September 9
…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
James 5:16 KJV – last part
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Have you recently had to respond to some bad news? Maybe someone had been given a challenging diagnosis or results were not quite what was required. My email sometimes sends messages from my friends to the junk box and no matter how many times I remind it... well you know, the computer really has a mind of its own. So trawling through my junk mail as I sometimes do when looking for an overdue expected response, I stumbled across a personal message with challenging medical news from a friend.
Now here is key part. My friend isn't a Christian. In fact, if pushed in a religious discussion, she will frame her response with 'well if your so called God is a loving God, then why did...' and you can fill in the rest for yourselves.
But she knows that I am a Christian. Although she doesn't believe in Him as a higher power, she has asked if I could ‘put a word in’. A lot of Christians may be familiar with this or a similar scenario.
I Thessalonians 5:17-18 gives us this counsel that we should,
17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Sometimes we don’t know what to say in these circumstances. Sometime we fear that our prayers won’t even reach the ceiling let alone ascend to the throne of God. But we can be assured that God, our Father, is always listening to us and we can come to Him anytime with anything. So pray for your friends; neighbours, children, loved one at all times, as this is the will of God.
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Housekeeping details for you
The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.
A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here
