|
Saturday, December 14 2024
Good Morning Hope-Filled, Hope-Bringers! Amen! Today we light our first candle of Advent. The HOPE candle and our focus today is on hope. Jesus is the Hope of the World and we are sent to bring hope alive to the hopeless around us. Harvest prayer's blogs prays into Advent and our mission to live and love more like Jesus. Our other devos flow from Jesus' loving presence to hope and faithfulness we find in Christ as we live lives of integrity and faith before a watching world and work at bringing Hope and Love alive. You all know that we all have a role to play in God's Good News Delivery Co. and we are working on discovering and growing into those roles. We know how much God loves us and is molding and shaping and empowering us to go love well for such a time as this. He has great plans for you and us to discover and step into. PTL! And He goes with us and helps us to succeed and grow. What hope and love we know. We have assurance of eternal life in Christ and that flows to grateful service as we want to become more like Jesus and do more of what He has for us and keep moving towards that until He calls us home. So, what's your part and who are your partners? Who has God brought to your mind to pray for with our 5-5-5 challenge to pray for 5 people, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Is He stirring you to invite them in or go lovingly serve them? Keep seeking, knocking, joining and partnering to go bring Christ alive! He is the Hope of the World and God knows the world needs His Hope. We are His vessels and we get to go live and love like Jesus and make disciples in His name! PTL and Amen! And today is a special day of worship as we seed our going to bless in the name of Jesus! I can't wait to hear the stories God is about to write in and through you and us! Come Lord! Use us! May we bring You, our Hope, alive to those You are sending. Amen!
Harvest Prayer:
|
|
December 1 - First Sunday of Advent
Be Still and Know
|
|
|
Ask God for a fresh revelation of the significance of the incarnation. Commit to Him in prayer, your desire to be still this Advent season and know that He is God.
Thank You Father that Jesus became flesh and lived among us, and that His glory was revealed! Father, thank You for sending Jesus, Your own Son, in the likeness of sinful man, to be a sin offering for me, providing the way for me to become Your child. Jesus the Messiah is born!
You alone Lord Jesus are Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. It is in You alone, Lord Jesus that all the fullness of God dwells, and through You alone that I have been reconciled to God because of Your shed blood on the cross! I confess Lord Jesus, that You alone are the way to God the Father, you alone are the truth and the life. No longer am I alienated from God, but instead, because of Your sacrifice for me, I am now presented as holy in the Father’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation! Help me I pray to continue in my faith, established and standing firm. Empower me by Your Spirit, to convey this “gospel-hope” to those around me. May the light of Jesus and the gospel so shine from my life to others that they will turn and glorify You Father.
Forgive me, I pray for the ways that I have allowed the light of Christ in me, to be diminished--for You have said Lord Jesus that if the light within me is darkness, how great is that darkness! You Lord Jesus, who is the light of the world, and has entrusted me with the light of the gospel--shine through me!
Fill me with Your compassion for those around me, and help me to love like You love. Destroy complacency and the desire for comfort in me. Change me that I might be willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of others and the gospel. Open my eyes to the needs of those around me, and may I be one who invests in what is eternal.
By Your Spirit, may I always be prepared to give the reason for the hope that I have. You, Lord Jesus are my hope. But may I always do so with gentleness and respect, that the incarnation of the gospel may be lived out through me. As I enter this season, celebrating Your coming Lord Jesus--the first Advent, I pray that the wonder of Your coming to earth would capture my heart once again. Fill me with child-like awe and inexpressible joy. I ask this in Your mighty name. The name of Jesus, Amen.
(John 1:14; Romans 8:3; John 1:12; Isaiah 9:6; John 14:6; Colossians 1:19-23; Matthew 5:16; Matthew 6:23; 1 John 2:15; Matthew 9:36; 1 Peter 3:15)
--By Tiece L. King, author of the Pray the Word series: Pray the Word: 90 Prayers That Touch the Heart of God, Pray the Word: 31 Prayers That Touch the Heart of God, Pray the Word for Your Church. These resources are available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
|
|
- Praise God, who is a refuge for the poor and needy (Isa.25:4).
- Thank him for caring about those who are in desperate circumstances.
- Confess times when you have not shown compassion to the needy.
- Commit yourself to serving others in new and stretching ways.
- Ask God to provide those opportunities for you.
- Ask God to anoint the fellowship in your congregation with the Holy Spirit. Pray that any friction between members will be addressed and healed. Pray that newcomers will find a refuge in your congregation.
|
|
|
Sarah Young:
Charles Stanley
TWFYT:
UR: What Do You Need
[The Lord] has shown you . . . what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8 (NIV)
This past Christmas at church we decided to do something different. During the first week of Advent the sanctuary was set up as normal: wreaths and candles in the windows, a decorated tree up front, a full crèche scene, and candles for each Sunday of Advent with the words Peace, Love, Joy, and Hope in front of them. Every week that followed, though, something was removed. First the wreaths came down from the windows. Then the tree. Eventually, by Christmas Eve, only Mary and Joseph were left.
During the service, the children were called up to the simple scene that remained. But before they placed Jesus in the manger, they were asked why we took down all the decorations except Mary and Joseph. A young boy responded, “Because we don’t need them.” He was asked, “What do we need then?”
His answer put tears in our eyes. “Peace, love . . .” And the congregation helped him finish, “joy and hope.” With that, baby Jesus — who is the source of peace, love, joy, and hope — was placed in the manger. Christmas is not the bows or the presents, the cards or the decorations; it is the celebration of the birth of our Savior, God incarnate. And for that, all we need is an open heart.
Today's Prayer
Holy One, help us to remember the simplicity into which you came. Remind us that the only necessary preparations for this day are for our hearts to be open to receive you. Amen.ODB:
Good Reputation for Christ
Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16
READ Titus 2:6-8
|
|
|
|
|
|
During his college days at Florida State University, Charlie Ward was a two-sport student athlete. In 1993, the young quarterback won the Heisman Trophy as the country’s best college American football player, and he also starred on the basketball team.
During a pregame talk one day, his basketball coach used some foul language as he talked to his players. He noticed that Charlie “wasn’t comfortable,” and said, “Charlie, what’s up?” Ward said, “Coach, you know, Coach Bowden [the football coach] doesn’t use that kind of language, and he gets us to play awfully hard.”
Charlie’s Christlike character allowed him to gently speak to his basketball coach about this issue. In fact, the coach told a reporter: “It’s almost as if there was an angel looking at you” when he talked to Charlie.
A good reputation with unbelievers and a faithful witness for Christ are hard to maintain. But at the same time, believers in Jesus can grow to be more like Him as He helps and guides us. In Titus 2, younger men, and by extension all believers, are called to “be self-controlled” (v. 6) and to “show integrity . . . and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned” (vv. 7-8).
When we live that way in Christ’s strength, we’ll not only honor Him but also build a good reputation. Then as God provides the wisdom we need, people will have reason to hear what we say.
By Dave Branon
REFLECT & PRAY
|
|
How does a good reputation help you influence others? What will help you grow in Christlike character?
Dear God, please help me to grow in character that reflects You and honors You.
For further study, read Evangelism—Reaching Out through Relationships.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Titus was one of the young men that Paul mentored in ministry. Unlike Timothy (see Acts 16:1-3), we know little about Titus. We’re not told how he and Paul met or how he came to have the apostle as his mentor. Titus is mentioned ten times in 2 Corinthians (2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16, 17, 23; 12:18 [twice]) and two times in Galatians (2:1, 3)—solidifying our picture of him as an important member of Paul’s team. The only other mention of Titus (aside from the letter addressed to him) is in 2 Timothy 4:9-10, where Paul writes to Timothy: “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.”
Bill Crowder |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LISTEN ONLINE
