KEEP PRAYING AND BLESS!

In the lead up to On Mission One-Day and AGM (Game On) we encourage you to be praying for one another. Please use this prayer guide and share it with others: Keep Praying and Bless.

John 8: 12-18 (Msg) reads:

Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”

The Pharisees objected, “All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on.”

Jesus replied, “You’re right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I’ve come from and where I go next. You don’t know where I’m from or where I’m headed. You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. That fulfills the conditions set down in God’s Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses. And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me.”

Jesus is our light to live by.  In these days where we want to lay hold of the promise that our churches will be full of new believers, we need the light of Christ to show us how we need to live, in partnership with the spirit so that we can lead others to the light.

This is why prayer is so important.  Prayer is not an activity that we undertake as a core practice of our Christian faith.  In prayer, we seek to lay bare our inmost beings to the very touch of eternal reality.  Prayer is a living dynamic through which we connect heart to heart, soul to soul and mind to mind with our loving Lord and Saviour.

There’s a word of caution in this exchange in John 8 between Jesus and the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were skilled practitioners in the worship of Yahweh but Jesus reminds them that there is a narrowness or a limit to their skills and experience.  The mission of Jesus to go into the world and make disciples involves a partnership between the people of God and the presence of God (the indwelling Spirit).  Prayer is key if we are to remain within the largeness of how Jesus will lead us and guide us as we seek to live as followers of Christ and gather together in churches.

This is what is at the heart of this call to prayer in the lead up to our gatherings in November.  Our partnership under the umbrella of Churches of Christ in WA must be so much more than organisational help and support.  We share a common desire to be On Mission together.  In prayer, we have an opportunity to bless, encourage and spur one another on to live as light-filled and led followers of Jesus.