Taking Your Next Step In Following Jesus Christ

Some prayers are answered and others are not. What makes the difference? Are there any reasons given why our prayers may not be answered? Where is the power on prayer found? On this episode, we will seek to answer each of these questions.

Prayer has a tendency to be used as a 911 emergency call when things are going bad or our life is falling a part. At other times, prayer is all about us asking for what we need and want. While this is an aspect of prayer, it is far from the real purpose of prayer.   

We do not find a command to read "x" amount of scripture per day, per week, or per year of our life. What we do find is the command to meditate day and night. We typically think of meditation as sitting in silence but this is not the biblical meaning of mediation. We examine what biblical mediation is and how we can apply it to our lives. 

God's Word is an essential building block in our faith life and as a result we should have an intentional plan on using it. On this episode, we talk about various ideas and ways to establish a plan for using God's Word consistently in our lives. 

The second building block in having a solid faith foundation is that of God's Word. When the police are in pursuit of a suspect, they are chasing after this person at all costs. They will do whatever it takes to apprehend the suspect. Just the same, we need to be in constant pursuit of God’s Word so that we can apprehend God’s truth for our lives.

The second building block in having a solid faith foundation is that of God's Word. When the police are in pursuit of a suspect, they are chasing after this person at all costs. They will do whatever it takes to apprehend the suspect. Just the same, we need to be in constant pursuit of God’s Word so that we can apprehend God’s truth for our lives.

Our final episode looking at the first building block of surrender to Jesus Christ will examine practically what it means to seek Him first. Too many times we seek other things first in our job or education while putting Jesus second. Sometimes we just need to adjust our perspective and realize if we put Him first then all the "things" we are working for will be added unto us according to Matthew 6:33. 

What does it mean to live a surrendered life to Jesus Christ? It involves a daily decision of saying yes to Jesus and no to self. It involves us pledging full allegiance to Jesus Christ regardless of what may happen in our lives.

As we begin building a solid faith foundation, the first building block is that of salvation and surrender to Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone, then He is the only way to build a faith life and the first step in building a solid faith foundation in our life. 

In order to build the foundation of our life right, we must build block by block. The key building blocks that we are talking about are: surrender to Jesus Christ, God's Word, prayer, fellowship, evangelism, and obedience. We will talk practically about establishing a spiritual growth plan that we can use consistently. 

What we build our faith life on will directly determine how we can withstand all that Satan and the culture throws at us. Are you building on a rock or on sand?

We all want a good return on our investments. Whether it is an investment of money or time, we want to make sure we are receiving the most we can. What do we get if we are willing to meet the requirements of following Jesus? We don't have to wonder because Jesus tells us what we will get in return in the same passage that He gives the requirements.

There are prerequisites to things in life. Whether it is a certain class to take or a certain age to meet, there are requirements that must be met in order to do some things in life. Jesus gives is two requirements that are absolutely essential to following Him. We will unpack each requirement and see how we can fulfill it in order to follow Him.

We all have people that we follow on social media, YouTube, sports, and in church. We decide who we will and will not follow. For some, we follow intently and could tell you everything about them. Yet for others, we clicked follow but rarely see them. Jesus gives us a very personal invitation to follow Him and for this episode we want to evaluate our lives to see who it is we are really following. We want to make a commitment to follow him for this semester.

People will have specific questions that we need to be prepared to answer. On this episode we talk through questions and statements like these:

• Doesn’t the Bible justify abortion since it is silent on abortion?

• You shouldn’t push your beliefs on other women. 

• The Supreme Court decision is setting women back.

• What about embryonic stem cell research?

• Until pro-lifers are ready to help each pregnant woman, they need to shut-up. 

• If the embryo (who doesn’t have a brain yet) is so valuable it cannot be killed by abortion, how do you justify pulling the plug on brain dead individuals?