Jesus is now taking you through four studies that help you understand why you are experiencing what you are experiencing. You need to understand your issues with “Understanding Life.” These four studies are called “The Progress Studies” because Jesus is helping you understand what you are going through and what will give you progress toward winning over this issue. He will use these four studies to take you into four major Bible principles that show you how to deal with it.

• Understanding Life Issues: In this study, Jesus helps you understand how you got in this condition. He reveals the pitfalls, traps, and lures that drew you into having a problem or issue that became difficult to be free from or handle. He shows you what to avoid, so you can navigate away from things that look good and sound good but hurt you.


• Understanding Jesus’ Solution: In this study, Jesus shows you what kind of solutions He has to offer. This gives you the faith you need to see that there are wonderful solutions.


• Understanding Jesus’ Method: In this study, Jesus exposes you to eight things you must have. For you to totally understand what you are dealing with, there is a work that Jesus has to do on your heart. This helps you deal with your heart, which you typically have no control over. He will help you feel much better than you have been.


• Understanding Jesus’ Help: In this study, Jesus helps you understand the God of these solutions. If you can understand how powerful, brilliant, and loving Jesus is, you will be able to cooperate with Him because you trust Him and understand and agree with what He is wanting to do.

Let Jesus take you into a quick explanation for all four sets of studies.

The first issue Jesus deals with you about is, how did you get where you are? How did you go from choosing things that looked like they were going to make you happy to being where you are now? What is the nature of things that really look good but end up hurting you? How do you feel about the fact that you are being hurt, damaged, disappointed, and trapped and not able to get yourself out? Why do you see you need to change your life but seem to not have the power to make the changes? In this study, Jesus will answer these and many more questions.

Who can you trust with your life? Who understands what you are going through? Who knows everything there is to know about life, so you don’t have to use trial-and-error methods of seeing what will hurt you and what won’t? Who has the wisdom to help you get out of many things that are now demanding your time, effort, and resources? Who has the power to not only show you what you need to do but can help you actually do it? Jesus meets all these qualifications. And, in this study, He will help you get real solutions.

Why haven’t you been able to solve these problems? You have been in difficult situations before and have done a pretty good job of being able to solve them. What is different with this particular situation that makes it so hard to deal with? What is it saying about you, when you find yourself unable to do things that you know you should do? Does it mean you are inadequate, incompetent, ignorant, or too weak? No! You are now a child of God and are having to deal with the supernatural, spirit realm where your heavenly Father lives.

Just like you had to have parents, teachers, and experts teach you how to live as a human, you now have to learn how to live as a child of God. Just because you are now pretty good at living the human life doesn’t mean you can take all that knowledge and training and use it to live the Christian life. Human effort and world training don’t work in Christianity. Christianity, being a child of God, and living in the spirit realm require the Bible, prayer, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and your heavenly Father to teach you how to live as a spirit being.

This isn’t the first time you have needed someone’s help. You have been “helped” by those who were just using you. You have been “helped” by those who acted like they knew what they were talking about but didn’t. You have been “helped” by those who took you in a direction you didn’t want to go. And, you have been “helped” by those who told you what to do but didn’t help you know how to do it. Jesus is an expert teacher Who will help you in a way that will empower you to do what you couldn’t do before.

Jesus’ Bible isn’t like any book you have ever read before. It isn’t categorized; it isn’t a self-help guide; it isn’t filled with subjects that you would typically find in other books, and it typically doesn't address how you would go about doing what it says. It isn’t a book of just information for you to store in your brain and mind. It is a power-Book that feeds you on a spiritual level that empowers you, transforms you, and trains you on how to live with Jesus. It helps you yield to Him so He can show you how to win at life.

You typically read information alone. Even if you do studies in a group, the main issue is, you are responsible for what you get out of the study. It is an every-person-for-themselves situation. Other people may try to help you learn things; but, you are ultimately responsible for what you learn, how good of a job you do applying it, and what you add to it. Jesus doesn’t treat you that way. He literally joins you; and, He sticks with you for the rest of your life’s journey into success.

You and Jesus are going to become inseparable. He loves you; and will join you even when you mess up, make mistakes, fail, misunderstand, and sin. As long as you want Him to stick with you, He will! He won’t do anything you don’t want Him to do. But, as you learn that He is totally trustworthy, you will give Him permission to help you with greater and deeper personal issues. Even though He knows everything you have ever done, knows what you are thinking and feeling, and knows why you are doing what you are doing, He loves you and wants to help you win at life.