Choice New Years Greetings to you and yours for the Year of our Lord 2023,
As we have already engaged in the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, I thought it would be a good thing for me to send to you some material I received from Philip Lee, who worships with us: The deeper we go into things, the more we do enter a world where the mastery and the career is not to talent, but to prayer...For the God we invoke is the Lord and Destiny of the whole creation and in our invocation of Him, Nature ends on its own key-note.
Because Human-God relationship is at the core of everything, prayer (communion with God) is the core issue of all matters in life and the Universe. Hence, prayerlessness is the most egregious sin. As a result, prayer is labor, because it is the natural and relational interactions with God. Everything of worth requires work, especially because relationship is bonding that requires maintenance.
In experience, prayers bring life because we approach the Life-Giver. Prayers elevate us out of our sin-consciousness because our Redeemer is the Most High. Prayers refine our faith and confidence until we only have trust in the Lord based on who He is. Prayers change our roles in the Universe, because we submit our will and life by committing our all to God’s plan for us, as in the Lord’s Prayer.
We only become important because we are closer to God and becoming more like Him. It is foolish to be right with God then pray, because only prayers that bring us into the Presence of the Most High give us the opportunity to become right and do course correction according to His Will. Thus, True Church is as big in size as those who know the determinative nature of prayer. The same applies to those who know how to exercise dominion based on God’s covenant promises.
• “Thus, the prayer is for us, paradoxically, both a gift and a conquest; a grace and a duty...Prayer has its great end when it lifts us to be more conscious and more sure of the gift than the need, of the grace than the sin.”
• “Our prayer is the answer to God’s. Herein is prayer, not that we prayed to Him, but that He first prayed for us, in giving His son to be a propitiation for us.”
• “Prayer is yielding our will to God in resignation.”-Leonard Ravenhill
• A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.”
• “No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few prayers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferes, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.”
• “You can't live wrong and pray right.”
You can see how inspirational this material is and how important is to understand our place in prayer when it comes to Prayer and Fasting we are not just Fasting we are praying with purpose and faith. I encourage you to join us in some manner as we pray for our church mission and our nation.
Life comes at your fast and when we understand the value of prayer we will understand why David said, “I AM PRAYER”.
GayNell and I want to express our heartfelt appreciation for your cards and gifts during the Christmas Season, you have blessed our lives more than you could ever know. We love you more than words can express.
Your’s for Souls in 2023