Good Morning Loving Worshipers! Amen! we will focus on Our Daily Bread and Philippians 1:3-11. It begins with my heartfelt praise and as I think of you all and God's calling me to St. Matts. Man I love you all and serving together. I love how God unites and loves through us! We are becoming His dynamic movement. Praise God for that! We are learning to live sacrificially and love lavishly like Jesus. We are using our gifts to encourage and spur each other on and to grow His Church. PTL! We are becoming a House of Prayr for the Nations. PTL! What an awesome God we know and love and what a blessing that He has called us together and placed and gifted us for such a time as this! PTL and Amen! I do thank God for you and for all He is doing in and through us. I love how we are embracing and working on Proverbs 3:5-6 as we acknowledge God in all our ways or are working on that and working at not leaning on our own thinking but seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness and experiencing His adding all we need as we do.
Prepare your hearts to gather and worship, study and grow in Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring God's Word alive (1 Peter 2 and 3) and for us to be more than just hearers but doers of His Word, He has united us to go love, showing respect to all and uniting together to help us experience the love of Christ and to meet Him. Keep it up and keep seeking God for your part and stepping into it and don't stop praising and praying. Our God is worthy of all praise, glory and honor! He is hearing and answering our prayers and His Kingdom has come and His will is coming alive in, through and around us! PTL!
BTW...thanks for praying for me . God heard, used me, honored Ross' wishes and brought the Gospel alive. Pray for those who heard to be drawn and renewed in faith or even saved. That was Ross' desire. May it be ours too as we enter this week with and surrender and go live and love well in Christ! Amen!
Philippians 1:3-11
Paul’s and Prayer
3 Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. 4 Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, 5 for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. 6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
7 So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News. 8 God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus.
9 I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. 11 May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ[a]—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
ODB
Abounding Love
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6
At the of summer camp, my teenage self felt conspicuous as I stood alone in a group of campers. When one of them mocked me, I felt hurt. I ran back to my tent, pretending to sleep when the group leader checked on me. The next morning I avoided her attempt to talk about it.
She later wrote to me, helping me understand that God truly cared for me. She quoted from the apostle Paul: We can be “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). I felt like the apostle’s words were directed right to me.
Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, which he’d planted over a decade earlier, to encourage them to root their love for God and each other “in knowledge and depth of insight” (v. 9). God would carry on His work in and through them as He filled them “with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ” (v. 11). At the time I didn’t understand the original context, but I started to comprehend that my identity as one loved by God came from knowing and accepting the love of Jesus.
God desires that we receive His love and that it would abound in us more and more. As He fills us with His joy and peace, we’ll grow in the knowledge not only of Him but of His good work in us.
By Amy Boucher Pye
REFLECT & PRAY
How does knowing that God will complete His work in you shape you? How can you root your identity in Christ more deeply?
Creator God, You made me and love me. Please help me look to You always for love, joy, and help.
Paul writes to encourage his spiritual children whom he lovingly describes as “God’s holy people . . . who belong to Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:1 nlt). He’s praying they’ll mature in their faith and become more like Christ (vv. 9-11; see 1 Thessalonians 3:12). The apostle doesn’t simply want them to love each other; he wants them to overflow with God’s love (Philippians 1:9 nlt). Because God is love and He’s demonstrated His love by sending His Son to die for our sins, the apostle John commands us to love one another just as God loved us (1 John 4:7-12): “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect” (vv. 16-17 nlt ). Our identity as believers is rooted in knowing that God made us and loves us.
K.T. Sim
Connection Blogs
- Effective Intercession
The church will be revived, the Great Commission completed, and society transformed only if God’s people are faithful and earnest in prayer and obedient to his command “that requests, prayers, intercession and be made for everyone” (1 Timothy 2:1). Prayer is essential because it is the way God has chosen to work. It is his plan, not ours. When we work, we work. When we pray, God works!
Here are five qualities believers should have in order to be effective intercessors:
1. A clean heart and an obedient mind. In Psalm 66:18, David reminds us that God will not hear those who cherish sin in their hearts. James underscores that it is the righteous who are able to pray powerfully and effectively (James 5:16). And John declares that confidence before God is based upon our obeying his commands and doing what pleases him (1 John 3:21-22). None of us are ready to be intercessors before God until we have settled the issues of sin and obedience in our relationship with God. Either sin will hinder our prayers, or our prayers will hinder sin. To be effective, you must regularly ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and to deal with sin that he reveals.
2. Compassion. Jesus reached out to those around him and effectively touched their lives—not because he had a great program but because he had compassion. Matthew 9:36 reminds us that “when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
If you are not rooted in Christlike compassion, then ask Jesus for it. He lives in your heart and is willing that you should be motivated for ministry in the same way he is. Ask out of true desire. Ask in faith, and God will give you a heart of compassion toward others (Luke 11:9).
3. Persistence. Jesus told two parables to confirm that persistence is necessary in prayer—the parable of the friend at midnight and the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 11:5-13; 18:1-8). In these parables Jesus reminds us that securing the blessings of God for others is not something that will happen through casual or perfunctory prayers.
Again, it should be said that the very Jesus who taught us of the need to be persistent, and who himself prayed persistently, will help us to pray with persistence when our prayers are in line with his will (John 15:7-16). Continually ask Jesus to enable you to persevere in prayer.
4. Openness to opportunities. The apostle Paul was opportunity oriented in his approach to ministry. When asking the Colossians to pray for him, he invited them to pray “that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3). In writing to the Corinthians, he rejoiced: “A great door for effective work has opened to me” (1 Corinthians 16:9).
5. Dedication to praying with others. New Testament Christians often prayed together. Nearly two-thirds of the references to prayer in the book of Acts are accounts of believers praying together. In Matthew 18:19, Jesus encouraged mutual prayer when he promised that “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” Believers who pray together find their faith strengthened, their prayer lives expanded, and the effectiveness of their prayers multiplied.
Lord Jesus, You are the Ultimate Intercessor! Teach me to pray as You pray! Show me how to have a clean heart and an obedient mind so that You can use me for Your purposes. Fill me with compassion for the lost and the least! Train me in persistence so that I will not give up when I intercede! Keep me open to all of the possibilities You place in front of me and may I always be willing to pray with others as demonstrated by the Early Church!
Praise God that “from him and through him and to him are all things” (Rom. 11:36).
Thank God for being both your dwelling place and your destination.
Confess times that you have tried to live independently of his authority.
Commit yourself to offering your body “as [a] living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Rom. 12:1).
Ask God to help you in “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, [to] do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17).
Pray for all the unsaved persons in your city, that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11).
Prayer Pointer
“Prayer is hardest when it is hardest to pray.” —Anonymous
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.
Good Morning Loving Worshipers! Amen! we will focus on Our Daily Bread and Philippians 1:3-11. It begins with my heartfelt praise and as I think of you all and God's calling me to St. Matts. Man I love you all and serving together. I love how God unites and loves through us! We are becoming His dynamic movement. Praise God for that! We are learning to live sacrificially and love lavishly like Jesus. We are using our gifts to encourage and spur each other on and to grow His Church. PTL! We are becoming a House of Prayr for the Nations. PTL! What an awesome God we know and love and what a blessing that He has called us together and placed and gifted us for such a time as this! PTL and Amen! I do thank God for you and for all He is doing in and through us. I love how we are embracing and working on Proverbs 3:5-6 as we acknowledge God in all our ways or are working on that and working at not leaning on our own thinking but seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness and experiencing His adding all we need as we do.
Prepare your hearts to gather and worship, study and grow in Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring God's Word alive (1 Peter 2 and 3) and for us to be more than just hearers but doers of His Word, He has united us to go love, showing respect to all and uniting together to help us experience the love of Christ and to meet Him. Keep it up and keep seeking God for your part and stepping into it and don't stop praising and praying. Our God is worthy of all praise, glory and honor! He is hearing and answering our prayers and His Kingdom has come and His will is coming alive in, through and around us! PTL!
BTW...thanks for praying for me . God heard, used me, honored Ross' wishes and brought the Gospel alive. Pray for those who heard to be drawn and renewed in faith or even saved. That was Ross' desire. may it be ours too as we enter this
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