Clothing Closet today 10-1
Worship tomorrow 10 am with Children's Church and on Zoom
Revival Church worship in our sanctuary 5-8pm Sun.
Good Morning Praising, Praying, Preparing Friends! Prepare your hearts to worship. Enter His courts with praise. Keep using and building those gratitude lists. Invite our Abba, Father, Daddy, to come inhabit your praise, inform your prayers, be the Lord of your hearts and Shepherd of your day. Check out the Harvest prayer blog and prayer starters below. Start there and dwell in His presence for a spell and prepare to go forth in praise as you allow Him to lead you through this day.
Please pray for me. I had my ideas of God's Word for us this week continuing with His pursuing love. And He is pursuing us, standing at the door knocking, wanting to come in and hang with us. What love pursuing, everlasting love that we know! PTL! And we may pick up that theme in May, BUT GOD! He kept pecking at me and I stopped, stilled myself and listened (after I kept forging ahead and finished what I thought was to be tomorrow's message). He has another message for us tomorrow. Many of you have been asking questions and it seems all of our gatherings over the past few weeks have turned to the end of time. So I invited Abba to rewrite our message for tomorrow and to answer some nagging questions and to inform our choices in these last days.
God loves you, is pursuing you, transforming you, preparing you for whatever is to come and is with you always! Be still and know He is God and He cares and has a plan for you and us. The end will come someday. Are you ready? Are you living each day as if He is coming back today and serving and praying as if it will be another thousand years? He is in control. We are His family and He has plans to use us together and individually to go be the salt and light as we put into action His love. Check out our devos below about this. What's He saying to you and what will you do about it? Who is He partnering you with to go love like Jesus? Jesus is coming back! That is a fact and a promise. What will He find when He does? Be still and know that He is God. Stand firm in faith always. And go live and love like Jesus with great zeal for the lost. That's why we are still here and He is with us always. Amen! PTL! He does have some awesome custom made plans for you! Rejoice and go in the strength he has given you. May our lives be poured out as a sacrifice of praise! Amen!
Harvest Prayer Blogs:
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“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”
Christ could have instructed us to use any of the multiple names of God as we approach God’s Throne. But, He instructs us to use the words “our Father.” We are approaching the One who has adopted us by His grace into His family. Who sent His Son to rescue us. The One who loves us perfectly. The One who cares for us more than the greatest father on earth. It is an endearing, non-threatening term as we come before God. It is intended to help us realize that we are standing before Him as His beloved son or daughter.
Pause right now, and look up to God and speak these words slowly before the Throne: “My Father!” and simply rest in all that means.
If you want to make contact with God, and if you want to feel His everlasting arms about you, put your hand upon your mouth for a moment as you enter in … Stop for a moment and remind yourself of what you are about to do. Do you know that the essence of true prayer is found in the two words “Our Father.” I suggest that if you can say from your heart whatever your condition, “My Father” in a sense your prayer is already answered.
But Christ did not stop there. We are to pray “Our Father, who is in heaven.” This is not just any Father. Your Father is the One who is above all. He is perfect in all His ways. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He knows every star by name. He created every cell in your body. He owns everything. There is nothing that is not at His disposal. He is the source of every provision and the giver and guarantor of every promise. He is your heavenly Father with all the resources of heaven and earth at His disposal.
As we meditate on the privilege of calling God our Father, a gratitude should rise in our hearts. We should begin to realize who He is, what He has done, and that He now invites us in to talk with Him. I cannot imagine instantly praying a list of requests at such a moment. If we have genuinely entered in, our first response will be worship. “Hallowed be Your name.”
God’s names are inexhaustible. That’s why the Bible (and our heart when we meditate on Him) is filled with a multitude of names. These are given to help us understand His nature, but also to verbalize our praise in prayer. As you enter in before the Throne, pause and spend time adoring Him. Thank Him for His great names and rehearse what you are seeing in His presence. Thank Him for who He is, but also for what He has done. If you have approached the Throne rightly, you will be overwhelmed with gratitude. Don’t rush this moment in prayer. It will set the tone for the rest of your praying. Let a vision of God fill your soul and direct your praise. Don’t move forward in petitions until you have hallowed Him in praise!
Holy Father, I praise You because Your name is above all others! You created me and have loved me fully and completely as Your beloved child. Help me to come before Your throne with humility and gratefulness. Slow me down so that I can focus on Your promises, Your peace, Your provision and Your presence.
---Adapted from Simply Prayer by Bill Elliff. This book is available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
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- Pray that you will be diligent in teaching Christ through the way you live your life and the way you speak to others.
- Ask God to help you be an excellent model for the generations coming up behind you.
- Pray that God removes any distractions to wholesome love among your family and friends. Ask that all ungodly priorities and self-interests will be wiped away so that love can abound.
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| Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount. |
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Charles Stanley:
ODB:
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My sister, brother, and I flew from our separate states to our uncle’s funeral and stopped to see our ninety-year-old grandmother. She’d been paralyzed by a stroke, had lost the ability to speak, and had only the use of her right hand. As we stood around her bed, she reached out that hand and took each of our hands, placing one atop another over her heart and patted them in place. With this wordless gesture, my grandmother spoke into what had been our somewhat broken and distant sibling relationship. “Family matters.”
In God’s family, the church, we can grow apart as well. We might allow bitterness to separate us from each other. The writer of Hebrews references the bitterness that separated Esau from his brother (Hebrews 12:16) and challenges us as brothers and sisters to hold on to each other in God’s family. “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone” (v. 14). Here the words every effort convey a deliberate and decisive investment in peacemaking with our brothers and sisters in God’s family. Every such effort is then applied to everyone. Every. One.
Family matters. Both our earthly families and God’s family of believers. Might we all invest the efforts needed to hold on to each other?
By Elisa Morgan
REFLECT & PRAY
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What would it mean for you to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone” in God’s family? Is there a particular person you might need to approach for reconciliation?
Dear God, thank You for drawing me to Yourself. Help me to make every effort to live at peace with everyone in Your family.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
In Hebrews 12:14, the phrase “make every effort” translates one Greek word: diōkō. The range of meaning includes ideas such as “to pursue” good or not-so-good things (see 2 Timothy 2:22); “to press on”; “to persecute” so as to harass or mistreat (see 3:12 [persecuted]). Three times in Philippians 3 diōkō is used when Paul shares his personal testimony: “as for zeal, persecuting the church” (v. 6); “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (v. 12); “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (v. 14). The English Standard Version’s rendering of Hebrews 12:14 highlights a twofold pursuit: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” As it concerns our relationships with others, harmony and holiness are worthy of our pursuit and prayers—even when such efforts aren’t reciprocated.
Arthur Jackson |
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UR: The Power of Salt
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. - Colossians 4:6 (NIV)
Families from our church who live in the neighborhood are part of the neighborhood fellowship group. We meet every month for Bible study, prayer, and to catch up on our families’ welfare. It is a time of fellowship and community building. We always bring food to share. On one occasion I made some chicken curry for the dinner. I expected to receive some compliments for it, but no one said anything. Finally, I asked if they liked the dish. They looked at each other without responding to me. Wondering what the matter was, I took a spoonful of it to taste. To my horror I found it to be tasteless. I had forgotten to add salt!
I was reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” As the salt of the earth, we work to preserve all that is good and just in the world by being peacemakers and peacekeepers. Just as salt adds flavor to food, as Christians we can bring love, kindness, and grace to those around us in partnership with God, reflecting God’s love and light in the world.
TODAY'S PRAYER
Loving God, we long to serve you. Help us to build a just and peaceful society where we reflect your love and compassion to those around us. Amen.
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