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Friday, April 11 2025
Good Morning Praying Friends! Get your worship on and join us for a powerful time of worship, praise, study and praying this morning at 10!
God has really been speaking to me and us about becoming a House of Prayer for the Nations and about becoming prayer warriors. Some of us have assignments in His Good News Delivery Co. as pray-ers and intercessors. However, we are all called to pray. Jesus' disciples asked Him to tach them to pray and He gave the model we can follow that we call the Lord's Prayer. Pray without ceasing is a command for all of us. Today we will learn more about prayer and the practice of it. Check out the blogs and devos below, prayerfully. God is teaching us to pray and wanting to answer our prayers! The prayers of a righteous person (anyone clothed in Christ and His righteousness/us!) are powerful and effective! Amen! May we be a people of prayer and of power because we pray! Amen! See you soon! Start to prepare as you prayerfully engage with God through this song: Looks Like Somebody Prayed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-0QXi7cLwI
Connections Blogs:
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March 23 - Partnership with God in Kingdom Praying
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Consider today these principles of kingdom praying:
There really is power in our praying. God has chosen to accomplish His purposes in this world in response to the prayers of His people. Does this mean He is powerless without our praying? Not at all. God can do anything He wants at any time in any way He chooses—with or without our prayers. Yet He has made a holy decision to release His power in response to the prayers of His people. Thus, He gives us this awesome role of dynamic partnership with Him. His power does the work that makes the difference, saves, and transforms. But our prayers release His power.
The reach of prayer is total. Prayer can reach into every life and every home in your neighborhood, into every town, city, state, and nation—even into all 237 nations of the world. In response to our intercession, God can turn the hearts of people toward the gospel. Through our partnership with Him in prayer, He will encourage believers we have never seen. Our prayers can reach into places we have never been and never will go and impact them for Christ. God is able!
Every believer can have impact for Christ through prayer. Through kingdom praying, every Christian of every age, every race, and every circumstance can have great effect for Christ where we live and around the world. Everyone cannot go to another country to personally introduce people to Jesus. Some can and do, but everyone cannot. Everyone cannot financially have impact for Christ. Some have that ability, but not all. Yet every believer can pray and make a difference for Jesus near at hand and around the world. Imagine the extraordinary release of God’s power that would take place if all believers of all ages were mobilized in united prayer!
Kingdom praying takes us into the realm of spiritual warfare. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12, NIV). Surely, no one would argue with Paul about the existence of spiritual forces of evil in the world. Daily we encounter and observe some degree of the unseen, sinister, divisive, deceptive, destructive forces that demonstrate the power of Satan’s presence. The “powers of this dark world” constantly clash with the love, power, and will of God. There is no doubt but that Satan seeks the destruction of the people of God and the work of God. There really is a war.
While Satan intends destruction, God intends the spiritual construction of His people. Our loving Lord envisions and desires joyful worship of Himself and transformation of the worshippers. Satan, at the same time, envisions leading each and all who will follow him into disobedience and rejection of God.
Kingdom praying calls forth laborers to go into the fields. Jesus Himself instructed us: “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into this harvest field” (Mt. 9:38, NIV). We desperately need laborers where we live and to the ends of the earth to witness, teach, and live out Christ’s love and redemption obediently and faithfully. Surely God is calling more laborers than are hearing and responding. Through employing prayer as strategic kingdom praying, we can do our part in praying forth those whom God is calling.
--Adapted from Giving Ourselves to Prayer (An Acts 6:4 Primer for Ministry) edited by Dan Crawford; (Chapter 73: Kingdom Praying by Minette Drumwright Pratt. This book is available at prayershop.org. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
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- Praise God that he is the creator of prayer.
- Give thanks because he gives you an audience with himself whenever you choose to pray.
- Confess any misuse or neglect of prayer.
- Commit yourself to making prayer a priority in your life.
- Ask God to lead you to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that [you] may receive mercy and find grace to help [you] in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
- Pray for the rights of Christians to be protected as they speak out for Jesus Christ. Remember especially Christian brothers and sisters who are being severely persecuted for their faith.
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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.
Sarah Young:
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I to We Devo:
ODB
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I love the idea of stillness. Of quiet. Of resting in the refuge of God’s care (Psalm 46:1). And an often-quoted passage from Psalm 46 teaches us that quieting our hearts, our minds, and our souls is integral to knowing God: “Be still, and know that I am God” (v. 10).
But being still isn’t easy, is it? Being quiet—and especially trying to still our hearts before God—can sometimes seem almost impossible. Why is that?
One of the most basic laws of physics tells us that “objects in motion tend to stay in motion.” So shifting from constant motion, activity, and obligation isn’t easy because it involves letting the momentum of our activity come to rest. We might think of it like a boat’s wake: even as a boat tries to stop, the momentum of its wake—the waves it caused that are now catching up to the still boat—still roll beneath, pushing it along.
If you recognize the value of stillness but struggle to get there, that’s one reason why. Our activities and overall pace are like that “object in motion.” So give yourself plenty of space and grace as you sit before God and rest in Him. It may take some time for the waves of your spiritual “wake” to wash past you, to settle into being quiet before Him.
By Adam R. Holz
REFLECT & PRAY
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What keeps you from being quiet before God? How will you make time to intentionally be still?
Father, we live in a noisy world, full of activity. Please help me to learn to be quiet before You, to wait out the waves of my soul and trust that You’re present.
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Psalm 46 considers two primary sources of human fear: natural disasters (vv. 2-3) and the chaos of war (v. 6). In contrast to the seas that “roar and foam” (natural disasters) is the “river whose streams make glad the city of God” (vv. 3-4). This city is Jerusalem. Theologian Kevin R. Warstler tells us the river is likely a metaphor for “God’s presence and blessings that fill Jerusalem and flow to other nations” (CSB Study Bible). And though the nations may be “in uproar” (the second source of fear), God “lifts his voice, the earth melts” (v. 6). He also “makes wars cease” (v. 9). In each case, God’s presence means safety. “The God of Jacob is our fortress” (vv. 7, 11).
Tim Gustafson |
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My Prayer Starters book:
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