Pray Network Forum

Gathering With Your Neighbors

2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” ESV

Greetings Neighbors! I have been praying for you as you have been praying up and down your streets and throughout your zip codes. I pray that you have met some new neighbors and have had the opportunity to show and share your love and faith in Jesus. I also pray that you have met some neighbors who are church-attending Christ-followers and have begun building a friendship and fellowship with them that includes sharing some ideas of how to build a prayer-care-share HUB in your neighborhood for celebrations as well as catastrophes.

Your neighborhood is a great place to build unity in the body of Christ. Jesus prayed that we would be one; gathered under the wings of His affection and authority, that we would glorify Him as He sanctifies us in the truth of His Word. I pray that your neighborhood is filled with people who attend many different churches and your relationships bring those churches together to worship and serve throughout the year.

One significant way that you can gather churches together to pray and worship is through a simulcast.  These events are usually hosted by a well-known Christian Pastor or leader and enable you to pray, worship and hear the message God has given to them without you having to travel to another city. The simulcast removes the speculation that you might be trying to promote your church or Pastor and brings a neutral but trusted and beloved speaker or speakers to share information and inspiration. Your neighbors can discuss and unite around the application of the message and pray for transformation throughout your community.

 I am very excited about the upcoming simulcast called, The Gathering 2016, that will be held on September 21.  The Gathering is the Body of Christ coming together 1 day to unite across racial, denominational and generational lines, lifting up the name of Jesus and taking responsibility for the condition of our nation. No personality, denomination or organization will be promoted. The Gathering has one purpose: to unite the Body of Christ in America – all believers, regardless of race, age, or denomination – in prayer for forgiveness, wisdom, and provision for our nation.

I want to encourage you to “gather” your neighbors together often; build your friendships with bar-b-ques and other activities and be sure to invite your neighbors who are not Christ-followers. This solemn assembly simulcast is a great, non-threating way to gather your neighbors to pray, as we are Kingdom citizens first and foremost; we are living in America, in whichever state you are in, in a certain city and finally your particular zip code or subdivision – all of which are in need of prayer and God’s forgiveness, wisdom, and provision. Gathering people of various churches builds a community in unity and delights our Lord. I want to encourage you to find out more about this significant simulcast opportunity at thegathering2016.com.

I challenge you to gather every “neighbor” in your zip code in the love of Jesus by the end of the year 2020.

Love is a verb…let’s get moving!

    Kathy B.

For more ideas on gathering your neighbors, visit our Coaching Corner at LOVE2020.com.

                                                                                                                                                        Sept. 1 2016

Since our world is in moral and spiritual decline, we are in a battle for the minds and hearts of our dear grandchildren. The enemy is trying to steal their lives and the plans God has for them. In addition to trying to destroy their faith, the enemy is trying to destroy the morals of our country, especially the family unit. It is urgent that we stand in the gap to pray for the spiritual, emotional, and physical protection of our grandchildren and their parents so they do not become victims of our culture.

For that reason, Christian Grandparenting Network has a passion to encourage and equip grandparents to pray for their grandchildren. Our mission is to challenge grandparents around the world to intentionally and regularly come together to pray, interceding for their grandchildren, children and communities. In the Pray! Magazine, Arlyn Lawrence writes, “Intercession is one of the ways God designed for us to partner with Him in bringing His loving presence into our aching world.”¹    

Therefore, we have organized “Grandparents@Prayer” (G@P) intercessory prayer groups. Our goal is to encourage grandparents to be prayer warriors through the personal discipline of intercessory prayer in the battle against the enemy. We encourage grandparents to meet together in small or large groups on a regular basis to unite in prayer at a designated location for 1 hour or longer of guided prayer and fellowship.

In Isaiah 58:6 we read that we can “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” in our world. One of the ways we can break these chains is by “standing in the gap” with prayer for our dear grandchildren. Today grandparents can stand in the gap with prayer for their grandchildren as the enemy threatens their spiritual lives.

Grandparents’ Day of Prayer is a great time to ask grandparents to join you in prayer and share about the Grandparents@Prayer intercessory prayer groups.

I have found uniting in prayer with other grandparents for my grandchildren is a special blessing for me. It’s a safe place to share my concerns for my grandchildren as they are growing up in our post-Christian culture.

We now have many G@P intercessory groups meeting in the U.S., Philippines, Canada and South Africa, in retirement Centers, schools, churches and homes.  We would like to see the number of G@P groups grow.. Some of the groups meet weekly, some twice a month or once a month, whatever the group desires.  

I want to challenge you to ask God whom He would like you to ask to pray with you for each other’s grandchildren. Ask your friends, church senior group, neighbors, family members or whomever.

To learn more go to https://www.christiangrandparenting.net/prayer/grandparents-prayer/introduction-to-g-p to read about the format, stories, locations and how to sign up to participate. You may also email me at lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net

The legacy of a praying grandparent will live on forever.

By Lillian Penner, National Prayer Coordinator, Christian Grandparenting Network, lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net 

¹   Arlyn Lawrence, “It’s Not Just Who You Are-It’s Who You Know”, Pray! Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008, p.20. Colorado Springs, CO

₁.

Since our world is in moral and spiritual decline, we are in a battle for the minds and hearts of our dear grandchildren. The enemy is trying to steal their lives and the plans God has for them. In addition to trying to destroy their faith, the enemy is trying to destroy the morals of our country, especially the family unit. It is urgent that we stand in the gap to pray for the spiritual, emotional, and physical protection of our grandchildren and their parents so they do not become victims of our culture.

 For that reason, Christian Grandparenting Network has a passion to encourage and equip grandparents to pray for their grandchildren. Our mission is to challenge grandparents around the world to intentionally and regularly come together to pray, interceding for their grandchildren, children and communities. In the Pray! Magazine, Arlyn Lawrence writes, “Intercession is one of the ways God designed for us to partner with Him in bringing His loving presence into our aching world.”¹    

 Therefore, we have organized “Grandparents@Prayer” (G@P) intercessory prayer groups. Our goal is to encourage grandparents to be prayer warriors through the personal discipline of intercessory prayer in the battle against the enemy. We encourage grandparents to meet together in small or large groups on a regular basis to unite in prayer at a designated location for 1 hour or longer of guided prayer and fellowship.

In Isaiah 58:6 we read that we can “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” in our world. One of the ways we can break these chains is by “standing in the gap” with prayer for our dear grandchildren. Today grandparents can stand in the gap with prayer for their grandchildren as the enemy threatens their spiritual lives.

Grandparents’ Day of Prayer is a great time to ask grandparents to join you in prayer and share about the Grandparents@Prayer intercessory prayer groups.

I have found uniting in prayer with other grandparents for my grandchildren is a special blessing for me. It’s a safe place to share my concerns for my grandchildren as they are growing up in our post-Christian culture.

We now have many G@P intercessory groups meeting in the U.S., Philippines, Canada and South Africa, in retirement Centers, schools, churches and homes.  We would like to see the number of G@P groups grow.. Some of the groups meet weekly, some twice a month or once a month, whatever the group desires.  

I want to challenge you to ask God whom He would like you to ask to pray with you for each other’s grandchildren. Ask your friends, church senior group, neighbors, family members or whomever.

To learn more go to https://www.christiangrandparenting.net/prayer/grandparents-prayer/introduction-to-g-p to read about the format, stories, locations and how to sign up to participate. You may also email me at lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net

The legacy of a praying grandparent will live on forever.

By Lillian Penner, National Prayer Coordinator, Christian Grandparenting Network, lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net 

¹   Arlyn Lawrence, “It’s Not Just Who You Are-It’s Who You Know”, Pray! Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008, p.20. Colorado Springs, CO

₁.

The Sept. 2016 ION Prayer Focus is ready. We invite you to join in prayer for the Oral & Oral Bible-less Peoples and to join our weekly prayer call each Thursday at 2pm (EDT)

Click here to read this month's Prayer Focus:
https://ionprayer.com/2016/08/28/sept-2016-ion-prayer-focus/

While Paul’s instructions are to pray for “those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1-2), and he specifies praying for “kings” the obvious application is anyone who is in any position of authority over us – President, Congress, Supreme Court, Governor, Senators & Representatives, County, Parish and Local Officials, and Law Enforcement Officers. The benefit of such prayer is that through their wise rule, and under their protection, we might have “a quiet and peaceable life.” Christians are to be peaceful and orderly; and ask of the rulers, that they may not be harassed in the enjoyment of their rights. In the Old Testament the Jews were commanded, and forced, to pray for their heathen rulers (Ezra 6:10; Jer 29:7). Later, the Jews, by Augustus’ order, offered a lamb daily for the Roman emperor. The Jews reached a point where they wanted no more of this. All they wanted from those in authority is what we want: protection that allows us the freedom to live in peace, not just with our fellow-man, but with our enemies, and rescue when we get in trouble. To this end, we pray “for those in authority.” Paul confirms, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” (I Timothy 1:3).

Dear God, thank you for all the encouraging books, prayer books and testimonies You give us in abundance.

Please walk with us while we are on the journey of praying for our adult children and young grandchildren. The stakes are high and the enemy fierce. Please protect us all and help us to glorify You in bringing the sacrifice of prayer and intercession to You.

Fulfill Your purposes for all of us.

Give us strength and courage and peace and joy and everything else we need to complete the work You have given us.

You are Yahweh, El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Chaiyai, El Sali and our Redeemer Lord Jesus Christ. Your Names bring us peace and protect us.

You always fulfill Your Word and keep Your promises.

We praise You, in Jesus' Name, amen.

Leaders in the Body of Christ are called, among other things, to be lifeguards. Watching is the key function of a prophet or intercessor. Rescuing is a priority for the evangelist. Guarding is elementary for the pastor.Warning is a main component of teaching. Vision is essential for the apostle. Believers in the Kingdom of God are expected to be on guard, or more specifically: to keep watch.
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My pastor runs a waterskiing ministry at the lake near his church in the summertime. On days when he is alone, the kids know that if he is out on the water training someone, no one swims until he gets back to the dock. 

Continue Reading Here: 

http://www.HisInscriptions.com/blog/be-a-spiritual-lifeguard

Sometimes God hands us a spiritual “Key:” a sign or token of our mastery of a gift we have or a role we play in the Kingdom of God.  For example, you might realize, as I did one day, that worship is your key to the throne room, and that when you praise Him you find breakthrough, peace, and renewal. Our strategies for the future come from this place, and our function within His Kingdom is often tied to this key. When we “turn the key” by using this gifting, others are mysteriously drawn to us, and enter into the Presence of God along with us.

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2 Corinthians 9:10-15 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all, while they also, by prayer on your behalf, yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! NAS

I am so moved and motivated by these words of Paul to the Christ-followers in Corinth, as he assures them that God will guide, provide and be glorified in the Kingdom work He calls them (and us) to do. He supplies all that is needed; His Word, His Son, His Spirit, His wisdom, and He gives each of us the experience and education we need to do exactly what He designed us to do. Even more amazing is the multiplication factor; He did all of this to bless you AND so that you could meet the needs of other people. Loving neighbors cause others to give Jesus the thanks and glory; and when you do this, your blessings are not depleted but rather completed as you sow what God has supplied. Through us, Jesus produces thanks to the Father and increases the harvest.

In my last blog I gave you a first step resource, Pray4EveryHome.com and challenged you to start raising your “heart-rate” by prayer walking your neighborhood and pausing to talk with your neighbors along the way. These talks are a great way to learn how to pray for people and find out what their needs are. If your neighborhood is more than a street long, you may have already figured out that it would be helpful to have several people covering your neighborhood or even zip code in prayer. You can either recruit other Christian neighbors to pray up and down their street, or you can recruit people at your church to prayer walk their neighborhoods. Of course the best answer is to implement BOTH options. The Pray4EveryHome.com website can be used to adopt an entire area around a church and keep track of every neighbor being prayed over.

In addition to prayer, there is also the opportunity to provide care by meeting needs when illness, hardships or tragedy strikes. As you develop an adoption plan for your neighborhood or zip code, begin to develop a communication strategy. It may be as simple as a social media page or as well planned out as a prayer-care-share hub that plans and prepares for opportunities and tragedies. Opportunities may be a Fall Festival, concert, fair, Christmas caroling/party, or any event that draws a crowd together. Tragedies may touch one home or an entire community, and the relationships that you have built as loving Christian neighbors will open doors of trust in good times and bad. We have seen time and time again on the news, where church buildings become a command center for first responders, collection spots for donations, distribution hubs for care and resources or even shelters for both the rescued and the rescuer.

Love covers a multitude of wounds; in communities where people are living a prayer-care-share lifestyle there are stronger racial relations, lower crime, increased academic success, businesses flourish and the community attends and protects the church that has lovingly served and stood by them. Church buildings that once stood blocks apart are connected by hearts and homes impacted by members of multiple churches in the name and for the glory of Jesus. In his book, “Neighborhood Initiative and the Love of God” Lynn Cory explains how the Kingdom work that God does in us and through us in our neighborhoods will help cultivate unity between churches within that community. Jesus is glorified when we ARE the Church; when His love flows out of the church building and floods the streets of our neighborhoods. We will discuss many ways to bring the Church together in future blogs. Remember, we are creating a model of love that can be carried out every day along the way; and expanding your mission field one step at a time. This step is to adopt your neighborhood/zip code and cultivate prayer on every street.

I challenge you to touch every “neighbor” in your zip code with the love of Jesus by the end of the year 2020.

Love is a verb…let’s get moving!

    Kathy B.

For more ideas, check out the Love2020.com interview with the writers of “Next Door As It Is In Heaven: Living out God’s Kingdom In Your Neighborhood.”

8/25/16

You occasionally hear God blamed for the condition of the world because He created Adam and Eve already knowing they would sin and plunge all of us into darkness.

Of course you have to consider that God also knew the hope set before us in creation. In Romans 8:18-20 Paul says, "I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope."

Let's consider the possible worlds God could have created. He could have abstained from creating any world at all. He was eternally self-sufficient. He could have created a world without sentient beings. He could have created intelligent beings who could not choose to reject Him. But in none of these worlds would we have the choice to love him, the challenge of true devotion, the chance to obey in the face of temptation. And none of these options would give us the possibility of repentance, redemption, or the wonder of grace as we know it.

When Jesus commanded the stone to be removed from the tomb of Lazarus in John 11, Martha protested, "Lord, by this time he will stink."

I too stink. Our world stinks of sin and corruption. Jesus answered Martha and me, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"

That day they saw a pantomimed foretaste of what we hope for. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Romans 8 continues with verses 22-25.

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

Suppose two people were given an odious task. One is told, “At the end of one year you will be paid $10,000 and be sent on your way.” The other is told, “At the end of one year you will be rewarded with forty million dollars and be revered by the entire world for the rest of your life.”

Which one will be better able to endure? In a hard world you can have a great hope.

In his book 10 Philosophical Mistakes, Mortimer Adler posed this question. If you were asked in the middle of a ball game with your favorite team so far behind that they could never catch up, "Is this a good game?", what would you say?

But suppose your team comes back at the very end and to win against impossible odds. That would be a better game than you could have imagined while your team was behind.

We are hoping against sight and smell in the promise of the Sovereign God who created the heavens and the earth that we will see glory beyond anything anyone can imagine!

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

http://daveswatch.com/index.html

The school bells ring every fall for many of our grandchildren. One of my granddaughters started mid-August while the others start after Labor Day. The beginning of the school year can be a stressful experience for grandchildren with new teachers, new classmates, especially if they are going to a new school setting. They may have to adjust to new teachers, coaches, bus drivers, car pools, and other new situations.  

Our grandchildren are growing up and being educated in a time of global uncertainty, with peer pressures and temptations that we never experienced in our youth. We, as grandparents can help provide a hedge of protection for them, so they may be able to resist the temptations and deceptions they encounter, and experience, peace, joy, and success, as they navigate their world hostile to the truth.

Pray for Protection

Satan is trying to steal our children away from walking with God. Jesus says, “The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10 NLT) However, grandparents have the opportunity to pray for their protection from Satan and his demons, covering them with the armour of God and for them to experience the fullness of the Lord in their lives.

When we long for those hugs and kisses, and when we think of how much we miss our grandchildren, it is a good time to say a prayer for their physical, emotional and spiritual protection.

Send a Back to School Note

For the last few of years, I have sent my grandchildren in school a Back to school note telling them that we will be praying for them as they start a new school year. They may be facing frightening or uncomfortable situations, as they attend new schools, have new teachers, and make new friends. A note of encouragement from their grandparents may give them the confidence they need as they go back to school.

Grandma Sets her Alarm

I heard of a grandmother in Texas who sets the alarm on her cell phone each day at the time each of her grandchildren are going to school to remind her to pray for them.

Pray for the Adult Influences on your Grandchildren

Have you thought about praying for the many adults who influence your grandchildren? Are the adults involved in your grandchildren’s lives good role models?

Adults who have influence on your grandchildren may be their other grandparents, teachers, principal, coaches, carpool or bus driver, Sunday school teacher, children’s director, pastor, youth leaders, neighbors, scout leaders, extra-curricular activity teachers, doctors, etc.  Many other adult influences indirectly affect our grandchildren, such as their elected and appointed officials, (local, state and federal), TV programs, electronic games, musicians, textbook authors, media, fashion designers, etc.        

Ask your grandchild for their teacher’s name, if possible, meet their teacher and others involved in their lives so you know for whom you are praying. It makes praying more personable if you have an opportunity to tell them you are praying for them.  

In case you missed this offer a couple of weeks ago I am offering it again. I would love to send you a free Back to School E-book to help you intentionally pray for your grandchildren as they go back to school. Sign up (on the right side of page) for my blog updates and never miss a post on my website. Then I will send you a free download of “Suggestions to Pray for Grandchildren in School” (preschool thru college) and the “31 Scriptures to Pray for Children” as a bonus along with the E-book.

If you are already a subscriber, just send me an email requesting the Back to School E-book wit the bonus.  Leve a comment on my website or send me an email to:lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net

Prayer for your grandchildren

Dear Lord, I pray my grandchildren will:

Desire to do their very best. Respect their teachers.

Choose friends, who will have a positive influence.

Recognize the deception of worldly thinking.

Eyes blinded to the temptations they face.

Have a balanced view of their beauty, charm, and strength.

Learn to be responsible for their actions and behavior. 

I pray the adult influences of my grandchild

will always speak the truth, model lives of integrity to the children.

Transport the children safely and looking out for the child’s best interest.

I pray they will make the children feel safe,

protecting them from verbal, emotional and physical abuse.

I pray they will be an encourager to the children.

Live blameless lives and do what is right.

Speak the truth with a sincere heart.

In Jesus’ name, Amen

By Lillian Penner, National Prayer Coordinator, Christian Grandparenting Network, lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net

Matthew 22:37-39 - Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” NIV  

From the time that Jesus expanded His audience’s definition of their “Neighbor,” millions of people have traveled across town or across the globe to administer care and share the Gospel. It is a vital part of obeying the Great Commission to “go into all the world” to make disciples; the problem is that sometimes we pass by those in greatest need as we drive out of our neighborhood and head to the airport to fly to our “mission field.” Neil Cox, the coordinator for our LOVE2020 Community Development and Justice sphere, often reminds me that everyone begins and ends their day at home; and the homes you pass on your way to and from work, school and church are filled with our neighbors who need prayer, care and to have the Gospel shared with them also. Jesus never intended for us to exclude our next door neighbor, just expand our hearts and reach to love more “neighbors.”

One of the greatest tools for praying for my neighbors was introduced to me by Chris Cooper. The Pray4EveryHome.com website prompts people to sign up with their zip code and then sends the names and address of your neighbors each day with a specific prayer prompt to get you started. It is an effective way to BEGIN praying for your neighbors by name. I encourage you to prayer walk your street, possibly your whole subdivision each day or a few days a week, but instead of being focused on getting exercise, go for a walk with the purpose of meeting a new neighbor or striking up a conversation with a neighbor you met recently to have a deeper conversation. Go visit the 5-10 houses to the left and right of your home; get to know them, their needs, where they go to church and through these conversations you will learn how to pray for them, what care you could give and based on your conversations, when to share the gospel with them. Think of it as raising your "heart-rate" by exercising Christ's love in your neighborhood.

I will introduce and explain the actions steps of LOVE2020 in each blog; slowly expanding your mission field with a variety of possibilities and resources that will help enable you to live a prayer, care, share lifestyle. I have been reading through the four gospels and I noticed that each story, lesson, conversation and miracle happened while Jesus was walking, traveling, sitting by the shore, going from one place to another. In other words, Jesus ministered every day, along the way. Jesus got up early while it was still dark to pray, He conversed with His Father and then set out to minister to those who crossed His path that day as He was on His way somewhere. That is exactly how a prayer, care, share lifestyle happens! Love begins at home; with your family and your neighbors…your next door neighbors. I challenge you to touch every “neighbor” with the love of Jesus by the end of the year 2020.

Love is a verb…let’s get moving!

    Kathy B.

For more ideas, check out the prayer, care, share strategy for the Community Development/Justice, and the Neighboring spheres in the “Strength Conditioning” section of LOVE2020.com.

The subject of my blog this week sounds a little like it belongs in my other blog, thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/ rather than watchininprayer. But in fact, this deals with the attitude that must drive our prayers. Is your life, are your prayers, driven by faith or by the need to manipulate circumstances, people or even God?

Do you approach Your Circumstances in Faith or the desire to Manipulate?

When you face painful circumstances, it is difficult if not impossible not to ask God to change them. In Fact, prayer can be a statement that you are trusting God to improve your circumstances. Can you imagine Joseph in the Old Testament not praying for his release as He languished in prison? I'm sure he cried out to God for relief. But instead God used him in the prison. And God chose to use his situation to promote him to the highest position in the land.

In Philippians 2:5 and following Paul says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Jesus voluntarily left heaven and all its glory to be born in a manger, to have no place to lay His head, to be rejected by men, to be unjustly condemned and crucified for you. In John 12:27,28 He said, "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason that I came to this hour." God has also determined your circumstances, however painful. Can you trust God to use you in the situations where He has planted you?

Do you trust God to work in Other People's lives rather than trying to manipulate them? When you and I are driven to change someone else, we need to ask ourselves if we are trying to manipulate them for their benefit or for ourselves. This may be difficult to determine because we are so quick to justify our behavior. Even if our motives are always pure, we must trust other people to God. Have you noticed that God gives people the freedom to sin and even to reject Him? Without such freedom there could be no true righteousness? It is difficult to watch someone you love ruin their life. And realizing that you cannot manipulate them to do what you want becomes a motivation to pray. Faith trusts and cries out to God to speak to their hearts to draw them to repent and voluntarily turn to Him. Only God can do what needs to be done in someone's heart.

Are you seeking to Manipulate God?

When our prayers are driven by wants and fears rather than faith in our Heavenly Father, we fall into praying and doing anything else we do to put God in our debt, so He will have to give us what we want. We are trying to pray against God's will. Philippians 4:6 calls us to lift our prayers with thanksgiving. You can exercise your faith in God's grace by giving thanks before you see how God will answer your prayers. He is your Father. And you can trust Him to give you what you need. Our children don't always understand what we are trying to do for them. But in the long run they come to appreciate their parents' love. You can trust God to give you what you ask for or to give you what you would ask for if you knew everything He knows.

I need to let all of you who read my blog know, that the Kindle edition of Home In The Wilderness, my latest novel will be free Tuesday, August 16 through Friday, August 19, 2016. https://goo.gl/X3IFQT

http://daveswatch.com/

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com

We don't hear the word blessed much in these days although it is probably not in danger of dropping out of the English language. We need a word for what God alone can do in our lives. There is a sense in which every person and every creature on earth is blessed by God. He gives us food and drink and every breath of air we breathe. But we find the fullest expression of blessing laid out by Jesus in His declaration of blessedness in Luke 6 and Matthew 5. In Luke the blessings are set against woes.

These blessed statements clearly represent the values given by Jesus to be sought by His followers. They, however, are counterintuitive. They go against our innate tendencies and the world's definition value and success. Jesus begins in Luke 6:18 with "Blessed are the poor." Who thinks poverty is good? He concludes the Matthew 5 passage by saying, "You are blessed when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you on account of me."

There are at least three crucial perspectives of these beatitudes given us by Jesus. First, we are blessed in spite of these things. You may be poor in the world's goods, but you have become a child of the King! James 2:5 says God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom promised to those who love God.

But we are also blessed by these difficult things. God uses difficult and painful things to develop the character of His children. So James chapter 1 tells us to count it all Joy when we fall into all kinds of trials. These blessings are not merely external like the things the world values. There is a couplet in my book of poems from The Gospel of John[1] that reads.

"Then you will come to know and understand

All that you longed for, but you couldn’t be."

God uses difficulties not simply to give us things, but to make us into joyful people. He makes us meek rather than people who manipulate to get what we want. We become merciful rather than pointing out how life is not fair to us. And all the worldly desires are removed so by our pure hearts we come to see the face of God.

Finally, we are blessed eternally by these values. The beatitudes must be seen in God's perspective of time. All the good things of this world will end in loss and sorrow and grief. But the good brought about in our lives by the Spirit of God is eternal.

www.daveswatch.com/

www.thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

WWW.Watchinginprayer.blogspot.com

We don't hear the word blessed much in these days although it is probably not in danger of dropping out of the English language. We need a word for what God alone can do in our lives. There is a sense in which every person and every creature on earth is blessed by God. He gives us food and drink and every breath of air we breathe. But we find the fullest expression of blessing laid out by Jesus in His declaration of blessedness in Luke 6 and Matthew 5. In Luke the blessings are set against woes.

These blessed statements clearly represent the values given by Jesus to be sought by His followers. They, however, are counterintuitive. They go against our innate tendencies and the world's definition value and success. Jesus begins in Luke 6:18 with "Blessed are the poor." Who thinks poverty is good? He concludes the Matthew 5 passage by saying, "You are blessed when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you on account of me."

There are at least three crucial perspectives of these beatitudes given us by Jesus. First, we are blessed in spite of these things. You may be poor in the world's goods, but you have become a child of the King! James 2:5 says God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom promised to those who love God.

But we are also blessed by these difficult things. God uses difficult and painful things to develop the character of His children. So James chapter 1 tells us to count it all Joy when we fall into all kinds of trials. These blessings are not merely external like the things the world values. There is a couplet in my book of poems from The Gospel of John[1] that reads.

"Then you will come to know and understand

All that you longed for, but you couldn’t be."

God uses difficulties not simply to give us things, but to make us into joyful people. He makes us meek rather than people who manipulate to get what we want. We become merciful rather than pointing out how life is not fair to us. And all the worldly desires are removed so by our pure hearts we come to see the face of God.

Finally, we are blessed eternally by these values. The beatitudes must be seen in God's perspective of time. All the good things of this world will end in loss and sorrow and grief. But the good brought about in our lives by the Spirit of God is eternal.

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