Mark begins with John the Baptist announcing the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus is first introduced to us as the beloved Son of God with whom the Father is pleased.

The Christian community is a healing community. The love that we are called to exhibit to one another allows us to empathize with the suffering and associate with the lowly. Our lives are to be so intertwined that we rejoice and weep with another.

To be a Christian is to be called to a radical new life. Paul teaches us how this new life together is marked by genuine love, patient in hardship, and caring for the needs of one another. This new life allows us to enter into the suffering of others and to resist evil and avenging wrongdoing.

In Romans 12, Paul tells the church to present itself as a living sacrifice to God. That wasn’t just an individual call, but a call to the entire church, to offer itself in service unto God as a unified, corporate body. This lies at the heart of the community of faith: being renewed in our minds and laying aside the ways of the world together.

How can we face whatever comes our way, whether we are blessed or brought low? Paul teaches us the secret of contentment and how he has come to know how to face whatever happens in his life. The secret is Jesus and finding him in every circumstance and trusting that he is in control and writing your story.

God is a God of peace, yet we don’t often feel at peace. Paul exhorts those in the church to be reconciled if they are at odds. He encourages those who are anxious to lay their concerns before God so that they might know the peace that surpasses understanding. How can we access this peace that’s available to us?

How can we let go of our past and lay hold of what Christ has for us in the future? Paul teaches us how to look forward to the prize of God’s upward call, when we will be fully with Christ in transformed bodies. The glory of what awaits us is beyond measure and offers comfort when we look at the past and hope when we look to the future.

When Paul converted his life was radically changed and he lost everything. Yet in his letter to the Philippians he says he counts all that he had as loss. All of his privilege and status and position were lost, yet he says it was as nothing compared to the surpassing knowledge of Christ. He would gladly lose everything because Christ was his.

Paul shows his deep love for the Philippians, but also for Timothy and Epaphroditus. Their hearts had been woven together by the gospel of grace and is an example to us. Why does the gospel weave such strong relational bonds when it’s at work in our lives?

Paul desires unity among the people of the Philippian church, to be of the same mind, and know the joy of being in full accord. How is this type of unity brought about in the life of God’s people? It’s when we lay aside our selfish ambitions and put on the humility of Christ who emptied himself and became a servant.

Despite his circumstances and being in prison, Paul is hopeful. His life has come down to simply knowing Christ, and therefore, his circumstances and struggles are secondary. Why do we allow our circumstances to become the focus and how can we find Jesus and the freedom Paul speaks about? Suffering is inevitable in this life, yet Paul says in Christ our suffering is redeemed.

While in prison Paul remains focused on proclaiming Christ and seeing God use his circumstances to bring about kingdom impact. We often fear trial and tribulation, yet Paul shows us the importance of finding Christ and seeing his purposes above our own comfort and ease.

Paul writes Philippians from a Roman prison cell while sitting in chains. He opens his letter with his desire for the Philippians to abound in the love of Christ.

In Psalm 51, David teaches us what true repentance before God looks like and not just worldly sorrow over sin.

In Psalm 16, David teaches us what it looks like to seek security in God rather than trying to find it in earthly things.

In Psalm 98, the psalmist is ready to sing a new song of what God has done. He looks forward to the future by remembering what God has done in the past. In this, the psalmist finds hope that God will surely move on behalf of his people.

In Psalm 42, the psalmist is desperate to find the Lord. He thirsts for God like a deer pants for water. In his desperation we see how we are to view God’s place in our lives.

In Psalm 2, the psalmist reflects on the kingship and sovereignty of God and how it offers him hope against evil, hope for the future, and strength for each day.

In John 14, Jesus speaks of the Spirit as our Helper and how essential understanding the Spirit’s role in our lives truly is.

In James 2:14-26, James talks about the importance of recognizing that true faith is attended by works, and that without such works, we simply have a faith that’s dead.