First, we’re instructed to love God, not just with some part of our lives, but with everything we have (our entire heart, soul, and mind). But that’s not all. Jesus reminds us that after loving God, the next most important thing we can do is to love our neighbors as ourselves.
God’s kingdom is where we live life with God under His loving rule. God’s kingdom is the place where God’s dream for the world comes true.
The Bible is true, sufficient, clear, authoritative, and necessary. And those aren’t even the most important things about the Bible. The most important thing about the Bible is that it teaches us about Jesus.
God’s glory isn’t one of his characteristics (like his goodness, holiness, strength, or beauty), but is instead the culmination of all His perfections shining forth for the world to behold. God’s glory is the full display of everything that’s good and true about Him.
It’s important for us to understand how and why God created Adam and Eve because that’s where we came from. We can all trace our family tree all the way back to them (though it might take a long time on ancestry.com) God gave us the same gift of life and humanity that He gave to them in creation.
God wired us to long for and seek glorious things. We’re drawn toward God’s glory when we read in the Bible about God miraculously protecting his people as they crossed the Red Sea. We’re also drawn to God when we wake up to six inches of beautiful, fluffy snow to play in. We can recognize God’s creative hand behind the snow, and we’re in awe of him. We experience God’s glory when we taste an incredible stuffed crust pizza. Do you realize that God created our tiny taste buds and the laws of science that help that crust to get perfectly crispy? Stuffed crust is just one of the small things that put God’s glory on display!
We can’t measure God with hours or minutes, because he's eternal. We can't measure him with miles or inches, because he's everywhere. We can't measure God's strength with pounds or tons, because he's all-powerful. Our God is fathomless!
The Bible teaches us that the one true God exists in three persons. That’s a truth that stretches our brains. You’ve probably learned from math class that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. So, how can this be? How can three persons be one God? Our belief that God is three—what Christians for centuries have called the doctrine of the Trinity—is incredibly important.
God showed the people that he is the only God, greater than anything else they were tempted to love or worship. God alone is our almighty Creator, our standard of love, goodness, perfection, knowledge, and truth. No one is like him!
People build rocket ships to fly above the atmosphere and to the moon and Mars. We send satellites to the edges of our solar system, and we build telescopes to see beyond our galaxy. People have never traveled to the edge of the universe, but, even if we could, God is still bigger.
God made everything. He made every kind of place—the mountains, rivers, forests, and oceans. He crafted every kind of plant—pine trees, bluegrass, rose bushes, and even the broccoli we eat (or avoid!) God even made the seaweed that grows under the ocean. He made every kind of animal—giraffes, butterflies, aardvarks, and stingrays. And he made you and me.
Every Christian parent wants their kids to grow up loving Jesus with a clear understanding of the gospel, but that’s not going to happen on its own. In the Bible, God calls parents to spend time teaching and modeling their faith to their children. You’ve probably heard this call somewhere along the way on your parenting journey, but we often shy away from following through with those responsibilities. We’ll often make excuses—I’m too busy with work, I have no idea where to start, I don’t know enough about the Bible. Good news! We’re here to help. Let us tell you about our new podcast, Press Pause.Press Pause is the under-ten-minute family devotional podcast that will help you teach your kids big truths about Jesus and the Christian faith. Listen along, and we’ll give you several opportunities to press pause, ask questions, and have conversations with your kids. This is a time when you can grow together in your faith and get to know each other a little more. Let’s put all our excuses aside and start spending time in the Bible with our kids. Our hope is that this podcast is a quick and easy tool to help you do just that. There’s no prep required for you (or them), but each week you’ll have a new big truth to walk through together. All you need is a phone and a small chunk of time. Press pause over dinner, while you’re waiting for that carpool line to move, or when bedtime rolls around. There’s never a bad time to start learning big truths about Jesus with your kids. So, join us this fall as we press pause together.