Monday, November 17, 2008

Prayer and Hope

Yesterday we were reminded by Jesus to be persistent in our prayers. We are to not give up and continue in our prayers. We are to continue to pray when we feel like God is responding, but also when we are not sure that God is responding. We also took some time to offer our prayers to God.
I have already received a few notes about how important our prayer time was for some of our church family. Several felt God has already answered their persistent prayers from yesterday. I also saw many tears in the congregation which is often a sign of God being at work. It is truly a blessing to have some prayer time with your church family.
I also preached about being taught to pray by Jesus from Luke 11 at two services at Highland Ridge yesterday afternoon. I led one service in the care center and one in the main building with both independent and assisted living spaces.
As I preached persistence in prayer I saw on the faces of these mature Christians smiles of hope. The sense I got from the faces and comments after the service was that these believers have been persistent in their prayers for many years and they were encouraged to not give up. I know many parents and grandparents that need to be reminded of the hope we have as we persistently pray for those close to use who seem to be moving in the wrong direction from time to time. Even when we do not always see a bright future we can continue to hope in our prayers for God to work.
So I do want to encourage everyone to be persistent in prayer and persistent in hope. God is still good and still responds to our requests.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

James,

I thank God that He is answering the prayers of the faithful in our congregation. Thanks for making yesterday's worship a special time and opportunity for prayers.

Dennis W.

Helen said...

A prayer was answered yesterday when one of our dedicated blog responders delivered a healthy baby boy. Congrats Jamie and Danny!