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 17th until 7:15am Saturday, November 18th. Learn more and sign up on the event page for a time to come pray with us.
I used to think the Lord’s Prayer was a short prayer; but as I live longer, and see more of life, I begin to believe there is no such thing as getting through it. If a man, in praying that prayer, were to be stopped by every word until he had thoroughly prayed it, it would take him a lifetime.
Henry Ward Beecher
Begin with Adoration
We have four days remaining in our 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting. Don’t forget to sign up for your slot at the Night of Prayer that concludes this season of prayer and fasting this Friday, November 17th!
In this last week, I will prompt you with a word from Scripture. Allow it to guide you in your adoration…
1 Chronicles 16:29
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come before Him;
Worship the Lord in holy array.
Continue with Confession
While all our sin—past, present and future—has been paid for by the death of Christ, and we are forgiven of all these sins, our current sin still bears a cost. We feel guilt, and our fellowship* (not our relationship!) with God is broken and hindered. Confession is God’s gift of grace by which we acknowledge our sin, we confess it (agree with God that it is sin) and thereby experience forgiveness and restored fellowship with God.
(*My children will always be my children, my relationship with them is unchangeable: I am their father and they are my children. Nothing changes that. However, when one of my kids (when they were younger) disobeys, rebels, and chooses their own way, our fellowship—our experience of closeness, the joy of communion and life together—is broken and hindered. Again, our relationship remains unaltered in the slightest.)
Here in Psalm 66:16-20, we are reminded of the terrible cost of unconfessed sin, and the wonderful gift of confession:
Psalm 66:16-20
16 Come and hear, all who fear God,
And I will tell of what He has done for my soul.
17 I cried to Him with my mouth,
And He was extolled with my tongue.
18 If I regard wickedness in my heart,
The Lord will not hear;
19 But certainly God has heard;
He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,
Who has not turned away my prayer
Nor His lovingkindness from me.
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, and that fellowship with Him is restored.
Now offer words of Thanksgiving
Start by adding one to two things to the list of things you are grateful for that happened in 2017.
Today, let us corporately give thanks to God for our Global Partners:
- Rosemary Khamati – Peace International in Juba, S. Sudan
- Imad Shehadeh – Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS) in Amman, Jordan
- Peter Mitskevich – Moscow Theological Seminary in Moscow, Russia
- Adrej Lovse – Josiah Venture in Celje, Slovenia
- Denislam Salpagarov – New Life Church in Karachaevsk, Russia
- Jonathan Macris – Hellenic Ministries in Athens, Greece
- Angel Barrientos – CMA Church in Comas, Peru
- Peter Garang – African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM) in Lietnhom, S. Sudan
- James Baak – Solidarity Ministries Africa for Reconciliation and Development (SMARD) in Yei, S. Sudan
- Steffen Weil – mittendrin Church in Potsdam, Germany
- Darko Mikulic – Slavonski Brod Baptist Church in Slovaonski Brod, Croatia
Conclude with Supplication & Intercession…
First, let’s continue to pray for those that we know do not know Christ, and for any who are at Fellowship who may think they are Christians, but are not.
Second, pray that God—in His grace and by His Spirit—would make us to be “of one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32a).
Third, I’d like to invite you to pray the Scriptures themselves. One of the most life changing ways that we can pray is by learning to pray the prayers of Scripture. As you learn to make the prayers of Scripture your own prayers, you can be confident that you are asking for that which is in the jet stream of God’s will.
My prayer is that praying like this will become a habit of heart, soul, mind and strength, that we pray these prayers for ourselves, and for others till the day we die—when these prayers will be completely fulfilled, becoming our eternal reality.
Here is the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples when they asked Him to teach them to pray. Read it, then make it your own prayer:
Matthew 6:8–13
8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’”
Finally, using the prayer Jesus taught the disciples above, pray this prayer for our Global Partners. They are giving their lives away to bring God’s kingdom to places most of us will never go. They do so at great cost to themselves and their families. Along these lines, pray for our Global Christmas giving next month, that God’s generosity through us would continue to be evident as we give to enable these partners to extend God’s kingdom.
