Are You Part of a Community of Prayer?

Are You Part of a Community of Prayer?

 

Good Morning Friends,

 

Today we are called to take our vision of enthusiasm to the cross, the throne and to the streets. We are asked to see with the eyes of our hearts connected to an encounter with the divine. We are called to be alert to God’s activity around us seeing with spiritual eyes a fundamental need of life. And here we are to find peace and security through obedience. We are to have a vision of provision not division.  Are You Part of a Community of Prayer?  

 

Scripture: ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.

 

Ephesians 1:16 (NRSV)

 

3I thank my God every time I remember you, ⁴constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, ⁵because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart,^* for all of you share in God’s grace^* with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. ⁹And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight ¹⁰to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, ¹¹having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

 

Philippians 1:3-11 (NRSV)

 

²⁴But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

 

Amos 5:24 (NRSV)

 

4In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, ² and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ³ He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore;

 

Micah 4:1-3 (NRSV)

 

⁶‘With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

 

Micah 6:6-8 (NRSV)

 

 
 

Message: To be an affective body of believers we need to have a love that keeps us together in our walk and in our prayers. We need to be faithful and kind. We need to be willing to stand in the gap and work in the world, to work with God for justice. We need to be people of vision and optimism…generous in spirit and encouragers of the Word. We need to be promoters of prayer even when prayer is difficult. Yes in prayer we will find that sometime God speaks through people we do not like or uses visions and dreams we do not understand. And yes sometimes He may use these devotionals to speak to you through the Holy Spirit, not because of these words on this page but, because of what God wants to provide to you for His purpose when you seek. Friends, discover that true sight is vision of that which is unseen. Perhaps if you are seeking God’s glory you will remember none of these words but only the experience of your conversation with God and the glorious desire of the divine that we be in unity, restored to harmony.

 

Pray we gain spiritual vision. Pray that we realize that God is working out the details of our ultimate provision in His mercy and for His ultimate glory according to a plan. Pray that our vision of God never be small, blurred or blind but magnified in nature and in all his creations. Pray that we become a lens though which the world might view God. Pray we reflect His bright love. Pray we have a vision of a future that is so bright that the joy will never cease and the peace will never be disturbed. Pray that we embrace God’s vision for this world. Pray we see what others cannot see. Pray we have a vision of God acting.

 

Blessings,

 

John Lawson