“God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread. Amen.”

One of the first things small children learn to do in a Christian household is to pray before they eat. For people who have a relationship with the Lord, and even for some people who do not know what they believe, it is such an ingrained habit or family tradition that it can be easy to do it out of habit, rather than a sincere moment of gratitude for a meal.

Why do people pray before they eat anyway? Does God really command us to do so? While there is no commandment in the Bible where God says, “thou shalt pray before you eat,” there are consistent examples in the Bible, including from the Lord Jesus who Christians are to imitate, of saying a blessing and a prayer of thankfulness before a meal.

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Infidelity is another way of saying unfaithfulness. Being faithful to someone involves being truthful, consistent, and available. God is ever faithful, but humans often hurt the Lord through unfaithfulness to Him.

Marriage is an exciting part of life, as it takes two journeys and two souls and makes them one under vows to God. It also serves as a living symbol for Christ’s love for His church. Two people take the time to get to know one another, understand each other, pray for wisdom and guidance, and make the decision to pursue this life-long commitment.

So why is something that special, and often well-thought out, so difficult? Ultimately, the greatest problem with marriage is the same that works its way into any situation - sin. It is not a union of two saints - even if the people in question are saved - but of two sinners who may be saved by grace, but still need God’s Spirit and mercy day by day.

The best way to strengthen a marriage from the beginning, and to repair it when it has been damaged, is not to let it get tossed onto the destructive rocky shore of life, but to build it on the solid Rock of Jesus Christ.

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Understanding "what is a covenant" won't just help us understand the Old Testament better. Once we learn the meaning behind these sacred promises, we can understand how God interacts with humans on a new level.

A man of God is not one stereotype of a man. It is not a scholar who has memorized all the Scriptures. It is not a man who can lift very heavy objects and fight back any enemy at the gate. Instead, it is a display of character the Bible highlights, while attempting to avoid temptation and sin.

It can seem like it is an impossible task to have praises to the Lord on one’s lips every moment of each day. What about sleeping? Eating? Working or parenting? It seems that David has set an impossible standard.

Everyone has an opinion these days about what it means to have a healthy body. Some people eat incredibly regimented diets, with strict workout routines, and strict care. Others eat whatever they want, put little effort into their exercise, and are happy with that decision. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.

It can be difficult to cut through the raw food vegans and the fat-positive activists to come to a personal conclusion about what a healthy diet is. But the Bible can be a good source of information for how God wants believers to conduct themselves, including how they diet. The body is a gift from God, and it is His temple when He indwells in a believer; Christians should take care of their bodies to the best of their abilities, while not pursuing either gluttony or starvation.

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The Bible compares the relationship between Christ and the church as that of a groom and his bride, and one day He will drink wine with His bride in Heaven, making it special that His first miracle was at a wedding, personal and joyous.

By understanding that even the Lord Jesus grieved, experienced sorrow, and felt the weight of loss, it gives believers permission to feel sad when a loved one passes away, even though believers who die go to be with the Lord and will be resurrected bodily one day when Jesus returns. For those left behind, there will be tears, but Jesus understands, and is there to provide comfort and hope.

Infertility is not a punishment from God, but a byproduct of living in a fallen world; it can also be an opportunity to get to know the Lord better, and pursue different kinds of opportunities to create a family.

One of the ways that God preserved His Word for the generations and the multitudes is through the preservation of His Spirit-inspired writings. He maintained the Creation story, prophecy, poetry, and the testimony about Jesus Christ through war, conflict, destruction, and disagreement. In it is the ability to discuss worldview, philosophy, and establish truth in a world that seems unmoored from it.

Unfortunately, due to human weakness, the way it is understood and interpreted by believers and non-believers differs and causes contention. Some people try to twist Scripture, arguing it for their own purposes, rather than using it to explain who God is and everything He has done for humanity to an unbelieving world.

There are appropriate ways to argue Scripture, and careful study of the Bible itself reveals it must be done in love and good faith, not flippantly.

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The Bible makes it clear that children are a blessing. Whether adults are called to be parents, to foster, or to invest in children in some other unique way, kids are part of God’s plan for individuals and humanity as a whole. God works through kids to bless their parents, and to demonstrate the blessings of simple faith.

The ultimate form of creativity, of course, was creation. While humanity takes things that already exist, like minerals, woods, and pigments, and makes something new, God took void, and created the universe.

The whole Bible is the story of Jesus, from Genesis to Revelation. But at Christmastime, we tend to stick to a few beloved verses. This year, why not explore some other books of the Bible that also point to our Savior's coming? Photo credit: ©Getty Images/udra