"Prayer: Who Do You Rely On?"
John 3:3-21
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Friends... How you would like to be a blessing to others that last more than a lifetime?
These past few weeks I've been putting into practice a prayer pattern that I learned in my college days, but got distracted from over the past couple of years. Maybe it was all the other priorities of life, or the raw grief of loss, or even the fallout of this pandemic we are in. But for one reason or the other I stopped praying, on a daily basis, that God would orchestrate interactions with others where His love and message would come through.
If you have been reading the ebook I recommended (it's a free download that you can find at the end of my thoughts here), Discover Your Mission Now: 5 Simple Practices to Change Your World he reminds us of this truth...
"You see, it had always been God’s dream to bless the world through his people, and originally, his people were the twelve tribes of ancient Israel. But along the way, they kept focusing on themselves and their needs and their status as God’s chosen people. They didn’t get that the “blessing strategy” was for God to bless them so they could bless others! We still have that very same struggle today. So never forget the blessing strategy and know whenever God blesses us, we are blessed to be a blessing to others."
He states later that PRAYER is how you DO God's mission and also how you DISCOVER His mission!
These past few weeks I've been praying that God would orchestrate interactions of blessing and that he would give me the ability to discern them and not be distracted from them. AND our Lord has been doing that in so many amazing ways! I am deeply humbled yet more dependent on the Spirit's leading during these days... and I want to challenge you to do the same.
This Sunday we will be walking through the process of how it all begins with PRAYER!
Grateful to journey with you,
Pastor John