What are you all learning as you study the New Testament this year using the Come, Follow Me Study Guide?

For last week, I studied Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3, which was Week #5 in the Study Guide. My biggest gem/nugget of truth that I found this week was that Jesus arose a “great while before day” and departed into a “solitary place” to pray (Mark 1:35). This was just what I needed to hear! We read about John the Baptist calling people to create fruits of repentance. This is my fruit for repentance God is calling me to give. For me, it’s a watermelon, and not a grape, as one of my Sunday School classmates said yesterday, because I love to sleep. “Before day” means before daylight, and solitary means alone. I have felt Jesus inviting me to follow him in that way.

I used to be a lot better at praying before the family woke up, in the darkness of the early morning. I had let that habit slide, so that I was saying a short prayer with the family right before our family Power Actions (devotional, i.e. family scripture study and prayer) and then waiting until midday to have my long, meaningful personal prayer. I found the day was getting away from me, and then I realized that was why. As much as I love to sleep in, I have been getting up earlier to pray, since reading that, and the results are marvelous.I have a lot of other insights to go with this scripture but that’s all I want to say for now.