PRAYER APPOINTMENTS

You’ve had this happen haven’t you? Your sitting at your desk minding your own business and all of the sudden someone comes into your mind and you have this sense that you should be talking to God about that person. This is a God Appointment and in particular a Prayer Appointment.

A Prayer Appointment is a prompting from the Holy Spirit to intercede (pray) for someone. Often times you might not even be aware of why you are praying. You just know that God has placed this person on your heart or in your mind. And so you bring their name before God.

Other times you are completely aware. Like a man named Epaphras (if you are looking for names for your kid this is a good one). The Apostle Paul mentions that he is wrestling in prayer (kind of an interesting description) and that he had specific things he was praying about.

Epapharas, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. Colossians 4:12 NIV

I know that many of us don’t think we are “good at prayer.” Well, these Prayer Appointments are wonderful opportunities that God give us. I have a prayer quote that I have committed to memory: The people around you need prayer and you need the practice.

Go ahead be ready for these God Appointments – the promptings to pray!

Your partner in the gospel,
Pastor Paul

GOD APPOINTMENTS

Many of us have experienced it. We experience the sense that we are in a situation that God has designed a particular moment for a higher purpose. He planned for this arrangement to take place and, thankfully, you stepped in and made yourself available! I like to call these God Appointments. An appointment that God planned and we had the opportunity to step into it.

God Appointments are all around us and I believe prepared for us every day. To be honest I miss them often, but I am seeking to be more aware and attentive to His presence and therefore his appointments.

These God appointments are wonderful and truly do have impact. Sometimes when I am in a God moment I realize it right away. Other times I become aware after the fact. But the reality is, when I step into the appointment and serve His purpose, God uses me for a higher purpose, for the sake of His Kingdom. I love that and I am honored.

“…created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In the next few posts, I would like to briefly describe some of the types of God Appointments that God will make for us. Feel free to contribute yourself stories and appointments that you have been blessed to experience.
Your partner in the gospel,
Pastor Paul

God Hunt -- Emmanueling

Far too often I find myself living my days unaware and inattentive to the reality that God is present with me. The message of the New Testament is full of the teachings of Emmanuel, God with us. Far too often I find myself not even thinking or looking for His activity. I want to change that. I want to be aware. I want to be more attentive.

The message of the New Testament is that God is active and working. Emmanuel, God with us, is just as true today for the follower of Christ as it was 2,000 years ago. Dare I say that in many ways Christ is more present today than He was then? Now He dwells within us! If attentive, I shouldn’t have to look too hard to see or sense His work.

Several years ago our church participated in an exercise called a God Hunt (I think I first heard of it from author David Mains). The exercise was to hunt for God’s activity on a daily basis. Maybe it would be through creation, the words of a friend, a conviction, a song, a hurt, and through innumerable other ways. The point was to seek to be aware and attentive. Then when we noticed God’s activity in and around us, we were to tell someone; a friend, spouse, or your small group. I have encouraged the church that I pastor to intentionally be on a God Hunt each day for the next month. I am looking forward to how this is going to heighten the awareness and prayerfully the attentiveness of our church to God’s activity.

I am personally looking forward this active discipline of looking for God’s activity. I know that it is not grammatically correct, but I am calling this heightened attentiveness and awareness emmanueling. Emmanueling is my way of describing my attentiveness and awareness to His being with me.

I would like you to invite you to go on this God Hunt with us. To participate with us in emmanueling and to give testimony to His work in your life.

So let me ask, how have you noticed God today working in your life?
Encourage us all with your story of His work by commenting in this blog.

Your partner in the gospel,
Pastor Paul