Reflective Bible Study

As we move through Matthew’s gospel, we come to an event that I wonder if it caused division among the disciples. In this event, Jesus takes the three closest disciples, He lets them experience something amazing, and then He tells them to keep quiet about what they saw until after He has been raised to life.

I wonder if the remaining disciples felt a little put off because of this, or if they simple accepted that the inner circle of three disciples got to learn something they didn’t.

Let’s read about what happened, and because this is in Matthew’s gospel, and because Matthew’s gospel was written after Jesus returned to life, we have this event included for all of us to know. Our passage and event, like all the passages and events found in this year of podcasting through Matthew, is found in Matthew’s gospel. Our passage for this episode is found in chapter 17, and we will read from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 1, Matthew tells us:

¹ After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John (the brother of James) and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone.

² Jesus’ appearance changed in front of them. His face became as bright as the sun and his clothes as white as light. ³ Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them and were talking with Jesus.

⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll put up three tents here—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ He was still speaking when a bright cloud overshadowed them. Then a voice came out of the cloud and said, “This is my Son, whom I love and with whom I am pleased. Listen to him!”

⁶ The disciples were terrified when they heard this and fell facedown on the ground. ⁷ But Jesus touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid!” ⁸ As they raised their heads, they saw no one but Jesus.

⁹ On their way down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen. Wait until the Son of Man has been brought back to life.”

¹⁰ So the disciples asked him, “Why do the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that Elijah must come first?”

¹¹ Jesus answered, “Elijah is coming and will put everything in order again. ¹² Actually, I can guarantee that Elijah has already come. Yet, people treated him as they pleased because they didn’t recognize him. In the same way they’re going to make the Son of Man suffer.”

¹³ Then the disciples understood that he was talking about John the Baptizer.

In this passage, I am amazed at a number of things. First, I am amazed that Peter actually had what was necessary to set up three tents with him. Unless Peter’s promise was an empty promise, Peter had planned ahead and he had what was necessary for three tents.

However, I am also amazed at Jesus’ brief conversation with Moses and Elijah. I wonder if these two men came at this point to encourage Jesus at this point in His ministry, or if there was some other message they had for Him. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus would have been great friends, not just from the time these men spent on earth, but because they had also spent centuries together in heaven prior to Jesus coming as a baby.

I am also amazed that God the Father speaks again. I wonder if those off the mountain heard thunder, or if the sound was strictly confined to those in that small group of people on the mountain. It is interesting that God the Father tells these three disciples to listen to Jesus, and this is interesting in my mind because of what Jesus tells them next. After helping the disciples to their feet and telling them to not be afraid, Jesus tells them on the way down from the mountain: “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen. Wait until the Son of Man has been brought back to life.” (v. 9)

This statement would be the perfect opening to ask Jesus what He meant and to get more details about what would happen on the crucifixion weekend, but the disciples miss or pass on this opportunity.

Instead, the disciples ask a different question, and one that might be fresher on their minds after briefly seeing Elijah with Moses on the mountain. They ask why the experts in Moses’ Teachings say that Elijah must come first. While this is just the way this translation chose to translate the word for scribe, I find it a little amusing that experts in Moses’ teachings would be talking about Elijah. Moses lived many centuries before Elijah, and nothing in Moses’ teachings would even mention Elijah.

However, I digress a little. Jesus responds by predicting Elijah’s return, before then shifting His focus and saying that Elijah had actually already returned, but the people didn’t recognize Elijah’s return and they mistreated him. Jesus paralleled John the Baptizer’s suffering to His own suffering that would be coming up.

The disciples rightly conclude that Jesus was talking about John the Baptizer, and that John, who was Jesus’ forerunner in ministry, was the person who picked up the mantel of Elijah to prepare the way for Jesus’ ministry. I’ve seen some people claim that John the Baptizer was a reincarnated Elijah, but the Elijah that appeared to the disciples on the mountain had a head, and no hint in this event suggests that anyone present believed Jesus to be talking with John the Baptizer while He was on the mountain.

It is interesting in my mind that Jesus subtly shifts the focus to His suffering. Just a few statements earlier, Jesus references His resurrection, and now Jesus referenced His suffering. I think Jesus was trying to get these disciples to ask Him questions about the upcoming crucifixion weekend, and of all the disciples, these three disciples were looked up to as being the leaders.

The disciples would need leadership especially during crucifixion weekend, and they would have benefitted greatly if one or more of this inner circle of three disciples had listened to Jesus and understood what Jesus was trying to teach them about His mission.

However, the disciples missed Jesus’ clues, and they miss this chance to ask Jesus the question He really wanted to be asked.

I believe this is the same in our own lives. I believe that too often, we have our own motives, agendas, thoughts, and perspectives, and that we miss opportunity after opportunity to come to God with the question He wants us to ask. I am probably as guilty as most everyone else in this regard. However, understanding this can help me change and grow.

Jesus came to give His life for you and for me, and Jesus’ death brings life to God’s people. God has a mission and a reason for each of us being alive at the point He has placed us in history, and when we understand why we are here, we are better able to live the mission God has placed before us.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to ask God the questions that He leads you to ask. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn, grow, and discover God’s mission for your life because you were too narrow-minded to ask God the question He was trying to prompt you to ask. Instead, be open to asking God questions, and especially be open to listening for God’s response.

This is best done through prayer and personal Bible study. When we pray and study the Bible for ourselves, we can learn from God through the messages and words He has preserved for thousands of years, and we can learn the truth He wants to teach us. While God can and often does use other people to help lead and guide us, we should always bring what others teach and test their truths against what the Bible teaches. The Bible is God’s Source of Truth, and His truth will never contradict the Bible!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue through Luke’s gospel, we come to a chapter in Luke that contains three powerful parables. While it might be tempting to try to tackle all three parables in one episode, attempting this would definitely be too much for our typical time constraint – at least to cover these parables like how I would want. Because of this, we will focus on the first two shorter parables for this episode, and leave the longer, more famous parable for our next episode.

All three of these parables are shared because of what Luke describes in the first two verses of this chapter. Let’s read how Luke sets the stage and the first two parables Jesus shares. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 15, and we will read from the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us:

¹ Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. ² Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

³ So He told them this parable, saying, ⁴ “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? ⁵ When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

⁸ “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

When reading these two parables, I cannot help but see the amazing theme that God values sinners and He intentionally seeks them out. Jesus shares both these parables, as well as the one for our next podcast episode, because some religious leaders began accusing Jesus of associating with the lowest people on the rungs of society. Both the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin conclude with Jesus sharing a summary statement telling us that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

However, as I read these two parables, I am amazed by how Jesus frames certain details in each. In the parable of the lost sheep, I am amazed that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the open pasture to go looking for the lost sheep. For a long time, the picture that was in my head about this parable was that the ninety-nine left behind were safe in the pen and the shepherd was out looking for the only sheep that was not safe.

But this is not what this parable, or the similar parable in Matthew, describes. Luke’s parable of the lost sheep describes the shepherd leaving the sheep in the open pasture, while Matthew describes the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains.

Regardless of where the ninety-nine sheep were left, the picture is that these sheep are together in community, and in a relatively safe place, but not in a place where they were trapped. While the shepherd was searching for the lost sheep, another sheep was free to wander away, and the group of sheep was vulnerable to predators.

It is interesting, because I wonder if this reflects how some people feel about church. I suspect there are people who feel God is silent or absent from church and they conclude that He is not present or interested. This parable does appear to suggest that God’s focus is on rescuing those who are trapped in sin more than on those who are in the church.

However, looking at the details in this parable suggest a different group God seeks after. This other group may be an even more challenging group. The lost sheep God seeks after is not one who has never been a part of the herd of sheep. The lost sheep is one who was a part of the herd, but then who left. The lost sheep represents someone who was part of God’s family, but who decided to leave.

In this parable, God leaves the big group in search of rescuing a single person who left Him. This is a powerful metaphor. One could say that God leaves the church in search of those who have fallen away from the church!

While I suspect that shepherding was not a single person activity, and that the remaining sheep did have others with them, nothing directly said in this parable suggests this. I wouldn’t be surprised if multiple people are involved with herding sheep, but I really don’t know anything about shepherding.

However, God doesn’t stay away from church, He instead brings those He rescues back into church. In order to do that, He must come back to church periodically at the very least. This then suggests that if God is bringing people back into church through your spiritual community, then you are doing something right in God’s eyes!

However, let’s shift our focus and look at the second parable, which is the parable of the lost coin. When reading this parable, I began to wonder how much this coin was actually worth. I probably wouldn’t be alone in saying that if this coin was worth only a few dollars, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. However, if this coin was worth a significant amount, then I might be like this woman who doesn’t rest until she has found this coin.

Doing a little bit of research, I conclude that this coin likely was worth about 4 days worth of work to those people who Jesus was speaking to. In the context of this parable, this woman had 40 days of work saved, which would be about two months worth of income using our current five-day workweek as our measure. With two months of income saved, this woman realizes that almost an entire week of income has been lost. If you lost a week’s worth of income, I suspect that this would prompt you to search your house for it. I don’t know about you, but when I frame the lost silver coin this way, I would be very interested in finding it.

However, one other way of looking at this silver coin that isn’t directly suggested in the parable is that these ten coins represented a set. These ten coins might have had more significance than simply just the dollar value they were worth. They could have been this woman’s last gift from a now deceased family member, or they could have been a set of coins that held significance in her eyes. With this framing, the lost coin isn’t valuable because of its literal value, but this coin is valuable because the set of coins would not be complete with it missing.

In a similar way, I believe that God looks down at His people and if one of His people wanders away, He earnestly seeks after them to bring them back. This is because when Jesus returns, God knows His set, or we could say His family, wouldn’t be complete without every one of His people. God wants you in His family, and because of what Jesus gave for us on the cross, we can be accepted into God’s family and become part of those who He ultimately redeemed out of sin!

Whether we intentionally wandered away like the lost sheep, or whether we drifted and discovered we were missing when God shows up in our lives, be sure to accept God’s invitation back into His family and be ready to return when He shows up in our life!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first in your life and choose to stay with God or return to Him if you have drifted away. It is much more common to slowly drift away from God than to drop everything and leave Him. While we might switch church families, or move to different areas, these changes don’t mean we are abandoning God. However, if you have been without a church community for a while, I would suggest you seek one out that matches what you believe church should be like. For our spiritual lives to be healthy, we need a strong personal foundation on God and a relational connection with others!

To help keep your personal foundation on God strong, continue regularly praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and study, discover how to open your heart to the Holy Spirit and let Him into your heart and mind. With the Holy Spirit’s help, if you have not found a spiritual community you can connect with, He will help you do so!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or wander away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue our journey through Matthew’s gospel, we come to a passage that is often split into two sections, but one that is very fascinating when we look at it as a whole. In the first part of this passage, Peter, the most outspoken disciple, is praised, while in the second part of this passage, Jesus calls Peter out as Satan.

Let’s read about what happened and draw out some things we can learn from what is shared. Like all of our passages for this “Year in Matthew”, our passage for this episode comes from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 16, and we will read it from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 13, Matthew tells us that:

¹³ Jesus went to the territory near the town of Caesarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ “Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”

¹⁵ “What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ “Good for you, Simon son of John!” answered Jesus. “For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”

²⁰ Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Pausing briefly, this is where most people stop reading. However, if we continue on, we discover something almost humoring.

Continuing in verse 21, Matthew tells us:

²¹ From that time on Jesus began to say plainly to his disciples, “I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. I will be put to death, but three days later I will be raised to life.”

²² Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “God forbid it, Lord!” he said. “That must never happen to you!”

²³ Jesus turned around and said to Peter, “Get away from me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don’t come from God, but from human nature.”

²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me. ²⁵ For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. ²⁶ Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but lose your life? Of course not! There is nothing you can give to regain your life. ²⁷ For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each one according to his deeds. ²⁸ I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Son of Man come as King.”

In this passage, we find a ton of things we could focus in on, but to keep things simple, let’s focus on just two big ideas, with one or both of these ideas being things you may not have thought of before.

The first of these ideas is Jesus’ compliment to Peter. While a casual reading of Jesus’ statement might make it seem like Jesus elevates Peter’s status to being a rock that God’s church is built on, there is an interesting twist of words that expands Jesus’ compliment to include Peter, while also being much bigger.

Verse 18 includes Jesus statement: “And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it.” In this statement, Peter is compared with a rock, and then a rock foundation is where Jesus builds His church. While I’ve heard the original Greek language contrasts the idea of Peter being a pebble with the rock foundation being a boulder or a mountain-side, I like the way this translation compares these ideas.

In Jesus’ compliment, He recognizes Peter’s contribution, which is simply proclaiming a truth that Peter could only have learned from God the Father, and this truth makes the rock foundation that God’s church is built on. According to this translation, Peter’s rock contribution, combined with many other small rock contributions make up the huge rock foundation that God’s church is built on. This rock foundation is the truth that Peter proclaimed. Peter responded to Jesus’ question by proclaiming that: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

It is this truth that God’s church is built on, and when Peter makes this proclamation, He is reinforcing God’s church and God’s truth. When we make this proclamation, we are reinforcing God’s truth and God’s church!

The second big idea in this passage is Jesus’ big insult towards Peter. Just a few verses later, Jesus pulls the disciples aside and tries to warn them about what was waiting for them when they reached Jerusalem. Jesus tells them that He would suffer at the hands of the religious leaders, be put to death, and then be raised to life three days later. When I read this event, I wonder if Peter completely missed the last words in Jesus’ statement and that He stopped hearing Jesus’ words at the details about Jesus’ upcoming death.

Is Peter’s thinking really that crazy? Most people seem to blindly side with Jesus in judging Peter, but if you were walking around with Someone you firmly believed to be God, and you believed God to be immortal, which is another way of saying that they cannot die, if this Person told you they were going somewhere to die, would that sound crazy to you?

On top of this, the dominant understanding of prophecy was that the Messiah who God would send would last forever, and lasting forever doesn’t really happen when one has died.

I am pretty certain that Peter, and most of the rest of the disciples, either didn’t hear Jesus’ promise that at the end of the three days, He would be raised back to life, or they simply didn’t know what to think of it and perhaps forgot about it until after crucifixion weekend. This is because we don’t find any of the disciples eagerly looking forward to Jesus’ resurrection on the Sunday following His death. Instead, the disciples are hiding and likely trying to strategically plan their exit from the city.

However, Jesus understands prophecy, and He understood that death and resurrection were in His future. The big thing I can learn from Peter’s challenge is that regardless of whether I understand prophecy or how the Bible describes future events, my understanding is only as good as my willingness to be open to what God is continually revealing. If I close my mind to what God wants to teach me, then I will ultimately be like the disciples who missed out on the best warning they had regarding the events of crucifixion weekend. The disciples had every opportunity to know what would happen, but they were caught believing the traditional belief of the Messiah, and a belief that the Messiah could not experience death.

I don’t think Peter’s thought was crazy, but the motivation behind it was opposite of God’s plan, and this opposition was what Jesus challenged Peter on. It is crazy to think that God would die for humanity, but this truth is one of the biggest reasons Jesus came!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally and purposefully seek God first and place your hope, your faith, your trust, and your belief in Jesus and what He accomplished for you. Choose to be open to what God wants to teach you and openly proclaim the truth that Jesus is God’s Messiah and that He is God’s Son!

Also, intentionally pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Through a personal relationship with God, we can learn and know what God wants to teach us and when we are open to God’s teaching, we will avoid the traps that even the disciples fell in when they refused to accept Jesus’ words for the common understanding of prophecy at that point in history.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or stray from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue looking at the events in Jesus’ life, and the big truths Jesus taught through the eyes of Luke’s gospel, we come to a place where Jesus realizes that many of those following Him might be doing so simply because they wanted to be near someone famous, but that their hearts were not dedicated to God.

To challenge those present on whether they are truly ready to be followers, we discover a very strong message Jesus shares while large crowds were following Him.

Our passage for this podcast episode is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 25, Luke tells us:

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸ “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, ³⁰ saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

³¹ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³ In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

³⁴ “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵ It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

In this passage, Jesus shares a very strong message to the large crowd following Him. I suspect that many people in this large crowd wanted to be near Jesus because they enjoyed seeing Him silence the Pharisees, because they enjoyed seeing the miracles, and because they could sense God’s love for them in Him.

However, I also suspect that this large crowd was primarily filled with people who liked Jesus for all the good He was doing, but they really weren’t committed to Him in any significant sense of the word. You could say these people were followers of Jesus, but they really weren’t committed to Him.

To those in the crowd who were simply following Jesus because the times were good, Jesus challenges them with some pretty harsh statements like: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” “Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” And “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (verses 26-27, 33).

Everything in Jesus’ challenge to the crowd speaks to a level of commitment. In order to be true disciples of Jesus, He must be more than simply first in our lives. True disciples will filter their lives through Jesus, and not the other way around.

On the surface, this passage seems to have Jesus tell those present to hate their family, hate their life, and pick up a cross of suffering simply to follow Him. If someone wanted to turn Jesus’ message into a hostile message that ostracized, or excluded individuals, this might be a message one could use. On the surface, one might think following Jesus means turning into a hate-filled hermit.

However, when I read this message Jesus shares, I am challenged by His words because if following Jesus does not have much of a commitment, then following Jesus doesn’t have much value. A low commitment relationship has little value. The more committed a relationship is, the more valuable it is – especially when we are talking about a relationship with God!

While Jesus likely pushed many in the crowd away with this message, those who stayed demonstrated a willingness to commit to Jesus’ message. I don’t believe a surface reading of the hate statements in this passage are an accurate picture of the people God wants us to be. Instead, Jesus is looking for disciples who will follow Him even when their families, their friends, their coworkers, and anyone else in their lives think they are crazy.

Jesus challenges everyone throughout history to count the cost. Making the decision to follow Jesus has a high cost in this life because following Jesus runs counter to every direction culture wants to pull us. However, when we count the cost whether it is worth following Jesus, the only way the cost makes sense is when we look at what Jesus gives us in the future and what Jesus has already given to us in our past. Jesus gave His life for humanity; He promises eternal life for those who have decided to ally their lives with His!

Deciding to follow Jesus might mean that friends, family, or others might decide to distance themselves from us. When this happens, understand that this is just as much their decision as it is yours. However, remember that when we give up something in this life, God is ready to bless us in ways we can’t really begin to imagine or understand.

Many people living today call themselves Christians or followers of Jesus, but they aren’t really that committed to Him. They are followers of Jesus because things are going good in their lives at the moment. However, being committed means that we are dedicated to Jesus whether things in our lives go our way or whether our lives become hard. Being a disciple of Jesus means sticking with God even if our lives feel like the Old Testament man Job who lost everything.

Deciding to be a disciple of Jesus is not an easy decision, but it is a significant one. Deciding to be a disciple of Jesus might mean that we simply follow Him when times are good, but it also means that we stick with Him when times are not good, and following Jesus allows God to use us to teach the world about Himself.

True disciples will filter their lives through Jesus, and not the other way around. True disciples don’t hate people because Jesus didn’t hate people. Instead, true disciples love people like Jesus loved people and true disciples will see their lives as witnesses for God’s love and God’s truth in the big picture of history. True disciples look past the sin of this world and towards their future in a perfectly recreated world without sin!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, intentionally seek God first in your life. If you struggle with your commitment to God, then take this struggle to God in prayer. While I never hope God brings huge challenges into our lives, some challenges our lives may face can only ever be endured with God by our side. It is fully possible that trouble in our lives is a way of teaching us how to walk with God through the challenges rather than God simply protecting us from them. True disciples stay committed and walk with God through the challenges that come our way instead of giving up at the first sign of struggle.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Only through prayer and study can we build a solid spiritual foundation to stay connected with God through the storms of life. Choose to focus on growing closer to God regardless of what anyone in your life thinks or believes about your decision!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!