Don't lean on your own understanding. If your trust in God is limited by your understanding of His ways, you will always have a limited trust.

Too many times we're looking for ways to get around deep waters and dangerous fires, rather than through them. Has this ever been your experience?

I've learned to be careful of becoming a critic. Criticism really sours your heart.

Repentance is the key that unlocks the door to all that God has for us, but it is not easy.

The marquee scrolling across our minds trying to reinterpret life reads: "God-Against-Us." This becomes the dominant lens through which our flesh interprets life. We no longer give our loving Father the benefit of the doubt. Instead, we view every event as conclusive proof that God is against us.

These criminals represent us. One of them recognized Jesus for who he was and received him; Jesus promised that when he died he would be in heaven with him. The other man rejected Jesus and closed his heart. Unlike the first criminal, when he died he didn't go to heaven. He went to hell. In that sense, these two men on either side of Jesus are just like every person. We either embrace Christ as our Savior and spend eternity with him, or we reject him and say, 'I don't believe it. I'll have nothing to do with.' And these people spend eternity separated from him.

Praying is what confirms our true belief that we cannot succeed without God, and its absence confirms the exact opposite.