Pastor Jessica Chen

In a culture where dating often feels confusing, discouraging, or even exhausting, the Bible offers a surprisingly hopeful perspective on finding the love of your life.

The people of Israel experienced life without God’s glory (“Ichabod”) and then with His glory again (“kavod”). One way of living led to destruction, while the other led to victory. In our lives, we can continue living in the emptiness of trivial trends, or we can live with something of substance that comes from directing our hearts to God and serving Him alone.

The ability to love our siblings, whether in the family of God or even in our biological family, greatly depends on the resurrection power of Jesus at work in us. At this, many who follow Jesus, would say “amen”, but what does this practically look like? I believe it looks like embracing a new Kingdom expectation for relating with others and choosing to move toward loving actions by faith.

We prioritize God’s presence and His voice throughout our day by paying attention to our mental awareness, our heart motivation, our confessing words, and our daily habits. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (NIV). The Lord wants to be with us and speak with us each day, revealing His thoughts toward us, His plans, His wisdom, and His love for us.

As Christians and as parents, we need to have a clear plan for helping children process and heal from betrayal and bullying so that every effort is made to prevent the carryover of emotional wounds into adulthood that can affect how they succeed in life. The Holy Spirit is an incredible guide and the power of prayer cannot be underestimated, but when it comes to children, is there a thoughtful way to help them process and heal from experiences of betrayal or bullying?

The gospel must first be clear in our own mind before we can confidently share it. This is true not only for speaking with kids, but with anyone, any age. The key difference with kids is that you will need to use language/vocabulary that they know or are familiar with at their age.

From as early as I can remember, I learned that Jesus loved me and that I wanted to love Him with my whole heart. But despite my best efforts, I would find myself in negative thought patterns, having moments of anger, being tempted to hide the truth, feeling shame or fear, the list goes on. My walk with Jesus felt close at times and at other times, it felt so far away. I didn’t know much about the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, until later in my adolescent years. I didn’t know that there was a power from God available to me, to help me live for Him every day.

At Christmas, we often sing the song, “Joy to the World”, a song that announces the good news about the birth of Jesus, who is Lord and King over all the world. A key lyric in the song includes this: “Let every heart prepare Him room and Heaven and nature sing.” We sing this phrase with excitement and often times casually, but what does it mean to prepare Him (Jesus) room in our hearts?

Sometimes the hardest people group to pray for is family, because there may be a lot of history, years of unresolved issues, or perhaps despite your best efforts, it’s unclear how they will ever make the decision to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Not to mention, discouragement can often