Worship at 10 today live and on Zoom. Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday (Zoomers prepare your crackers and juice) We are also collecting for Everlasting Life Ministries.
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Good Morning Thirsting after God, Sold Out, Worshipers of our Ever-Present God! May that be me and Your people Lord. Set us on fire for You and Your ways. May we draw close as we trust and follow You. May we be worshipers in Spirit and Truth today. Come! Fill us to overflowing and send us to be Your vessels of transformation. Revive us and our land! Thank You for being with us always and for wanting to grow us and change the world through us for Your glory. Come! Amen!
Oh what a glorious day this is shaping up to be as we gather to worship and commune with God and each other, reload, and go to live and love more like Jesus. PTL! God has some custom made plans for you, His set apart child! Amen! Hunger and thirst after Him and His ways. Humble yourself and be available and move towards being fully His. Oh what a day this can be and will be as we earnestly pursue Christ and our created purposes. Yes COME! Produce good and lasting fruit in and through us. Amen!
I'd love for you to interact on your own and with some friends with the devotionals I used this morning and in Gal 5 that we will discuss this morning during worship. God has threaded this together for me as verification that as we surrender fully and seek to follow Him earnestly, He will lead us to the green pastures beside the still waters and restore our souls and then inform our steps as He leads us to His perfect custom made plans. Amen! We begin with Harvest Prayers blogs about revival in our souls and churches and among the people of God as we cry out for Him to come and heal our land. Then we thread through some great devotionals about our parts of crying out, praying, receiving and going to live and love more like Jesus. That will change the world! Amen! He has great plans for you, me and us and His unified Body that are budding and coming to life in these end of times. Trust Him. Prepare your hearts. Determine to seek and follow well. May He be glorified in all we think, say and do as we live a life of sold out worship for His glory alone! Amen! What's He preparing you for as your part in His Good News Delivery Company? What will you do about that? Who are your teammates? How can we pray for and help each other to move towards our fuller created potential and God's purposes for us for such a time as this? COME Lord! prepare and send me! Amen!
Harvest:
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October 6 - DAY 10 OF 40 DAYS OF PRAYER FOR OUR NATION
Praying For Revival In The Church
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“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15 NIV).
Oswald Smith relates: “Several members of Jonathan Edwards’ church had spent the whole night in prayer before he preached his memorable sermon, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ The Holy Ghost was so mightily poured out, and God so manifest in holiness and majesty during the preaching of that sermon, that the elders threw their arms around the pillars of the church and cried, ‘Lord, save us, we are slipping down to hell!’”
Not many churches are calling their people to spend an entire night in prayer seeking God in preparation for Him to show up in their midst. Yet, here we find a powerful example of just a few members of a church “preparing in prayer” prior to the preaching of a message about sin. And, the Spirit showed up so powerfully in Jonathan Edwards’ church that even church leaders were convicted of their sins.
Merciful Father, we are a sinful people saved by the grace of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ! You made this salvation possible through Your kindness and love. Help us not to be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that by testing, we may discern Your good, acceptable, and perfect will. May the churches in our nation repentantly cry out to You as the Psalmist in Psalm 85:6: “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you!”
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- Ask the Spirit to help you understand the power of the One we are addressing in prayer so that our faith will grow and we will begin to pray in a way that moves the hand of God towards reviving His people.
- Confess any sin that has compromised your life with God.
- Ask God to have mercy on His people and move in power in your church in response to repentant, fervent prayer!
- Pray through revival Psalms such as Psalms 63, 64, and 80 and petition the Lord for revival with both variety and the power of Scripture behind your requests.
- Ask God to awaken His people to the reality of His presence in our midst and in doing so, transform and shape our lives into the character of Christ.
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Connection Prayer Devotions Sign Up
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Sarah Young:
Upper Room Close Communion
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. - Revelation 3:20 (NIV)
On a recent Sunday morning, as the worship service was about to begin,
I saw a toddler a few rows in front of me curled up tight in the arms of his father. The small child leaned in so close to his father’s face that it seemed as though they were breathing the same breath. I could see the love they shared. Then the child pushed closer still and kissed his father’s cheek.
This scene made me think about Communion in a new way. Communion is not just about recognizing Christ’s sacrificial gift or simply confessing our sin and asking for his wonderful grace and forgiveness. It is also about coming in close and feeling the warm presence of Christ as he offers us new life.
Because of this simple demonstration of love between father and child, Communion will now forever bring me closer to Christ’s deep, abiding love. Christ desires close communion with us, not just at these special times but each and every day.
Today's Prayer
In the special times and in our everyday living, O Christ, may we feel your abiding presence breathing new life into us. Amen.
Chuck Swindoll:
Our Daily Bread
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There are fourteen billion trees in the state of Michigan, most of them quite ordinary by most standards. Yet the state hosts an annual “Big Tree Hunt,” a contest to identify those trees that are oldest and biggest, trees that can be honored as a living landmark. The contest elevates ordinary trees to another level: inside any forest could be an award-winner, just waiting to be noticed.
Unlike most people, God always notices the ordinary. He cares about the what and whom that others overlook. God sent a common man named Amos to Israel during the reign of King Jeroboam. Amos exhorted his people to turn from evil and seek justice but was ostracized and told to be quiet. “Get out, you seer!” they said with scorn. “Go back to the land of Judah . . . and do your prophesying there” (Amos 7:12). Amos responded, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’ ” (vv. 14-15).
God knew and noticed Amos when he was just a common shepherd, tending to flocks and trees. Hundreds of years later, Jesus noticed and called out the ordinary Nathanael (John 1:48) and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:4-5) near the fig and sycamore trees. No matter how obscure we feel, He sees us, loves us, and uses us for His purposes.
By Karen Pimpo
REFLECT & PRAY
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Why is it sometimes difficult to believe that God sees you as an individual? How does His awareness communicate His love?
Dear God, thank You for loving me, even when I feel overlooked.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Amos (760-750 bc) and Hosea (760-722 bc) were two of the twelve minor prophets sent to minister to the Northern Kingdom of Israel during its final forty years. Denying that he’s a professional prophet, Amos says he’s merely “a shepherd” and “took care of sycamore-fig trees” (Amos 7:14). A citizen of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Amos was sent as a missionary (vv. 12-13) to warn Israel of God’s judgment for her covenantal unfaithfulness (2:6-9:15). Amos is just a layman God used to deliver His message to His people.
K. T. Sim |
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Joyce Meyers
Charles Stanley:
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