Teach me to be content with Your Will, even when it conflicts with mine.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Give me grace to trust you more.
Help me to see how good your will is even when it conflicts with mine.
Use my life to advance your Kingdom and bring you glory.
Increase my faith.
Create in me a pure heart and a contrite spirit.
Teach me to submit to your providence in all things.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
Take 5 min (or more) a week (or day) to pray for each country in the World Watch List. By the end of 2013, we will have prayed for all 50 countries on this list. #prayer #persecutedchurches #5minutechallenge #worldwatchlist (Taken with Instagram)
Suppose you read at about 250 words a minute. Now the reason I wanted to make this 250 words a minute is because the average American reads between 300- 350 words a minute. So what I’ve tried to do is pull you down to a fourth grade elementary school reading level. I’m saying if you want to try to use the “I don’t read well” excuse, I’ve just stolen it from you. I’ve literally just taken from you the “I don’t read well” because I’m giving you fourth grade reading level. Okay?
Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day toserious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth. In one year, you would have read for 5,475 minutes. This means that at 250 words a minute for 15 minutes a day, you would have read 20 average-sized books a year. So let’s look at small seeds becoming big trees. You now add 15 minutes of prayer, five minutes of Bible reading, and 15 minutes of serious theological reading around the biblical text and we’re now at what? Thirty-five minutes. At the end of the year, you have 365 bits of Scripture that you’ve meditated on, you’ve thought on, and you’ve read 20 serious theological books. So this is not complex.
Here’s what the math does. The math shows me we’re lazy idolaters, because you can read. You’re just not fascinated enough with God to read about him. Because, man, when we get into your little projects, I bet you read, man. When it comes to your sports team, you read. I bet you when it comes to fitness, you read. I bet you when it comes to diet, you read. I bet you when it comes to health, you read. See, what gets revealed when you look at the math. See, I love math for only this reason: it doesn’t have an agenda.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The Bible parable says that while men slept, the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. A boy who rises at 4:30 to deliver papers is considered a go-getter, but to urge our young people to rise at 5:30 to pray is considered fanaticism. We must once again wear the harness of discipline. There is no other way.
The great antidote to anxiety is to come to God in prayer. We are to pray about everything. Nothing is too big for Him to handle, and nothing is too small to escape His attention
Amen. #prayer #holyliving #providence #Jesus (Taken with Instagram)
Pray for Ian
I know many of you are deeply touched and moved to tears by the beautiful Christlik marriage of ”The Story of Ian and Larissa” video on Desiring God.
If you could send them encouragement, let them know you are praying, or buy a “Pray for Ian” t-shirt, that would be awesome!
* The shirts are $7 and proceeds go to the 2 boys they sponsor (their church/school). You can find the link on their blog. Thank you!
Soli Deo Gloria.
Prayer is God’s business to which men can attend. Prayer is God’s necessary business, which men only can do, and that men must do. Men who belong to God are obliged to pray. They are not obliged to grow rich, nor to make money. They are not obliged to have large success in business. These are incidental, occasional, merely nominal, as far as integrity to Heaven and loyalty to God are concerned. Material successes are immaterial to God. Men are neither better nor worse with those things or without them. They are not sources of reputation nor elements of character in the heavenly estimates. But to pray, to really pray, is the source of revenue, the basis of reputation, and the element of character in the estimation of God. Men are obliged to pray as they are obliged to be religious. Prayer is loyalty to God. Non-praying is to reject Christ and to abandon Heaven. A life of prayer is the only life which Heaven counts. God is vitally concerned that men should pray. Men are bettered by prayer, and the world is bettered by praying. God does His best work for the world through prayer. God’s greatest glory and man’s highest good are secured by prayer. Prayer forms the godliest men and makes the godliest world.
