How to Pray Effectively
by Rick Warren
“Please remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them . . . I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored’” (Nehemiah 1:8-9 NLT).

Here are four secrets to answered prayer based on the life of Nehemiah:

Base your request on God’s character. Pray like you know God will answer you: “I’m expecting you to answer this prayer because of who you are. You are a faithful God. You are a great God. You are a loving God. You are a wonderful God. You can handle this problem, God!”
Confess the sins of which you’re aware. After Nehemiah bases his prayer on who God is, he confesses his sins. He says, “I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us” (Nehemiah 1:6-7 NLT). It wasn’t Nehemiah’s fault that Israel went into captivity. He wasn’t even born when it happened; he was most likely born in captivity. Yet he’s including himself in the national sins. He says, “I’ve been a part of the problem.”
Claim the promises of God. Nehemiah prays to the Lord, saying, “Please remember what you told your servant Moses” (Nehemiah 1:8 NLT). Can you imagine telling God to “remember” something? Nehemiah reminds God of a promise he made to the nation of Israel. In effect, he prays, “God, you warned through Moses that if we were unfaithful, we would lose the land of Israel. But you also promised that if we’d repent, you’d give it back to us.”
Does God have to be reminded? No. Does he forget what he’s promised? No. Then why do we do this? Because it helps us remember what God has promised.
Be specific in what you ask for. If you want specific answers to prayer, make specific requests. If your prayers consist of general requests, how will you know if they’re answered?
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick
Talk It Over

Think of a prayer request you’ve recently made to God that hasn’t been answered yet. What motivates you to keep praying about it?
Pray again for that request, and follow the steps above. How does your prayer change?
What promises of God do you need to claim?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

A bill speeding through the Illinois General Assembly and expected to land soon on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk wraps a slew of political, socioeconomic and generational debates into one issue: raising Illinois’ minimum wage.

Here’s a link to the editorial at the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago’s most powerful alderman is out on bond. A yearslong federal investigation brought forth one count of attempted extortion for Ald. Ed Burke in January.

Here’s a link to the editorial at Illinois News Network.

God Is Always Present, Regardless of How You Feel
by Rick Warren

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21 NIV).

When you are a baby Christian, God gives you a lot of confirming emotions and often answers the most immature, self-centered prayers so you’ll know he exists. But as you grow in faith, he will wean you of these dependencies.

God’s omnipresence and the manifestation of his presence are two different things. One is a fact; the other is often a feeling. God is always present, even when you are unaware of him, and his presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion.
Yes, he wants you to sense his presence, but he’s more concerned that you trust him than that you feel him. We live by faith, not by sight or by our feelings.
The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything—his family, his business, his health, and all his possessions. And then, for 37 chapters, God said nothing!
How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears? You do what Job did: “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised’” (Job 1:20-21 NIV).
Tell God exactly how you feel. Pour out your heart to him. Unload every emotion that you’re feeling. Job did this when he said, “I can’t be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak” (Job 7:11 GNT).
He cried out when God seemed distant: “Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house” (Job 29:4 NIV).
God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions.
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick
Talk It Over

What person do you go to when life gets tough? What do you say to them that you also need to say to God?
How is your faith in God on display when you go through a crisis?
Why is God more concerned about your faith than your feelings?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

Among an elected official’s top priorities should be to promote an environment where the economy can thrive so businesses can grow jobs and families can flourish.

Here’s a link to the editorial at Illinois News Network.

Would you be better off without Facebook? Would society benefit too?

Here’s a link to the editorial at the Chicago Tribune.

God’s Path to Blessing: Study His Word
by Rick Warren

“Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers” (Psalm 1:1-3 NIV).

The Bible is more than just a book you put on your shelf. It’s a pathway to God’s blessing.

Over and over in God’s Word, we’re told that studying and applying the Bible leads to blessing.
For example, the Bible says, “Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers” (Psalm 1:1-3 NIV).
What does it mean to meditate? Some people think it means to put your mind in neutral and contemplate the lint on your navel as you say, “Ommmmmm.”
But that’s not what meditation is!
Meditation is seriously thinking about something. You meditate on God’s Word when you read a verse, think about what it means, and ask yourself how you could apply it to your life.
Doing this, Psalm 1:1-3 says, is like planting deep roots into the ground. It means you won’t get blown over when troubles come.
God won’t bless you if you’re not digging in and studying the Bible.
I want whatever you do to prosper. I want your life to be filled with meaning and purpose. But for God’s blessing, the Bible says you must not only read God’s Word but also study it.
I want whatever you do to prosper in the years ahead. But God makes the condition clear. If you want his blessing, you must study his Word.
James 1:25 tells us how: “But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” (NIV).
If you want God to bless you, commit to looking intently at the Word, continuing to examine Scripture, remembering what you’ve read, and obeying what it teaches you to do.
It’s not complicated.
But it’ll change your life.
PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick
Talk It Over

How would you evaluate your current Bible study habits?
What’s the difference between quickly reading the Bible on a regular basis and intently studying it?
What can keep you from making Bible study a bigger part of your life? What can you do to rectify that?

Give hope, prayer, and encouragement below. Post a comment & talk about it.

America is the greatest country on Earth. The oldest surviving federation in the world. Our motto is E Pluribus Unum – Latin for “out of many, one.”

Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.

Chicago’s most powerful alderman is out on bond. A yearslong federal investigation brought forth one count of attempted extortion for Ald. Ed Burke in January.

Here’s a link to the story at Illinois News Network.

For all the empirical evidence of his precision and judiciousness, House Speaker Michael Madigan sure forgot a lot while being deposed last fall in a civil lawsuit.

Here’s a link to the editorial at the Chicago Tribune.