Text:I Thess. 5; I Tim. 2
Today we are continuing on the theme of the new year but doing things a little different. The first theme that I believe God is challenging us in is prayer. So, today we will spend some time reading the Word and praying it. Again, Christ said His house shall be a house of prayer and yet too many times we make it all about us and what we desire.
Scripture teaches us to pray without ceasing. This means all the time of course. However, we should especially be praying in the house of the Lord. We are also told to pray for our leaders and those over us, I Tim. 2:1-7. We pray hard when someone we fear is going to damage our country is in office. I encourage each of us to remain vigilant in prayer for each leader. We should never get settled on our lees. The church too many times gets lazy and falls asleep thinking things are safe and happy. We must stay vigilant and always in prayer.
We also need to pray for each other as we desire to be witnesses and bearers of the Truth of God and His greatness. We should pray for souls to be won. Blessed is the man and wise he is that wins souls.
We also should pray for unity. Again, satan spends his days trying his best to spread discord and schism in the church. Pride gets involved. Distractions happen. I think many times we give too much power to satan and attribute too much to him personally. Man is naturally a child of the devil and is slanted to do evil things. My children are all different but they each have many characteristics of both their mother and myself. It is just the way we are. So, natural man has evil tendencies and is full of pride and hurtfulness. If we are not careful, these tend to find their way into the church and cause distractions and fractions of differing beliefs. Instead, the church should bring us together and be a safe place to disagree, grow and honor our Father. Of course, we agree on fundamentals of salvation but there are many gray areas in scripture that give us opportunities to grow in wisdom and knowledge. Let us pray, witness the greatness of God and unify.