Spiritual believers but not followers of Jesus Christ

Reading an analysis of Ephesians this week I'm reminded how easily we can be led astray by false teachers. I know I have loved entertainment that is opposite of what I've learned about God and his will for my life. Yet we see the Lord's mercies are made new everyday. I believe the Holy Spirit is poured out on all people, we can choose to acknowledge God's work like Abel or puff ourselves up like Cain ("didn't we do these great things.."). Jesus paid it all the cross, so there is no bearer between people and God. Have you felt the Spirit of God guiding you? Jesus said "when I send the Holy Spirit he will guide you into all truth. He will remind you of everything I taught." - The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), the only sin left to condemn us is to reject gifts and call of God (Matthew 12:32, Mark 3:29).

Every day we have a choice to make, to accept the gifts and call of God or to rely on our own understanding. This is how Isaiah put it:

The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will...If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God. But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires... - Isaiah 50:4,10-11 (see Jesus life and teaching: Isaiah 48:12-51:23)

Spiritual believers will come to a decision about Christ, but how can we say we've really understood if we haven't followed the prescribed way (Heb 6:4) of Sanctification connects repentance, restoration, and service to God. Today if you hear his voice don't harden your heart - this is the message of Hebrews and Psalms (Psalm 95:8,Hebrews 3:15), let the Word of God do it's work in you (Heb 4:12). 

Discover a relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior, you'll find following Jesus is the best decision a person can ever make. 

People can be honest with God and ask Him to reveal himself

• But I, O Lord, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. - Psalm 88:13
• I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. - Psalm 119:147
• This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. - Psalm 118:24 , Phil 4:4-7
• Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. - Psalm 143:8, Romans 12:1-3

The Lord will reveal his Loving Kindness when we ask him to open our eyes to see Him this morning.

• The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. - Lamentations 3:22-23, Titus 3

What are you preparing in your heart, what are you setting apart for God in heart? What would you like to see God do in your life today? 

• O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. - Psalm 5:3, Romans 12:1-3, Romans 12:6-18

When we come to the Lord in Spirit and Truth we often see how wrong we are, consider how God didn't just forgive you, but He died in your place - so that you can live in Him. Now consider how Jesus rose from the grave and has given us his Holy Spirit to live, and abide. How does this joy change your outlook on your family, community and situation (it's a wonderful life!).

• For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. - Psalm 30:5, Hebrews 12, Romans 5
• Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. - Psalm 90:14 
• “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, - Job 38:12
• My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. - Psalm 130:6 
• But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. - Psalm 59:16
• For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. - Psalm 91:11

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Develop a prayerful outlook, Quiet time with the Lords Prayer

Preparing to meet a new friend today (Bob), specifically to talk about matters of faith and fellowship. How to have a 30 minute quiet time (using The Lord’s Prayer)

The Bible is way more honest about life than the church. We don't need formulas. Keep it simple, keep honest/real and keep it going.

Pray continually. (1 Thes 6:17) is to have a "a constant attitude of intercession, even as we go about our daily routines...we can maintain a natural, ongoing conversation with the Lord that encompasses our whole lives...Through our time with Him, we discover His goodness, faithfulness and wonderful direction for our lives. We also find the strength and wisdom for every turn on our paths so we can experience all He has created us for....When we develop a prayerful outlook, eventually our communication with the Lord becomes our first instinct in every situation — not only when we face a challenge or encounter a difficulty. And in time, it will never occur to us not to pray." - What Does It Mean to “Pray Continually”?

“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Matthew 6:7-8 MSG 

How to have a 30 minute quiet time (using The Lord’s Prayer)

(2 min) Our Father in heaven

Be still. Sit quietly and ask “Where is the evidence of the Father’s love in my life right now?” Give thanks.

(3 min) Hallowed be your name

Read a Psalm or listen to a worship song.

(3 min) Your kingdom come, your will be done.

What would it look like for God’s kingdom to come in the three circles of your life today:

1. Pray for your own needs

2. Pray for your friends and family (perhaps using the Inner Room app)

3. Pray for the wider world (perhaps focusing on situations in the news).

(15 min) Give us this day our daily bread

Using a bible reading guide, if you find it helpful, read from a Gospel, a New Testament epistle, and then from the Old Testament. The emphasis here is on quality not quantity. When a phrase resonates with you, treat it as if God is starting a conversation by pausing to pray about it.

(2 min) Forgive us our sins as we forgive others

Review the last 24 hours, allowing the Holy Spirit to challenge any sinful thoughts, words and deeds. Are there people to whom you need to apologise, or others you need to forgive?

(2 min) Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Pray protection for yourself and for those you love, especially in areas of vulnerability. If you are under spiritual attack, take authority, standing on relevant promises from the bible.

(3 min) For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours…

Finish by listening to another worship song or returning to the psalm with which you started.

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A simple quiet time with God (Matthew 6:6)

 PrayerCourse at work Thrusday we walk through intercession. I like how simple the course is, prayer is a natural response for us.

Prayer is the humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. - Abraham Heschel 

Have a quiet time with God, an appointment you keep: "“Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.” Matthew 6:6 MSG

How to have a 10 minute quiet time (using P.R.A.Y.)

(1 min) Pause – sit quietly for a minute, stilling your soul.

(2 min) Rejoice – read a short Psalm or listen to a worship song.

(3 min) Ask – Tell God what’s on your heart. Pray through your day. If you have a prayer list or use the 24-7 Prayer Inner Room app quietly name each person before God.

(3 min) Yield – Read a few verses from the New Testament, until a phrase pops out at you and then talk to God about it. Are there any sins you need to confess? Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh.

(1 min) Amen - Pray the Lord’s Prayer

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First aid kit being ready to help someone in time of need

Often times we can share our testimony but find it hard to help others come to the decision we've made to follow Jesus. Corrie ten Boom in Tramp for God, gives advice to use the Word of God, our job is to share it, not convince people.

What's in the first aid kit? First, we have protective gear for ourselves and others. Like a hazmat suit or sunscreen. Radiation is unseen but will kill us or create mutations/cancer. "I'm here to help you, put this on" Matt 25:36

• Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. (Eph 6:10)
• We know the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16-17). Know 1 Cor 15 (resurrection power!)
• Illustrations for Power of God: riding the current, biking downhill, catching the wind in the sail, bird hovering in the updraft
• Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. (Eph 6:11)
• "I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me." Matt 25:36
• Rags to Riches, how the Holy Spirit changes us everyday
• But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. 1 Thes 5:8
• Fighting against evil rulers, authorities unseen, mighty evil spirits in heavenly places (Eph 6:12)
• Faithful with gifts, fruitfully abiding and filled with the Holy Spirit
• understand the Lord's will, filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:16-19)

 Sword of the spirit

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 2 Cor 10:4-5

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Not just the wax and wick but the flame

During Alpha this year I've come to notice several types of people (all of whom I've been in the past) who I'll illustrate with candles. In one of the Alpha films, Nicky talks about having the Holy Spirit as "pilot light Christians", but when the water heater is turned on you know it's running. That's what being "filled with the Spirit is."
So here are my candle illustrations;

Blown out by the devil: This candle represents the believer who has left the church, discourage, angry, offended. They once were full of light but are now dark and confused. They believe Jesus is the son of God, died for their sin and rose to life. They believe the gospel but also lies from the devil that leave hurt and confusion about the character and nature of God. The wick doesn't hold the flame anymore but can still glow when encountering the Holy Spirit.
Burnt out by the world and flesh: A candle that has run out of fuel, lost his childish wonder about God and lives in a Godless world. This is our starting state of being, at some point we come to the end of our rope. Our path has led to another dead end.

Ready for the flame: This is a believer who is ready to follow Jesus, leading in the cause for Christ without reservation.
Healthy, in use: this candle has a steady burn. with liquid fuel on top and a charcoal piece of wick on top. This represents the person actively involved in ministry to others.

In Ministry for the "blown out": The healthy candle pours out his liquid and burns extra high. That flame helps the other burn around and empty wax around their wick. This is mentoring, healing, confession, and prayer together. 
In Ministry for the "burn out": This is where we give ourselves to God and in return have a new life in Christ. We are made whole again, at peace, we understand that God has taken away our sin, shame, guilt and replace it with love, hope, and faith. We tell another person and are light up, ready to grow into who God has made us to be.
In Ministry for those "Ready":  The Healthy carries the flame and witnesses the change in their life from dark to light.
In Ministry for those "Healthy": We worship God together in song, hymns, and spiritual songs. Not neglecting to meet but all the more as we see the day approaching. 

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Doing something new to bring the gospel to other languages.

I'm taking new versions of the Bible (MSG, NLT) and translating it chapter by chapter with google translate, the putting it in an HTML table so they can see the English next to the translation. Here's how to do it
1. Get google translate chrome extension
2. Get Notepad++
3. Use word or docs to create a table
4. goto Biblegateway.com and get the English version you want chapter by chapter
5. paste into the word document
6. go back and translate each chapter and paste in the column next to it
7. copy the table and paste-special as HTML into Notepad++
8. find width and change to 50% for the first table data items in the first row of the table
9. Save as Titus.html and copy to a thumb drive.

End result looks like this:

Titus 1 The Message (MSG) 1 1-4 I, Paul, am God’s slave and Christ’s agent for promoting the faith among God’s chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to respond rightly to it. My aim is to raise hopes by pointing the way to life without end. This is the life God promised long ago—and he doesn’t break promises! And then when the time was ripe, he went public with his truth. I’ve been entrusted to proclaim this Message by order of our Savior, God himself. Dear Titus, legitimate son in the faith: Receive everything God our Father and Jesus our Savior give you! 5-9 I left you in charge in Crete so you could complete what I left half-done. Appoint leaders in every town according to my instructions. As you select them, ask, “Is this man well-thought-of? Is he committed to his wife? Are his children believers? Do they respect him and stay out of trouble?” It’s important that a church leader, responsible for the affairs in God’s house, be looked up to—not pushy, not short-tempered, not a drunk, not a bully, not money-hungry. He must welcome people, be helpful, wise, fair, reverent, have a good grip on himself, and have a good grip on the Message, knowing how to use the truth to either spur people on in knowledge or stop them in their tracks if they oppose it. 10-16 For there are a lot of rebels out there, full of loose, confusing, and deceiving talk. Those who were brought up religious and ought to know better are the worst. They’ve got to be shut up. They’re disrupting entire families with their teaching, and all for the sake of a fast buck. One of their own prophets said it best: The Cretans are liars from the womb,     barking dogs, lazy bellies. He certainly spoke the truth. Get on them right away. Stop that diseased talk of Jewish make-believe and made-up rules so they can recover a robust faith. Everything is clean to the clean-minded; nothing is clean to dirty-minded unbelievers. They leave their dirty fingerprints on every thought and act. They say they know God, but their actions speak louder than their words. They’re real creeps, disobedient good-for-nothings.	တိတု 1 အဆိုပါကို Message (MSG) 1  း 1-4  ငါပေါလုသည်တိကျမှုသညျဘုရားသခငျအပေါ်စကားလုံးနှင့်မည်သို့ကမှန်ကန်စွာတုံ့ပြန်ရန်ထွက်ရတဲ့ဘုရားသခငျ့ကျွန်နှငျ့ဘုရားသခငျရဲ့ရွေးချယ်သောလူများကြားတွင်ယုံကြည်ခြင်းတရားကိုမြှင့်တင်ဘို့ခရစ်တော်ရဲ့အေးဂျင့်ဖြစ်၏။ အကြှနျုပျ၏ရည်ရွယ်ချက်မှာအဆုံးမရှိဘဲဘဝကိုဖို့လမ်းညွှန်ပြနေဖြင့်မျှော်လင့်ချက်ပြုစုပျိုးထောင်ဖို့ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဤသည်ဘုရားသခင့ရှည်လျားလွန်ခဲ့တဲ့-နှင့်ကတိထားတော်သူကတိတော်များကိုချိုးဖျက်မပါဘူးဘဝပါ! အချိန်ကိုမှည့်သောအခါ, ပြီးတော့သူ့အမှန်တရားနှင့်အတူအများပြည်သူသွား၏။ ငါငါတို့ကိုကယ်တင်သောအရှင်, ဘုရားသခင်ကိုယ်တော်တိုင်၏အမိန့်ဖြင့်ဒီကို Message ကိုကြွေးကြော်ရန်အပ်နှင်းခဲ့ကြရတယ်။ ချစ်ခင်ရပါသောတိတု, ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၌တရားဝင်သား: ဘုရားသခငျသညျငါတို့အဘတည်းဟူသောယေရှုသည်ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ကယ်တင်ရှင်သင်ပေးအရာအားလုံးကိုလက်ခံ! 5-9  သငျသညျငါဝက်ပြီးပြီ left အဘယ်အရာကိုဖြည့်စွက်နိုင်အောင်ငါကရေတေအတွက်တာဝန်ခံ၌သင်တို့ကိုစွန့်ပစ်။ ငါ၏အညွှန်ကြားချက်အတိုင်းတိုင်းမြို့မှာခေါင်းဆောင်များခန့်အပ်။ သင်သည်ထိုသူတို့ကို select သကဲ့သို့ "မေးကောင်းစွာထင်-၏ဤသူလား? သူကသူ့ဇနီးမှကျူးလွန်သလဲ? မိမိသားသမီးယုံကြည်သူများဖြစ်ပါသလား သူတို့ကသူ့ကိုလေးစားခြင်းနှင့်ဒုက္ခထဲကနေဖို့သလား? "ဒါဟာညျဘုရားသခငျ၏အိမ်တော်၌ရေးရာတာဝန်ရှိအသင်းတော်ခေါင်းဆောင်, To-မတစ်ဦးအရက်မူး, မတစ်ဦးအနိုင်ကျင့်, Short-စနစ်ဖြစ်ပြီးမဟုတ်, စော်ကားသောမျှော်ကြည့်စေအရေးကြီးပါတယ်, money- မဟုတ် ဆာလောင်မွတ်သိပ်။ သူကလူကြိုဆိုပါတယ်အထောက်အကူဖြစ်, ပညာရှိ, တရားမျှတ, ညျညိုလေးစား, မိမိကိုမိမိအပေါ်အကောင်းတစ်ချုပ်ကိုင်ထားရှိသည်, နှင့်ကိုMessage အပေါ်ကောင်းတစ်ဦးချုပ်ကိုင်ထားရှိသည်, မယ်ဆိုရင်သိကျွမ်းခြင်း၌ပေါ်သောလူလှုံ့ဆျောသို့မဟုတ်၎င်းတို့၏ပုဒ်၌သူတို့ကိုရပ်တန့်ဖို့ဖြစ်စေအမှန်တရားသုံးစွဲဖို့ဘယ်လို သိ. ရမယ် သူတို့ကဆန့်ကျင်။ 10-16  အကြောင်းမူကားသူပုန်များအများကြီး, မြည်းကြိုးကိုဖြည်ရှုပ်ထွေးနှင့်ဟောပြောပွဲလှည့်ဖြားနှင့်ပြည့်ဝ၏ထွက်အဲဒီမှာရှိပါတယ်။ ဘာသာရေးဆောင်ခဲ့ခြင်းနှင့်ပိုမိုကောင်းမွန်တဲ့သိအပ်ခဲ့ကြသူများသည်အဆိုးဝါးဆုံးဖြစ်ကြသည်။ သူတို့ကချုပ်ထားခံရဖို့ရရှိပါသည်။ သူတို့ကသူတို့ရဲ့သင်ကြားရေးနှင့်အတူတစ်ခုလုံးကိုမိသားစုများကမောက်ကမဖြစ်စေရန်နှင့်တစ်ဦးအစာရှောင်ခြင်းခေါများ၏ဘို့အလိုငှါလူအပေါင်းတို့ပါတယ်။ သူတို့ရဲ့ကိုယ်ပိုင်ပရောဖကျတအကောင်းဆုံးကြောင့် said: အဆိုပါ Cretans မိဝမ်းထဲ မှစ. မုသာဝါဒီများဖြစ်ကြသည် ရှိလားခွေး, ပျင်းရိဝမ်း။      အကယ်စင်စစ်ထိုသူသည်အမှန်တရားမိန့်မြွက်တော်မူ၏။ ချက်ချင်းပဲသူတို့အပျေါမှာရယူလိုက်ပါ။ ဂျူးလုပ်-ယုံကြည်သူတို့တစ်တွေကြံ့ခိုင်ယုံကွညျခွငျးကို recover နိုင်အောင်နှင့်ကိုဖန်ဆင်း-up, စည်းမျဉ်းများကြောင့်အနာရောဂါစွဲဆွေးနွေးချက်ကိုရပ်တန့်။ အရာအားလုံးစင်ကြယ်စိတ်မှစင်ကြယ်၏ ဘာမျှမညစ်ပတ်စိတ်မယုံကြည်သောသူတို့မှစင်ကြယ်၏။ သူတို့ကတိုင်းအတွေးနှင့်လုပ်ရပ်အပေါ်သူတို့ရဲ့ညစ်ပတ်လက်ဗွေရာစွန့်ခွာ။ သူတို့သည်ဘုရားသခင်ကိုသိလို့ပြောပေမယ့်သူတို့ရဲ့လုပ်ရပ်တွေကိုသူတို့စကားထက် သာ. ဟောပြောလော့။ သူတို့ကနားမထောင်ကောင်းသော-for-Nothing အစစ်အမှန်တွားတတ်သောတိရစ္ဆာန်, ပါပဲ။
Titus 2 The Message (MSG) 2 1-6 Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don’t want anyone looking down on God’s Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives. 7-8 But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around. 9-10 Guide slaves into being loyal workers, a bonus to their masters—no back talk, no petty thievery. Then their good character will shine through their actions, adding luster to the teaching of our Savior God. 11-14 God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone! We’re being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life. This new life is starting right now, and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears. He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people he can be proud of, energetic in goodness. 15 Tell them all this. Build up their courage, and discipline them if they get out of line. You’re in charge. Don’t let anyone put you down.	တိတု 2 'Message (MSG) 2  1-6  သင့်ရဲ့အလုပ်အကိုင်အစိုင်အခဲအယူဝါဒအဘို့လုပ်သောအရာတို့ကိုထုတ်မပြောတတ်ရန်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကျန်းမာယုံကြည်ခြင်း, ချစ်ခြင်း, သည်းခံခြင်းသို့, ကာမဂုဏ်ချုပ်တည်း, ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာနှင့်ပညာ၏ဘဝတွေကိုသို့အသက်ကြီးကိုလမ်းပြ။ သူတို့ကောင်းမြတ်ခြင်းမအတင်းမဟုတ်သလိုအရက်မူး, ဒါပေမယ့်မော်ဒယ်အဖြစ်တက်အဆုံးသတ်နိုင်အောင်ရှိခိုး၏ဘဝတွေကိုသို့အဟောင်းအမြိုးသမီးမြားကိုလမျးညှနျ။ သူတို့ကိုကြည့်ခြင်းအားဖြင့်, အငယ်အမျိုးသမီးများ, မိမိခင်ပွန်းနှင့်ကလေးများကိုချစ်သီလစင်ဖြစ်, ကောင်းတစ်ဦးနန်းတော်ကိုစောင့်စေ, ကောင်းသောမယားများဖြစ်ပုံကိုသိပါလိမ့်မယ်။ ကျနော်တို့မည်သူမဆိုဘာဖြစ်လို့လဲဆိုတော့သူတို့ရဲ့အပြုအမူဘုရားသခငျ့ကို Message ပေါ်ကဆင်းရှာဖွေနေချင်ကြပါဘူး။ ဒါ့အပြင်စည်းကမ်းဘဝတွေကိုအသက်ရှင်ရန်လုလင်ကိုလမ်းပြ။ 7-8  ဒါပေမယ့်အများအားဖြင့်, သင်တို့၏စကားမြားကိုအစိုင်အခဲများနှင့်စိတ်ကောင်းသော, သင့်သင်ကြားရေးအတွက်မပျက်စီးနိုင်သော, ကကိုယ့်ကိုကိုယ်လုပ်နေတာကသူတို့ကိုဤအမှုအလုံးစုံတို့ကိုပြသပါ။ သူကလိုက်တယ်သို့မဟုတ်လှဲမှားသောအဘယ်အရာကိုမျှကိုတွေ့သည့်အခါထိုအခါကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုဆန့်ကျင်သေလွန်သောသူတို့သည်အစုတစ်ခုဖြစ်သည်သူမည်သူမဆို, နောက်ဆုံးမှာပတ်ပတ်လည်လာပေလိမ့်မည်။ 9-10  သစ္စာစောင့်သိလုပ်သားများဖြစ်ခြင်းသို့လမ်းညွှန်ကိုကျွန်ခံ, ၎င်းတို့၏သခင်မပြန်ဆွေးနွေးချက်မရှိသေးခိုးဝှက်ဖို့ဆုကြေးငွေ။ ထို့နောက်သူတို့၏ကောင်းသောဇာတ်ကောင်ငါတို့ကိုကယ်တင်သောအရှင်ဘုရားသခင်၏ဩဝါဒကိုမှတောက်ပဖြည့်စွက်, သူတို့ရဲ့လုပ်ရပ်တွေကိုမှတစ်ဆင့်ထွန်းလင်းပါလိမ့်မယ်။ 11-14  ပေးပါနှင့်ခွင့်လွှတ်ဘုရားသခငျ့အသငျ့ယခုအများပြည်သူဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ကယျတငျတျောမူခွငျးရဲ့ရရှိနိုင်လူတိုင်းအတွက်! ကျွန်တော်တစ်ဦးအဓမ္မ, အလိုလိုကျလှနျးခွငျးအသက်, ဘယ်လိုဘုရားကိုပွညျ့စုံသညျဘုရားသခငျ-ဂုဏျတငျဘဝအပေါ်ယူပေါ်မှာငါတို့နောက်သို့လှည့်ဖို့ဘယ်လိုပြသလျက်ရှိပါတယ်။ ဤသည်အသစ်သောအသက်တာကိုအခုစတင်သည်, ပြီးမှငါတို့ကြီးမြတ်သောဘုရားနှင့်ကယ်တင်ရှင်ယေရှုခရစ်ဘုန်းကြီးသည်နေ့ရက်သည်ငါတို့စားချင် whetting သည်ပုံပေါ်ပါတယ်။ သူကကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုသူကကောင်းမြတ်ခြင်းအတွက်လုံ့လရှိသူ, ဂုဏ်ယူနိုင်ပါတယ်တဲ့လူတွေကိုအောင်, ကောင်းမွန်သောဤစင်ကြယ်အသက်ရှင်ခြင်းသို့မှောင်မိုက်, ပုန်ကန်သောအသက်တာကိုမှကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုလွတ်မြောက်စေရန်ယဇ်ကဲ့သို့မိမိကိုမိမိပူဇော်ကြ၏။ 15  ထိုသူအပေါင်းတို့သည်ဤပြောပြပါ။ သူတို့ရဲ့ရဲစွမ်းသတ္တိကိုတက် Build, သူတို့လိုင်းထဲက get လျှင်သူတို့ကိုဆုံးမ။ သငျသညျတာဝန်ခံပါတယ်။ မည်သူမဆိုသင်ချကြကုန်အံ့မထားပါနဲ့။
Titus 3 The Message (MSG) 3 1-2 Remind the people to respect the government and be law-abiding, always ready to lend a helping hand. No insults, no fights. God’s people should be bighearted and courteous. 3-8 It wasn’t so long ago that we ourselves were stupid and stubborn, dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back. But when God, our kind and loving Savior God, stepped in, he saved us from all that. It was all his doing; we had nothing to do with it. He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit. Our Savior Jesus poured out new life so generously. God’s gift has restored our relationship with him and given us back our lives. And there’s more life to come—an eternity of life! You can count on this. 8-11 I want you to put your foot down. Take a firm stand on these matters so that those who have put their trust in God will concentrate on the essentials that are good for everyone. Stay away from mindless, pointless quarreling over genealogies and fine print in the law code. That gets you nowhere. Warn a quarrelsome person once or twice, but then be done with him. It’s obvious that such a person is out of line, rebellious against God. By persisting in divisiveness he cuts himself off. 12-13 As soon as I send either Artemas or Tychicus to you, come immediately and meet me in Nicopolis. I’ve decided to spend the winter there. Give Zenas the lawyer and Apollos a hearty send-off. Take good care of them. 14 Our people have to learn to be diligent in their work so that all necessities are met (especially among the needy) and they don’t end up with nothing to show for their lives. 15 All here want to be remembered to you. Say hello to our friends in the faith. Grace to all of you.	တိတု 3 'Message (MSG) 3  း 1-2  အမြဲအစိုးရကလေးစားနှင့်ဥပဒေ-လိုက်နာဖြစ်မယ့်ကူညီခြင်းလက်ချေးဖို့အဆင်သင့်သည်လူများသတိပေးပါ။ အဘယ်သူမျှမကဲ့ရဲ့, အဘယ်သူမျှမတိုက်ပွဲတွေလည်း။ ဘုရားသခငျသညျလူမြိုးရဲ့ bighearted နှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးဖြစ်သင့်သည်။ 3-8  ဒါဟာမဟုတ်ဤမျှကာလပတ်လုံးလွန်ခဲ့တဲ့ငါတို့သည်ကိုယ်ကိုကိုယ်, အပြစ်တရား၏အ dupes မိုက်မဲနှင့်ခေါင်းမာခဲ့, မုန်းကြခြင်းနှင့်နောက်ကျောကိုမုန်း, ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့ပခုံးပေါ်တစ်ဦးချစ်ပ်နှင့်အတူန်းကျင်မယ့်ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့ဂလင်းများကတိုင်းထားတဲ့လမ်းအမိန့်ထုတ်ခဲ့သည်။ တို့၏ဘုရားသခင်, ငါတို့မျိုးနှင့်မေတ္တာရှင်ကယ်တင်ရှင်ဘုရား, အတွင်းအရှိန်မြှသောအခါ, သူအားလုံးမှကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုကယ်တင်ခြင်းသို့ရောက်ရ၏။ ဒါဟာအပေါင်းတို့သည်သူ၏အကျင့်ရှိ၏ ကျွန်တော်နဲ့ဘာမှမဆိုင်ပါဘူးရှိခဲ့ပါတယ်။ သူကကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုအကောင်းတစ်ဦးရေချိုးပေးခဲ့တယ်, ငါတို့သည်သန့်ရှင်းသောဝိညာဉ်အားဖြင့်အတွင်းပိုင်းနှင့်ထွက်ဆေးကြောကလူသစ်၏ထွက်လာ၏။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ကယ်တင်ရှင်ယေရှုဒီတော့ရက်ရက်ရောရောအသစ်သောအသက်တာကိုသွန်းလောင်း။ ဘုရားသခငျ၏တဆုကြေးဇူးကိုယျတျောနှငျ့အတူကြှနျုပျတို့၏ဆကျဆံရေးပွနျလညျထူထောငျနှင့်ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏အသက်တာကိုအကျောပေးထားတယျ။ လာ-တစ်ဦးသည်အသက်ထာပိုပြီးအသက်တာရှိပါ သင်ဤအပေါ်ရေတွက်လို့ရပါတယ်။ 8-11  ငါသည်သင်သင်၏ခြေကိုချချင်တယ်။ ဘုရားသခင်၌မိမိတို့၏ယုံကြည်မှုထားကြပြီတဲ့သူတွေကိုလူတိုငျးအတှကျကောငျးတသောအခြေခံလိုအပ်ချက်များအပေါ်အာရုံစူးစိုက်ပါလိမ့်မယ်ဒါကြောင့်ထိုအကိစ္စရပ်များအပေါ်တစ်ဦးခိုင်မာတဲ့ရပ်တည်မှုကိုယူပါ။ ဆွေစဉ်မျိုးဆက်စာရင်းနှင့်ပညတ္တိကျမ်းကုဒ်အတွက်ဒဏ်ငွေပုံနှိပ်ကျော်ကွာအသိဉာဏ်မရှိတဲ့, အဓိပ္ပာယ်မဲ့စကားများရန်ဖြစ်ရာမှနေပါ။ ဒါကဘယ်နေရာမှာသင်ရရှိသွားတဲ့။ တကြိမ်သို့မဟုတ်နှစ်ကြိမ်ရန်တွေ့တတ်သောပုဂ္ဂိုလ်တစ်ဦးကသတိပေး, ဒါပေမယ့်ထို့နောက်သူနှင့်အတူပြုရမည်။ ထိုသို့သောပုဂ္ဂိုလ်တစ်ဦးဘုရားသခငျသညျဆန့်ကျင်ပုန်ကန်သောလိုင်းထဲကကြောင်းကိုသိသာပါတယ်။ တိုင်းမွဲခွငျးအားဖွငျ့သူသညျမိမိကိုချွတ်လျှော့ချနိုင်သည်။ 12-13  အမျှမကြာမီသင်တို့အားငါ Artemas သို့မဟုတ်တုခိတ်ဖြစ်စေပေးပို့အဖြစ်ချက်ချင်းလာနှင့်Nicopolis ၌ငါ့ကိုခရီးဦးကြိုပြုခြင်း။ အဲဒီမှာဆောင်းရာသီသုံးဖြုန်းဖို့ဆုံးဖြတ်ပါတယ်။ ဇေရှေ့နေနှင့်အာပေါလုတစ်ဦးချစ်ဘွယ်သောလက္ခဏာပို့ရန်-ချွတ်ပေးပါ။ သူတို့ထဲကအကောင်းဂရုစိုက်ပါ။ 14  ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏လူအပေါင်းတို့သည်လိုအပ်ချက်များ (အထူးသဖြင့်ငတ်မွတ်သောသူတို့ကိုအကြား) တွေ့ဆုံခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်ကြောင်းဒါကြောင့်သူတို့ရဲ့အလုပ်အတွက်လုံ့လဝီရိယဖြစ်ဖို့လေ့လာသင်ယူရန်ရှိသည်နှင့်သူတို့ဘဝတွေကိုအဘို့ကိုပြသဘာမျှမနှင့်အတူတက်အဆုံးသတ်ကြပါဘူး။ 15  အားလုံးဤနေရာတွင်သင်တို့၌အောက်မေ့ရချင်တယ်။ ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၌ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏မိတ်ဆွေများမင်္ဂလာပါလို့ပြောပါ။ သင်တို့ရှိသမျှဖို့ကျေးဇူးတော်ရှိစေသတည်း။

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Not outward reformation but inward transformation

Reading Transforming Presence: How the Holy Spirit Changes Everything-From the Inside Out, chapter 10 "Maximizing your new covenant life plan", Daniel has this great analogy from Corrie Ten Boom.

"I have a glove her in my hand. The glove cannot do anything by itself, but when my hand is in it, it can do many things. True, it is not the glove, but my hand in the glove that acts. We are gloves. It is the Holy Spirit in us who is the hand, who does the job. We have to make room for the hand so that every finger is filled." - DH adds "We are to walk each day in a lifestyle of conscious, consistent dependence on the person of the Holy Spirit so that He can implement His supernatural life plan in and through us."

His supernatural life plan:

• Inside out Regeneration (Ezek 36:26, Jer 31:31-34, Titus 3:5, John 3:1-8, Rom 8:2)
• Those belonging to Christ live by the Spirit, not selfishly (Romans 8:1-16)
• How does being in Christ, set us free from sin?
• Inside out Identification (2 Cor 5:17, Col 3:10, Eph 4:24, Rom 8:4-10, 2 Cor 5:12)
• Suffering in Christ, with Holy Spirit brings unfathomable hope (Romans 8:17-30)
• Inside out Confirmation( Rom 8:9, 16, John 5:12-13, Rom 8:38-39)
• Secure in God's love, Christ intercession through all hardship (Romans 8:31-39)
• Inside out Preservation, Sanctification, Transformation, Illumination/Manifistation/Unification, Glorification

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Beginners guide to daily Prayer and Bible reading (Eph 6:17-18)
Listening to God in a personal relationship with Jesus
Among the weeds of my heart with the Master Gardener

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Growth comes from being honest with God, come into the light (Jer 23:24)

I've been thinking about my habitual routine of hiding from God and how to break free from being fake with God. It's about being honest and asking Him for help. Pretty simple actually.

• “Can a man hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do I not fill the heavens and earth?” declares the LORD. Jer 23:24
• Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Heb 4:13
• For His eyes are on the ways of man, and He sees his every step. There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity can hide. Job 34:21-22, their guilt is not concealed from My eyes. Jeremiah 16:17
• Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? Psalm 139:7
• Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the LORD. In darkness, they do their works and say, "Who sees us, and who will know?" Isaiah 29:15
• He reveals the deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. Daniel 2:22

I came across this great resource Everything You Need to Know About Jeremiah, Some highlights:

• When we choose sin instead of listening to Jesus, we reject God's defense and invite disaster on our lives.
• Bad circumstances are not the result of God abandoning us
• Our relationship with God is not based on our actions, but our connection to Jesus
• Sin has consequences but God always forgives us when we return to Him.
• God changes our lives by first changing our hearts.
• God keeps His promises in His time
• God is faithful (Our faith is a response to (and sustained by) God's faithfulness)

They say, "Wisdom comes with age, but often time age comes alone." when I build my house I bought little trees for $15 dollars and planted them. The trees below are all the same age. Notice the last one is about the same size it was when I purchased it. We can be like this. Stunted growth comes from not being real with God. 

This planted in Clay took a long time to break through and grow

This tree planted in sun, in topsoil and feed by the sprinkler is most massive

This tree is almost 10 years old planted in the shade, it's not growing

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Beginners guide to daily Prayer and Bible reading (Eph 6:17-18)

"...take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion..." Eph 6:17-18

Words need definitions: Spirit, God, word of God

• John 14-16 talks about the relationship between God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• The Bible old and new testament (covenant/promise) is the word of God written by men but inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's like a building we'd say "Donald Trump built that" but he didn't lay a brick, he was the inspiration for the building. Same way scripture is like this (2 Peter 1:21)
• The Bible, the word of God is a love letter from God, it's valuable because it's from God. It tells us in history and poetry with wisdom; God's redemptive plan for humanity

Doing ALPHA at mntc.org. Heard these simple truths about Prayer:

1. Keep it simple, talk to God and listen. 
2. Keep it honest, God knows but still want to hear from us (God says, "why are you hiding?" Jer 16:17)

Remember this order: "Thank you, I'm Sorry, Please"

Simple daily Bible reading plan called "quiet time"

1. 15 minutes a day (3 minute pray, 7 minutes read, 5 minutes journal) 
2. Set a specific time, determine what you'll read (start with Matthew if your new)

That's all there is too it, any questions? What is the sword of the Spirit? Talk-to-God

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Interpretation and allusion

I've been thinking of a church ministry that would be an outreach for people who want to increase computer literacy (for children and adults). It would be called STEMFellowship.us. Below is an example of a project we would build and make available on Github: A series of A.I. (Faith, hope, love...) that would interpret user-supplied text and provide Biblical results of each. Each project would be hosted and free for all to use as well as give contributors a series of online badges to show literacy and progress. We'd start local and build it out into a globally recognized para-ministry like BSF, YoungLife, Celebrate Recovery and CRU, yet documenting skill achievement like Eagle Scouts.

Interpretation comes at the text with a structural background and emphasizes, recognizes and sees importance from that perspective. It would be fun to code A.I. that could have a background pre-defined, then give it text to look for what it considers "meaningful information".

So we could create an A.I. called "faith" then teach it everything we know about faith, both Biblically and secularly. Then let "faith" read a book and give the highlights. Faith would look at Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and highlight key ideas that expose what the characters believe in and why/when/where it found these insights. It would give interpretive probabilities in plain English rather than displaying the data behind the analysis.

A.I. for each attribute of God, Love, Grace, Wisdom. Each would highlight points from a text. Could be displayed as bubble chart.

An allusion is an act of making an indirect reference to something

Create definite terms
 - Sabbath: is a holy day (Gen 2:2-3), holiday, the last day of creation, a day of rest, a day of remembrance (Ex 20:8-11, 31:13-18), Saturday, Seventh-day, a day of completion. Then use Thesaurus API to get more words i.e. completion (end, finish, conclusion, achievement, fulfillment)

The platform may be simple to use PostreSQL
https://www.compose.com/articles/mastering-postgresql-tools-full-text-search-and-phrase-search/

Prayer: God help me to be wise, humble and responsive to your call. If this is your desire, let it be so for your glory, in Jesus name, Amen.

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He washed their feet and opened their minds

I've been fascinated at the churches lack of embracing the example set by Jesus, who said - you don't understand this now, but later you will. (John 13:7). At the resurrection, he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:45)

I know the example is that of a loving leader serving. In my imagination I see Jesus washing their feet and giving each a blessing of significance, that would have made the teaching in John 14-17 more memorable. These blessing I imagine would have impacted the apostles such that the epistles were written with these blessing in mind:
 - Romans 16:20, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
 - 1 Cor 15:25, For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.(1 cor 15:27, eph 1:22, heb 2:8)
As well as impacted the writting in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

So here are my imagined blessings not that come to mind from Jesus washing feet and blessing each person.It would be fun to make this into a short story, showing each person and matching a blessing with something found in their epistle or life story in Acts. Could perhaps be built into a VBS type class. Maybe someday.

Take off your sandals: Exodus 3:5, Joshua 5:9,15, Matthew 3:11, Acts 7:2,33

To Judas, as he washed his feet
 God promised, "He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Gen 3, John 13:27)

David sang, “And I have devoured them and shattered them, so that they did not rise;
And they fell under my feet.“Then I pulverized them as the dust of the earth;
I crushed and stamped them

To John, he recounted Abraham washing the Lord's feet from Genesis 18 (not one righteous one would be lost). 2 Peter 3:9, Matthew 18:14, John 6:39

To the next, as he washed his feet he quoted 2 Samuel 22, the song of David (Psalm 18)

“You have also given me the shield of Your salvation,
And Your help makes me great.
“You enlarge my steps under me,
And my feet have not slipped.

next, “You know that David my father was unable to build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the wars which surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. (1 Kings 5:3)

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, (Psalm 8:6)

You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 4:3)

Then to the next, "How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7)

"Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace! Celebrate your feasts, O Judah; Pay your vows. For never again will the wicked one pass through you; He is cut off completely." (Nahum 1:15)

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1)

How blessed are those whose way is blameless,
Who walk in the law of the Lord.
How blessed are those who observe His testimonies,
Who seek Him with all their heart.
They also do no unrighteousness;
They walk in His ways.
You have ordained Your precepts,
That we should keep them diligently. (Psalm 119), John 14:6

Teach me Your way, O Lord;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And will glorify Your name forever.
For Your lovingkindness toward me is great,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. (Psalm 89), John 14:6

To Peter:
“It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
“Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days. (Joel 2, Acts 2:14-41)

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Ministry makes a difference ONLY when people follow Jesus Christ

Ministry does not make a difference when it helps people follow the world (godlessness), the flesh (selfishness) or the devil (evil). Worldliness can be defined as "whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange." The flesh can be summarized as, "I do what I do because I want what I want." The devil wants to kill, steal and destroy and is manifested in suicide, murder, and cruelty. On a side note about the devil stealing, to rob someone is to take something from them when they are present. Think "Armed robbery", a thief occurs when something is stolen when nobody is home. Don't let the devil steal your ministry, but stay awake and be vigilant.

Ministry without eternal impact, reminds me of the prosperity gospel (which is mainly wrong in that the focus is on YOU). Biblical Christianity focuses on GOD. Yes, but some preaching and teaching from prosperity teachers are true. I know many people who have been awakened to the things of God by some of these teachers. Just like others have been awakened through apologetics and healing ministries. But the litmus test must be in what it brings people to wholeheartedly follow after. Are they in it for ME or in it for GOD?

Following Jesus Christ 

• Leave yourself behind, saying yes to God and no to past patterns (100% NO is easier than wondering if now is an okay time for ____________)
• Don't take provisions, trust God to provide (for me this was an entirely new career path and God has provided!) - "Leave Egypt" 
• Know the mission, fulfill the mission wholeheartedly 
• Lifetime of preparation for an eternity of service ("your best life later" though it really does start now)

Are you helping people follow Christ or the world?

The way to know is what are you focused on. What do you pray about? What troubles your soul? What do you rejoice about? What makes you sing?

The World's Pattern of ISMs (from bsfinternational.org)

• Secularism also known as humanism, relativism, pragmatism, pluralism, hedonism and materialism. This is the pursuit of life apart from God. The Bible calls this the pattern of this world (Romans 12:1-2). Secularism says the physical world is all there is.
• Humanism or humanitarianism looks at our lives apart from God, with humanity as the center. Biblically Nebuchadnezzar had the mindset of a secular humanist. Humanism essentially says that everything revolves around humanity and exist for our glory.
• Relativism, if humans are the center then there can be no absolutes. Everything is relative. Ironically, humanism devalues human life because values become meaningless. If truth, goodness, and beauty exist, we cannot find them through relativism because we need absolutes to discover absolutes. When relativism rules, we cannot learn to sift through error to discover what is true, good and beautiful.
• Syncretism attempts to reconcile beliefs or practices fo different religions and philosophies. Syncretism assumes some or all religions are equally true, valuable and valid. This error was seen in the early church where Gnosticism tried to deny Jesus Christ had a real body and died a real physical death on the cross (1 John 4:1-3).

Main point, whatever we add to the gospel of God's grace is always less than the gospel and cannot save. And the gospel is found and understood in the whole Bible:

Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, (Luke 24:44-46)

Brothers, Train Up the Next Generation

• Disciple faithful men 2 Timothy 1:14, 2:2
• Beware Hezekiah Syndrome 2 Chronicles
• Avoid Temporal Shortsightedness
• Cultivate Far-Seeing Vision
• Invest in the Next Gospel Generation

Ministry Is Supernatural, not professional
“I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). “I die every day!” (1 Corinthians 15:31). “For the sake of Christ I am content with weaknesses” (2 Corinthians 12:10). “He was crucified in weakness . . . we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4). “We are the aroma of Christ . . . a fragrance from death to death . . . a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16).
Pastors say, “Who is sufficient for these things!” And then they look to God. Professionals say, “Education and training and savvy are sufficient.” And then they look to experts.

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Prayer is intimacy with God that leads to the fulfillment of His purpose

Watching "Life-Giving Prayer times" with Daniel Henderson.

Traditional strategies that make confused, disjointed prayer times. How not to start prayer:
1. "does anyone have a prayer request?"
 - Talking about us and our problems, not God-focused
2. "Let's all pray as we feel led"  or "Let's pray around the circle", lacks unity, feels boring or forced.

Great prayer meetings happen when my heart is tuned to God's call. In other words, I've been meditating on God's word with other people and we pray for God's will in regard to applications from his word. We do this in BSF leaders meeting, it's wonderful.

8 guiding principles for prayer times
1. Foundation: God's word, Scripture-fed prayer. Who starts the conversation? Let God start it. "Where the mind is not brimming with scripture the heart is seldom brimming with prayer" - John Piper
2. Fervor: Holy Spirit, Spirit-lead prayer. The Spirit of God works in us to lead us into prayer. Cool I'm studying this right now in BSF, harmony! Suffering in Christ, with Holy Spirit brings unfathomable hope (Romans 8:17-30)

 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. (Romans 8:26-27)

3. By Faith: Worship Based prayer. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. What does it mean? A high view of God, he always rewards those who seek HIM for WHO HE IS.
 - As we mature we go from wanting what's in his hands to wanting him. Like a child growing up, wanting the relationship not the gifts from the parents.

 - Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.
 - By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
 - And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:1-3,6)

4. 29:59 plan Jesus said to "pray this way" not quoting the words, but following the pattern (Matthew 6, Luke 11). Simple pattern: He is worthy we are needy. Seek his face, trust his hand. The 2x2 pattern of directing music. 4X4 pattern upward, downward, inward, outward.

1. Reverence: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name
2. Response: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
3. Requests: 
1. Resources: Give us this day our daily bread and 
2. Relationships: forgive us our trespass as we forgive those who trespass against us
4. Readiness: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Eph 6, fight with the word of God, hide God's word in our heart)

Prayer God loves to answer,
5. Flow ABCs: Promote for edification
 - Audible for your benefit and ours. That we can agree, get to know each other
 - Brief Setup it up, allow everyone to participate.
 - Clear enough that we can focus and agree.
6. Freedom in physical posture/Expression
 - diversity, in love shown by God's children. It's okay.
7. Flexibility have a plan yet facilitate loosely
8. Faithfulness, life-long. Leading a fresh Biblical prayer time will be hard. Like learning a new golf grip. Get's worse before the "game" improves.

Strategies to "Level the praying ground." Give people entry points. Fill in the blanks
Romans 8:28, "All things work together for our good"
Lord, I thank you for helping this past week during _______________
I love and trust you, even though I'm through ________________

Wake up and pray

Shotgun approach. Look at all the attributes you see. Praise God for who he is.
Rifle; specificity breeds authenticity. Focus on a single attribute and how you're personally thankful for Him. Psalm 23:3, "Thank you Lord for guiding during __________________________"

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