Only God Prayer Week

Transcription

1 1 Only God Prayer Week Why Pray As we enter into 2015 as a church family we have ambitious dreams and goals of what we want to see God do. We want to see God reveal Himself to you in ways that transform who you are and fill you with great joy and hope as you face the good and the difficult of life. We want to see our church gatherings nearly double because people are being filled with new life through Jesus Christ. We want to bring the good news into our community in such dynamic ways that people begin to talk and wonder at the incredible lives changed by God in connection to the ministry of the people of Shalom. And those are big goals. Goals that outstrip us and what we can do. Goals that lead us to say, Only God. This week of prayer is initiated because we are a people who know that what we desire to see happen in 2015 are only God outcomes. So we go to the One who can do far more than we can even ask or imagine. We go to Him in the way He has invited us to come boldly, persistently, and confidently. And when we do we can expect Him to answer. Not because we demand it. Not because we deserve. But because He has promised it. He delights in answering prayers that flow out a pursuit for His glory and fulfillment of His mission to reconcile people to Himself. When we pray, He has promised that He will answer (Psalm 3:4), reveal to us things we didn t know or understand before (Jeremiah 33:3), deliver us from trouble (Psalm 50:15), heal the sick (James 5:14), forgive sins (James 5:16), fill with the Spirit so that a bold witness may be given (Acts 4:31), move mountains (Matthew 17:20), drive out evil spirits (Mark 9:25-29), and do whatever it is that we ask of Him (John 14:13). That is a motivating list for reasons to pray! So be filled with a sense of anticipation as you join with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to seek God and to petition Him to show His glory here and now.

2 2 How To Pray For the Only God Prayer Week we have provided for you a daily guide for your personal times of prayer. With each personal time of prayer you will be led through 3 activities: 1. Praying scripture-guided personal prayers 2. Journaling 3. Praying for your church family Some of these prayer activities may be new to you, namely praying Scripture and journaling. Let me briefly address each one. As you pray using the scriptures, your prayer time will be much richer if you personalize the scriptures by incorporating their themes into your own thoughts and experiences. So use the prayer prompt after the verses to express to God in your own words what the personalized scriptures say. As for journaling, it may be a new practice for you and viewed as something for other people to do. I encourage you to give journaling a chance. It is an incredible tool to slow oneself down to listen to God and focus a wandering mind. And, hey, it s only for 5 days. You can do 5 days. Don t feel like you have to write a lot. You may want to just set a time limit or page limit and keep to that each day. The goal of this whole week is to give greater attention to prayer and listening to God. Journaling is just a tool to help you do just that this week. *Personalized scriptures for the four guided movements each day are mostly taken from Face to Face: Praying Scriptures for Intimate Worship by Kenneth Boa. If you enjoyed the use of Scriptures to guide your prayer times, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of this book.

3 3 Day 1 Only God Is Worthy of Your Worship Worship is what we were created for. This is the final end of all existence the worship of God. God created the universe so that it would display the worth of His glory. And He created us so that we would see this glory and reflect it by knowing and loving it with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. -John Piper "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. -A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens! (Psalm 8:1) Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord god Almighty! Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, For Your righteous acts have been revealed. (Revelation 15:3-4) Pause to express your thoughts of praise and worship to God. Journal Exercise: Write out your thoughts to the quotes by John Piper and A.W. Tozer. Does what you think about God lead you into worship? How close do you think your thoughts about God are accurate of who He really is? 1. Pray that a full and accurate understanding of who God is would be taught on Sunday mornings, in growth groups, and among our children and youth. 2. Pray that passion for knowing God and celebrating who He is and what He has done would contagiously spread among us all. 3. Pray that worship of God would be the pursuit of our church family during the week with how each one lives. 4. Worship is our response to God for what He has done; expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live. - Louie Giglio, Wired: For a life of Worship Rather than respond to his incalculable God-ness with our slide rules and flowcharts, we would do better to worship him with reverence and awe. Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel

4 4 Day 2- Only God Can Set You Free From Sin and Guilt The cross is the lightening rod of grace that short-circuits God s wrath to Christ so that only the light of His love remains for believers. A.W. Tozer The marker of those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, when they stumble and fall, when they screw up, they run to God and not from him, because they clearly understand that their acceptance before God is not predicated upon their behavior but on the righteous life of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death. Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel Save me from bloodguilt, O God, The God of my salvation And my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, And my mouth will declare Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices You desire are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God You will not despise. (Psalm 51:14-17) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1) Ask the Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Repent of them and thank Him for His forgiveness and the freedom from condemnation you have in Christ Jesus. Journal Exercise: Are the sacrifices that God desires (Psalm 51:14-17) the ones you are bringing to Him when there is sin in your life? Do you truly live in the reality of that God has no condemnation for you since you are in Jesus Christ? Explore that question through your journaling. 1. Pray that God would humble the proud in our church family and lift up the humble. 2. Pray that the truth that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus would supersede the self-condemnation that many believers feel after they sin and would lead them to eager repentance and freedom. 3. Pray that there would be a fresh awe among us at the forgiveness of God for us and that Jesus chose the Cross because of His great love for us.

5 5 Day 3- Only God Can Bring Dead Things to Life Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in our hearts. J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary Then he [God] said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the Word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. (Ezekiel 37:4-5) Because of His great love for me, God, who is rich in mercy, made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in transgressions it is by grace I have been saved. And God raised me up with Christ and seated me with Him in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in his kindness to me in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7) May I be strong and courageous; may I not be afraid or discouraged because of my adversaries; there is a greater power with me than with them, for You, Lord my God, are with me to help me. (2 Chronicles 32:7-8) Pause to ask God for the Spirit to give you great boldness to share the good news of Jesus with those who are in your relational circles. Pray specifically for people by name who need to respond to the gospel. Journal Exercise: Write down how you have experienced God making you alive in Christ. In the course of your everyday life, where do you see the need for the spiritually dead to be brought to life by embracing Jesus Christ as Savior and Leader? Write down 3 names that you will commit to praying for regularly and seek to pursue with the message of reconciliation to God through Christ so that they can be alive in Christ like you are. 1. Pray that there would be among us an urgency to share the good news of Jesus so that people who are dead in their sins can experience new life in Jesus Christ. 2. Pray that there would be a contagious courage among us to boldly engage in spiritual conversations with the people we know. 3. Pray that there would be a fresh and clear experience of the gospel among all of us and that bold sharing would be the overflow of truly experiencing the life and power of Jesus within us. What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own. -John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

6 6 Day 4- Only God Can Conquer Spiritual Strongholds Stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, pretending to be bigger or more powerful than our God. It steals much of our focus and causes us to feel overpowered. Controlled. Mastered...The enemy taunts us with whispers like, You ll never be free. You ve tried a hundred times. You re hopeless. You re a failure. You don t have what it takes. Every one of these statements about you is a lie if you are a believer in Christ. You do have what it takes. You have Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life. -Beth Moore, Praying God s Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds For though I live in the world, I do not wage war as the world does. The weapons I fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. I demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and I take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) Just as I once presented the parts of my body as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing lawlessness, so I now present them as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness. (Romans 6:19) For God has not given me a Spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7) Pause to ask the Lord to reveal any strongholds in your life that need to come down. Declare to God and yourself the truth of His Word about who He is and who you are. Journal Exercise: Is there a stronghold in your life that needs to be broken? Dialogue with God about your experience with this stronghold. Write down what you need to believe about God and about what God has said about you in order to begin to break this stronghold. Are you willing to entrust the knowledge of your stronghold to another believer so that they can provide needed strength to see it broken? 1. Pray that we will be a people who are safe to reveal who you are and what you have done without fear of rejection and condemnation. Pray that acceptance and grace is always paired with truth so that each one is spurred on toward greater maturity in Christ. 2. Pray that strongholds of sin in people s lives within Shalom will be broken so that healing and abundant life can fill them. 3. Pray that spiritual strongholds that exist in our community can come down. Pray against the confusion and cynicism that blinds the eyes of many around us to the gospel. Prayer is not overcoming God s reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness. Martin Luther

7 7 Day 5- Only God Can Declare a Mission Worth Pursuing It is essential for the average Joe and Jill Churchperson to cease viewing themselves as average. There is nothing remotely average about a human being who has been born again with the very resurrection life that caused Jesus to rise from the dead (Eph 2:3-10), to have the indwelling Holy Spirit as guide, to possess the mind of Christ for needed wisdom, and then to be commissioned by Jesus himself to go into the world with his redemptive agenda. Lance Ford, Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Every Day People All things are from You, God, who brought me to back to Yourself through Christ. And You have given me the task of reconciling people to You. For You were in Christ, reconciling the world to Yourself, no longer counting people s sins against them. And You have committed to me this message of reconciliation. So I am Christ s ambassador; You are making your appeal through me as I plead with others on behalf of Christ, Come back to God! (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) May I love my enemies, do good to those who hate me, bless those who curse me, and pray for those who mistreat me. May I do to others as I would have them do to me. (Luke 6:27-28,31) Take a few moments to first express to God what you understand your role in His mission to be and your thoughts about the mission. Pray as well for the people in the different mission fields you presently find yourself in: workplace, family, neighborhood, friendship group, hobby group, etc. Journal Exercise: Write down your reflections on the quote to start today s prayer guide. Have you been viewing yourself as average? Are you average? What implications are there for your life and your mission if you there is indeed nothing remotely average about you? Write down three practical steps you are going to take in 2015 to be on God s mission to share the message of reconciliation (i.e. Have a neighborhood couple over for dinner twice a month, etc.) Share your steps with your spouse, growth group, or close friend. 1. Pray that Shalom would be filled with people who are all in with joining God in his mission of reconciliation through Christ. Pray that fears would be conquered in the light of who they are in Christ and the love for others that Christ brings into a person s life. 2. Pray for the unified efforts to reach people through specific events like Mega Sports Camp, Retreats, Big Days, and such would be highly used opportunities to share the gospel with those who have never understood it or never clearly had it presented to them. 3. Pray that the growth groups would be catalysts for encouraging people to be missional in their lives, providing people to team up with, and then keeping them stoked throughout the whole year about bringing the message of reconciliation into their mission field.