What matters most is the posture of my heart as I learn from God’s Word. He is not concerned with the Instagram-worthy contents of my quiet time notebook, just that I am striving to know Him more.

These seven virtues are the things we are to pursue, this year and every year. Make every effort to progress in these things. Go after them with all the energy you can muster. Make them yours. Add them to your faith.

When we try to take control of everything in our lives, we forget that He alone is in control of it all. Resting allows us to step back from the busyness of our lives and invite the Lord in to intervene where He needs to.

We can strive for perfection all we want, but we will never see anything perfect on this side of eternity.

If we are not proclaiming the story of Jesus to those around us, how will the world hear about the greatest Story ever told? And how will this Story continue to bear fruit and grow unless we speak the truth in love to those around us, (Ephesians 4:15)? We’ve been given a task to not only grow in our personal relationship with Jesus through praying and reading the Bible and attending Church, but to also tell others about His love for us in hopes that He would bring those people into relationship with Him through the salvation that He willingly provides for all people.

God, let Your love saturate the hallways of schools around the world. May all students, teachers, and parents be filled with wisdom from Your Word this academic year.

After all, God created us and he understands our body’s stress mechanisms inside and out. He’s the one who gave us the “flight or fight” reaction in the first place. Thankfully, God wrote the book on stress management, and the Bible is filled with wise counsel on how to deal with anxiety, tension, pressure, and fear.

Whether or not you are a regular attendee of your church or you haven’t gone to church in a long time, one of the best ways to know how to study your Bible is to go to the place where the Bible is being taught.

We need to be careful to determine who we are allowing to disciple us. We should be disciples of Jesus first and foremost. Jesus says “follow ME”, not “follow those who follow Me”.

Taking up your cross is a high but matchless calling. Nothing in this world is worth passing up eternal life.

Today’s society is riddled with mottos of “do what you want”, “you only live once”, and “you can be whatever you want to be”. People often quote these and similar sayings to themselves to get over whatever obstacles they may be facing in life. While these quotes do not seem particularly harmful, they can lead the mind of a believer astray from what the Lord Jesus has called us to.

We tend to fall into that way of thinking too, don’t we? We think that we aren’t worthy to be in church, or that other people would call us out for being hypocritical. We think of other people in church as “more righteous” than we are or that the sin(s) we committed throughout the week deserve more judgment than those sins that other church goers may have committed.