly say we have overbooked ourselves. I’m guilty of it. I am so guilty of it, but I now have no other choice but to cut things out of my weekly schedule. It is not enough for us to go to church once a week and say that we are rested and restored spiritually.

For the coming weeks as the nation reopens I want to challenge each of you not to start filling in your schedules with everything you had before. Instead, I ask you pray through everything you’ve had on your calendar and see if it is the most honoring and glorifying to God. I also want to challenge you to take one day out of your week for complete sabbath. Phones off, no Netflix binging, and no “small errands.” Instead spend time together with your loved ones and families. Cook meals together, read scripture together, do a movie night. All of this might seem “hyper-religious” but if I’m being honest, if you compare our modern day’s standards of religious behavior to the example of Jesus... we have some catching up to do.

I love you all and I am praying for you all.

For some extra reading on this topic I highly encourage:
“The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” John Mark Comer
“To Hell with the Hustle” Jefferson Bethke has
“The Sabbath” Abraham Joshua Heschel

04/16/2020

For day 4 of our 7 day realignment I want everyone to focus on the word Lament. Some of you may know this word well, some may have seen it somewhere in the Bible, and some may not know it at all. Lament can be defined as a “passionate expression of sorrow.” It can also be described as just “mourning.” My favorite way it is described though is “crying out to God.”

I think often times the world of Christianity is flood with phrases like “choose joy” or “be happy cause God has the victory.” Although that statement is completely true, it is not exactly biblical to ignore your emotions. It’s not biblical to shove down feelings and put on this facade that everything is okay when actually you are experiencing deep grief.

When God created us He gave us 5 senses along with the ability to feel emotionally and the opportunity to express those emotions in so many ways. Language, song, bodily movement, etc. I believe that God created us with such complexity because He is bigger than the English language. There is no way that we can fully experience God through just words in our native tongue. We experience Him through smell, touch, hearing, seeing, feeling (physically and emotionally). Yes, Joy has a large role in the Christian faith due to the circumstances we have been given. We have a great high priest who came down to earth to be crucified for our transgressions so He could conquer death and overcome hell so that we may not perish but have eternal life. Now that is something to be overcome with great joy and happiness. But, God gave us more emotions than just happiness. So today, let’s talk about biblical grief.

Not to push an a fresh wound, but to hopefully allow Gods light to shine; our community experienced a painstaking loss this week. Jake was a large beam of hope in this community and I’m sure it affected those of you who knew him deeply to hear of his passing. The Lord bringing home Lisa Deringer was incredibly painful and confusing. Along with that, we have had a string of misfortunes and tragedies strike our community over the past year and a half. The cherry on top is a global pandemic that has taken most by surprise and affected every single person. The situation we find ourselves in today is probably more than just a bummer and I guarantee that many reading this are experiencing a deep amount of grief in this season. So what is a Christian supposed to do in times like this. Choose joy and smile your way through it? Honestly, no. Lament is a biblical discipline that can be found even in the ministry of Jesus. We even find it in the shortest verse of the Bible. “Jesus wept.”

If we go to that story we see Jesus essentially let his friend Lazarus die. Jesus delayed coming onto the scene early enough to save Lazarus. He allowed the death to happen. When He came He saw the mourners and talked with those grieving and just like Jesus, He empathizes and feels their pain with them. He lamented. He mourned the loss of this life. He also grieved the fact that He was going to put Lazarus back on this side Heaven. Many scholars believed He also cried because He knew this would be the final straw that would lead Him to the cross where He would feel the full weight of the wrath of God on Him alone.

Jesus knew that He was going to raise Lazarus back from the dead. He knew that Lazarus was going to be reunited with his loved ones. Jesus knew when he went to pray on the mountain that He was about to free all of mankind from the grips of death, but yet we see Him grieve and stress to the point of sweating blood. The spiritual discipline of Lamenting allows us to feel the full range of emotions that God has given us in the way God created them to be felt. These emotions we have were created to be felt with God. To bring us to God. Reading the psalms you feel the rollercoaster of the authors emotions. High highs and low lows. But ultimately, the expressions in the psalms were all worship. They were all in order to worship the father, to get to know the father, and come back to the garden of eden where man was to stand unhidden with an unhidden God.

God doesn’t want your fake it til you make it. God doesnt want your conjured emotions. He wants your full self. He wants your anger, pain, joy, lust, etc. He is a big boy, I dare say He can handle any emotion you could ever throw at Him. He wants you to bring it to Him first, so He can guide that passion. So He can change and mold it into something glorious. Something righteous.

In this season, do not push down your grieving and mourning. Do not replace it with this facades that cannot build. Build the Kingdom of God by mourning with those who mourn. Deeply grieving the losses of this earth. Sitting with those that grieve and weeping with them. Then, once you have brought all of that to God, allow Him to show you how to use it. Allow Him to be the sculptor. Because deep grief without Father God could turn into depression. Fierce desire gone mad alone turns into lust. Blind joy turns into a hollow body with no foundation to stand on. But, the emotions that God created experienced intimately with God, those are turned into vehicles of action for the Kingdom. So call those who are hurting and let them know you are hurting with them. Show them the empathy of our Father. Share grief with those that grieve. Not over Facebook because the drive thru got your order wrong. Not complaining over someone cutting you off. But with other brothers and sisters together, lamenting this broken world together in order to gain fresh perspective.

To be honest, as we lament we see the gloriousness of God. We see even greater the victory of Jesus. We draw close to the kingdom and draw from a greater well of Joy. Because we have done the work together to dig that well. When we have seen God raise bodies from the valley of dry bones, we can rejoice even more in the land of the living where we are to speak of this glorious King. I pray that this is not a Debbie downer moment, but instead a fresh perspective on emotions and feeling. An opportunity to greater see the Lord and trust Him. I may have sneakily written this today to hopefully allow you to develop deeper intimacy with God as we read yesterday. To give you an opportunity to trust Him more. Intimacy can not be built entirely off romantic dinners and reality show love, but instead it is built with the hard conversations in the trenches and the hard times together.

04/15/2020

Realignment Day 3

As we approach day 3 of our 7 day Realignment I pray that you have been challenged by these words and they have led to a closer walk with Christ during this time. You may have noticed that each day I try to hit on a different part of our Spiritual walk with Christ to focus on for that day with practical ways to grow or scripture to encourage. Today I want to talk about intimacy. Not intimacy with your spouse or loved ones, but intimacy with the Father. Like many words in the English language, we have created a stigma around this particular word. Almost anytime I hear the word intimacy, I think of physical intimacy. That could be the newlywed in me or it really could be a cultural stigma. I used to cringe when I would attend a small group in more charismatic churches and they would throw that word around like it was nothing. That was until I started studying it more closely. After reading “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer and “Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership” by Ruth Haley Burton, I began to understand the complete necessity in my spirit to be intimate with the Father. Intimacy at its core definition is just “the experience of being known and deeply knowing another person.” Of course, on this side of heaven within biblical context, physical intimacy can help with knowing someone more deeply. But, what does it mean to have intimacy with the Father? To intimately know God, the creator of the universe. I mean, the church answer would be to pray, read your bible, and go to church. Also, tithe a little bit and help some people out every now and then. Could we be missing a large portion of it though? Could I be missing out on more with God?

I have come to find out that the westernized spiritual disciplines without a deeper responsibility don’t exactly meet the criteria of how much God wants you to know Him. Yes, going to church/tithing/praying/reading your bible are absolutely vital to your relationship with God. But, if you would follow me for a second, I want to show you an example of why checking those “to-dos” off the list does not always correlate to feeling closer with God. Story-time: I had a girlfriend in college that I adored. (Gosh I hope Allison doesn’t read this).... I thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread and to put it lightly, she didn’t exactly think so highly of me. I would go on to find out that although she did like me at first, she grew to tolerate me at best. But, afraid of conflict she continued to date me. We would do what couples do. Go on dates, do homework together, hang out on campus, and text each other. We were doing what every other couple did on campus, yet there seemed to be this massive gap between us. Even sitting right next to each other in our GEO 211 class, we seemed worlds apart. That’s because even though we were doing what we were supposed in terms of “dating” we didn’t ever connect. It can be that way with God. There have been times in my life when my church attendance was an A+ but I couldn’t have felt farther from Him. There have been times in my life when I read every bible reading plan and felt like the best bible scholar but couldn’t answer the question of “Tanner, what is God speaking in your life right now?”

You see, the spiritual disciplines are the vehicles that help you get to a deeper intimacy with God, but you have to know where you’re going. My car can drive me to church or walmart depending on where I take it. So, today I want to give you a few practical things that can help with gaining more ground in spiritual intimacy with God.

1) Intimacy is grown by Trust
As you can tell by my heartbreaking love story from some tramautic years in my life, intimacy is not spatial. Spending more time with my eyes closed won’t help unless those moments become intentional. The Pharisees are living proof that discipline without relational equity missed the mark (John 5:39-40). As I begin to trust God more with my finances, my family, my desires, and my day to day life, I will start to see a stronger intimacy with Him. Intimacy is not built completely over the romantic dinners or movie nights, it’s also built in the trenches and the hard conversations.

2) Intimacy is more than Knowledge
“Knowing God” by J.I. Packer says everything on this topic better than I ever could, so I highly encourage you pick up a copy. But, in short, I can know my wife’s favorite color but that won’t help us survive the eternal commitment of marriage we stepped into. I can know her favorite movie, but that won’t solve the problems of two broken people coming into holy matrimony. I can know that God has a plan for me, but until I know Him deeply and begin to see His heart for myself I will probably never resolve to trust fully in his plan. Biblical knowledge is a beautiful thing and fuels our intimacy with God, but it could also wrongly turn into a vehicle for our pride (Psalm 19:10/1 Corinthians 8:1) This is a day by day task that we must put our 100% into. To move from knowing about, to knowing of.

3) Intimacy is an open invitation from Christ
Know today that God delights in you and He loves you. He wants you to run to Him and fall deeply in love with Him. He sent the ultimate sacrifice through Christ which opened the door for us to have complete access to Him. All you have to do is believe, then in turn He wants you to trust Him (John 14:1/Proverbs 3:5). He wants to be near to you (James 4:8). Kara Bellar added this to this point: Often we do spiritual disciplines trying to earn those things. If we feel like we have to earn love and acceptance we struggle to experience intimacy. If those things flow out of our knowing that we are fully loved and accepted then intimacy won’t be so hard to find.

04/14/2020

If you missed yesterdays post I will give a short recap of what this 7 day realignment is; I wanted us as a family to walk through some scripture together so that we may hopefully make much of Jesus in this season where the world is desperately searching for hope. It is our calling as a creative team to lift the name of Jesus high to a world that is searching through the darkness. Our calling goes beyond an experience on Sundays and our respective giftings in music/production/communications. Sometimes I need a daily reminder that I can make much of Jesus without a guitar in my hands. The enemy will try to constrain us in anyway possible, even with making us think that our talents are the only way we can glorify God. But the truth is, even before God gave us our giftings, He gave us the ability to glorify His name.

When God created us, He created every person with the ability to worship Him and glorify Him. We see this in some scripture:

"I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations."
Jeremiah 1:5

Before we came out of the womb we were already appointed as a prophet. We were anointed to proclaim the gloriousness of God. Here is the kicker though, I believe it starts with our thoughts. We must start thinking like anointed prophets. Instead of having regurgitated opinions of popular news channels, freaking out over the lack of toilet paper, or judging how others are handling this pandemic; we instead look to heaven to recognize the sovereignty of God in hopes that we may build the kingdom of God as the strongholds of the enemy are on the ropes.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Romans 12:2

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Colossians 3:1-4

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever. Psal, 86:12

We cannot let what is happening today change our mindsets on who we are as children of God or what we are to do as the people of God. This pandemic can physically change the situation of how we do things, but it does not change the mission or reason we do things. We are set on this earth to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Although we do not physically meet in the building, God has given us the opportunity to still have church over the internet. What was once said to be the death of social skills is now the way we communicate. What was once deemed the death of a generation is now the main conduit the church uses to proclaim hope. What the enemy may have meant for evil, is now the great weapon of good. But, as our social media presence grows and our voices via the inter webs grow we have to realize what scripture says. Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” shows us that how we speak in times like this make all the difference. We as the church have a light to shine in the darkness. So speak the gloriousness of God. Speak the goodness of God. Speak of heavenly things. I challenge everyone on our Creative team to post what God is doing in their lives or what goodness of God is shining in these times.

04/13/2020

Hey Journey Creative Family!

I know I probably speak for every single one of us when I say that I miss serving with you all, I miss being with you all, and I miss gathering together in our locations to worship together and make much of Jesus. I hope everyone is enjoying some much needed rest and that you’re not going stir crazy like myself...

In this season of uncertainty and a new-found normal, I felt the urge to write a 7-day realignment that I want us all to meditate over together. So for the next 7 days if you would go to our page or open up your email, I will be posting a new focus for each day. I hope that this will help you reset and refocus in times like this. I also pray that this will encourage and strengthen us to still live out our mission to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples even in our new normals.

For Day 1 of our 7 Day Re-Alignment I want to focus on Prayer. Prayer is the essential form in which we commune and talk with God. It is one-on-one time with Him. How glorious that yesterday we celebrated Easter where we read that the veil was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51) so that we could have complete communion with God on this side of Heaven. He has given us complete access to the throne room that we read about in Isaiah. (Isaiah 6) Because of the sacrifice of Jesus we can come boldly to the throne of God (Hebrews 4:16) and know that there is grace and mercy in abundance. Listen, all these things are incredible but if I am being completely transparent... My prayers haven’t looked like these at all. Most of my prayers in the last month have centered around COVID-19 and asking for peace/comfort/strength/financial stability/healing/etc. Most of my prayers have been slightly under my breath after seeing a bad news headline or when my wife has a rough day at work. Let me say this with love to myself and anyone else that even those these prayers are not wrong, I believe that they miss the mark. That may seem harsh, but let me explain. Most of my prayers within the past month have been less about me coming to the throne room of the God of Creation who set the stars and universe in motion only to love me enough that He would sacrifice His own son, and they’ve been more of a “honey-do” list that comes from a place within my heart of “God, I’m uncomfortable with all of this and I need you to put it back where you found it and how I remember it all to be.” See everything I have been praying is good and helpful in these times, but my heart was in the wrong spot. My attention was in the wrong spot. My focus was in the wrong spot. So here is the first challenge of our 7-day realignment. Where is your heart/spirit/focus during your times of prayer? I want you to search deep inside yourself and find where you have set your desires and what Kingdom you are trying to build... Because I have been trying to rebuild the kingdom of comfort I built over that last few years and God is telling me that He allowed that kingdom to fall so that I can start focusing on His Kingdom.

As you are looking into your heart and spirit, I want all of us to start each day (7-days in a row) with the Lord’s Prayer. (Matthew 6:9-13) After you have finished praying through the Lord’s Prayer, continue talking with the Father. Continue in conversation with Him. Pray for everything you’ve already been praying for and allow God to show you what He is doing and what you can do to build His kingdom. Below I will post the Lord’s Prayer with some thoughts and principles we find from Jesus showing us how to pray. I hope that this helps all of us find a new way to come to the Father in the throne room. To imitate Jesus in how He prayed. I will also attach a sheet talking about “The Tabernacle Prayer” which is a method of prayer as you spiritually walk through the Old Testament tabernacle. It has been so helpful to me in times of re-focus and I hope if you have time you look through it and pray through it a few times. I love you all. I cannot wait for the time that God brings us all back together, but in the meantime let us make much of Jesus in uncertainty because He is still glorious.

“Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:9-15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Principles of the Lords Prayer:

Notice that the Lord’s Prayer begins with reverence to the Father. Reverence meaning “deep respect and honor for someone or something.” We show reverence for God because He is holy (set-apart, there is nothing like Him). The Lords Prayer begins with this deepest reverence to give us perspective of what we are doing. We are remembering our sinful, broke, dead-self that God loved deeply, we are remembering that God has given us new life and that HE is the only one who can, and we remember the gloriousness of the father. Not only is it a matter of respect to our King, but it helps us remember what exchange is happening in this moment.

The second portion of the Lord’s Prayer gives us a goal or desire. That God’s kingdom come and will be done. Now, the Will of God is not something that I can write in a facebook post or even deliver in an hour long sermon, but I do encourage you all to research and dive into the topic. But, we pray that God’s will be done to allow Him to change our hearts and minds and desires to be aligned with His. That we would do His work. How can an army accomplish the mission in the field of battle if they do not know what the General is wanting to do? So we pray that His will be done, not just as a simple “Do what youre gonna do and we will sit here on the couch” but we say it as in “God let us go into the fight with you, let us accomplish the mission, let us build Your Kingdom Father!”

The next part of the Lords Prayer asks that He give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts. There is so much packed into these two sentences. First of all, give us this day our daily bread. Our physical needs need to be met just as much as our spiritual. Notice that Jesus says give us our daily bread. Not our daily ribeye. Not our daily cheesecake. Not our daily blueberries and blackberries fresh from the orchard. He says, give us our daily bread. Bread, something that meets our physical needs without elevating us to any amount of royalty. In modern terms, I would probably like to pray “And give me today my daily PlayStation with a cowboy ribeye medium rare and a Mickey ice cream sandwich for dessert.” Now THAT would be an answered prayer, but that goes far beyond my daily needs. Jesus, asks only for His needs to be met so that He can accomplish the mission set before Him. That desire flows straight into “forgive us of our debts.” Debts, such as shortcomings, such as sin. Forgive us of the things of which separate us from you. Because, although the price of your sin was paid in full on the cross, you still must make reconciliation with the Lord most high daily so that you do not try and put on your death clothes again and live the life you lived previously. We must remember our sinfulness in order to live more righteously. (Side note: notice that it says directly after that “as we forgive our debtors.” We must forgive all in order to receive forgiveness. What good does it do you to ask for forgiveness when you have anger and resentment towards another child of God?)

Next, we find Jesus pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This allows us to remember our weakness with God. We see in Psalm 19:13 where the author begs the Lord not to leave us to ourselves. We have to remember our weakness without the Father. It’s as if we are praying “Father, I want to stay close to you.” What temptation can you not overcome if you are next to the Lord of all? Then it says deliver us from evil... What is evil? Sin. What do we do daily? Sin. It’s as if we are saying Lord, deliver us from our fleshly ways so that we can be more righteous. It places us in a position to exalt God in our lives and not focus on our old ways.

Lastly, we find praise and thanksgiving. In the KJV and NKJV we find the closing “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” It is the bow at the end to help remind us of the gift inside. To help remind us of Gods goodness, righteousness, and kingship.

I hope this was helpful and that we all take the principles of what Jesus has given us to our daily prayer life. Attached below is the tabernacle prayer guide, I encourage you all to at least go through it once, it changed my prayer life and I believe it will change yours too!