…for this day. Though it was very busy, and at times uncertain, your presence gave me peace and joy. Lord, I look forward in worshiping you tomorrow on the Lord’s Day with my brothers and sisters in Christ!
In Jesus Precious and Holy Name, Amen!
A. W. Tozer
While others still slept, He went away to pray and to renew His strength in communion with His Father. He had need of this, otherwise He would not have been ready for the new day. The holy work of delivering souls demands constant renewal through fellowship with God.
The church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.
Project: Pray for Our Generation
Recently the Lord laid it on my heart how important prayer is. He showed me how it is His desire for this generation to become one of prayer.
He also showed me how broken this generation has become. Alcohol, drugs, depression, homosexuality, STDs, and teen pregnancies run rampant.
But there’s something we can do. Pray.
After my eyes were opened to what’s happening, I knew I had to do something about it. So I started a prayer group. I’m asking for people to take a specific hour each day to pray for this generation. That way there are people praying 24/7 around the world with the sole intention of seeing change and restoration brought to this generation.
We’re calling it, “The Few” from Matthew 9:37-38.
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
We are The Few. The Few who desperately pursue God as far as humanly possible. The Few who pray without ceasing. The Few who glorify the Lord in all that they do. The Few who boldly proclaim the name of Jesus wherever they go. Are you the many or the few?
Here’s how you can get involved:
Kermit Gosnell
Abortionist sentenced to life in prison
Chris Woodward,Charlie Butts (OneNewsNow.com) Tuesday, May 14, 2013
PHILADELPHIA (Associated Press – May 14, 2013) – Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who was convicted of killing three babies who were born alive, has agreed to give up his right to an appeal and will be spared a potential death sentence.
Gosnell was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the deaths of the babies who were delivered alive and killed with scissors. The 72-year-old Gosnell gave up his appeal rights Tuesday, and prosecutors agreed to two life sentences without parole.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty because Gosnell killed more than one person, and his victims were especially vulnerable given their age. But Gosnell’s advanced age had made it unlikely he would ever be executed before his appeals ran out.
Gosnell is to be sentenced Wednesday in the death of the third baby, an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of a patient and hundreds of lesser counts.
Original story …
The truth of abortion … the hope for Gosnell’s repentance
A conviction in the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell has boosted the efforts of pro-lifers to demonstrate what abortion really is.
The 72-year-old Gosnell, who operated a filthy abortion clinic on Philadelphia’s west side, was found guilty Monday of killing three babies born alive during late-term abortions and causing the death of an abortion patient. The jury is to return later this month to determine punishment for the former abortionist.
A life sentence, says Newman, is Gosnell’s only hope for repenting and coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.Gosnell faces a possible death penalty for his crimes, but Troy Newman ofOperation Rescue is hopeful that Gosnell will receive life in prison. “I want to see people be given the opportunity to repent,” he says. “I like the idea of extending grace even in the midst of judgment like God does in our lives – then [Gosnell] can spend the rest of his days in an isolated cell contemplating what he’s done.”
What Happens When the Church Prays?
By Jim Cymbala
Brooklyn Tabernacle’s Jim Cymbala: Do we really believe God can draw anyone to Himself?
Have you ever considered the implications of Christ’s startling words when He tells His disciples in John 15:5 “Apart from Me you can do nothing”? Are we really so spiritually helpless that nothing can be accomplished without God?
My wife, Carol, and I made that discovery in the autumn of 1971 when the little inner-city New York church I was pastoring was struggling to keep the lights on. Carol and I had frankly admitted to each other that unless God broke through, the Brooklyn Tabernacle was doomed. We couldn’t finesse it along. We couldn’t organize, market and program our way out. The embarrassing truth was that sometimes I didn’t even want to show up for the service. And our weekly Tuesday night prayer meetings were sparsely attended and less than powerful.
We had to have a visitation of the Holy Spirit, or bust.
I remember praying, “Lord, I have no idea how to be a successful pastor. I haven’t been trained. All I know is that Carol and I are working in the middle of New York City, with people dying on every side, overdosing from heroin, consumed by materialism. If the Gospel is so powerful … .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Quietly but forcefully, I sensed God speaking: If you and your wife will lead My people to pray and call upon My name, you will never lack for something fresh to preach. I will supply all the money that’s needed, both for the church and for your family, and you will never have a building large enough to contain the crowds I will send in response.
I knew I had heard from God, even though I hadn’t experienced some strange vision, nothing sensational or peculiar. God was simply focusing on the only answer to our situation—or anybody else’s for that matter.
The next Sunday, I came back to the church and told the tiny congregation, “I really feel that I’ve heard from God about our church’s future. From this day on, the prayer meeting will be the barometer of our church. … If we call upon the Lord, He has promised in His Word to answer, to bring the unsaved to Himself, to pour out His Spirit among us. If we don’t call upon the Lord, He has promised nothing. No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.”
In the weeks that followed, answers to prayer became noticeable. Unsaved relatives and total strangers began to show up. There were junkies, prostitutes and homosexuals. But lost lawyers, business types and bus drivers turned to the Lord there, too. We started to think of ourselves as a “Holy Ghost emergency room” where people in spiritual trauma could be rescued.
I knew that a lot of churches gave lip service to the idea that God can do anything. But we needed to have real faith that anyone who walked in, regardless of his or her problems, could become a trophy of God’s grace.
Breakthrough Prayer
The story of our church’s growing dependence on Christ is such a vivid reminder to me of how God uses praying believers to draw the lost to Himself.
Richard Baxter
Prayer must carry on our work as much as preaching; he preacheth not heartily to his people that will not pray for them.
~ Richard Baxter, 1615 – 1691
Father,
We come to you and welcome you into this sanctuary.
You are our Creator and Provider.
You formed us in our mother’s wombs.
We are thankful for our mothers!
We ask you to lead and guide and shepherd us this morning.
Our desire, Father is to know and love and worship you!
In Jesus Name, Amen!
Something happens when churches pray. Something happened in the Book of Acts when the local met to pray. When we pray, we lay hold of the very throne of God. When we pray, God can give us boldness, love, power and grace. When we pray, God can expand the witness of the church. When we pray, God works!
~ Warren W. Wiersbe, Something Happens When Churches Pray, 15.
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