Air Conditioning install begins Monday and may take until Thurs. PTL! We will soon be able to restart ministry in the building. Pray for God to lead us to His new things for us to connect to neighbors.
Today is bread day, 10-12. Pray for connections and relationships and for God to use us. Pray for Gail as she leads and the staff of volunteers. Thank God for them. Pray he keeps raising up harvest workers and for us to bring the bread of life alive.
Tonight Family Ministries gathers for a food/ice cream fellowship night. Pray for God to lead us to His plans for the fall and the restart if 2 peas in a pod meals.
Ramone Sosa is having a biopsy as I write this. Pray that docs find issues and for healing and pain relief. pray for shalom for the family. Pray for Amber and Ariana as they take over lead of the Clothing Closet. That open Aug 17th and there is much work to do to get ready. Pray for helpers and for God to continue to use this ministry to serve our neighbors and connect others to Him.
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Good Morning Standing on the Promises Seekers of God's Will, and Followers of Jesus--Surrendered Servants! Oh may that be me and us Lord! Come! Bring Your Word and promises alive. Keep us seeking You and receiving and releasing in earnest prayers. May I/we die to self, take up cross and follow Jesus today. Prepare these broken vessels and use us for Your glory. Your Kingdom come and will be done as we seek first Your Kingdom and righteousness! Thank you for forgiveness, mercy and grace. Cleanse us. Help us repent. And may we be ready and willing when you say go. Thank You. May we be more like Jesus and follow Him well as we ask in His mighty name! Amen! Be still and know. Follow and Go!
Start with the Upper Room this morning (we are still working through some issues to get the physical devos in stock). Be still. Know. Refresh in His Spirit and then go, follow. Then check out Harvest blogs and start praying and standing on God's ever true promises. He is faithful to respond as we pray and believe these. Amen! The Word for You Today reminds us to depend on God. That starts by getting to know Him and spending time with Him. What are you focusing on today? What's causing anxiety, stress and distraction? Turn off the noise. Stop the busyness. Pause and refresh then go allowing Jesus to be you Lord and Shepherd today. Check out Charles Stanley's reminders about seeking God first. Our Daily Bread wraps this up with the question: "What does it mean for you to find your only hope in [Jesus]?" Well? what would that look like if that is true for you? How about our Body?
Turn off the noise and still the chaos is a choice of obedience as we still ourselves and refocus on God. We are able to choose joy because we hear Him, know Him, follow Him and grow in trust as we see Him at work answering prayers and being true to His promises. He is faithful! Amen! Are we? Honestly, the sooner we accept the fact that in this world Christ is all that matters and He lives in us and wants to live and love through us to change the world, the easier it is to die to self, turn off the noise, hear His whispers, and go in His strength for His purposes for you each day. He's at work. He's transforming us from one way to another and then to another for His glory and to be usable to be part of His mission to change the world. We all have a part. Be still, refocus, know, grow and then go and follow well. But don't wait to follow and don't run ahead. He will make it clear when to go and when to wait, when to speak and when not to. He is with you. Put on His easy yoke, just as you are, for today and allow our Good Shepherd to lead us step by step to His perfect plans. Amen! He has great plans for you! Be still. Know! Yoke and follow well today! I've already prayed for you and me to do so. Come Lord Jesus! Shepherd us as we yoke to you! Yes, Your Kingdom come and will be done! Send me! Amen!
UR: Restorative Stillness
[The Lord] says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” - Psalm 46:10 (NIV)
My purse was heavy on my shoulder as I grabbed my keys and hurried toward the door. I wanted to pray, but I needed to get to work. I was tired of plunging into the world without spending time with God, relying on my own strength and wisdom throughout the day. Sure, I mumbled prayers while in traffic, but I longed for intentional time in God’s presence. I hesitated at the door, then turned around and entered my place of prayer. God met me there. It was a selah moment.
Selah is a Hebrew word that concludes several scripture verses. Though its precise meaning is unknown, some scholars believe selah indicates a pause during a musical rendition. Brief silences add to the beauty of music and intensify the listener’s experience.
We also need stillness in our lives. Time spent in God’s presence is restorative. There we discover the true meaning of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Incorporating moments of stillness with God into our lives can transform the chaotic noise of our days into wonderful symphonies.
Today's Prayer
Loving God, help us make time today to pause in your faithful presence. May we find refuge and strength as we acknowledge you as the source of our joy. Amen.
Harvest
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July 31 - Praying the Promises of God
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If you were to have the privilege of reading through my Mother’s Bible, you would discover highlighted promises. Beside many of these verses, you would see the various names of each of her children. If you could somehow parallel those verses with the actual life experiences of each of her children, you would discover those promises have been fulfilled in amazing specificity. Mom believed in this process of praying by God's promises, right up to her death. And, it worked with God-glorifying consistency!
Around 1983 my pastor-Dad suffered a terrible moral fall. It rocked our world for several years. At the end of the ordeal, he left my mom, married another woman and moved away. We thought it was the last we would ever see of him.
My mother, before she died two years later, felt she had received a biblical promise from the Lord regarding my Dad. She prayed it often and believed God on his behalf, until the day she died. Here was the promise:
Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him and let him see My salvation. (Psalm 91:14-16)
Five weeks before my mother died, my dad came to a full and complete repentance. In his remaining years, God greatly used my dad with thousands of pastors. He would humbly warn and instruct them of the subtle work of the enemy to which no man is immune. "No man can rise so high that he cannot fall,” he would often say, “and no man can fall so low that he cannot rise again by the grace of God!"
Dad lived 25 years after my mother received and claimed this promise (a “long life”). God honored him in ways which Dad felt he should not be honored. One of those was the forgiveness and love of his family. God used him and “let him see [God’s] salvation.”
Promise given … promise believed and prayed … promise fulfilled.
What God did for my precious, praying Mom, He will do for you. Read your Bible. Hear His voice. Claim His promises. Pray them in … and watch God’s faithfulness.
Father, Your promises are true and there are so many just waiting for me to pray into my life and the lives of others. Thank You for hearing and answering. Great is Your faithfulness!
---Adapted from Prayer with No Intermission by Bill Elliff. This book is available at prayershop.org.
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- Praise “Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.”
- Thank him for his willingness to leave his heavenly home to live among sinners.
- Confess any way in which you have been unwilling to sacrifice in order to come alongside those in need.
- Commit yourself to having the attitude of Jesus (Phil. 2:5-11).
- Ask God to give you that selfless love.
- Pray that the presence of Jesus through you will effectively draw an unsaved neighbor to him. Ask God to give you the right actions, words, and love in your community.
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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.
Connection (Devotions for Everyday Life) © 2024 is a free devotional published daily by Harvest Prayer Ministries. Subscribe here. |
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TWFYT:
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For more than 130 years, the Eiffel Tower has stood majestically over the city of Paris, a symbol of architectural brilliance and beauty. The city proudly promotes the tower as a key element of its magnificence.
As it was being built, however, many people thought little of it. Famous French writer Guy de Maupassant, for example, said it had “a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney.” He couldn’t see its beauty.
Those of us who love Jesus and have entrusted our hearts to Him as our Savior count Him as beautiful for who He is and what He’s done for us. Yet the prophet Isaiah penned these words: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (53:2).
But the towering majesty of what He did for us is the truest, purest form of beauty that humans will ever know and experience. He “took up our pain and bore our suffering” (v. 4). He was “pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (v. 5).
We’ll never know anyone as beautiful—as majestic—as the one who suffered for us on the cross, taking the unspeakable punishment of our sins upon Himself.
That’s Jesus. The Beautiful One. Let’s look to Him and live.
By Dave Branon
REFLECT & PRAY
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How has Jesus revealed His beauty to you? What does it mean for you to find your only hope in Him?
Dear Beautiful One, thank You for Your selfless sacrifice for me.
Learn more here: ODB.org/personal-relationship-with-god.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Isaiah 53 gives us a clear description of the sacrifice of Christ in the Old Testament, describing His rejection (vv. 1-3), His suffering in our place (vv. 4-6), His sacrificial death and burial (vv. 7-9), and His reconciling atonement and resurrection (vv. 10-12). The chapter is the last of four messianic prophecies in the book of Isaiah (42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12) known as the “Servant Songs” because they prophetically refer to Jesus the Messiah as Servant (42:1; 49:3; 50:10; 52:13), although Jewish scholars tend to identify the Servant as Israel itself.
In the New Testament, Isaiah is quoted or alluded to numerous times. New Testament writers unequivocally apply quotes from Isaiah 53 to Christ (Matthew 8:17; Mark 15:28; Luke 22:37; John 12:38-41; Acts 8:32-35; Romans 10:16; 1 Peter 2:24).
K. T. Sim |
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