Friday, March 31, 2017

April 1, 2017

                                                    
DAY THIRTY-NINE

April 1, 2017

Why Pray?

“…The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16

Can prayer really make a difference?  Can my prayers actually change things?  Is it possible for the will of God to be thwarted because I don’t pray?  These are legitimate questions.  The answers you give them reflect the very foundation of your relationship with the Lord.  On one hand, if God is Sovereign, He’s going to do everything the way He wants to, so why pray?  On the other hand, if He is waiting on my prayers to execute His will, then I had better get serious about praying really quickly.  How does God’s Sovereignty and my prayers go together?

God uses prayer to make the impossible, possible and the ordinary, extraordinary.  Prayers make our efforts effective and help us to define God’s will more clearly.  C.H. Spurgeon said, “Whenever God determines to do a great work, He first sets His people to pray.”  Faithful praying releases the Holy Spirit to act and allows us to see God in His full glory.

I think it was John Wesley that once said, “God does things when we pray that He does not do when we do not pray.”  Let today’s devotional be an inspiration for you to seek the Lord in prayer.  Look up prayer in your Bible’s concordance.  Then read and study those verses it gives you.  It will help you become endeared to prayer and to realize just how vital prayer is.

Prayer Focus:  Thank God for hearing all the prayers that have been lifted up on our church’s behalf.  Thank Him for answering them.  Pray that God’s people at Fred Wes will pray more than ever before and that everything we do as a church will be labored over in prayer.


March 31, 2017

                                               

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

March 31, 2017

Truth and Freedom

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  John  8:32

In a day before politicians decided truth according to polls and partisanship, Abraham Lincoln made decisions based on principle.  His most notable act was the Emancipation Proclamation.  It was New Year’s Day, 1863, when this decree was first publicly stated.  It would be almost two years later, two years after his death his convictions were made official in the Constitution.  Lincoln took a stand without compromise that would nearly rip our nation apart and cause much bloodshed.  He knew there were some things that were worth standing for, even if it meant a fight.  Personal freedom for everyone is such a thing.

An unusual thing happened after the war.  Even after an amendment to the Constitution, slaves continued to live as slaves.  Shelby Foote records for us what one Alabama slave said in 1864, “I don’t know nothing ‘bout Abraham Lincoln ‘cep they say he set us free.  And I don’t know nothing ‘bout that neither.”  How tragic.  Strange as it may seem, man preferred the security of slavery to the uncertainty of freedom.

It is tragic when someone does not exercise his personal freedom.  Even more so are God’s people who have been set free spiritually but who are content to remain in their slavery.  Jesus Christ is the Great Emancipator who has paid the ultimate price for His people to be free from the bondage of sin.

Consider these verses:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  Galatians 5:1

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”  Romans 6:6-7

Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”  Romans 8:2

Prayer Focus:  Pray that Fred Wes believers are a discerning people who will claim our Christ-earned freedom.