Our 40 Days of Prayer & Fasting are almost over! To conclude this special season in the life of our church, we are having an all night prayer gathering from 8:00pm Friday, November 17^th until 7:15am Saturday, November 18^th. Learn more and sign up on the event page for a time to come pray with us.

Begin with Adoration

This week we are going to continue to let the great hymns of the Church teach us about adoration. After reading the lyrics to this hymn, use it like an Old Testament Psalm, allowing the words to become your own words of adoration and praise.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Robert Robertson (1735-1790)

Continue with Confession

This week, we will trust the Spirit to use Proverbs 28:13 to prompt our confession. The power of sin is in its “secrecy” where it holds us captive to thoughts like “if someone really knew they would not love me” or “I am the only one with such a wicked heart” or even “I don’t know that God can forgive me again.” Every one of these statements is a lie. Proverbs 28:13 is true:

Proverbs 28:13

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

As the Spirit brings any sin to mind, confess it (agree with God that it is sin) and turn from it (repent). Thank God that He forgives our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness on the basis of the finished work of Jesus and the promise of 1 John 1:9.

Now offer words of Thanksgiving

Remember last week we began a list of things we are grateful for as we look back on the year 2017. Looking at the past year, continue to add one to two things to your “2017 Thankful List” to be reviewed on Thanksgiving Day.

Continuing in thanksgiving, Psalm 116:12 says…

We render “thanks and gratitude.” Consider the “benefits” of God toward you, and thank him specifically for them. For example, one benefit is that we are never alone: “God, thank you that I am never alone, even when it feels like I am.”

Conclude with Supplication & Intercession…

Supplication is making our own needs known to God and asking that He meet them. Intercession is making the needs of others known to God, and asking Him to meet them. Both are petitions and are “the heart of prayer.” God delights in and invites us to ask.

Let’s begin by praying for people we know or have some contact with who do not yet know Christ. Pray God would open their hearts to believe, to see for the first time the wonder of grace—that God has done everything for us in Christ and we only need to trust that what He did, He did for me.

Secondly—and this may sound odd at first, but stay with me—let’s pray together for those who are at Fellowship who may not truly know Christ yet. Some people at Fellowship have been in church their whole life, but they have never personally come to faith. They have never been truly “born again” (John 3:3). Let’s pray that they find Fellowship a safe place to even consider the question “Am I truly saved?” and courageously pursue a personal relationship with Christ—faith alone in Christ alone.

Third, consider your own needs. What is going on in your life today where you know you cannot do it on your own, and you need God’s Spirit in you to enable, guide, direct and empower you? Pray specifically for those things.

And finally, at our lay leadership gathering in October, when asked, “what is your prayer for Fellowship as we look into the next 20 years?” these are some of the prayers our lay leaders are praying. Let’s make their prayers, our prayers.

• Malachi 4:6 and Luke 1:17 – The gospel is preached and transforms the men of our church to serve their God, families, and communities. I pray that men are discipled to know the love of our Father and that God unifies the body of Christ.
• That we would continue to proclaim the gospel and press on to maturity in Christ; that we would look radically different from the world around us.
• Deep in our soul to know the depth of the love of Christ for us; that our identify would be fully found in Him so that we may love and serve without fear.
• An outpouring of God’s passion for people.