I find it ironic that the more I pray, in which I have prayed more in the last month than probably all last semester, I realize my desperate lack of prayer. I don’t pray enough. I don’t run to the throne room of God enough to glorify Him and petition Him for help in my daily trials. I seem to think that I can make in on my own and that I don’t need to rely on the Lord.

More likely, I assume grace and take it for granted, thinking that I can live each day without praying and that God will watch out for me anyway. I can miss my appointment with Him and He will forgive me. For if nothing can separate me from the love of Christ, then what do I have to lose. All need to do is do my best to live righteously and God will forgive me where I mess up.

The problem with that thought process is that all the righteousness I can try to produce is only filthy rags. All my “good” is evil, apart from Christ. Not only am I missing the depth of total depravity, but I am also missing the point of the Gospel, which is to save sinners so that they can now live reconciled to God through our Lord. If Jesus was completely God and He still prayed to His Father, then what an amazing example that is to us. I realized that I do not truly understand the importance of prayer as Jesus did.

Last week, my friend asked me where I could find the only reference to coffee in the Bible. After informing him that I didn’t know, he replied, “He-Brews.”

My biblical interpretation professor spoke about how when we meditate on Scripture it is like we are percolating on truth. Bible verses should be in our minds and we should be thinking and mulling over them all day long. Through this rumination, we are then more readily reminded of the precepts of God. Colossians 3:16 speaks of this when it says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Combining those two ideas together would sum up my last month of study in the Word. I have been working my way through the letter to the Hebrew Christians and it has been blowing my mind in many circumstances. One of the main things that I like about that book is that constantly points to Jesus. The author plows the reader through some of the deepest theological issues regarding Jesus sacrifice and then points the focus to the reader, telling him what he must do in light of the doctrine just presented. These great sections are usually prefaced with a “therefore” or a “so then,” indicating that there should be a response. These passages have been extremely encouraging and challenging as I seek to endure in the race. Here are a some examples:

Hebrews 2:1 – Therefore we must pay attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Hebrews 3:3 – Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus. Hebrews 3:12 – Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Hebrews 4:16 – Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 6:19 – We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Hebrews 10:19 – Therefore, brothers . . . let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 12:1 – Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

In Economics today, my professor talked about how no two people have the same desires. This is why a lady will ask her friend if she likes a certain dress. The friend will say, “Oh, I do, it looks beautiful.” What she means is, “It looks beautiful on you.” This principle of differing desires (likes/dislikes) has interesting implications to our people-pleasing human natures.

If everyone likes things differently, then our attempts to please others by what we wear, say, or do will ultimately never work. One thing we do may please one person, but not another, so we change in order to look good. That can become frustrating very fast as we end up being hypocritical. This empty pursuit of people-pleasing will never work because people are deeply depraved and they always change. But pleasing God, who cannot change, is possible through the blood of Christ.

I must stop my sin-filled, God-rejecting, worldy attempts to please people, but I must have faith in the unseen, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Let us all look to Christ and seek to please Him.