Good Morning Praying Friends! You prayers are being heard and releasing God's power and will on earth and in the heavenlies. PTL!
Couple of updates:
Glad Ketner has been moved out of ICU to a regular room. She is alert and tries to talk but hard to understand yet. She will be moved to a rehab in the near future. Praise God for the healing that is coming and pray for shalom over her and family and for wisdom for the staff.
Maura Specht (Pastor Don and Karen's granddaughter) has been moved to CHOP for a higher level of care. She has RSV and is on oxygen.
The Canfield family and Caleb continue to heal from bad colds
Lori Rohrer has been able to move forward with resolution with insurance companies after her accident. the car that hit her was cited and deemed at fault. However the driver gave false insurance info. Pray for provision, resolution and shalom.
Pastor Don and Karen will be flying to FL Tues. (Lord willing) to visit his mom and Terry. There will be no blogs next week.Pastor Don is feeling exhausted and a bit under the weather. Pray for healing and for God to go before them with favor. (Mon is our 19th anniversary! WOW! How did I get so blessed! Pray for Karen--you can only imagine what it's like to live with me! 
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Thanks for praying!
We light the JOY candle tomorrow. I love how God keeps bringing up the theme of joy and ties things together as we sit at His feet and engage with Him through our Bible readings and devotionals! I'm going to let you check them out and engage with God through your own quiet time. Remember to ask what's going on in this passage? What is God saying to me? What measurable thing will I do in response? Who can I process this with? God is speaking to your heart right now. Turn off the noise and tune out the chaos. Be still and know! He loves you and has some good things in store for you, even today, even in the chaos as He brings His peaceful presence and joy alive through your faith. Rejoice!
See you tomorrow at 10 in person or on Zoom. Sounds like tomorrow will be a day filled with showers of blessings, God's downpours of love, and a day of being washed whiter than snow! Rejoice! Reign our Lord and King!
Let's start with the Harvest Prayer devo for today as we release God's will together!
You Kingdom come Father! Your will be done! May we glorify You and pray as you would have us and worship by responding well to your leading today. Cleanse us. We are purified In Christ. Thank You! May we incarnate Your Son, joy, healing and hope today. Come. be glorified! Amen
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December 9 - Opening Earth to Heaven’s Influence
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“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will” (Romans 8:26-28).
Search the Scriptures and you will search in vain for any prayer in which Jesus didn’t know what His Father wanted done. There were a few times when He was surprised (e.g., the faith of the Roman centurion compared to the faithlessness of His own people). However, even in those instances, He would wait to understand what God wanted done, and then He would pray in perfect, sinless harmony with God’s purposes. Through that praying, the will would be done on earth, just as in heaven. His role, as the Second Adam (of both earth and heaven, dust and Spirit), was to bridge the two realms, invoking heaven’s presence and power through the mediation of His earthly nature.
Heaven and earth intersected in the man Jesus and opened earth to heaven’s influence. Through being joined to Christ Himself (by virtue of His atoning death and His Spirit residing within) heaven and earth intersect in us too. Our praying also opens earth to heaven’s influence as well. Through our intercessions, we act as a conduit through which the power of the Lord can flow through us to reshape the fallen creation back into something that suits God’s purposes. That is the thrust of Romans 8:18-30. We are to discern what God would have us pray, rather than simply to pray, “God do this, if it be Your will.”
Holy Spirit, I am a weak created being without Your power! I am never at a loss for expressing my heartfelt needs to God because Your groaning bursts forth on my behalf, aligned with the perfect will of the Father. You allow heaven and earth to intersect in me…a deep and holy realization! How I give thanks for the privilege of praying the purposes of God into reality upon earth!
--Adapted from Power Praying (Hearing Jesus’ Spirit by Praying Jesus’ Prayer) by David Chotka.
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- Praise the God who lays claim to the entire world and all that live in it (Ps. 24:1).
- Thank him for the food, shelter, and clothing that sustains you and gives comfort to your life.
- Confess the times when you have failed to acknowledge God’s riches in your life.
- Commit yourself to examining your acts of stewardship.
- Ask God to give you a heart of liberality, knowing that all you have comes from him (1 Chron. 29:14).
- Ask God to show your family new and creative ways to share the abundance of your lives with families who have much less.
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Charles Stanley:
TWFYT:
ODB:
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During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dave and Carla spent months looking for a church home. Following health guidelines, which limited various in-person experiences, made it even more difficult. They longed for connection to a body of believers in Jesus. “It’s a hard time to find a church,” Carla emailed me. Within me rose a realization from my own longing to be reunited with my church family. “It’s a hard time to be the church,” I responded. In that season, our church had “pivoted,” offering food in surrounding neighborhoods, creating online services, and phoning every member with support and prayer. My husband and I participated and yet wondered what else we could do to “be the church” in our changed world.
In Hebrews 10:25, the writer exhorts readers not to neglect “meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but [encourage] one another.” Perhaps due to persecution (vv. 32–34) or maybe as a result of simply growing weary (12:3), the struggling early believers needed a nudge to keep being the church.
And today, I need a nudge too. Do you? When circumstances change how we experience church, will we continue to be the church? Let’s creatively encourage one another and build each other up as God guides us. Share our resources. Send a text of support. Gather as we’re able. Pray for one another. Let’s be the church.
By Elisa Morgan
REFLECT & PRAY
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How can you be a help to those today who can’t gather in a church building? How does the church fill your need to be a part of a much larger purpose?
Dear God, please show me how to be the church.
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