I've asked fellow iFaster Amy Savage to write our challenge/encouragement for iFast this week!
Hi there iFasters. I've spent the last week reading through a book called "Radical" by David Platt. I'd highly recommend it and would like to share a few excerpts to help us prepare for our day of fasting and prayer for the least of these...
"This is how God works. He puts His people in positions where they are desperate for His power, and then He shows His provision in ways that display His greatness". He goes on to say that as a pastor he is "part of a system that has created a whole host of means and methods, plans and strategies for doing church that require little if any power from God". Platt says that when he opens the book of Acts he observes the following picture of the church: "I see a small band of timid disciples huddled together in an upper room. They know they need God's power. They are Galileans, disrespected by the higher classes in Jerusalem as lower-class, rural, uneducated commoners. This is the group that the spread of Christianity depends on. So what are they doing? They are not plotting strategies. They are 'joined together constantly in prayer'. They are not busy putting their faith in themselves or relying on themselves. They are pleading for the power of God, and they are confident that they are not going to accomplish anything without His provision....the reality is that the church I lead can accomplish more during the next month in the power of God's Spirit than we can in the next hundred years apart from His provision. His power is so superior to ours. Why do we not desperately seek it?"
Wow. It's tempting for all sorts of Christian organizations (heck, just Christian people going about their daily lives!) to strategize and plan out where we're headed and how we're gonna get there, in a way that leaves little room for the power of God, if any. I can't imagine how this must break God's heart. There He is with limitless power and resources that are available to us, His people, but we so often just work it out according to our own agenda or abilities. I love the picture in Acts of the early church...they didn't have whiteboards and a bunch of talented people planning the best method for advancing the kingdom. They had each other and a desperation that caused them to be "joined together constantly in prayer". If you have the time to skim through Acts you'll see that God showed up in huge ways through these people who were desperately seeking His power.
So Wednesday, let us lay down our plans and strategies and our ideas of how things should look and humbly ask God to come near. Let's cry out to Him together in desperation for HIS power to be made known among the nations. Let's beg Him to display HIS power among the needy, the hurting and the broken in the world. Let's ask Him to break us of our pride and fall face down before Him, surrendering all we are in desperation for HIS power to rise up within us, His people.
Looking forward to joining with you in prayer tomorrow...let's ask His Spirit to show up powerfully as we approach the throne of grace together. I know He will meet us as we cry out for His name to be made great. Let's pray specifically for the following requests:
Remember the Poor:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Cor 3:17 Praying for freedom within the western church: that we might know the power of the living God that sets us free from idolatry, greed, friendship with the world; and sets us free to love and serve his precious creation around the globe.
HopeChest:
Trips, Trips, Trips---
Thankful the trip to Ethiopia went very well. Encouraging information from many sponsored sites. Seeing lives changed!
Ginia, Bob and others leave for Guatemala on Thursday, pray for a fruitful trip
Pray for the India trip coming up in less than 3 weeks. Pray now for a spiritual hedge of protection as well as a physical one
Pray for the church that just returned from their first orphanage trip in Russia. Pray they would use those stories and what they saw and experienced to bring their site to 100% sponsorship!
Pray for sponsorship coordinators who are seeking new sponsors for their sites...that people would not only sponsor but would JUMP on board as a part of their team.
Pray that every one of our staff and volunteers, both here and on the field, would truly rely on the Lord to work through them. Pray that we understand what David Platt spoke of in "Radical" and are living and serving where desperation for the Lord is necessary and where His spirit is needed.
Brandi
Craigslist supports Sex-Trafficking by looking the other way - will you?
No comments:
Post a Comment