WEDNESDAY PM BIBLE CLASSES

Proposed Schedule

October 14th — Joe Winnett

October 21^st – Ken Darnell

Come and assemble with your brethren on Wednesday night for a spiritual uplift! Speakers will bring devotional messages followed by congregational singing

Last week our Cambodian missionary Dennis Welch shared some powerful thoughts about the role of prayer in mission work. Read this second part of it, consider you prayers and keep praying. For the elders, Ken D

Praying with the Son beside us

How could we dare to speak to this awesome Almighty on our own if we have any understanding what we are doing? It is because we never do this alone, even when we are in a room by ourselves. As we bow, someone else is beside us. God the Son, our older brother, who calls us his friends who knows his business, bows beside us. His knees touch the same floor as ours. His head drops alongside ours in reverence before the Father to whom he submits and gives all glory with us. He did not enter our humanity and bear our scars only for a few decades but retains His humanity to be God with us forever. Because He has brought us to his Father, we pray as children of God also. Ushered in by the original only begotten, we are the also begotten. We are not the only one who speaks. He is interceding with us, for us, and at times, instead of us, when all we can do is sigh or cry. We speak to Him and connect with Him as his children.

Praying from the Spirit within us

We don’t know what to say as we pray. We are like children who want their father’s attention so badly we stammer irrelevancies. What do you say to the Almighty, even with the Son beside you? It ultimately doesn’t matter what the words are, because it is God’s Spirit in us who helps us. As we sit in stillness, there is no rush to speak. Perhaps we have something urgent to say. That is fine. He will hear it. Perhaps we come because it is time, but we have no words. That is fine. He enjoys just sitting with us. Perhaps we say the wrong thing. Perhaps what we ask comes from ignorance or even a bad heart. That is ok, God the Spirit interprets it from a deeper place in a purifying way. When we have said all we have to say, the real praying can begin. He is in us, waiting on us to be still enough that He can draw our hearts and minds to Him and His concerns. Now He can draw our minds to those we need to serve. Now He can show us a picture of what He is calling us to do. When we’ve said what we came to say, He wants us to stay awhile and let Him bring before our holy imaginations what He has in mind. We speak to Him and connect with Him as purified holy vessels who contain His Spirit. Prayer is, or should be, about listening before, during, and after we speak.

The God in us prompts us about what to say to the God before us, as the God beside us puts it in the right words and adds His endorsement signed in His blood. Now add to this holy trinity of prayer, your missionaries or your mission. You lay them all before the Father, with the Son, from the Spirit. Recall their faces, their families, co-workers, and the people they serve. You don’t really know how to pray for them. That is okay. It is more important to bring them before the Father than to instruct the Father about what He should do for or with them.

There is more going on here than we know. Prayer is a mystery and only as a mystery can it be the powerful ground of our lives and guide of our service. It is not that important that we understand it. It is important that we do it. This is mission work.