Greetings my friends. It is Sunday July 30TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.
This morning I’ll be back at my longtime home church in Homestead Florida for the first of 4 out of 5 Sundays through August. It’ll be good to be back with my brothers and sisters of my small church family.
So last #SundayScripture I started something a bit different. I’m taking one of my sermons from a few years ago – and I’m updating it. It’s a refresh and renew of something old.
Once I’m done updating it in its entirety – I plan to preach it to my church family. But this time – you’ll get it first – as it’s being recreated a week at a time here on #SundayScripture.
And now – Part 2 of my updated sermon on “Pray & Believe” – originally preached on Sunday June 16TH 2019:
[CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK]
I remember being asked to pray for the first time in public (out loud) in a small church group setting one day. I got really nervous. My hands started to tremble. I started to sweat. But I knew I couldn’t say “no”. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t say “no”.
I began to talk. It was more like hemming and hawing and stuttering and stalling. What came out of my mouth kind of sort of resembled a prayer. I kind of just repeated what I’d heard others say in a prayer – just in my own simple everyday words. And everyone around me was in agreement, and they said AMEN. I think my brothers and sisters were thinking, “Well Chris is new at all of this, and he’ll get better as time goes on.” Or maybe they were thinking, “Sounds good to me. Good prayer Chris !”
We should encourage one another’s prayers. I’ve heard a lot of powerful prayers here in this place, and at some of our restaurants that we’ve gathered at together in fellowship and food. Each and every one of us is fully capable of saying a prayer that can brighten a day – a prayer that can change a life forever. God blessed us with that gift. We must use it every day. The more we pray – the better we get at it. The more we pray – the more we glorify our living and loving God.
I’ve heard people – church members included (not here – elsewhere) – belittle other people’s praying. I don’t believe that it’s ever productive to question or criticize one’s prayers to God. That’s our intimate dialogue or conversation between us and our God. It’s intimate whether we talk to Him out loud, or quietly. It’s intimate whether we talk to Him with others around, or with no one around. See the Good News is that our God hears us when we yell and scream. He hears us when we talk normally. He hears us when we whisper gently. He hears us when we’re quiet. He hears our thoughts. He’s that powerful. Nobody else in all creation is that powerful. He is God Almighty !
My leaders at that time (when I was learning how to pray – about 16 years ago) made it a point to ask me to lead everyone in prayer on a regular basis – to build-up my courage – to increase my confidence. With time they had me leading prayer for the entire church body at our Sunday morning services. That was back when I was still terrified of speaking in front of groups of people. My God got rid of that fear of public speaking that I once had.
For several years I was part of a small group that met every Saturday morning at our church building in our office area. There were about 5 of us. Sometimes a few more. Sometimes less than that. We met for about an hour-and-a-half to two hours every Saturday morning starting at 9:30. We met for fellowship, and to share Scripture to get closer to God. And then we read all of the prayer requests that our church family had written down at the previous Sunday morning services.
Everyone in attendance at all of our Sunday morning services filled-out what we called “connection cards”. We’d spend about 5 minutes at each service completing these connection cards with all of our current information – name, address, telephone number, E-Mail address, and so on. Down at the bottom of the connection cards there was space for general comments and prayer requests. We read all of those prayer requests out loud on Saturday mornings, and then we prayed for all of them all-together. We also prayed for our Pastor, and our church leaders, and our Sunday morning services that would occur the next morning. We prayed for our homes, our neighborhoods, our city, our county, our state, our nation, and our world. There was a lot of praying on those Saturday mornings. I learned a lot on those Saturday mornings – hanging out with some real prayer warriors.
[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]
If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !
Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:
The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp
CountUp 