We who are in Christ have a lot to look forward to, not least of which is a perfected, glorified body. But what exactly does that mean? Do we know what these bodies will look like or do? And what's wrong with our current bodies, anyway?

There’s an old hymn I love, “Standing on the Promises,” written in 1896 by Russel Kelso Carter. The chorus proclaims, “Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God my Savior; standing, standing, I’m standing on the promises of God.” It’s both catchy and comforting.

God’s promises are something we hear about a lot. Recently, I read there are anywhere from 7,000 to more than 8,000 promises God makes in the Bible, which is staggering. Yet it makes sense, for God’s Word, the Holy Bible, is also a love letter to his children, containing instructions for life and how we can live in righteousness and joy with him now and forever.

We can trust the Lord, for we know he is no fickle deity. He is steadfast and true. As God tells us in Malachi 3:6, “I the Lord do not change.” And as he says in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

James 1:17 adds further, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Our God is the one true God, the creator and sustainer and perfecter of all things, and we can trust in him.

Let’s take a look at four key promises God makes to his people, with evidence that they have been and are being fulfilled.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Diversity Studio

While he spoke words that were impressive and astonishing, they ultimately were skeptical — after all, this was Joseph’s kid, a regular person, not someone who had the right to proclaim the fulfillment of a prophecy.

Clearly, God is an animal lover. After all, he created fish and birds and land creatures on the fifth and sixth days of creation, even before he created human beings. Then he commanded humans to care for them. Later, when he flooded the earth, he gave special attention to animals, too, enabling Noah to save two of every type of creature on earth in addition to his own family.

As the Lord proclaims in Psalm 50:10-11, “For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine.” And as he teaches in Proverbs 12:10, “The righteous care for the needs of their animals.”

We can see treatment of animals throughout Scripture, not only because God loves and cares for his creation, but also because God knows we humans often understand deep truths when paired with metaphor or visual pictures. Sometimes, the animals mentioned in Scripture hold symbolic meaning.

Let’s take a look at six animals we see in the Bible and why they are significant.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Henry Crofts

Making friends is something that’s stressed me out since childhood. As a painfully shy, highly sensitive kid, I preferred being alone with my books and my mom to spending time with anyone else. 

Moving around a lot throughout my youth helped dissolve this shyness, as did joining the speech and debate team and falling in love with acting onstage. But making real, deep friendships proved to be difficult until I reached full maturity. 

That’s when I looked around — yes, in my thirties — and realized I didn’t have a single genuine relationship with any other Christian believer outside of my family. 

I tried to befriend people at church, but while I was pretty great at making friends, keeping them was a different story (turns out you have to pour a lot of effort and time into lasting relationships). 

Eventually, I learned how to cultivate Christian friendships, and today I count myself blessed to have a number of these in my life. 

Here are seven tips on how to cultivate Christian friendships based on my own experience.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Anna Stills

When we tuck God’s word deep inside of us, we always have access to that truth. The Bible assures us of this. In Psalm 119:11 the psalmist says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” What a beautiful gift to have!

Times of challenging, heart-wrenching suffering happen to all of us, no matter how closely we walk with God and align our steps to his. Indeed, Jesus himself‚ God’s Son who was sent to live and walk among us and show us the path to everlasting life, experienced deep anguish and suffering — not only on the cross but throughout his life. Rejected by his peers, ridiculed by religious experts, and taunted and whipped by those in control, he knew both joy and pain during his time on this earth. And he taught his followers to expect it as well.

As he warned in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.”

That’s not a suggestion that maybe we’ll experience difficulty, or that perhaps it could happen. No, this is a direct prediction, a statement of fact, a cautioning from the king of kings about what lies ahead for us all.

But Jesus goes on to offer words of comfort even as he prepares us, his beloved, for difficult days to come: “But take heart! I have overcome the world,” he says in the continuation of that verse.

The implication is clear: We too can overcome that trouble — through him. 

We will, all of us, experience suffering in this earthly life, whether that’s pain and illness, poverty, loss of relationship or great persecution. But the Bible contains much comfort that we can draw from during those times. 

Let’s take a look at nine uplifting verses for when we are suffering.

Photo credit: Unsplash/Roadtripwithraj

The Holy Spirit is active in our world. In addition to being our helper who seals us as God’s own, he helps us in our prayers and intercedes with God and he comforts us by bringing hope.

Perhaps you were raised in a faith tradition that celebrated Lent — a period of 40 days before Easter (excluding Sundays) during which Christians remember the events leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or perhaps the term is new to you. Maybe you’ve seen people with ash smudges on their foreheads and wondered the significance, or you’ve heard of people “giving up” something seemingly fun for Lent, yet haven’t understood what they’re doing or why.

Lent is marked by Christians worldwide in a variety of ways. Roman Catholics celebrate it, as do certain larger Protestant sects such as Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans and Lutherans, with special church services, as well as traditions such as fasting, acts of repentance, and more. Most of these are more somber in nature, as we honor the sacrifice of Christ and consider what it means to us personally.

This year, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024. It ends three days before Easter Sunday, on March 28, 2024.

While some faith traditions focus on “giving up” certain behaviors or foods in an act of sacrificial solidarity with Christ, who sacrificed his life on the cross for our eternal salvation, some focus just as much on “taking on” a certain practice or habit as they strive to model Jesus.

Here are a few ideas for what you can give up or take on as you prepare your hearts and minds for the season of Lent.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Nambitomo

The sixth commandment clearly tells us "you shall not murder." Yet Scripture tells us God himself sometimes kills people, striking them down for evil deeds; God’s people sometimes kill people, as well. This begs the question: Does the Bible ever justify murder?

Jesus Christ is our only true and perfect role model. God’s Son, the “Word (that) became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14), Jesus was born of an earthly woman and spent years preaching, teaching, and performing miracles before finally offering his life as a sacrifice for our sins. Through him, those of us who believe may have eternal life forevermore (John 3:16).

Still, God’s Word also contains examples of other people who can guide our faith journey. In the New Testament, while great church leaders such as the apostles Peter, John and Paul certainly provide strong examples of how to follow Christ, there are other, more “regular” people whose lives also serve as a testament. They point to how we can live for Christ in spite of the challenges and demands of everyday life.

Here, then, are six women in the New Testament to guide your walk with Christ:

1. Mary, Mother of Jesus

Mary is one of the most important people in Scripture. Chosen to be the human mother of Jesus, the angel informed her she was “highly favored” and would become pregnant with the Messiah by the power of the Holy Spirit, in spite of being a virgin (Luke 1:28-33). Mary was betrothed to another man, and this could have exposed her to great personal consequence. In spite of this, she didn’t hesitate. The Bible told us she readily agreed to become the mother of Jesus and considered it to be a blessing.

As she responded to the angel in Luke 1:38 “I am the Lord’s servant. … May your word to me be fulfilled.” Later she sang a song of deep praise to the Lord, known as the Magnificat. She did indeed become the mother of Jesus, present from his birth to his death on the cross, and is certainly regarded as a blessed and exemplary woman. The lesson here is that when the Lord asks us to do something, we should do so readily and with humility and complete obedience, just as Mary did.

Mary is also known to have brought about Jesus’s first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana, at her insistence (John 2:1-11). Here, we can learn much from her unwavering faith in her son – a faith we must have as well.  

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/jgroup

Men often top the list of role-model-worthy Bible characters — think David, Moses, Abraham, or Joshua. In spite their great shortcomings, we can still look to them as examples in our own faith journey. After all, they were regular human beings, flawed just as we are, yet they teach us much about what it looks like to walk in alignment with the ways of the Lord.

But it’s not just men who earn these spots as examples. God’s Word is filled with a number of women who can teach us just as much as men. And men and women alike can learn much from these biblical women to shape and guide their own spiritual growth.

Here are nine women in the Old Testament to guide your walk with Christ.

1. Eve

In spite of Eve’s negative identity, we can learn much from the first woman God created. In Genesis 2:20-22, we’re told God created her to be the companion of the man. For as God said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

The Hebrew word translated as “helper” is ezer, which also means “staff” or “strength.” So we can see that God’s intention in making the woman was to be a partner to come alongside the man and help strengthen him. This is an important role for womankind, and today we all can draw lessons from this. Women are not intended simply to be “protected by” man or “provided for” by man but to work and be helpful as an equal partner, strengthening their male partner so that, together, the man and woman can be pleasing to the Lord.

We can also take a lesson from how Eve went astray. Scripture tells us God warned Adam, the first man, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17), and Eve knew this as well (Genesis 3:2-3). However, in spite of this knowledge, the serpent convinced Eve to eat from the tree anyway. She did, also offering some of it fruit to the man, who also ate, ultimately displeasing the Lord and getting them kicked out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:16-23).

The lesson for us in our walk today is that we must listen to and obey God and no one else. God’s voice is the only one that matters. Do not heed the voices of the world.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/subkontr

As our nation prepares once again for a transfer of power, let these six verses and prayers help prepare your heart, no matter what emotions you are feeling. As believers, let us be united in love, no matter our political affiliations.

Ask any kid well-versed in the Bible, and they can probably tell you all about King David, who displayed great faith and courage when he killed the giant Goliath with a slingshot and his bold trust in God.

Or maybe you’ve heard about David’s shady and possibly nonconsensual exploits with his friend’s wife, Bathsheba, a woman he spotted on the roof bathing while the other men were at war. His lust led to deep sin as he not only engaged in adultery but murder, ultimately killing his friend when Bathsheba became pregnant.

When it comes to the Bible and Hebrew culture in general, King David is next-level famous. His name is mentioned 974 times in the New International Version of the Bible – 54 of those in the New Testament alone. Jesus is said to be descended from David, and David has been lifted up as a man after God’s own heart for his faith, his trust, his love, and his humility in spite of his errors and sins (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22).

But while many of us know the big and bold stories about David, we might not know some of the other interesting but perhaps far-less-glamorous facts about his life.

Here, then, are 10 things you didn’t know about King David.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Liudmila Chernetska