Prayer

Standing on the Promises

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments

Yesterday was the National Day of Prayer but we almost missed it! How Glad I was to notice it on the television and spend the last 35 minutes of our evening praying for our nation. Just as in any family we often have our differences. God offers us the opportunity to pray together and sing together as one church, to remind us that for those of us who follow Him, through Christ we are all one. Unity in Jesus is one of the great promises of the Bible, but one that we have to stand on during the storms and we certainly are in the midst of a storm today! We are in a storm overseas with the war in Ukraine. We are in the storm at home fighting with each other over the best way to combat a pandemic that never seems to end. We are in a political and media storm as the battle for the innocent lives of the unborn hangs in the balance. We must pray…but more than that…we must stand together or as Benjamin Franklin noted in 1776, “We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” But what we stand together on is not political cleverness, social acceptance or military power. What holds us together as the family of God is Standing on His promises and loving one another as He commanded.

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35 NLT

The Gardener of Our Hearts

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And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8 ESV

What is a garden? Is it defined by rows of roses and peonies; or is it painted on canvas by the brushstrokes of pathways and fountains? The first garden we learn of was filled with all kinds of fruit trees, and the scriptures tell us that God planted it in Eden. Having spent more hours on my knees pulling weeds than kneeling at the altar in church I have learned that the secret of a garden’s beauty lies as much in the walls that surround it and the spaces between the flowers as in any blossom or leaf. Those boundaries say clearly, “This is my garden and that is the field.” Or “The primroses marching across the flower bed are lovely, but they must be pulled out in places, or they will overrun the foxglove and hollyhock. In his poem, “The Mending Wall” Robert Frost wrote, “Good fence make good neighbors.”. Though Frost himself was not in favor of boundaries, his neighbor was, and I have learned that God is also. God is the gardener of our hearts and the one in charge of order. He sets our limits, prunes our overgrowth and transplants us from time to time when He chooses. Like Jeremiah’s image of the potter and clay, we are all in the hands of the Master Gardener of the universe. It will not help us to whine about the gardening He is doing in us today. We must not only trust in His spiritual gardening skills, but we might want to spend some extra time on our knees next to Him in our garden bed of prayer!

Praying for Our Grandchildren

/ pastorpete51 / 10 Comments

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord teach us to pray as John as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1 ESV

Notice in today’s verse that learning to pray, was more the hallmark of being a disciple than learning to preach. Of course, we all know by heart the Lord’s prayer, which Jesus used to give us a pattern for our prayers. But if we could back up the bus just a bit, we would see that Jesus’ primary method of teaching prayer was by His example. Remember, that when Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus took His closest disciples with Him. He didn’t need them to help Him pray. He needed them to be with Him so that they could learn to pray. When I look at my grandchildren today and think of what heritage I will leave behind, I hope it will be that they remember I prayed for them. One of our grandsons is far away from God right now, but when we saw him last week, we put our arms around him and told him that we love him and are praying for him every day. Do I think he listened? Maybe not – but I do know that when God answers our prayers that he will remember. We must never give up praying for our children and grandchildren. We must not give up praying for our neighborhoods, our communities and our nation. If we leave nothing else behind let’s leave behind prayers so big that will be answered after we are with Jesus. This week’s video includes two of my favorite hymns on prayer – In the Garden and Sweet Hour of Prayer. Have a blessed weekend everybody!