Lord, teach us to pray….

Get Up…and Pray!

Luke 11:1,NIV

Prayer has always been a struggle for me. In fact, I’ve described it as the fight of my life. The one thing consistent about it is my struggle to maintain a quality time alone with God every day. I have failed more often than I have succeeded.

What about you? How’s your prayer life? Are you rushing through your prayer time? Neglecting it altogether? Isaiah 50:4 (NIV) says, “The sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning.”

When my body wants to roll over and go back to sleep, my spirit says, “Get up, or you will miss the word God has for you this morning. The very word that will sustain you today…or a word to share that will sustain someone else.”

What blessing…

A good leader is one who knows the way, shows the way, and goes the way

A Man Of Warmth And Wisdom

READ: Proverbs 15:21-33

A word spoken in due season, how good it is! —Proverbs 15:23

When Dr. Vernon Grounds, former president and chancellor of Denver Seminary, went to be with the Lord at age 96, tributes and remembrances poured in from former students, colleagues, and friends. Almost everyone recalled a time when Dr. Grounds had personally encouraged them through his teaching, his counsel, or simply his warm smile. He believed in the value of training pastors, teachers, and counselors who had a vital relationship with Christ and a willingness to serve others.

A vivid portrait of Vernon Grounds is seen in a selection of verses from Proverbs 15: “A man of understanding walks uprightly” (v.21). “A word spoken in due season, how good it is!” (v.23)…

Satan didn’t know it; the first Christmas was just around the corner!

Determined to Make a Way

And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the
days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou
shalt bruise his heel.
Genesis 3:14,15

In this passage, God is addressing satan directly. Satan must have thought, “Wait a minute. A woman doesn’t have a seed. The man carries
the seed. What does God mean by the ‘seed of woman’?”

God was giving a hint to satan that the seed of woman was going to
regain total authority and was going to bruise his rock-hard head…

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23, NKJV

Keep Focused

God, as the Judge of all the earth, determined the wickedness of Cain’s civilization could no longer be tolerated, and He sent the Flood to wash it away. God, Who judged the world, is the same God Who saved the world from His own judgment by providing the ark as a means of escape. Praise God! That’s His goodness!

Like pouring oil on troubled waters, our knowledge of Who God is calms our fears. So . . . keep your faith, and keep your focus!

God is faithful and gracious and good and loving and patient and holy and righteous and merciful.

May The Good Lord Save Nigeria And Israel From All Our Enemies And Prosper Us Beyond Our Imaginations, In Jesus…

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Teaching & Learning

“This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You are a
teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do, unless God is
with him.'” -John 3:2

Two nights ago, I went to the local 24-hr. chain pharmacy to pick up a small bottle
of shampoo. With shampoo in hand, I lined up at the normal location to wait for
a clerk behind a cash register. When I got to the front of the line, a nice man,
a store employee, waved me over to one of their new “self-checkout” stations.

This was not the first time I’d approached one of these machines. In fact, I’d successfully
negotiated similar self-checkout stations at the grocery store and a large building
supply store. When I looked at the new screen…

Have you ever gotten discouraged by the apparent lack of results when you pray?

When it comes to prayer, too many Christians have tried and cried because they haven’t seen any results—and they’ve just given up on expecting much from God.

Whenever we pray, we’ve got to understand that we have a part and that God has a part (I Corinthians 3:9).

What is our part?

1. 1.      Believe that receiving your full inheritance from God is as important to Him as it is to you.

In Acts 26:17—18 Jesus told Paul to “teach people to receive forgiveness of sins and their inheritance.” Jesus said it’s His will for you to receive your inheritance! We must believe it’s His will and His desire for us to receive everything He has for us.

1. 2.      Ask God for the thing you need and desire.

Be specific! If you need an unsaved…

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Start Proclaiming Life and Power!

James 3:5-8 “See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue.”

James says that no man can tame the tongue. That is actually good news, because it is not you who will tame your own tongue but it is the fire of God, the anointing of the Holy Spirit that will help you to change the way you speak and to start using your tongue to proclaim life and…

God is glorified when we live in His salvation

John 9:4 says: “I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” What Jesus did is the work of the Father. It was an expression of God’s will. It was directly connected to and inseparable from the salvation that He provided. Salvation includes all that Jesus showed us through His life. When we see what Jesus did, we see His will, and we see what He desires to do for us through our salvation. The work of Christ in His earthly lifetime, the work of Christ on the cross, and the work of Christ in His resurrection all reflect His purpose for our salvation. When we see Jesus heal the sick, we know healing is in our salvation. He came to save us, not condemn us…

Our testimonies

Acts 22:17-18

Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance and saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.’
NKJV

In Acts chapter 22, Paul is sharing his testimony with an enraged group of Jews who were seeking to kill him. Notice, however, what Paul does NOT share in his testimony to these men. Paul isn’t saying anything about how difficult his life has been since he became a Christian. Certainly, he could have. Paul endured incredible hardships during his ministry. He was beaten many times; he was stoned with rocks, shipwrecked and imprisoned. Paul could easily have said, “Well, life’s been pretty hard since Jesus saved me. I’ve been beaten, shipwrecked and imprisoned and now, once again, people are…

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“For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound
mind.” –1 Timothy 1:7

Turn on the Power
Many years ago, I saw a film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a high-energy
action film created to entertain the masses. One scene in this film hit me with
one truth that I’ve never been able to wipe from my mind. A large table holds dozens of ornate cups, each representing a goblet Christ could have used at the last supper.
Most are shiny gold with precious stones inlaid into the sides or bases. Yet, the
film’s star bypasses them all, reaches for a simple cup that appeared to be carved
out of wood, and says, “This looks like the cup of a carpenter.”

Indeed, the world expected the Messiah to come in glory, to be…

The Cross Is Life by Billy Graham

A gospel that appeals to our reason or righteousness will always be popular, for people like to feel that we can circumvent the cross of Christ. The cross left no footing for man to stand upon. It put the responsibility of man’s redemption upon Christ. Had not man failed? And was he not and is he not continuing to fail? Hasn’t history proved that “there is none righteous, no, not one”? (Romans 3:10).

The cross comes with its mighty power to bring low as well as to exalt, for it exalts none but those whom first it humbles. It calls the pious worshiper to come down out of his ivory tower and to take his place at the cross with the outcast and the vile. It tells the earnest seeker and the anxious inquirer that by their own efforts they are made…