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Are you tired? Stressed? Overworked? Anxious? Are you told you can do it all, but your stamina says you can’t? What does the Bible mean when it says, “I can do all things through Christ”? How should you embrace your God-given limits?
Bible Gateway interviewed Sean McGever (@seanmcgever) about his book, The Good News of Our Limits: Find Greater Peace, Joy, and Effectiveness through God’s Gift of Inadequacy (Zondervan, 2022).
Why is the concept of limitation a good thing to be aware of?
Sean McGever: Have you reached your limit recently? If you answer “yes,” you aren’t alone. Yesterday, my wife’s friend asked me what my recent book is about. I answered, “That we can’t do it all.” She replied, “Isn’t that the truth.” Yes, it is the truth! It almost needs no explanation because we all experience limits in our lives. Most people stop thinking about limits right after they recognize them. They say, “Yes, I know I have limits.” And that’s the end of it.
This is the one-hundred-ninety-sixth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
“If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.” James 5:15
By Krispin Mayfield
Healthy families have rules for living together, but those rules are not the basis of belonging. My family has our basic ground rules on the fridge, the “Ten Commandments of the Mayfield house,” you could say. Within this set of rules are consequences like time-outs and losing privileges, as well as ways to make amends. They are an important part of teaching my kids—and reminding myself—how to respect and love others, how to repair when we’ve wronged someone else, and how to have appropriate boundaries within relationships. In our family, we use kind words, and we don’t use our bodies to hurt others. When we’ve hurt someone else, we apologize and try to make it as right as possible.
By Christopher Reese
On Valentine’s Day and throughout the year, our thoughts turn to romantic love, chocolates, and special meal celebrations. Romantic love is a wonderful gift from God. God created us male and female, gave us feelings of attraction for the opposite sex, and instituted marriage for the benefit of both men and women (Genesis 2:21-24). In fact, an entire book of the Bible, Song of Songs, celebrates romantic love, marriage, and marital intimacy.
Beyond Valentine’s Day, “love” is a word that’s nearly ubiquitous in our culture. Pop artists sing about it, celebrities post about it on social media, and Hollywood tells stories around it. Yet, in most cases, the kind of “love” in view boils down to feelings of warmth or excitement or satisfaction. Once the sentiments are gone, so is the love. In fact, this version of love is mostly self-serving, looking to others to meet one’s needs or desires, and often moving on when this ceases to be the case. The Christian leader Bernard of Clairvaux observed centuries ago, “Human nature is weak and therefore compelled to love itself and serve itself first.”1
Read this week’s Bible Gateway Weekly Brief newsletter
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You know the Bible to be instructive, historical, poetic. Have you also considered it to be an incredible love letter? That every book of the Bible reflects God’s love for its readers?
Bible Gateway interviewed Jennifer Rothschild (@jennrothschild) about her book, 66 Ways God Loves You: Experiencing God’s Love for You in Every Book of the Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2016).
[See the Table of Contents for 66 Ways God Loves You]
In the book’s introduction you share how you lost your sight at the age of 15 to a retinal disease and were no longer able to read from your own Bible. How did you feel God’s love during such a difficult time?
Jennifer Rothschild: I think I felt God’s love the deepest when I experienced my deepest loss. Amazing how God does that! Blindness brought with it a million adjustments and losses and emotions. But, there really was this unshakeable sense, deep within me, that God had already prepared me for the darkness. And he did it through his Word. I had memorized Scripture as a child and teen. I knew 1 John 1:5 that told me “…God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” And, I had memorized Psalm 119:130, “The entrance of your words gives light.”
This is the one-hundred-ninety-fifth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27
Editor’s Note: The following content is adapted from the Young Women Love God Greatly Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2022)
By Angela Perritt
“Now one of the experts in the law came and heard them debating. When he saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The most important is: “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’” Mark 12:28-31 (NET)
Can I be honest with you? There are days when I don’t feel very loving. Days when I feel I don’t have an ounce of love to give. But I’ve learned that love isn’t a feeling; it’s an action. You can love someone without feeling love for them. It sounds crazy, I know; but it’s true! How? Because whether you feel it or not, you have the capacity to love well, deeply, and sacrificially because that is how God loves you—completely.
By Morgan Harper Nichols
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
—Isaiah 26:3, NKJV
The word peace first caught my attention as a child when I heard the song “It Is Well with My Soul.”
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
From that moment forward, I associated the word peace with a river, a beautiful yet powerful watercourse I had never seen with my own eyes, but it was a place I longed for. Because I struggled to fit in and feel at home in the world around me, the idea of peace drew me in. I was hungry for the green leaves that sheltered the river and thirsty for the water that flowed throughout. When I learned the story behind the song, my association deepened even more.
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