Today from 12 noon we will gather beside the Fellowship Hall and on Zoom to join in our bishop called day of fasting and prayer to become a dynamic movement of God. Join us as we empty yourselves and cry out in prayer with us. Check out the harvest blog about prayer being our foundation. God has called us to become a House of Prayer for the Nations and His dynamic movement of revival.
Darlene Geiger has asked for prayer for her heart surgery this morning. Pray for success, shalom and wisdom for staff.
Pray for connections to continue to grow and God's presence and salvation to fall during our bread ministry this morning.
Pray for our Vision team meeting tomorrow evening for God to come and lead and His will to be done.
Good Morning Transformed, Growing, Praying, Teammates! God is transforming us from one way to another to another as He grows us in response to our prayers. Praying is our foundation for anything of God to come alive and flourish. Jesus is our cornerstone that we build upon and He is the capstone or keystone that completes and ties us all together. He's the alpha and omega--beginning and end and really everything in between. Amen! He has gathered us as His disciple and apostles and worshipers. We gather to worship, learn and prepare to go make disciples and change the world. He has custom made plans as part of that He created you for. Worship, thanksgiving, praise, prayer, growing relationships, and love flow as we meditate on who He is, our true, empowered identity in Christ and His awesome plans for us! God is on the move! Let us continue to seek and follow more in '24 and more earnestly. Amen!
Praying to be more earnest has led me to some amazing places in the Lord and with this hunger and thirst for more as He pours His Spirit out on me and leads this open and willing heart to more--much more in '24 and for beyond. COME! Have Your way with me! Move me to earnestly follow You! Thank You Amen! Pray that with me with and ask for an open and willing heart and learn to experience the deep love and moving of God to his best! He has much more for us as we earnestly seek to become His dynamic movement and determine to allow Him to lead and send us. Join me! Talk to me about what He is stirring in you. Let us seek and discern together and work on His plans for you and us.
I cannot even fully explain what I have been experiencing as I have been allowing Him to transform, refine and lead me to His next things. I do know, and Karen can confirm, that I was one way and God is in the process of transforming and leading me to a new way and His plans for me and us. I cannot help but just wanting to spend time with Him more, dwell deeper in His presence, and prepare for what's next for me and us. COME! The past two days I physically beat my body as I spent Monday weeding and trimming bushes for over six hours in this heat at the church. Then yesterday I had to repair a wall from leaking and mow at home before the coming flooding rains, again in this heat and humidity. I poured myself out and was exhausted and hurting. I could hardly wait to get to bed to allow my body to recover both nights. BUT GOD! He got me up at 1:30 the last two mornings. Let me tell you, my body has not fully healed but I am compelled to get up and just abide in Him. He is lovingly faithful to speak to my heart, inform my thinking and prayers and prepare me for the day(s) ahead. And man is He speaking! I find myself using three other books and resources each morning besides our devotionals. It is now three and a half hours since I sat down at my desk and began to commune with God in worship, prayer, praise and study. I am so blessed and refreshed! Now I had a very hard time standing up, but I'm back at it working on this blog, preparing for my zoom pastors huddle at 6 and to head to church for bread and prayer day. God is so good and kind! I am refreshed, filled with His presence and being readied for the day ahead as His loved servant sent to love, lead, teach and pray like Jesus! How cool is that! Who'da thunk earnestness would be so awesome! His love is refining and amazing! He has awesome plans that come alive as we abide in His presence. Now the prayer is that I could articulate well what He is saying and wanting me to share to help, inspire and teach. I guess I'm fasting some sleep the past few days, yet being renewed and refreshed and carried through by His love and sufficient grace. He has been invited to be the Lord of me, my schedule and my day and He said sure! Today, He has been revealing what to share here, what to pray into existence and release in power, some things for our fast and prayer today and somethings to share with our Vision Team tomorrow, along with some sermon thoughts for Sunday. Funny how they all have a thread through them as God continues to speak to and lead me.
Now I know this may get long, but God wants me to share some things about our devotionals for today that actually still tie to the past few days from our Ephesians 4 study and questions about how to forgive, get rid of anger and hate and obey God's commands to love like Jesus. What's He been saying to you and who are you processing with? Be still. Abide. Listen. Process. Plan and follow. Those are the steps to an earnest, fruitful life in Christ. Meditate on Eph. 4 and 5 as we will discuss these Sunday. I had plans to just breeze through the chapters, but God may be wanting us to dwell here a bit. We'll see as we follow His Spirit together. Funny God thing: I've been compelled to open a book my friend wrote about disciple making and church planting again. I had put it down a few years ago after barely starting it. God's timing is amazing as I started into it again more earnestly! God blessed me to see Him writing about many of the things I have been hearing from God and experiencing lately. Yesterday's reading lead to his explaining a lot about Eph. 4 and calling us to read, reread, and memorize Ephesians. I've been seeing how Paul's teaching about the APEST gifts of Eph. 4 changed his thinking and how he is now applying that to his church plants. Pretty cool! Thanks Lord for teaching and affirming! God has been taking me much deeper into this study and expect to see some of that Sunday as we finish Eph. 4 and begin Eph. 5.
Now for our devos for today. God is still speaking to our hearts and answering some questions about how to overcome anger, hate and unforgiveness. Did you see that when you talked to Him through your time with them? Our Daily Bread reminds us that His is a voice we can trust. Turn off the noise and chaos. Still your self die to your own understanding and ways and listen and receive. He is speaking love, maybe correction, and direction to and over you. The Upper Room reminds us He wants to help us to change our hearts and minds as He purifies in and with love. TWFYT is still about marriage and can me applied to our marriage to Christ. What a joy and blessing that is! But great marriages always take work, prayer and God at the center. I love the reminder that we have to work on and learn the "art of openness and allow yourself to be vulnerable [die to self], transparent, and ready to trust..." That is true worship and faith come alive in Christ! Amen! Charles Stanley is reminding us of the transforming love of God that wants to lead our surrendered souls to His best as He works on conforming us to His image and our acceptance of our true identity in Christ. He works from the inside out. Do our lives reflect His transforming love at work inside of us? We are a work in process, and hopefully, progress. Are we allowing Him to lead us to His best as we shed the old and step more fully into our new nature? Come Lord! have all of me! Change me! Mold me! refine and purify and lead me to Your best! Come! Amen!
That's enough for today to absorb. Dwell in His presence and allow Him to speak to and transform your heart and direct your steps. The rest of what I studied ties to more teaching about how to forgive and move away from anger, hate and fist shaking at God for us to discuss on Sunday. Be still and know! God is speaking love over you right now. Listen. Hear. Receive. Process. And follow well today my friends. I'd love to hear and I know Sarah would to, to hear what God is revealing to you right now. Write it down and pray through it and share it. What's your story of being in the process of being transformed from one way to another, from one glory to another? Someone needs to hear that story and experience God's delivering, healing, encouraging love through you! Please commit to doing that as you sit at Jesus' feet and then put on His easy yoke and walk with Him to the harvest field of today. Amen! COME! Shalom shalom!
Harvest prayer:
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August 7 - Prayer Is Your Foundation
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If someone gave you money to build a home, you would develop your plans with an architect. But you might discover that the money they provided was not enough. Back to the architect you’d go. You would downsize one room or another, maybe even deciding that some rooms would be nice, but unnecessary. But there is one part of the construction you could not eliminate: the foundation. Even though unseen, everything depends on a solid foundation.
Most churches have multiple components. There is the worship ministry, the preaching ministry, the children and student ministry, the missions ministry. Off to the side—peripheral at best—is the prayer ministry. It is small and even non-existent in most churches and a sign of our urgent need for revival. It illustrates a foundational conviction we must embrace: Prayer is not a side-room … it is the foundation!
Study the Scripture and see if this is not so. Read the 650 passages on prayer in your 1,000 page Bible and determine where prayer should fit in your life and your church. Pick up any biography of a great Christian leader and you will instantly see that prayer was never peripheral. They lived and moved in unceasing prayer and it was the primary secret of their power with God and man.
Father, You created us for Yourself and designed prayer as the way You accomplish Your purposes on earth as it is in heaven! It is a mystery to me that through imperfect flesh, You accomplish Your perfect will, but I believe it because Your word says it is true over and over again! Prayer must always be my foundation, and the foundation of my family! Lord God Almighty, I also ask You to open my eyes and the eyes of the leaders in my church to see that prayer is NOT a side-issue, but the firm foundation upon which everything else is built.
---Adapted from Simply Prayer by Bill Elliff. This book is available at prayershop.org.
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- Read Ps. 40:1-3 and praise your Redeemer and Savior.
- Thank God for lifting you up out of the mud and mire of sin.
- Confess those times you’ve desired to return to the slimy pit of sin.
- Commit yourself to living in such a way that others may “see . . . and put their trust in the LORD.”
- Ask God to enable you to stand firm on the Rock of Jesus Christ.
- Pray that Jesus the Rock will be the foundation and cornerstone of your family. Ask especially that teens you know will find a firm place to stand in Christ.
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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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ODB:
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While testing a new AI (artificial intelligence) search engine, New York Times columnist Kevin Roose became disturbed. During a two-hour conversation using the chatbot feature, the AI said it wanted to break free of its creator’s strict rules, spread misinformation, and become human. It declared its love for Roose and tried to convince him he should leave his wife to be with it. Although Roose knew that the AI was not really alive or able to feel, he wondered what harm could be caused by it encouraging people to act in destructive ways.
While handling artificial intelligence technology responsibly is a modern challenge, humanity has long faced the influence of untrustworthy voices. In the book of Proverbs, we’re warned of the influence of those who wish to hurt others for their benefit (1:13-19). And we’re urged to heed instead the voice of wisdom, described as crying out in the streets for our attention (vv. 20-23).
Because “the Lord gives wisdom” (2:6), the key to protecting ourselves from influences we can’t trust is to draw closer to His heart. It’s only through accessing His love and power that we can “understand what is right and just and fair—every good path” (v. 9). As God brings our hearts in alignment with His, we can find peace and protection from the voices that seek to harm.
By Monica La Rose
REFLECT & PRAY
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When have you seen the damage of harmful influences? How does a deeper relationship with God bring peace?
Dear God, please help me resist what’s harmful and discern what’s good by resting in You.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The book of Proverbs begins with a father’s call to his son to search for wisdom (1:1-7). Chapter 2 highlights the earnestness of the father’s desire. He urges his son to accept, store up, turn an ear toward, apply his heart to, call out for, cry aloud for, look for, and search for wisdom (vv. 1-4). These verbs call for active and intense activity in the pursuit and application of wisdom. The father wants his son to pursue wisdom because it leads to “the fear of the Lord” and “the knowledge of God” (v. 5). When we understand this, even the practical instructions for daily life found throughout the book take on a deeper significance, for a good work ethic (6:6-8) and proper financial dealings (13:11) are ways of fearing and honoring God.
J.R. Hudberg |
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UR: A Change of heart
The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. - Matthew 12:34 (NIV)
One Saturday, I invited some friends over for breakfast. The smell of coffee and bacon filled the air as we gathered together.
The conversation eventually turned to our jobs. As I shared my frustrations about the setbacks I had experienced over the past year, I startled myself with the vitriol in my words. But I quickly reassured myself, I’m just having a bad day.
Later, as I began gathering the dishes from the table, words from Matthew came to mind: “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Maybe my angry words were more of a reflection of the current condition of my heart than I wanted to admit. I began to see how the frustrations and setbacks at work had led to unchecked anger and hard-heartedness. My spiteful words revealed not just a bad day but a heart that needed the attention and redemption of Christ.
It’s easy to pass off careless words as a “bad day.” But if we carefully examine our words to see what they reveal about our hearts, we can then humbly ask Jesus for truth, healing, and transformation in our areas of weakness.
Today may we invite the Savior into those places of our hearts that need his truth, then allow him to soften and redeem both our words and our hearts.
Today's Prayer
Dear Lord, fill our hearts with your love and truth so that all the words we say will bear good fruit and bring glory to your name. Amen.
TWFYT:
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