: Bread Ministry 10-12 (we will be helping to get around street work and could use some help)
6-7:30 pizza and ice cream party as we reconvene or. dinner gatherings for the Fall.
. Clothing Closet 9-12
is National Back to Church--who ya bringing/inviting to come and see that God is good, alive and active here?(We will be wrapping up our study of the book of James with James 5)
Good MorningPraying Servants!'s devotionals and blogs lead to this salutation and truth with some great insight and teachings about our roles in God's Good News Delivery Company and as a House of Prayer pray-er.What's God saying to you? How will you pray, prepare and follow Jesusas you are and doing what you are made to do?Talk to God about that and process with your prayer/accountability partners (you have a few of those, right? If not start praying for some and reach out and invite in.)
Startwith the Connection blog and prayer points. God has a plan He created you to be part of. PTL and seek His direction and marching orders for. The Upper Room talks about doing what you can with what you've been given and according to your lot in life. Your role could be as simple as greeting people with a wave and smile or praying for God's Kingdom to come and will to be done or asking for His help to discover and step into your part. Our Daily Bread reminds us that when we are weak, He is strong and that we need to ask for His strength and to then be willing to receive and operate from his strength. Remember He is God Almighty and you are not. We all need Him and His help. Humble yourself before him and receive just what you need and He has prepared for you. And The Word for Youreminds us to prepare well for life here on earth and in Christ. God's always up to something new and He is leading us from glory to glory, one way to the next as we grow to become more like Jesus and do more of what we are created to do in Jesus' way. You're working on those, right? We need to keep progressing and moving forward in Christ. He does have perfect plans just for you so rejoice, seek Him , humble yourself, and follow well and with your teammates too. Amen! All God expects of you is to put on Jesus' easy yoke and follow Him to become more of who you are created to be and do more of what you are created to do as you move from one way to another to the next in Christ.Seek Him and do what you can with what you've been given for.Amen!
Connection Blogs:
- The Work that Blesses
Genesis 2:15 states, “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”
The first thing God did the moment He created Adam was to put Him to work! Could it be true that the first focus of intimacy with God is bound up in the work God assigns us?
For too long in my own prayer life, I allowed the needs of others to dictate my prayer agenda. If I heard of someone sick or in crisis, they were who I typically interceded for. This did not follow the pattern of Scripture. Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to petition first “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” The needle of His compass pointed toward what God wanted to advance His kingdom. Not surprisingly the majority of Jesus’ recorded prayer times relate to His next step in ministry (Lk. 3:21, 6:12-13, 9:28-31, 10:2, 22:41-43). He particularly prayed about His assignment.
This truth carried tremendous implications for organizing my prayer life. I had to make my assignment the first thing for which I interceded. You can identify your assignment in two ways. First, if God has given you a position of authority, everyone under you is your assignment. You are to be their servant in presenting them perfect in Christ (Col. 1:28). Second, you should identify what you do that blesses everyone around you. If you are a blessing, then it is actually God who is working through you to impact others. Once you identify your assignment you know more clearly the direction in which to focus your prayers, keeping in mind that God will also place a burden upon your heart to intercede for other people and situations in your path.
Father, when You breathed life into Adam, You called him to tend Your garden. Give me a clear focus as I pray for Your will to be done on earth, and lead me into my part of this kingdom work! Open my spiritual eyes wide so that I can see the people You have placed under my authority and in my path so that I might pray fervently for them. Show me how the things I do for You are blessing others so that I might pursue those things more diligently. Give me a passion to be a kingdom intercessor!
Give highest praise to God as the all-sufficient one, “El-Shaddai.”
Thank God for being the strength of your heart and your inheritance forever (Ps. 73:26).
Confess to him your reliance on material wealth or possessions to make you feel secure and satisfied.
Commit yourself to saying, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you” (73:25).
Ask God to help you grasp how completely his love and presence surround you in this day.
Ask God to reveal to you one person whom you should invite to worship this week or at least invite over for a meal or a cup of coffee.
Prayer Pointer
“It appears that God has so ordered life and the world that our praying is a vital part of his redemptive plan for individuals and the entire universe.” —Maxie Dunnam
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayerleader.com. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. - 1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)
My friend Dave suffers from severe Parkinson’s disease. He now needs a wheelchair, speaks in a whisper, and cannot lift his head. Although Dave has limitations, every weekday he gives what he has to hundreds of people in his community.
In the afternoon before school lets out, Dave wheels his chair down to the end of the driveway and waves to the buses filled with school children. When he feels strong enough, Dave tips his cap to the boys and girls who look forward to seeing their “driveway friend.” On most days the bus drivers slow down so the children can cheer and call out greetings like “I love you, Dave.” Dave was once a healthy man and an athlete. Even though he is now dependent on the people who once depended on him, Dave hasn’t stopped giving to others.
God doesn’t ask us to give what we don’t have, but God does expect us to give what we do have. Even when we feel cast
aside by declining health, limited finances, family estrangement, or other adversities, we still have gifts and talents God can use to minister to others. Remembering Dave’s wave, we can ask God to show us how to use what we have been given to bless others.
's Prayer
Dear God, help us to appreciate all that you have given us and to use our lives to bless others. Amen.
Her husband’s death began a period of transition for Nora. She took over his hardware business and cared for their three children on her own. “Be strong,” friends often told her. But what does that mean? she’d think. That I must deliver without fail in my responsibilities?
God gave great responsibilities to Othniel in a time of transition for the people of Israel. As discipline for the nation’s idolatry, God had given them “into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim . . . to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years” (Judges 3:8). Under the cruel king of Mesopotamia, the Israelites “cried out to the Lord,” and “he raised up for them a deliverer” (v. 9)—Othniel, whose name means “God’s strength.”
As the first judge of Israel, Othniel had no predecessor to help him. This military leader had to guide the Israelites back to living out their covenant relationship with God and defend them from their enemies. But because “the Spirit of the Lord came on him” (v. 10), he succeeded. With God’s strength sustaining Othniel’s leadership, “the land had peace for forty years, until [he] died” (v. 11).
How can we truly “be strong”? It’s by knowing we’re not strong and by trusting God to give us His strength. His “grace is sufficient for [us], for [His] power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God’s strength works through us, doing things only He can do.
By Karen Huang
REFLECT & PRAY
How have you tried to “be strong”? How does Othniel’s story impact your understanding of strength?
Father God, please enable me to rely on Your strength.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Judges 2:10-19 describes a pattern throughout the book of Judges. When the people no longer “acknowledge[d] the Lord” or “remember[ed] the mighty things he had done for [them]” (v. 10 nlt), they descended into apostasy (abandoned their faith). So God would side with Israel’s enemies to defeat them (v. 15). Then He’d respond to the Israelites’ “groaning” (v. 18) by raising judges to save them. They were given safety while the judge was alive (v. 18), but once the judge died, the pattern would repeat itself (v. 19).
Judges 3:7-11 describes an example of this pattern. God’s anger led to the Israelites being under subjection for eight years (v. 8). When they cried out to God, He raised up Othniel to rescue them through the power of the Holy Spirit (vv. 9-10). As God gave strength to Othniel, we also can rely on His strength to do through us what He alone can do.
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