Welcome to the beginning of another week of seeking the Lord for our nation and for a spirit of repentance to fall upon His people!
I love the graphic above. I enjoy a good meal…especially one that someone else prepares. It is easy for me to be appreciative! What I want to cultivate at a deeper level in my life is a hunger for the Word of God and for His abiding presence in my life. I grasp that ongoing repentance is a part of that. It is my understanding that as I draw closer to the Lord, that my own “missing the mark” that He has set for me becomes clearer and with that clarity comes a deeper understanding of the correctness of His assessment of my walk.
So, with that said, I want to encourage you this week, to focus on your own walk as a candidate for a deeper work of the Holy Spirit in your life so that you might emerge as a more effective, zealous prayer warrior and witness. What follows are a few passages that been highly significant in my life:
Deuteronomy 4:29-31 (NASB) But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31 For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.
Proverbs 8:17 (NASB) I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me.
Deuteronomy 8:2 (NASB) You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
The above verses were central to my coming to faith in 1976. I had been reading the Bible asking questions of a God I did not know. Through these verses, the Holy Spirit opened up my heart. I am sharing them this week with you as an encouragement, not only to meditate on them, but also to motivate you to go back to your spiritual beginnings and the passages that the Lord used to bring you to faith.
As we go forward, we need to have a great personal foundation in our prayer life and in our life as a witness of the hidden Kingdom of God. For me, the preceding verses are ones that I go back to again and again gratefully. This morning they brought back the emotion of my first realizing when the Lord became real in my life. It is my hope that is your experience as you go back to your own spiritual awakening. This can be a reminder of what we want the Lord to do in our city, in our region, in our nation!
Blessings on your life and on your prayer!
Paul Laursen
On behalf of the leadership teams of
Advent Episcopal Church
and
The Praise Community
