Grounded in Prayer and Scripture for Healthy Discipleship

``We always need to build on good foundations. If we don't, it doesn't matter how careful you are building the house or whatever else you build on that foundation. If the foundations are wrong, it's always going to weaken whatever you build on top of it. First thing we've got to do is get the foundation right so we can build on top of a good and healthy and secure foundation. And this is the truth. This is the profound reality. If we want to be healthy Christians, we need to realize we won't achieve it no matter how good we are without a foundation of prayer and knowing our bible. [00:23:31] (41 seconds)  #FoundationFirst

Paul says it's Jesus alone who's brought us our forgiveness of sins and put us into back into right relationship with him. He's our circumcision, Paul says, meaning he's the new way to enter into the covenant. And the covenant with God is this unbreakable relationship with him. That's the the beauty of marriage that it's just a shadow of the reality of this much greater covenant, where the the marriage of a man and a woman will end. Death do you part, but the covenant of God never ends. [00:26:12] (42 seconds)  #UnbreakableCovenant

Knowing that you're unable to fulfill all that's required to be holy and right before God, Jesus, your behalf, did it and died on the cross to deal with your sin once and for all so that that mud no longer sticks to you. That accusation from the devil who says you're not worthy becomes our banner and our praise to say, Amen. We are not worthy, but he is, and he has made a new covenant with us that cannot be broken as that first covenant was broken in Genesis three. A much greater foundation to build on. [00:27:13] (46 seconds)  #SavedByGrace

It's not always about making sense of our own direct moment of suffering, but making sense and understanding that that whole picture in the bible of God's work of salvation means that nothing is wasted. And even this world is broken and things don't go the way they should go, God always works these things to build his kingdom and ultimately to bring his kingdom to this world. [00:37:46] (32 seconds)  #NothingIsWasted

And as I was reading, thinking, where is Jesus in this passage? I realized I'm not David. Jesus is David. I'm the guy who, every day, Goliath came out and said, you guys are a bunch of dogs. Who's gonna fight me? And everyone knew, we can't take this guy, Goliath. That's me. I'm the guy in the trench just going, I just hope he doesn't look at me. I just hope he doesn't look at me. You go. No. You go. [00:41:11] (27 seconds)  #JesusOurChampion

Well worth asking these questions. And and the point of these two is that one feeds into the other. As you discover things you need to repent of, bring it to the Lord in prayer. As you bring those prayers before him, recognize that it'll drive you to know him more. Use the scriptures to pray. I love using scripture to pray because I don't often know how to pray. I find my prayers are quite repetitive, but if I turn to scripture and I find that they're not repetitive because I have that whole breadth of the word of God to help me pray. And so prayer increases our knowledge of God, and our knowledge of God increases our prayer, and the two are hand in hand held together. [00:43:17] (41 seconds)  #PrayWithScripture

Maybe his letter would point to his own chains and say, see how God is using these chains and my discomfort to be glorified. And maybe in his letter, would write something that says to us, your shackles of comfort seem much heavier than my shackles here in this Roman prison. Your shackles seem stronger and harder to break than these shackles that I physically have in my church and in my prison in Rome. [00:47:00] (36 seconds)  #GloryThroughChains

Either way, for 2026, what we do know is that the only way we're gonna be healthy followers of Jesus is if we're built on that foundation of prayer and the knowledge of God's will, as revealed to us beautifully by him in his scripture. And God, in his generosity, has held nothing back but has given us everything that we need. We will not be left as orphan, but all that we need to live lives that are godly and pleasing to him has already been given to us by the beauty of his word and the help of his holy spirit. [00:49:45] (45 seconds)  #RootedInScripture