Who has your best interest in mind? Who advocates and mediates on your behalf for your best interest and good? Who comes before God for you and mediates and advocates for what is best?

We have many advocates and champions who mediate on our behalf for our well being. However, there is only one mediator between God and each of us who is advocating on our behalf. Our only mediator and advocate is Jesus.

The Apostle Paul instructed his young disciple, Timothy, with this truth, saying, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV).

How did Jesus view his love, responsibility, and duty towards his mother? How do we view our love, responsibility, and duty towards our mothers? How do we love, honor, and care for our mothers?

Jesus loved and cared for his mother Mary throughout his life and ministry. We see Jesus turning water into wine, his first miracle, at his mother’s request in John chapter 2. And one of Jesus’ last acts before his death on the cross—literally from the cross—was ensuring that his mother was taken care of.

John’s gospel account tells us, “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:25-27, ESV).

What does your heart desire? Are your desires also God’s desires?

Desire is a good thing. Desire motivates us to dream big. Desire motivates us for impactful action and meaningful living.

The Psalmist wrote, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4, ESV).

Where do you find protection and peace in the face of the evil in this world?

God’s protection and peace is sure for the follower of Jesus.

God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah, saying, “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 54:17, ESV).

Where do you find your security, protection, provision, salvation, and sanctuary?

God provides all that we need to be secure, to be protected, to be provided for, to be saved, and to be kept safe from all harm.

The Psalmist recorded these truths when they wrote, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2, ESV).

God is our security, protection, provision, salvation, and sanctuary.

Where do you find grace in your life? Where do you get your strength? How do you find the power you need when you are weak?

We can find grace, strength, and power in God. When we are weak and in need of grace, we can find what we need in God’s resting power. We can rest in God’s resting power.

The Apostle Paul wrote the church in Corinth, saying, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV).

What measure do you use in determining what you do? How do you determine how much to serve? How do you determine how much to give? How do you determine how much good you do in the world?

What measure would you enjoy receiving? How much would you appreciate being served? How much would you like to be given? How much good would you like to receive?

We all have a standard by which we give, serve, and do good, and we all have expectations around what we wish to receive.

How are you making it better? What are you doing about your concerns in this life to make it better for this world, to make it better for the people around you, and to make it better for yourself?

As followers of Jesus, we are called to make it better by encouraging one another to love and to good works. We are called to meet together for mutual encouragement.

The author of the Book of Hebrews wrote, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV).

How confident are you that God will answer your requests of him? When you make requests of God do you receive what you ask? Are you asking according to your desires or according to God’s will?

We can confidently make our requests known to God and trust that he will hear us and respond when we ask according to God’s will.

The Apostle John wrote, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” (1 John 5:14, ESV).

No Going Back

Have you ever been disappointed with the outcome of something you had hoped for, so you went back to what was comfortable and back to what you knew?

Most of the time we choose the ordinary. We choose what we know over the unfamiliar. We choose what is concrete over what we do not understand. We are creatures of habit. We long for certainty and for what we can simply understand. We do not like the unknown.

In the absence of answers and clarity, we fill in the blanks with our presuppositions, for better or for worse. We want answers. We want absolutes. And in the absence of absolute certainty, we are meaning making people.

Where is your focus? Are you looking forward and upward to what matters and is of eternal consequence? Are you looking at kingdom things that are with God?

What we focus our attention and affections on matters deeply and is of eternal consequence.

In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul wrote about the aim of focus for the people of God, saying, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1, ESV).

Have you ever experienced judgement and punishment for something you did wrong? What do you think God has in store for you for all you have done wrong?

Many of us believe that God is out to get us. We think that God’s ultimate goal is to strike us down in judgement and punishment for our misdeeds. In our guilt and shame, we believe that God seeks to condemn us for all our sin.

God is not seeking for his children to be judged and punished. God desires for his children to be loved, saved, and set free in his son Jesus.

What happens to your misdeeds when you take them to Jesus? What happens to sin that is brought to Jesus to take away?

When we take our sin to Jesus, he takes our sin away. All our misdeeds are taken away when we come to Jesus.

John’s gospel tells us when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, ESV).

What do you do with your sin and guilt? How do you cope with your conscience and the consequences of all you have done wrong?

God has set us free from all our misdeeds by taking them all on himself. Jesus received all we deserved upon himself when he died for us.

God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah about his son Jesus’ sacrifice, saying, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, ESV).

How do you regularly serve God and others with your life? What can you do every day to serve God and other people?

Our lives are a gift to be given. We have been given abilities, skills, and resources to be used to worship and to serve God, and to serve others.

Jesus gave us everything and serves us, and requested that we serve him by serving one another in selfless humility.

At the last Passover supper with his disciples, before going to the cross, Jesus washed his disciples feet and gave this mandate, saying, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14, ESV).

What do the hard times and difficulties in your life accomplish? What kinds of fruitfulness do trials inadvertently produce in your life?

As difficult as certain times and circumstances can be in our lives, trials and the testing of our faith can produce the fruit of endurance, patience, and steadfastness in our life.

James, the half brother of Jesus, talked about how we are to view our trials in his letter, when he wrote, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” (James 1: 2-3, ESV).

Who are you most likely to call on in your deepest need? Are you completely free to call on them? Are you confident they will respond favorably and helpfully and meet your need?

Anyone can call on God at any time to receive help and salvation. We are free to call on God anytime and for any reason. God is perfectly able to respond to and meet our deepest need.

The Apostle Paul reminded the Roman church that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13, ESV).

What do you do with all the guilt you have? When you come up short, how do you move forward? If all your shortcomings could be done away with, what would your life look like?

We have all fallen short of our best and we have fallen short of God’s ideal. What makes us right again is God’s free gift of grace. All redemption is in Jesus. Our guilt can be redeemed in God’s good gift of grace.

In his letter to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24, ESV).

What bad news does the resurrection of Jesus undo? What does the resurrection of Jesus accomplish in our lives and in this world?

Jesus’ resurrection changes all things. There is everything pre-resurrection, and then there is everything after the resurrection. After the resurrection, everything is changed. Because Jesus lives, we can live and experience his resurrection life.

In Matthew’s gospel account of Jesus’ resurrection, the angel spoke to the women at the tomb, saying, “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” (Matthew 28:6, ESV).

What is the most shame filled and humiliating experience you have ever had? What is the most shameful and humiliating experience anyone could ever have?

Exposed guilt creates shame deep within us. We are guilty because of our sinfulness and brokenness. Our condition of sin and guilt and the sin that has been committed against us can bring about deep shame. We can experience feelings of fear and shame, humiliation, abandonment, and rejection.

In the days of Moses and the law, God spoke to the Israelites about punishment that was deserving of death. God told Moses the body of the condemned who was hung upon a tree as a sign “shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 21:23, ESV).