"Look To The Lord ... "

Look to the Lord for help. Pray that the Lord's Name will be glorified.
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We look at what's going on in our world today. We hear the enemies of the Lord saying, "Where is their God?" So many people are turning away from the Lord. They no longer worship Him. We wonder if things can be turned around. It would be so easy to give up and go the way of the world. This is what we must not do. We must keep on praying - "How long, O Lord? Will You be angry for ever?" We must look to the Lord for help - "Help us, O God of our salvation." We must look to "our Saviour" for deliverance and forgiveness. We must pray that the Lord's Name will be glorified. How is the Name of the Lord to be glorified in today's world? It must begin with us - "We, Your people, the flock which You shepherd, will give thanks to You forever. We will praise You throughout every generation" (Psalm 79:5 , 9-10, 13).

Pray For The Advance Of The Gospel.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-5
Pray for the advance of the Gospel in your heart, in your church, in your land and throughout the world. Pray that "the Gospel will come to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction" (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

Without Prayer, We Will Never Achieve A True Balance Between Discipline And Forgiveness.

Matthew 18:15-19:2
Discipline and forgiveness are not opposites. They belong together. Discipline is to be part of our caring. If it is not carried out in a caring way, it is not the discipline of the Lord. It is the expression of human arrogance. Where there is a genuine desire to honour God and do His will, we have more than some human beings imposing their own will upon others. We have God at work, purifying His Church. The link between discipline (15-17) and forgiveness (21-35) is prayer (18-20). Without prayer, we will never achieve a true balance between discipline and forgiveness. We must avoid a harsh legalism which knows nothing of God’s love. We dare not soft-pedal the moral demands of discipleship. God is holy. God is love. We need both holiness and love - for the sake of the ‘large crowds’ who need the Saviour (2).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

‘We Will Devote Ourselves To Prayer And The Ministry Of The Word.'

Matthew 17:14-27
Epilepsy is an illness. In this case, there was something more - demonic involvement (18). The disciples failed and were called to greater faith (16, 20). They were ‘greatly distressed’. Troubled by talk of His death, they failed to hear this: ‘He will be raised on the third day’(23). Jesus paid the annual temple ‘tax’(24-27). His first allegiance was to God, yet He did not ignore His other responsibilities. There is a lesson for today’s Church here. We are to be one body of Christ - not two groups, ‘spiritual’ and ‘social’, each looking down on the other: ‘too earthly-minded to be any heavenly good’, ‘too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good’. We need the high spiritual principles: ‘we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word’(Acts 6:4), but we must not forget the ordinary things that need to be done!
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

Keep On Praying. Keep On Believing.

2 Samuel 21:1-22:7
There’s no two ways about it. God’s people were getting it rough. There seemed to be so many problems. Were they to give up hope? - Not a bit of it! Read verse 14 - ‘After that God heeded supplications for the land’. What happened when God heard and answered the prayers of His people? - ‘the plague was averted from Israel’(24:25). Things would have been an awful lot worse, if it was not for the Lord hearing and answering prayer! Keep on praying. Keep on believing that God hears and answers prayer. He is not a tragic victim of circumstances - ‘Poor God. He can do nothing about it all’. Don’t believe that. That’s the lie of the devil. He is still the living God. Things are not out of His control. He is still on the throne. God can, if we will - ‘If my people…’(2 Corinthians 7:14). Pray ‘for the land’!
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

Let Us Find Our Joy And Our Strength In The Lord.

1 Samuel 1:1-28
Hannah ‘wept’. Hannah ‘was no longer sad’(7,18). What made the difference? No child had been born. She had not even conceived. These things did not happen until later (21). Why was there such a change in Hannah? She believed. God’s Word had been spoken (17). Hannah believed His Word. She rejoiced in Him. Jesus emphasized the importance of praying with faith (Mark 11:24). We are to ‘ask in faith’, to pray ‘the prayer of faith’(James 1:6; 5:15). We are also to pray ‘according to His will’(1 John 5:14-15). God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). God does not always answer our prayers in the way that we want. Sometimes, rather than changing our circumstances, He simply speaks His Word to us: ‘My grace is sufficient for you’(2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Always, He ‘gives grace to the humble’(James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

1 Samuel 2:1-36
What a contrast between the son of Hannah and the sons of Eli - ‘the boy Samuel grew in the presence of the Lord... in the favour of the Lord’, ‘the sons of Eli were worthless men; they had no regard for the Lord (21,26,12). This is the difference between ‘the children of God’ and ‘the children of the devil’(1 John 3:10). God’s Word speaks to us with a promise and a warning: ‘those who honour Me I will honour and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed’(30). Let your attitude to the Lord be summed up in the words of Hannah: ‘There is none holy like the Lord, there is none like Thee; there is no rock like our God’(2). Let us find our joy and our strength in the Lord: ‘My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord’(1). May the Lord help us to be ‘His faithful ones’ who walk with Him (9).

1 Samuel 3:1-4:22
The call of Samuel is a vivid example of what God can do in the lives of children. Samuel’s early response to God set in motion a whole process of events leading Samuel to become ‘a prophet of the Lord’ through whom ‘the Word of the Lord... came to all Israel’(3:10,19-4:1). Let us ground our children in Christ, encouraging them to have great expectations of what God can do in and with their lives as they grow up, loving Him. The people of Israel were ‘defeated’ by the Philistines. The greatest tragedy of this defeat was the ‘capture’ of ‘the ark of God’: ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured’(4:10-11,22). We may lose ‘goods, honour, children, wife’(Church Hymnary, 406). The glory of God among His people - We must not lose this!
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

Salvation Always Begins With God's Great Love For Us.

Daniel 9:1-27
'O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act!’(19). How do we know God will hear and answer our prayer as we look to Him for salvation? - ‘The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against Him’(9). We come to God with our sin- We are ‘dead in our sins and wickedness’. He comes to us with His grace- ‘By grace you have been saved through faith’. We come to God, deeply conscious of our sin. We know in our hearts that we can do nothing to save ourselves. The way of salvation can never begin with the word, ‘I’. It always begins with God. It begins with His love - ‘His great love for us’: ‘God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our sins’(Ephesians 2:1,4-5,8).

Daniel 10:1-11:13
Daniel came to God in great weakness- ‘I am helpless... My strength is gone...’(16-17). From the Lord, Daniel received great strength- ‘The One who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength... When He spoke to me, I was strengthened...’. Daniel’s strength came from the love of God and the peace of God. God assured Daniel of His love for him. He called Daniel a ‘man greatly beloved’. God spoke His Word of peace to Daniel: ‘Peace be with you’. As God revealed His love and peace to him, Daniel came to realize that there was no need to be afraid. He could ‘be strong’ in the Lord (18-19). When we are weak, let us come to God and receive His strength - ‘His grace is sufficient for us. His strength is made perfect in weakness’(2 Corinthians 12:9).

Wait On The Lord And Renew Your Strength.

Habakkuk 2:15-3:19
We are to ‘be silent before God. We are to ‘stand in awe’ of Him. In His holy presence, we become deeply conscious of our sin which separates us from Him: ‘Your eyes are too pure to look on evil’. Confessing our sin to God, we pray that ‘in wrath’ He will ‘remember mercy’. We pray that He will ‘renew’ us with His blessing. God answers our prayer. He sends His ‘glory’ into our lives. He fills our hearts with His ‘praise’: ‘I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Lord God is my Strength. He makes my feet like the feet of the deer. He enables me to go on the heights’. ‘Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles...’(2:20; 3:2; 1:13; 3:18-19; Isaiah 40:31).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

Waiting Patiently For God's Answer

Habakkuk 1:1-2:14
‘How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen?’(1:2). There are times when it seems that God is not listening to us. What are we to do when we feel like this? Are we to give up on God? Are we to stop praying? No! We must wait patiently for the Lord’s answer - ‘I will look to see what He will say to me’. We must not forget His promise: ‘The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’(2:1; Lamentations 3:25-26). ‘The vision awaits its time... If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay’. Let us ‘live by faith’, awaiting the Day when ‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’(2:3-4,14).
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com

Blow The Trumpet In Zion

***Please consider forwarding this urgent message to your email contact lists***
A brief glance at the headlines of our daily newspapers exposes the frailty of the moral fabric of our nation as the corruption of sin digs its claws deeper and deeper into the hearts and minds of our young people. The serpentine stranglehold of abortion continues to squeeze the life out of over 1.6 million wombs every year in our nation, wiping out nearly one-third of an entire generation born since 1973.

The growing slave trade of pornography, homosexuality, human trafficking, and sexual perversion—not only accepted by the culture, but now shamelessly promoted by it—has claimed countless young men and women, pilfering the Kingdom of the Lord’s inheritance. 2008 is an incredibly important year in the history of our nation—politically, culturally and economically. We are truly in an hour of crisis. In the midst of it all, God is calling His people back to Himself. Now is the time to sound the alarm! Who will hear His cry?

In 2000, 400,000 people, both young and old, gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC to fast and pray believing the dream that a nation can change. That gathering and many others have marked tens of thousands of young people, inciting a prayer revolution and inspiring a dream in their hearts that they could be a voice for change. Now, the nation is in crisis again and we feel it is time for TheCall to go to a national scale in another historic gathering in our nation’s capital.

TheCall isn’t a conference or a festival; it is a solemn assembly—a gathering of all ages, races and denominations. The 12 hours of TheCall are spent primarily before the Lord in the place of prayer and worship. We believe the hour is late and the time’s urgent. Our nation is in desperate need of revival. We’re seeing the signs of God moving, but we do not have what we want. We have to have a full-scale revival break loose, and it will be only through the collective body of Christ uniting together in the place of prayer that we will find any hope in this hour. We must strike, strike and strike again until we have widespread revival!

When there is no remedy, when there is no hope for a nation, God still has a holy prescription… “Blow the trumpet in Zion, gather the people, call a fast.” (Joel 2:12-18)

Will you join us for TheCall DC, August 16th on the National Mall in Washington, DC to cry out with fasting and prayer that the dream of God could yet be fulfilled for this nation?

For more information, visit TheCall.com and watch TheCall’s 3-minute Promo Video.

See you at the National Mall on August 16th!

Francis Frangipane Ministries
http://frangipane.org/