My book on prayer can be purchased on Amazon or Barnes & Noble websites, plus a Kindle version is also available from Amazon. IGNITING AN IMPASSIONED PRAYER LIFE – How to Develop the Energized, Extended, and Sustainable Life of Prayer You’ve Always Wanted. Do you wish...
Prayer, like most spiritual practices, is subject to a spectrum of opinion and conviction as to how it is best practiced. Prayer in a word, means different things to different people. Typically we associate prayer with some form of communication and personal encounter with God....
When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD… Numbers 11:2 (NIV) Why is prayer often the great omission when it comes to discussion of spiritual leadership? In my humble estimation the topic of leadership is the most frequent focus of...
“But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.” Exodus 3:19 NIV
When God called Moses to go back to Egypt to deliver the suffering Israelites from their oppression, He sought to prepare him for what would be a prolonged ten plague battle, due to Pharaoh’s ruthless, hardened heart.
Vladimir Putin is a modern day Pharaoh in his treatment of the Ukrainians and in praying and interceding on their behalf it makes one wonder what it will take to make him relent from his grievous intentions.
It took the succession of ten plagues, with Pharaoh increasingly hardening his heart and doubling down on his oppression of the Israelites, before the personal loss of his own son finally got to him to relent and let them go.
Yet even then he regretted his acquiescence and his stubborn heart, bent on keeping the Israelites under his rule, caused him to pursue them. But God used it to mete out a final judgement upon him and his army by finally swallowing them alive in the depth of the sea.
Both natural combat and the spiritual warfare, that ultimately determines the victory, require a steely, long-haul commitment to persevering, no matter what the setbacks, believing that God’s victorious purposes will prevail. Lord, strengthen us in our praying to that end.
Lord stretch forth your mighty hand to force Putin to let the Ukrainians go (Ex. 6:1). Bring them out from the yoke of Russian oppression! Redeem them with your outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment (Ex. 6:6).
“Follow it . . . in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” Joshua 3:3-4 ESV
After two years of the peril and uncertainty battling COVID and all its fallout, the world must now face the atrocity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In a time when almost daily we’ve encountered news reports with someone saying “In my life time I have never seen anything like this before!” we realize with greater and greater clarity, like the Israelites preparing to cross the Jordan, our need to turn to God in utter dependency.
And like Peter we find ourselves confessing to Jesus, “Where else can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.”
An overcomer in his own era of tumult as a leader during the civil rights movement, Rev. Ralph Abernathy said it so well – “I don’t know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.”
“He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress; I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:2 BSB
We are living in times in which, it seems, everything that can be shaken is being shaken; undermining our trust in both people and things we have taken for granted and depended upon in the past.
This, according to the Bible is a blessing in disguise, because it reveals the things that cannot be shaken – primarily Jesus our Rock and His kingdom – to which like this tree, we must steadfastly cling. (Heb. 12:25-29)
I go to the Rock of my Salvation
I run to the mountain and the mountain stands by me.
I go to the Stone that the builders rejected
When the earth all around me is sinking sand
On Christ, the solid rock I stand
When I need a shelter, When I need a friend,
I go to the Rock.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV
God has a perfect timing for the fulfillment of His purposes in our lives.
His promises concerning His intentions for us are like seeds sown into the soil of our hearts. They have a germination time which must fully unfold before coming to fruition – “first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head” (Mark 4:28).
This is why the Bible, in referring to the timing of the fulfillment of a promise of God, describes it as coming in the “fullness of time.” Waiting of course, requires faith and patience. But, as with all creative processes, the beauty of the finished work makes it all worthwhile in the end.
“In His time, in His time
He makes all things beautiful
In His time.
Lord please show me everyday
As you’re teaching me your way
That you do just what you say
In your time.”
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! . . .“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” Revelation 4:1 ESV
There are two mutually proportionate dimensions to the call of God – being called higher into His purposes (sharing in His power) while also being called deeper into His passion (sharing in His suffering).
You cannot go higher without going deeper. The Apostle Paul confirms this in writing that the path to sharing in the power of Christ’s resurrection requires “participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” (Phil. 3:10)
You have called me higher, You have called me deeper,
And I will go where You lead me, Lord, Where You lead me.
And I will be Yours, I will be Yours for all my life.
So let Your mercy, Light the path before me.
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