As you get ready for this Sunday, December 12, read ahead in these three locations out of the book of Acts:
We are working on building what would be called the second Wall to His Church—the Koinonia/Fellowship wall. This week, I am concentrating on the prayer part of the believers’ life. In each of the above passages, I want you to highlight the word prayer when it appears, thinking carefully about how prayer becomes a critical part of the construction of the Church.
I watched a movie the other night. It was a love story, and the guy was in a life-and-death situation. He made a reference to prayer that went something like this:
“When I was in that desperate moment, I prayed to God and made him a promise! If he would get me out of this and let me see you just one more time, then I wouldn’t ask God for anything else.”
Is that what you think prayer is? Is that how you treat prayer? We often think of prayer as sort of making a deal with God—bargaining with God or even manipulating him for something to go our way. Have you ever done that?
In Acts 4, this young church in Jerusalem had reached a crisis. But notice in that story that even though there was tremendous uncertainty about the events threatening them, they prayed, and God shook the place, and they grew in their bold witness.
We are basing this whole year on 1 Corinthians 12:27:
You are the Body of Christ and each one of you is a member of it.
If we as believers are truly the Body of Christ, then we are responsible for building his church well. If we are going to build his church well, then we must become bold prayer warriors, no matter what the world brings to our feet.
See you Sunday morning at 10 a.m. as we teach through this important passage.
