Monday, October 05, 2009

IMAGINE PRAYER!

Just imagine with me….

Imagine 10 messages in two 5-week series that will focus our entire church on prayer over in one year!

Imagine every scheduled service, activity, meeting, class and appointment in our entire ministry beginning with prayer for one full year!

Imagine our entire ministry participating in a day, or maybe a 2 day time of prayer and fasting all at the same time!

Imagine every person in our ministry reading a challenging book about prayer all in the same month!

Imagine every person in our ministry memorizing a 6-verse passage of Scripture on prayer all in the same month!

Imagine every person in our ministry taking a prayer walk through our church all on the same day!

Imagine every person in our ministry taking a prayer walk around their neighborhood all in the same week!

Imagine every person in our ministry taking a prayer walk around the public school closes to their house all in the same week!

Imagine 500+ people gathering at Grace Church all in one morning for See You at the Pole!

Imagine every person in our ministry praying for the exact same thing every day for 30 straight days!

Imagine someone praying for Grace Ministries for 24 straight hours with no breaks….Now imagine the same thing happening for 48 hours…for 72 hours…for 96 hours…for 120 hours…for 144 hours…for 168 hours. That is someone praying for Grace Ministries for 7 full days with no breaks!

AND ALL OF THIS AND MORE BEGINS IN JUST 85 DAYS AS WE BEGIN OUR MINSITRY WIDE YEAR OF PRAYER ON JANUARY 1, 2010!

Sound exciting? It sure does to me! Imagine the impact. After all, nothing of eternal importance happens apart from prayer!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Scott,
I was about to send you the following question, but decided to do a quick search of my own for an answer, & just thought I would share this for any others out there that migh have had the same question:

With regard to your long standing statement,"After all, nothing of eternal importance happens apart from prayer!"; does this statement have some biblical foundation and/or support?

So often we take for granted similar wise sounding statements that come from people of prominence, which may mislead us from the truth.

Briefly, what I found is that your statement is a slight variation of Jerry Falwell's (who else), but additionally I found the following commentary.

Christ is our example. He humbled Himself when He became a genuine man and lived in constant dependence on His Father and He took the sinner’s place on the cross. He did nothing on His own initiative apart from His Father (John 5:19, 30; 8:28-29; 12:48-50). Prayer was the way He lived and got things of eternal value done. On at least one occasion He spent all night in prayer (Lk. 6:12). Fifteen times in the gospels we find Jesus in prayer. He arose long before daylight and went out to a solitary place to pray (Mk. 1:35). He won the biggest battle of His life in Gethsemane in prayer (Lk. 22:40-45).

Humility leads to prayer as a constant necessity because the humble know that apart from Christ we can do nothing of eternal value (John 15:5).

John 15:5 (New International Version)

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
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It's your blog, I'd be interested in any further exposition or commentary.