National Day of Prayer

Prayer

Thursday, May 7th, is National Day of Prayer. This country is indeed in need of prayer! We need to pray for our leaders, that they are guided by the hand of God, not by their own minds. We need to pray for protection and strength. We should be praying for God to continue to show Grace to our nation.

We, the people, united in prayer, can make a difference in our nation. Without God, we are a lost people!

Technorati Tags: Prayer, National Day of Prayer

Jesus must come first

I was reading Diane’s post from Saturday today at Crossroads. She was writing about the analysis of the evangelical church that she had gotten from a post by Ingrid at A Slice of Laodicea.

I went to Ingrid’s and started reading the entire post. At the end, she had written the following:

The bottom issue is that we can’t compromise the name and Gospel of Christ so that we can still run interfaith political action committees to end temporal problems in this country. I’m not against working against these evils and have, in fact, done so for many years in Christian information radio. I also don’t believe in a doctrinal litmus test before you sign some guy’s petition against higher taxes or whatever. We can work on public policy issues with those we don’t theologically agree with. But we must never stop being outspoken representatives of Christ whatever we are doing. If we work with Jewish people, Muslims, Mormons, etc. in the civil sphere, we can’t allow that to impede our sharing the truth with them when given the opportunity. We can’t put more value on their political influence than on their soul’s worth. And we must not worship together or pray together with those who reject our Savior. We must keep our Christian integrity. We must be faithful. Jesus must come first. That is the point.

The lines that stood out to me were “We must keep our Christian integrity. We must be faithful. Jesus must come first. That is the point.” And, that is just the point. When we shove Jesus aside for any reason, we are letting the devil get a foot in the door. And, he only needs a small opening to impact our lives and others! We should never be ashamed to let people know what we believe or to share Christ with them in a loving way.

Ingrid had given a press release at Christian Newswire in which she spoke about Dr. Ravi Zacharias not praying in the name of Jesus on the official National Day of Prayer website. The Bible specifically says that we are pray to the Father in the name of Jesus.

NDP Chairwoman, Shirley Dobson, owes a biblical explanation to Christians around the nation as to why the name of Jesus is absent from the official prayer. We are not here as Christians to appease those of other world religions. We cannot come to God except through His Son's righteous merits. To pray as "Christians" in any other way is both a farce and a mockery. While other believers around the world are dying for that name, in America, Dr. Zacharias will not even breathe that name in his official public prayer because it might "offend".

Christians need to get back to the business of doing what God’s Word says, without the fear of offending anyone. If anyone is offended, it is by the Word, not the person. We may appease the people, but God isn’t pleased. The Christians of this nation have bowed down to outsiders long enough in order to appease and it hasn’t worked. Why not get back to God’s business, do things HIS way, and see what the outcome is. I believe we could benefit by acting like we were truly made in HIS image!

Linked at Conservative Cat
Sunday OTB at Cao's Blog

Technorati Tags: Jesus, Christians, Prayer, Dr. Ravi Zacharias

Take it to the Lord in Prayer

What A Friend We Have in Jesus

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry, everything to God in Prayer.
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry, everything to God in Prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? take it to the Lord in prayer;
in his arms He'll take and shield thee, thou wilt find a solace there.

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This was a poem written by Joseph Scriven in 1855 when his mother became ill. Scriven was found dead laying in water in 1886. Shortly before his death the poem was found by Ira Sankey who added music written in 1868 by Charles Crozat Converse .


My granddaughter's boyfriend has been in the hospital with a serious staph infection since last Wednesday morning. They think he may have been bitten by something during football practice on Monday afternoon, but nobody is sure. But, this morning, my daughter called to tell us that he seems to be on the mend, since the Doctor changed the kind of antibiotics they had been giving him the night before. The swelling has started going down in his left arm and it is draining, which are good signs. He did find he will spend at least one more night in the hospital and go home with an expensive pill to be taken every day until he is completely well.

When the cost of this medication was mentioned, I thought the only thing that family can do is 'take it to the Lord in prayer'. It is so terrible that a medication that is needed to save a life can cost so much a parent cannot afford it. But, if the insurance will no pay for it, and the hospital will not dispense it to him, then it is left up to them whether they can afford this medication. So, we are definitely going to the Lord in prayer on his behalf for this medication that his body has to have in order to get well. I also want to thank all of those who have been praying for his healing. God bless you!

Technorati Tags: Prayer, Healing, Lord, Poem