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 tomorrow night, Friday, November 17th, from 8:00pm until 7:15am Saturday, November 18th. Learn more and sign up on the event page for a time to come pray with us.
Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.
Samuel Chadwick
Begin with Adoration
We have today and tomorrow remaining in our 40 Days of Prayer & Fasting. Then, tomorrow night we gather to pray through the night to conclude this season of prayer. As we conclude these daily prayers, I will prompt you with a word from Scripture and allow it to guide you in your adoration…
Isaiah 6:3
And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory.”
Continue with Confession
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:8
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
James 5:16
As the Spirit brings any sin to mind, confess it (agree with God that it is sin) and turn from it (repent). Is there someone you need to confess your sin to? Confessing our sin to one another does not forgive the sin. The context of this verse is those who are spiritually weary and discouraged. To bring our confession to another is a means of our souls being encouraged, refreshed, to have our “soul” healed.
Don’t bypass this if you sense the Spirit prompting you to share your sin with a brother or sister. It will be an encouragement to them, and to you, and an invitation to walk and pray with you in your sin.
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 our fellowship with Him is restored.
Now offer words of Thanksgiving
Continue to add one to two things to the list of things you are grateful for that happened in 2017.
Today, reflect on the work God has done in your life through your time at Fellowship. In what ways have you grown, your heart and character transformed? How has your understanding of God, His word and His ways deepened? What are some ways He shown Himself to you and your family, how are you following Christ more fully because of your involvement here?
Let’s give thanks for these things, for a community of faith–flaws and all–that we get to belong to…
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 have not personally put their trust in Christ…
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 continue to invite you to pray the Scriptures themselves. If we want to know God’s will and pray God’s will, this is one of the ways He make His will clear.
Here is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church. I marvel that when he could have prayed anything for them, he could think of nothing more important than a deepening and grounding in the love of Christ. Not our love for Him…but His love for us!
After reading this prayer, would you first of all make it your own, but would you also make this a prayer for us, for Fellowship? For as God answers this prayer, His love will rule in our hearts, in our relationships with each other, with everyone we know, and in this God is glorified.
Ephesians 3:14–19
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Next, I want you to see how this prayer ends:
Ephesians 3:20-21
20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Would you conclude your time of prayer by asking that God would do “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or seek, according to the power that works in us.” May he do that which brings Him the most glory in our church, not just now, but for generations to come.
