Fruitful Prayer

2017-03-22 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read John 14:12-14; 15:7-8; 16:23-28

Part of a fruitful relationship with God is prayer. As Jesus taught His disciples for the final time before His crucifixion, three times He talked about prayer. Three times He made the lavish promise, “Ask, and you will receive.”

What did He mean by this? Is this a blank check to indulge all our desires?

Whenever we want to understand what a person is saying, we have to take it in context, in the flow of what he or she is communicating. Taking isolated sentences out of context is a recipe for disaster, whether in daily conversation or in interpreting the Bible.

Read today’s scriptures, and notice the contexts for Jesus’ promises about prayer. The context is always Christian service. He is talking about asking for ministry purposes, not for personal reasons. The focus is on bearing fruit for the Father. There will be times in God’s work when we will either ask the Father plainly for what is needed, or the job won’t get done. So ask!

Ask for the Father’s benefit, not your own. Ask in Jesus’ name, for His purposes, for the Father’s glory. Prayer is not drawing the all-wise, all-loving Father down to your petty, personal viewpoint. Prayer is drawing us upward into His perspective and His concerns. Sovereign God is not going to dance to your tune. He wants to teach you to dance to His. Note what James says: 

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:2b-3, NASB)

Pray as a branch in the Vine. Pray out of the life you share with Jesus Christ. Pray as standing in the loving Father’s presence, as a brother or sister of Jesus Christ, as His friend and servant.

Pray as Jesus would pray, and the Father will answer you as He would answer Jesus.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Ever Standing in Your Presence
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The Just Will Live by Faith

2017-03-20 Devotional with Hymn No comments

“How can someone as weak and inconsistent as I possibly please a holy God?” Romans chapters 1 – 8 offers so much wonderful, life-giving assurance.

  • We do not obey God by keeping a list of rules. The rules are important, but we can’t obey them by our own efforts. We cannot please God that way (Romans 7:7-25). Our obedience is “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). God wants only this: He wants us to trust Him, and to live out that trust.
  • As we trust Him step by step, God changes us into the Christ-like persons He wants us to be. We change, not by determined efforts at self-reform, but by trusting God (Romans 1:16-17).
  • We don’t become right with God by trying to make our lives right with Him. We become right with God the same way Abraham did: by trusting God (Romans 4). As we trust Jesus Christ, He nurtures a living relationship with us. He lives His holy life in us as we trust Him (Romans 5 – 8).

All God’s promises, all His holiness, all His power flow through us and grow in us as we trust in Him. Righteousness from God is by faith from first to last…The righteous will live by faith (Romans 1:17, NIV).

Listen and sing:
Hymn: By Faith in Jesus Christ
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-03-17 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship No comments

When We Worship

Almighty, Sovereign God,
when I worship You from my heart, I recognize
You for who You are, and
myself for who I am.
You are all goodness and the only source of all goodness.
You alone are life,
truth,
rightness,
holiness,
beauty,
wisdom, and
love.
Without You, I am empty,
nothing,
weakness and need.

When I worship You,
I embrace the truth.
I admit reality and
align myself with it.
I align myself with You, in all
humility,
trust, and
gratitude.

When I worship, I admit that
You are the Creator, and
I am your creature,
born of Your deep love,
made in Your image.
You are Father of all, and
I am Your little child.
You are the holy yet human Son,
God made flesh, and
I joyfully wonder at the mystery.
You became entirely like me, so that I might become
entirely like You!
You are the Holy Spirit,
the life of God,
the love of God, and
the power of God,
ever among us and within us.
You are filling us even now, enabling us to
live like Christ and
love like Christ.

Praise to You, eternal Father,
Christ the Son, and
Holy Spirit!
Praise to You for all You are!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Worship Father, Son, and Spirit
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I Long for the Father

2017-03-15 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father One comment

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 13:1, 3 

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. (John 13:1-3, NIV) 

Father, as Jesus neared the end of His time here,
His deepest longing,
His burning desire was this:
to return to You.

His Spirit in me is breathing the same desire.
Father, I long to come home to You.

Father, You are the goal toward which
all history is moving.
I want my thoughts,
my desires, and
my daily living
to keep moving toward You as well.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Longing for Home
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Picture This

2017-03-13 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Picture this:

A poor widow generously gives her last two meager coins,
all that she has to live on.

A father is horribly mistreated by His wayward son.
But when the son finally comes home, penniless and half-starved,
the father runs to him and
joyfully smothers him with love and gifts and forgiveness.

The King of All Kings makes Himself a poor, powerless peasant.
He lives homeless and without a family
so that all the people can be His family.
He feeds and heals and teaches everyone who comes to Him.
He frees those tormented by demons and
raises the dead.

Finally, He gives Himself as the full and final sacrifice for all their sins.
To celebrate their deliverance, He makes Himself their feast:
His own body becomes the bread broken for them.
His own blood becomes the wine poured out for them.

All these are living portraits of
the glorious love of
our glorious God,
drawn by the life and death of His only Son,
Jesus Christ.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Pictures of God’s Love
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-03-10 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship No comments

In Spirit and Truth

The woman said to Him…“Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:20-24, NASB)

Father, You are Spirit.
The worship that pleases You is
my spirit to Yours.
Worshiping You does not depend on
ceremony or style, on
rituals or prescribed motions.
You want worship that is honest, sincere, and unhypocritical,
with no gap between my words and my actions.

You seek worship that rises from my heart and my life,
not just from my lips.
That is the worship I want to bring You, my Father.
I want my Sunday worship to simply rehearse the way I live
all week long.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Holy Father, Only You
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Holding Nothing Back

2017-03-08 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Philippians 2:1-18

Father, I want to live today out of the
the living wisdom of Your Son Jesus,
the constant presence of Your Holy Spirit, and
the loving compassion that flows freely from You.

Enabled by these resources,
help me pour myself completely into the welfare of Your people, especially
those who live around me,
those You have entrusted to my care.

As I serve them in Your name,
give me the mind and Spirit of Christ.
He willingly gave up
all His glory,
all His rights, and
all His advantages.
He emptied Himself,
taking upon Himself the status of a servant.
He clothed Himself in
our lowliness,
our helplessness,
our suffering.
His obedience went all the way to a brutal, humiliating death.
He held nothing back.

Father, as Christ obeyed, help me to obey
wholeheartedly,
eagerly,
in faith,
without fear or hesitation.
Help me to make Your purpose
my only purpose.
Today help me pour myself out completely
as an offering to You,
for the welfare of Your dearly loved children.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: As You Love
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All You Made Me to Be

2017-03-06 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, You are all-in-all,
all life,
all love,
all beauty,
all blessedness.
You are the boundless ocean of
a thousand magnificent blessings still
nameless and
undiscovered.

As I trust You with the simplicity of a child,
I am in You, and
You, the Great All-in-all, are in me.

Because You are in me,
I am far more than this corrupted, physical creature.
You are life, and
I am truly, eternally alive.
You are love, and
I begin to love as You love.
You are wonderful, and
already Your wonders peek out through me.

But because You are the Gardener,
forever growing magnificent wonders,
who I am becoming is infinitely more wonderful than who I am.
For I am in Christ, and
I am growing in Christ.
And when He appears, I will be like Him,
because I will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2, NASB, adapted)

When I am perfectly like
Your perfectly pleasing Son,
I will be perfectly pleasing to You,
my Creator,
my Redeemer,
my loving Father.
You will rejoice that
I am all You made me to be.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Now in Christ
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from Prepare Yourself for Worship

2017-03-03 Devotional with Hymn, Prepare Yourself for Worship No comments

Prepare for Lent

Father, this Lent,
show me the path that Jesus walked,
that I may walk in His steps.

I see His life of love.
I see His beautiful, unbroken relationship with You.
I see His fruitfulness,
His abounding joy and
His unbroken peace
in the midst of self-sacrifice, and
I want to follow.
Wherever He leads me, Lord,
I want to go.
Through repentance,
through temptation,
through self-denial,
I want to walk
with Him
in You, Father.

I will walk the road to the cross,
as long as He
goes before me and
walks with me,
as long as
He leads and
He enables.

This Lent, Father,
show me Jesus.
Make me one with Jesus.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Hear His Call
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Peace in You

2017-03-01 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, You have no need –
no weakness,
no uncertainty.
You are never caught short.
You are at peace in Your
fullness and
completeness.

Peace can always, only be found in You.
Father, You want me to share in Your peace.
You want me to share in You.
Outside of You is
weakness,
wanting,
darkness, and
sin.
In You is
deep,
all-encompassing,
unchanging,
unshakable peace.
That’s the peace You want for me:
peace in You.

I long for the temporary peace that comes from
the removal of my current need.
I cry in desperation, “O Lord, take it away!”
But this need will simply be replaced by another.
Needs come and go.
My neediness remains.

But You are complete.
All that is good,
all that I will ever need,
is in Your very being.
As I trust You step by step,
I am complete in You.

Today and every day,
whatever my circumstance, Father,
You offer me the gift of a
holy,
grace-filled life
in Your peace,
the peace we find in Your human Son,
Jesus Christ.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Peace in Christ
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