READ: LUKE 22:54-62; JOHN 21:15-25; ROMANS 3:23-24

Will I go to hell for how I am? This question invaded my mind on too many occasions for me to count, especially after observing other people’s Christian walks. Usually, they appeared to be extremely holy people who had their righteous lives intact. Nothing fazed them, they committed no wrongdoings—at least, not in public—and they referred to their prayer lives often. Reading the Bible and speaking to God through prayer seemed like second nature to them. It didn’t for me.

I struggled for years to pray and read my Bible daily. But it wasn’t that I lived my life separately from what I heard on Sundays or that I didn’t even think about God throughout the week. I just had a difficult time setting up good habits. During that time, I kept wondering about God’s tolerance of my lackluster performance. Especially, I thought, in comparison to my clearly better-suited fellow humans. They seemed much holier than I was.

Cue teenage me discovering John 21. It’s uncoincidentally located right after Jesus reinstates Peter. Peter had denied Jesus three times before Jesus’s death on the cross. But now, in this passage, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And each time, when Peter says yes, Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs… Shepherd my sheep… Feed my sheep.” This echoes the three times Peter denied Him, showing that Jesus is reinstating Peter as a disciple. Jesus goes on to tell Peter the kind of death he will die to glorify God, and then He says to Peter, “Follow me.” But Peter notices another disciple, John, is following them. Peter asks Jesus, “What about him?” That’s when Jesus said one of the most liberating things I’ve ever heard: What’s it to you?

The last thing Jesus wants us to do is selfishly worry about others’ relationships with Him—that’s not our concern. The truth is, we all fall short of God’s holiness, but Jesus has given each of us grace, and that is the grace we are to be concerned with. You are free to focus on your relationship with Him, not the apparent relationships of others with Him. • Carson D. Jacobs

• In what ways might you be focusing on others’ relationships with Jesus instead of your own?

• How do you think you can develop healthy Bible-reading and prayer habits? Don’t worry about doing it just like someone else—find out what works for you! For example, how do you usually prefer to talk on the phone? Pacing? Sitting down? Figure out which way is most comfortable for you and try mimicking that while praying.

“If I want him to remain until I come,” Jesus answered, “what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” John 21:22 (CSB)

READ: JOHN 10:1-30

Every time I get a voicemail from my mom, I smile. I’ve heard her voice almost every day of my life. So if I know anyone’s voice, it’s hers. What always makes me smile is the fact that she still feels the need to tell me that it’s her leaving the voicemail.

It’s not just my mom’s voice that I hear and instantly know. I have some close friends and family members I talk with all the time. They can leave a voicemail without a name, and I know who they are. But, if someone I didn’t know very well left me a message without a name, I would have no clue who they were.

Jesus says His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. When we trust Jesus as our Savior, we become His sheep. He is our good shepherd (John 10:11). So, as Christians, we spend time listening to His voice so we can know it and follow Him. We can do this by absorbing the truth of the gospel—meditating on who Jesus is and what He has done in the pages of God’s Word, the Bible. Throughout the Bible, God reveals His unending love and steadfast character, ultimately making Himself known to us through Jesus (John 1:18). As we press into relationship with Jesus through spending time in His Word, in prayer, and with His people, it will become easier and easier for us to discern His voice. • Melissa Yeagle

• How have you heard people talk about listening to God’s voice?

• Have you ever tried to listen to God’s voice? What was that like?

• The primary way God speaks to us is through His Word, the Bible. And the gospel (good news) is the lens through which we understand His Word, because the whole Bible points to Jesus and hinges on His death and resurrection. If you want to know more about the gospel, see our "Know Jesus" page.

• Learning to listen to God’s voice takes time, and we’ll keep learning until the day Jesus returns— then we won’t need to discern anymore because we’ll see Jesus face to face! But in the meantime, if we know Jesus His Holy Spirit lives in us, reminding us of everything Jesus has said and helping us discern His voice. We can also talk to trusted Christians and help each other answer questions like: Does this agree with the Bible? Does this glorify God the Father and God the Son? Does this bring the fruit of the Spirit and hope, or condemnation and fear? Remember, God will never ask us to sin, and He will never break His promises. If you want to dig deeper, read John 3:17; 14:26; 16:12-15; Romans 8:1; Galatians 5:22-23.

[Jesus said,] “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (CSB)

READ: ISAIAH 53:1-5; MATTHEW 2:13-18; JOHN 13:2-5

Son of Man

You chose to get Your hands dirty,

to get knee deep in human suffering.

To cry with us and bear our pain.

You refused to turn away

when we shouted with angry voices.

Clashing swords while You were being born.

You chose humility,

while we searched for mighty kings.

You ripped apart the fabric of our reality

when You decided to come and live

in the midst of humanity’s broken dream. • Catherine Valentine

• We live in a world that has been broken by sin, and we all experience hardships, like sickness, injuries, the pain of loss,and thesuffering of loneliness. What kinds of suffering and pain have you experienced lately?

• Sometimes, it’s easy to think that God is far removed from us and our lives. But that’s not true! In Jesus, God came to be with us. In fact, one of the names for Jesus is Immanuel, which means “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23). It can be hard to picture the almighty, perfectly holy God being present here, in the midst of our messy lives. But the truth is, God is not afraid of our mess. He loves us so much that Jesus came and died and rose again to be with us—mess and all. He paid the price for our sins with His life, then He ascended into heaven so that His Holy Spirit could live in us. That means, once we know Jesus, we never have to go through the mess of life alone. And Jesus promises to return one day to get rid of all the mess, sin, and brokenness forever. Hallelujah! Consider spending some time in prayer, asking God to remind you of how He is with you right here, right now, in the middle of your mess.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38 (NLT)