Today’s newsletter consists of two different e-mails received from two completely different sources received within 12 hours of each other! I am astounded once again at God’s timing in things and direction to what needs to be sent to you, my readers.
On a side note about God’s timing~ Our son was walking down the hall of his work place and asking God what he was to do about a situation requiring a work decision. Immediately after he worded his prayer concerns to God, he got a buzz text on his phone from his sister. Letha. She, completely unaware of the brewing “storm” with his work, gave him the verse; Exodus 14:13-14 about how God would fight for him! And God has been there in the middle of the entire work drama.
And so, we know God is actively busy about our lives, working all things together for good; Romans 8:28.
I want you to take note of the explaination for several uses of the phrase, “born again”. Bro. Carroll makes several good points in his article. He is an excellent author, pastor, musician vocalist and has a variety of music to offer on his website~ www.carrollroberson.com
"There are many "mysteries" recorded in the sacred scriptures. The mystery of the partial blindness of Israel in Romans 11:25. The mystery of the church being made up of Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians 2:1-9. The mystery of the indwelling Christ in Colossians 1:26-27. The mystery that not all believers will face physical death in I Corinthians 15: 51-52. The mystery of the Messiah, how He was God manifested in the flesh in I Timothy 3:16.
The mystery of the new birth does not have the word "mystery" in the text, but it is one of the great mystery passages in the words of Jesus the Christ. It is recorded in John 3:8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Our Lord was talking to a very religious man named Nicodemus about how to enter into the kingdom of God. Nicodemus had had many "born agains" in his life. In Judaism, they were said to be "born of water" when a person was born in the flesh. The young boys were pronounced "born again " when they reached the age of thirteen for the bar-mitzphah. The young adult men were "born again" when they married, starting a new chapter in their life. "Born again" was pronounced again when they reached the age of thirty and became a rabbi, and also when they became fifty years old and became a member of the Sanhedrin. So Nicodemus had experienced all of these "born agains", but he had never experienced being "born again" into God’s kingdom, which is being born of the Spirit! Jesus never used that terminology on anyone else, but it was needed in order to reach Nicodemus. According to John 7:50and John 19:39, we can see that Nicodemus was a changed man after his conversation with the Messiah.
May you and I never lose the "wonder" of being in God’s kingdom. It’s supernatural, a working of God’s Spirit in our lives. Enjoy the mystery of it all!
Bro. Carroll
Friday, December 11, 2009
Prayer Works
The following is from Source Ministries and I would not change a thing. Lewis Gregory has said it best~
THE WORD IS: And He spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint . . . Nevertheless . . . shall He find faith on the earth? Luke 18:1-8
THE POINT IS: Research shows that many people say they believe in prayer. According to a Barna Research study in 2001, as many as 89 percent of adults in the USA believe "there is a god who watches over you and answers your prayers." A more recent study by Barna in 2006 found that, “Slightly more than four out of five adults (84%) claimed they had prayed in the past week. That has been the case since Barna began tracking the frequency of prayer in 1993.” Furthermore, most religions throughout the world believe in the importance of praying to one or more gods. But what kind of god, and what kind of prayers. Obviously there is much praying in the world today, but how much of it is actually praying? Most “so called” praying, whether by Christians or non-Christians, is not at all what the Lord Jesus Christ meant by prayer. There is prayer, and then there is PRAYER—Biblical, effectual prayer! Although the widow in the parable our Lord gave in Luke 18:2-5 illustrates persistent praying, there is much more to prayer than that. Many other religions pray long and hard, but that is not enough. Jesus dispelled the myth of this kind of faulty praying in Matthew 6:7. He explained that those who rely on their lengthy prayers are really caught up in vain repetitions—dead works, void of the life of God. Thus these kind of prayers are of no eternal value, and therefore of no real earthly good, not for you and certainly not for the Lord.
THE APPLICATION IS: So stop praying as though it all depends on you: how well you pray, how loud you pray, how long you pray, how hard you pray. The reason you should pray is because it all depends on God. And just who is this God to whom you should pray? He is the Lord God Almighty—the Creator and Sustainer of all things—the one and only true and living GOD! He alone can both hear and answer your prayers. Luke 18:1 clearly indicates that prayer should be a way of life! But in order for it to be a way of life, you must stay in an attitude of prayer. Such an attitude of prayer involves a fixed dependency upon God—in a word: faith! Many people pray, some people pray to the one true God, but not many people actually pray to Him in faith. However, only the “prayer of faith” is true PRAYER—Biblical and effectual in every respect. The prayer of faith is a conscious, deliberate, unwavering trust in the Lord God Almighty. It is the kind of praying described in the Bible, whereby you direct your prayers to the one and only true and living God, trusting in Him alone to bring it to pass. When you pray in faith, you are willing to wait patiently upon Him to answer in His own time and way. God is looking for people of faith: those who will simply believe Him for all things great and small. As you pray in faith you will not become faint, because you will be relying upon the One who never grows weary or faint. And He will sustain you!
Lewis Gregory
Source is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), faith-based discipleship ministry.
Visit us at http://www.sourceministries.net
Thought for the week,
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983)
“Be careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything. I firmly believe a great many prayers are not answered because we are not willing to forgive someone.” Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
Have a great week,
Judith
Life Series ~ P.O. Box 1671 ~ Murfreesboro, TN 37133 ~ lifeseries@comcast.net
THE WORD IS: And He spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint . . . Nevertheless . . . shall He find faith on the earth? Luke 18:1-8
THE POINT IS: Research shows that many people say they believe in prayer. According to a Barna Research study in 2001, as many as 89 percent of adults in the USA believe "there is a god who watches over you and answers your prayers." A more recent study by Barna in 2006 found that, “Slightly more than four out of five adults (84%) claimed they had prayed in the past week. That has been the case since Barna began tracking the frequency of prayer in 1993.” Furthermore, most religions throughout the world believe in the importance of praying to one or more gods. But what kind of god, and what kind of prayers. Obviously there is much praying in the world today, but how much of it is actually praying? Most “so called” praying, whether by Christians or non-Christians, is not at all what the Lord Jesus Christ meant by prayer. There is prayer, and then there is PRAYER—Biblical, effectual prayer! Although the widow in the parable our Lord gave in Luke 18:2-5 illustrates persistent praying, there is much more to prayer than that. Many other religions pray long and hard, but that is not enough. Jesus dispelled the myth of this kind of faulty praying in Matthew 6:7. He explained that those who rely on their lengthy prayers are really caught up in vain repetitions—dead works, void of the life of God. Thus these kind of prayers are of no eternal value, and therefore of no real earthly good, not for you and certainly not for the Lord.
THE APPLICATION IS: So stop praying as though it all depends on you: how well you pray, how loud you pray, how long you pray, how hard you pray. The reason you should pray is because it all depends on God. And just who is this God to whom you should pray? He is the Lord God Almighty—the Creator and Sustainer of all things—the one and only true and living GOD! He alone can both hear and answer your prayers. Luke 18:1 clearly indicates that prayer should be a way of life! But in order for it to be a way of life, you must stay in an attitude of prayer. Such an attitude of prayer involves a fixed dependency upon God—in a word: faith! Many people pray, some people pray to the one true God, but not many people actually pray to Him in faith. However, only the “prayer of faith” is true PRAYER—Biblical and effectual in every respect. The prayer of faith is a conscious, deliberate, unwavering trust in the Lord God Almighty. It is the kind of praying described in the Bible, whereby you direct your prayers to the one and only true and living God, trusting in Him alone to bring it to pass. When you pray in faith, you are willing to wait patiently upon Him to answer in His own time and way. God is looking for people of faith: those who will simply believe Him for all things great and small. As you pray in faith you will not become faint, because you will be relying upon the One who never grows weary or faint. And He will sustain you!
Lewis Gregory
Source is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), faith-based discipleship ministry.
Visit us at http://www.sourceministries.net
Thought for the week,
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983)
“Be careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything. I firmly believe a great many prayers are not answered because we are not willing to forgive someone.” Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
Have a great week,
Judith
Life Series ~ P.O. Box 1671 ~ Murfreesboro, TN 37133 ~ lifeseries@comcast.net
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