Good Morning Mustard-Seed-Sized-Faith Prayers! "Oh you of little faith! How long must I put up with you?" Do you feel like you've heard that from Jesus? Sometimes we wonder, don't we? How often have we prayed for God to help our unbelief. Yesterday during Zoom Huddle we discussed healing prayer and unbelief as we encountered the Scriptural promise from Mark 16:17-18. "In my name they will...lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." On the surface that's a promise that doesn't always seem to be true. Yet God keeps His promises. ALWAYS! Sometimes His promised healing comes in heaven. Our days are all numbered and God's will is always accomplished. Sometimes our faith and prayers alter times or events as well. Do you have faith that can move a mountain? Today's devotionals seem to tie to praying, praying in faith and faith. Check them out below and talk to God and process them with some others like we do at huddle on Tues, huddle tonight and even my pastors huddle this morning. This morning we processed and prayed about our personal wildernesses. Are you in a wilderness right now? Maybe un answered prayers and lack of faith has led you there. Stop! Take every thought captive before the Lord. Listen. Receive. Process. God is hearing and answering all the time. It just may not be according to your will.

Below are the Bible study page from our Zoom Huddle yesterday, Harvest prayer blog and our devos. What's God saying to you right now? What is the Holy Spirit praying on your behalf? What is God waiting for you to release in power through prayer? Father, grow our faith to even the size of a mustard seed. Forgive and heal our unbelief. Holy Spirit, thank you for interceding for me when I don't know what to pray or am unable to pray. Help us to stay focused on You and what You are doing Lord. Help us to pray informed and step into our parts well. Thank You for loving us, hearing and answering our prayers according to Your will and timing, and bringing Your will alive Your way. Father, hear these prayers as we ask in the mighty name of Jesus. May we minister and pray in Your power for Your glory alone. Amen

See you at Bread Ministry or Family Ministry/Adult dinner huddle tonight. Shalom. Pray for wisdom for the cardiologist I meet today. They are still pretty clueless about what's going on with me. Thanks! I feel great and numbers are great too. PTL!

He Loves Me Most (Huddle devo)

 

ODB:

“Help My Unbelief!” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:24 READ Mark 9:14–24 LISTEN ONLINE “Where is my Faith?—even deep down right in there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. . . . If there be God—please forgive me.” The author of those words might surprise you: Mother Teresa. Beloved and renowned as a tireless servant of the poor in Calcutta, India, Mother Teresa quietly waged a desperate war for her faith over five decades. After her death in 1997, that struggle came to light when portions of her journal were published in the book Come Be My Light. What do we do with our doubts or feelings of God’s absence? Those moments may plague some believers more than others. But many faithful believers in Jesus may, at some point in their lives, experience moments or seasons of such doubts. I’m thankful that Scripture has given us a beautiful, paradoxical prayer that expresses both faith and the lack thereof. In Mark 9, Jesus encounters a father whose son had been demonically tormented since childhood (v. 21). When Jesus said that the man must have faith—“Everything is possible for one who believes”—the man responded, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (vv. 23-24). This honest, heartfelt plea invites those of us who struggle with doubt to give it to God, trusting that He can fortify our faith and hold on to us firmly amid the deepest, darkest valleys we’ll ever traverse.   By Adam Holz REFLECT & PRAY When have you wrestled with doubt in your spiritual journey? What spiritual resources helped you hold on to your faith? Dear Father, sometimes I doubt. Please help me when I struggle to feel Your presence.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT In sending out His disciples to preach about His kingdom, Jesus gave them His authority over impure spirits (Mark 6:7). After three of His disciples saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain (9:2), a distraught father brought a demon-possessed boy to the remaining disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. This lack of miraculous healing was attributed to unbelief (vv. 17-19). The father eventually confessed his lack of faith, “Help me overcome my unbelief!” (v. 24). Jesus told His disciples that “this kind can come out only by prayer” (v. 29) and confronted their failure to pray. In not praying, they had depended on their own authority and not on Jesus’ authority to heal. K. T. Sim

UR: God Hears Our Cries

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. - Romans 8:26 (NIV)

My heart hammered in my chest and turmoil swirled inside me because my father was in the hospital. However, attending a prayer gathering at my church with Christians from a variety of denominations and being surrounded by believers and God’s loving presence was comforting. All of us were at different stages in our personal journeys with Jesus, but we all had hope and faith. I found the readings, thoughts, and messages inspiring, even though there was a knot of worry inside me. When it was time to offer prayer requests, I desperately wanted to ask for a blessing for my dad; but if I were to speak, I knew my sadness would overcome me. I felt powerless and voiceless.

One of the parishioners who knew of my situation smiled at me, then stood up and prayed, “We ask God to protect the sick and hospitalized who are suffering and need healing — and we ask God to help those who are caring for them.” Tears filled my eyes. Overcome with gratitude, I felt peace filling my soul. My loving heavenly Father had heard my cry and allowed someone else to give voice to my need.

TODAY'S PRAYER

Loving Father, thank you for listening to us and surrounding us with your love. Amen.

Harvest Prayer Blog:

February 28 - You Are Part of God’s Prayer Plan

While reading Jeremiah’s prophecies, Daniel discovered that Israel’s captivity was to last seventy years and that the time was almost up. Shouldn’t he have praised God and started anticipating this event? That’s what I would have done. But Daniel “turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). That’s quite a reaction to something God said in Scripture was going to happen. Why would Daniel pray so? Maybe he just lacked faith to believe God’s Word. I doubt that. I firmly believe that because of God’s plan to include humans in the releasing of His will on earth, He drove Daniel to prayer. Author Dutch Sheets, commenting on this experience, said, “No verse in Daniel specifically reports that Israel was restored because of Daniel’s prayers, but the insinuation is there. We do know that an angel was dispatched immediately after Daniel started praying, for he tells Daniel, ‘Your words were heard, and I have come in response to them’ (Dan. 10:12).” We also have the chilling reverse proof—something doesn’t happen because no one prays. According to Ezekiel 22, God was set to punish Israel for its sins, but would have shown mercy had someone righteous only prayed. Unfortunately, He found no such person: “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done.” (verses 30-31) Clearly, Sheets comments, God was saying, “While My justice demanded judgment, My love wanted forgiveness. Had I been able to find a human to ask Me to spare this people, I could have done it. It would have allowed Me to show mercy. Because I found no one, however, I had to destroy them.” Christian leaders of the past certainly taught this truth. John Wesley once said, “God does nothing on the earth save in answer to believing prayer.” Forgiving, Merciful Father, may I always be willing to step up and say, “Here I am! Send me!” I want to stand in the gap for my marriage, my family, my church, my community, my nation and for the nations of the earth however You direct. Strengthen my unbelief and help me to lean into prayer believing always that You will hear and answer. Fill me with faith to be a Daniel in my generation! --Adapted from The Power of Personal Prayer (Learning to Pray with Faith and Purpose) by Jonathan Graf.

TWFYT: