My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:41–42 (NLT) Christianity is all about relationship. Imagine if I said to my wife, “I don’t really want to do the work to get to know you. Just tell me what to do and what not to do and we’ll be fine.” That’s not a relationship! Relationships are all about getting to know each other. The same is true with God. He doesn’t want a robot that He can tell to do this and do that. He wants you to know Him, personally. As you do, something beautiful begins to …

The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. John 6:63 (NLT) We all know how to feed our bodies, but do we know how to feed our spirits? Jesus says He is the bread of life, and anyone who comes to Him will never hunger or thirst again (John 6:35). Now, we all know that we won’t last long without food and water. But Jesus wasn’t talking about our physical hunger in this verse. He was talking about a spiritual hunger. Have you ever noticed that when you share a heart-to-heart conversation with someone, a special moment when you connect on deeper level, you feel so good about your relationship? …

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35 (NLT) When I was young, my mom baked 24–30 loaves of bread per week to feed our family of seven. I can still remember like it was yesterday. I would walk through the front door of our house and be enveloped in the aroma of freshly baked bread. We would slather butter on thick slabs of warm bread until it melted and ran down our fingers. My four brothers and I could easily polish off two or three loaves in one sitting. Nothing tastes better than good food when you’re hungry. But you also experience other forms of hunger that …

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28 (NLT) Let’s pretend that you love golf and you have a chance to hang out with the world’s top ranked golfer. As you head out onto the course, he offers to give you a few tips to improve your game. Would you say to him, “Stop telling me what to do. I’ll play the way I want to!” Anyone who wants to get better at golf would be crazy to respond this way. Yet we do this with God all the time. God wants to show you how to build the best life you can have—a …

Then you will delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage [promised for you] of Jacob your father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Isaiah 58:14 (AMP) According to Isaiah 58:14, as you learn to enjoy God, He causes you to ”ride high and soar above it all” (MSG). He wants you to do great things. Just to clarify, there is a big difference between living a great life and living a famous life. I know plenty of great people who are unknown, and I can think of plenty famous people that I wouldn’t call great either. Hitler was famous, but he certainly was …