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Dialogue with God: Prayer Through Scripture

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“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”—John 10:27

The devotionals of the coming five weeks encompass prayer as a living dialogue with God. Each week will focus on one aspect, and then you’ll be invited to practice that during the week.

Listening to God is a key part of prayer. In many cases, our tendency is to make prayer a time when we tell God what we want from Him or when we thank and praise Him. All this is very good, yet prayer can be so much more — especially when we learn to also spend time listening to God.

I often ask people a few simple questions when we study together on the subject of prayer:

1. In a relationship between a servant and a master, who speaks the most?

2. In a relationship between a student and a teacher, who speaks the most?

3. In your relationship with Jesus, who is the teacher and master?

4. In your prayer time, who speaks the most, you or Jesus?

In order for our prayer times to be joyful and include deep dialogues with our loving God, we need to learn to balance our speaking and listening habits. In our fast-paced modern world, we sometimes learn to speak more than we listen. We have to learn intentionally to listen better, both to our neighbor and to God.

Learning to listen to God is simple, yet it can be very challenging for various reasons.

My prayer is that, in these coming weeks, you will develop a deeper sensitivity to God’s voice and a growing joy in having a living dialogue with our loving Savior, Jesus Christ.

When the first disciples heard stories of Jesus, they would naturally imagine themselves as participants in those stories. Unfortunately, today, with the number of movies and pictures already made for us in our cultures, we sometimes lose the capacity to imagine or to let texts become alive in us. Added to that, an influx of technological noises and the tempting options to watch as many programs on media or other electronic devices are impairing our listening skills.  

This week, I encourage you to pick a story from the Gospels. First, read it aloud and then close your eyes and imagine the story. If you don’t know which story to pick, consider Mark 4:33-41 (Jesus calms the storm), Luke 5:1-11 (Jesus calls His first disciples), or John 13:1-15 (Jesus washes His disciples’ feet). Try to live in the story as one of the disciples, in interaction with Jesus, not as an observer. Seeing ourselves as part of the story is helpful in allowing the Spirit of Jesus speak to us in a new way. This exercise is a meditation in faith to relate to Christ through Scripture. It helps us be sensitive to what Jesus would like to tell us through a specific story.

Ask Jesus to speak to you through His word. If you have an impression in your heart from Jesus, remain in a prayerful attitude. Focus on rejoicing in the presence of Jesus or beginning a dialogue with Him on how to implement in life what you sense God is telling you through this story.

Stéphane Tibi is a missionary serving as Regional Education Coordinator in Eurasia.

Written for Coffee Break.

Persecution Today

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Persecution is a word that is seldom used in our culture.  Instead we hear words such as bullying, disrespect, bias, prejudice.  The list goes on. These are little persecutions.  These are the ways average people deal with annoyances today.  These little persecutions break down the barriers to larger and more brutal persecutions.  We don’t see these yet in the U.S. but if we look beyond our safe little bubble we’ll see that there are much larger wrongs in the world. 

Persecution exists.  It is thriving in our world today.  Religious persecution happens every day, in every country of the world.  The persecution of Christians in Muslim countries is growing with the rise of Islamic jihad.  People pay dearly to worship Jesus and the one true God.  They pay with the loss of their families, their homes, their jobs.  People pay with their lives.  In some communist countries Christians aren’t allowed to worship God at all.  The penalty for being caught?  Death.  Over 4,000 Christians have been killed this year and 245 million are estimated to be living in areas of extreme persecution.

So what is this that is worth dying for?  According to the Apostle John, Jesus said, ” I am the way the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)  Jesus was explaining that the only way to eternal life and heaven is through believing in Him.  He went on to explain that those who believe in Him would surely be persecuted, as He was.  In John 15:18-21 He says that because the world hated Him, it would hate His followers also.  The reason for this hatred stems from not knowing God. 

People who don’t know God look to themselves or other people to determine what is right and good, as well as what is evil.  Anything we don’t understand can, and often is, termed evil.  This is how persecution is born.

Are you interested in something that’s worth dying for?  Is there an emptiness within you that nothing has filled?  Join us Sunday morning at 10:55 a.m. in the sanctuary (964 W. Hwy 190 Copperas Cove, TX) or on our Facebook live-stream.  Pastor Ann will be delving deeper into the persecuted church.

Sunday evening at 5:00 p.m. we’ll be checking out a movie about the church in Iran! Please come learn with us.

An Authentic Faith

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“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’” —Romans 4:1-3

“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” —Romans 1:17

One Sunday afternoon many years ago, my wife and I asked our sons what they learned in Sunday School. With great animation they recited what their teacher had humorously said during Sunday School: “Dude, man, you got to have faith!” That has become one of our favorite sayings.

Faith. It is scattered throughout the pages of Scripture. We believe it. We have it. And yet we often struggle to understand exactly what faith is. Since we are called to live by faith, it stands to reason that we should have a working definition to guide us along the way.

Too often, our definition of “faith” becomes so subjective that we lose touch with reality. Christians must be in an interactive relationship with God and their neighbors. This is continually displayed and defined in Scripture. Paul went as far as to state that everything that does not come from faith is sin (Romans 14:23). Faith leads to the inward obedience of the heart that provides confidence in our actions. The believer, having faith in God, acts on behalf of the will of God. Faith is naturally connected to what we do (this is why James connects faith to works).

In Romans 4, Paul addressed the need to live a life of faith through the story of Abraham.

Through this story, we understand that the many accomplishments of Abraham were only made possible through his faith. Paul is very clear that for every believer, works come as a natural expression of authentic faith. Abraham’s circumcision was the sign of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. Our actions done in faith have eternal value: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (v.3). That is authentic faith; accepting God’s Word to the same measure that it is put into practice. 

When it comes to wrestling with the cultural issues of our day, we need faith.

As God continues to speak to us through the written Word, His Spirit, and the church, we must have a hunger to hear Him and set our hearts to obey His instructions.

May our hunger for God’s Word and His presence increase as our faith continues to grow.

Through faith, God aligns our beliefs with His heart. Faith calls us to believe God. As a result, we are to trust Him and apply His Word with increasing measure and in practical ways in our lives, which include keeping our minds and bodies “from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). We are called to be a people who live by authentic faith—no more and no less than what Abraham experienced. We are called to believe God and His Word as we live in His righteousness.

Prayer for the week: God, today, I choose to live a life of faith. As You speak Your words over me, I will align myself with Your heart. As You affirm Your presence in me, I will apply it in the most practical of ways as your Spirit directs. I agree with Paul’s confession, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. Yes, the righteous will live by faith” (Rom. 1:16-17).

Jim Thornton is lead pastor of Tulsa Hills Church of the Nazarene in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

Written for Coffee Break.

More Than Turkey

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Once again that favorite American holiday is upon us!  Thanksgiving!  I can almost smell the baking pies and roasting turkey now.  Can you?  It’s an iconic day that holds special things for nearly everyone.  Folks who like parades wait all year for Macy’s extravaganza.  I don’t know anyone who isn’t excited to eat too much and then there’s football for that time when you can’t move anyhow.  And we certainly can’t forget that Black Friday starts on Thursday now…. or sooner.

In school we were all taught about the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.  Some families still talk about the actual traditions surrounding this day.  But what if we look further back than that?

In nearly every culture there are harvest festivals of some type, offering thanks for the bounty of the year.  In Christianity, we are taught to be thankful for more than just a bountiful harvest.  Because Jesus came into the world and paid for our sins, we believe that following His teachings will give us eternal life.  THAT is a pretty big thing to be thankful for!  He doesn’t promise that our lives here on earth will be perfectly smooth with no problems, but He does tell us that God knows exactly what’s going on & that He hears us when we call out to Him.

The apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 that we should worry about nothing.  Instead we should pray “with thanksgiving” and trust in the Lord.  He repeats this message in his first letter to the Thessalonians (1Thes 5:16), the Colossians (Col 4:2), and in his letter to the Ephesians (Eph5:20).  This is a pretty serious teaching to be repeated so many times!

Praying with thanksgiving is simply trusting that God not only hears us, but that He cares and responds when we ask for His help or blessing, according to His will.  We serve a God who hears us!  We serve a God who responds to us!  Giving thanks in our hearts and with our mouths before our prayers are answered acknowledges His relationship with us.

If you’d like to hear more about this, we encourage you to join us tomorrow morning at 10:50 a.m. as Pastor Ann brings us the fullness of His message!  We look forward to seeing y’all then.

Would You Say Yes?

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Imagine for a moment that its mid-day and you’re going about your usual routine.  Suddenly, your phone rings. Without checking the number, you answer.  The voice on the other end is one you recognize, but don’t believe would call you.  What you’ve heard is:

“Hello?  This is President Trump.”

How are you going to respond?  Would you say:

“Yeah, right” and hang up?                       “I think you have the wrong number” … and hang up?

“Let me give you a piece of my mind!”     “Stop fooling around (friend’s name)!”

Or….

“Hello sir.  Are you certain you have the right number?”

If you have the courage for the last response, his next words will knock you off your feet.

“Yes, I have the right number.  I was meeting with my security council this morning and they’ve informed me that we have invaders on the east coast.  I need you to take care of this for your country.”

“Oh, and by the way, the armed forces aren’t available.  So it’ll just be you and whoever will answer your call.  We’re behind you all the way, so just let me know how many people you get and we’ll talk again.  Thanks!”

I don’t know how you’d be feeling, but I’d be shaking in my boots!  Maybe now would be a good time to move to Canada or Mexico, or take a slow boat to China.  Anywhere but here!  Then again, it’s possible he called you because you served in the military or play Fortnite, Call to Battle or another game in that genre that he thinks has equipped you to handle this kind of pressure.  Obviously he believes you can handle the situation.

Did you say yes?

Pastor Lisa Palmer will be our guest speaker this Sunday.  She has a message about a situation like this and how God is able to use the most unlikely person to accomplish amazing things.  If you’d like to hear how this story ends, please join us Sunday morning at 10:50 a.m.  We look forward to seeing you then!