RITA'S UPDATE: Due to severe storms and heat threat on Wed afternoon. We will move our Rita's night to THURSDAY the 18th at 6. Please spread the word!!!
Good Morning God's Good News Delivery Company Faithful Servants! Amen! May that be so Lord! May we be Your faithful servants that follow Jesus and bring the Good News alive to those You are sending us to. Open hearts! Move our feet. Bring revival! Amen!
We will have the opportunity to practice some of this on Thursday when we gather at Rita's. Pray for us and for God to send some new people to connect to. Pray for wisdom, boldness, and God's heart and mind over us. Today's devotionals speak into being bearers of Good News. Check them out below and process them with some friends. Pray for God to lead us to prayer and small group ministry as we open doors in prayer and process and plan God's plans to go and make disciples. What's your part? What are you doing to prepare? God has some custom plans just for you and for us together for such a time as this! Amen!
What's your story to share about being one way and now another that God orchestrated and led you through? Think about that. We all have a story and as God draws people, He will lead you to someone that needs to hear that story. What is God doing in through and around our Body that others need to be invited to come and see and experience? God places people in our paths for us to be His vessels of Good News, love, healing and hope like He does at our donut days. Watch for Him to be at work and pray to be ready and willing to allow Him to use you in those moments. Remember that the Holy Spirit will stir you and give you the words. He is preparing and empowering you to use the gifts and stories God has given you. PTL! All He asks is for us to be observant and to do what He created us to do. We are sent to be His Good News Delivery people and we are learning how to do that. As we faithfully follow Jesus, He will use us and grow His Kingdom and our fellowship. Amen!
I'm starting with our handout from last week. The photo of the delivery person didn't copy but is attached at the bottom. Think about that delivery person as you. You are driven by love, peace, hope, joy and the desire to bring these and Good News to others and you prepare the way in prayer. Prov. 3:5-6 steer us as we die to self and our own thinking and allow God control. We pray for people to be open and for God to send us. We put on the shoes that carry the GN and are feet are blessed by God as we step out in faith and bring all these to the ones God is preparing. God protects us and the Holy Spirit speaks through us as we step out in faith. All of this flows from Jesus' easy yoke that has been prepared just for you, as you are and according to God's custom purposes for you in His GN delivery co. for such a time as this. PTL! Please pray into all of this! Talk to God about it. Process with some others and follow Him well and with some friends. Pray for all of this to come alive Thurs and for us to have much to praise God about and build upon from this experience. He does have great plans! Step out in faith and pray His will and plans to come alive.
Chares Stanley reminds us of our personal commissions. We all have a purpose in God's GNDC (Good News Delivery Co.) He will lead you to His perfect plans. Our Daily bread reminds us to be devoted to prayer as part of God's GNDC. Some of you have prayer warrior and intercessor as your part. Even as you join together at Rita's or other gatherings, if you see God using one of us to talk to others, start praying for them and for God to draw and use well the one sharing. Pray for God to lead us to prayer gatherings too that prepare the way and plow the hard soil around us. The Word for You Today reminds us to fear not and to be anchored by the presence of God. Yes stand firm as you go. Allow Him to steer. The Upper Room reminds us to breathe out the junk and to love like Jesus, even our enemies. There is too much hate and finger pointing going on around us. Pray that we would be different and love like Jesus and bring love, peace, hope and joy alive as we go and that would attract those He is sending our way. One thing I am constantly praying about and working on is dying to self and my own thinking and to be quick to take every thought, word, type and action captive before the Lord. Pray for that and try to work on it as often we will find ourselves wanting to attack instead of love on someone that God loves. Breathe out the junk and turn off the noise. Tune into the Holy Spirit and follow well. This all takes practice and we start Thurs. at Rita's, maybe even today for you. Go! Live and love like Jesus! He has great plans for you to be His vessel of healing, hope, love, peace and joy! Amen! Be a joy bringer and GNDC worker that God created you to be. Shalom!
Revival: My Part
Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? Psalm 85:6
Revival: A spiritual reawakening that can occur in a believer's life when they've become stagnant or dormant. It can involve a renewed love for God, a deeper appreciation of God's holiness, and a passion for God's word and church. Revival can also include a sense of humility, a desire for repentance, and a fresh start in living a life that obeys God.
We are God’s Good News Delivery Co. (Revivalists of God!)
Our Mission:
18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt. 28:18-20
Our Motivating Purpose:
For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”… So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ. Ro 10:13-17
Our Guiding Principle:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Prov 3:5-6
Our Church:
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. Acts 2:42
God’s Good News
Delivery Co.
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My part in God’s story is______________________________________________________
ODB:
“I’ve been praying for you for fifty years,” said the elderly woman. My friend Lou looked into her eyes with profound gratitude. He was visiting the Bulgarian village that his father grew up in and left as a teenager. The woman, a believer in Jesus, lived next to his grandparents. She began to pray for Lou as soon as she heard about his birth a continent away. Now, over half a century later, he was visiting the village on a business trip, and while there he spoke to a group about his faith. Lou hadn’t become a believer in Jesus until he was almost thirty, and when this woman approached him after he spoke, he wondered about the impact her persistent prayers had made on his coming to faith.
We’ll never know the full effect of our prayers this side of heaven. But Scripture gives us this counsel: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4:2). When Paul penned those words to believers in the small city of Colossae, he also asked for prayer himself so that God would “open a door” for his message wherever he went (v. 3).
Sometimes we may think, I don’t have the spiritual gift of prayer. But of all the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible, prayer isn’t among them. Perhaps this is because God longs for each of us to pray faithfully, so that we may see what only He can do.
By James Banks
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How have you benefited from the prayers of others? Whom are you praying for today?
Father, thank You that You want to hear from me! Please help me to treasure the opportunity to talk to You and pray for others each day.
Hear more of James Banks' teachings on prayer.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul closes his letter to the church in Colossae encouraging the believers in Jesus to “devote [themselves] to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4:2). Bible scholar N. T. Wright makes this comment: “The connection here with thanksgiving may suggest the threefold rhythm: intercession, ‘watching’ for answers to prayer, and thanksgiving when answers appear.” In addition to prayers for their own lives and the lives of those around them, Paul asks for prayers for himself and his fellow servants that the doors for their message may be opened and that they’d proclaim the message of Christ (vv. 3-4). Finally, the apostle reassures the Colossians of how loved they are by reminding them that Epaphras “is always wrestling in prayer for you” (v. 12).
J.R. Hudberg |
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TWFYT:
UR: A Moment to Breathe
To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. - Proverbs 8:13 (NIV)
Soon after my father died, I was cleaning out his garage and realized some of his tools had gone missing. I immediately suspected that my two troublesome siblings had sold them to buy drugs and alcohol. I cried out in frustration and anger, “How could they disrespect my father’s memory like that?” I wanted to retaliate against them. I cried, feeling helpless and weak.
Then I remembered the words from today’s quoted scripture, “To fear the Lord is to hate evil.” And as I took a deep breath, I recited these words from Isaiah: “I am with you” (41:10).
God gave me a moment to breathe and helped me turn my thoughts away from doing something I would regret. From that experience I learned that in all situations taking a minute to breathe can help us to make good and sound decisions. God hears us and protects us even when we have lost hope. In our sorrows and in our happiness, the Lord our God is always present.
TODAY'S PRAYER
Dear Lord, help us always to trust in you to guide us, especially when fear and anger threaten to overpower us. Amen.
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