During GBCK’s 21-days of prayer and fasting, one of my key prayer targets is for people.  By people I mean my family, my church, my community, and those who don’t know Jesus.  So how do you pray for people?  I believe a great way to learn to pray is to look at how others prayed in the Bible.  They serve as models of what to pray, and how to pray.

One of the “model” prayers I pray is a prayer of the Apostle Paul found in Ephesians 1:8: “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.”  Since God is light (1 John 1:5), and because Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12), the core of Paul’s prayer is that the hearts of people will be filled with Jesus.

So, a sample prayer for someone is: “Lord, thank you for ___________________.  Fill his/her heart with Jesus until it is overflowing.  Cause your light to remove the darkness in their life.  Call them to yourself so they may have hope in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

As always, let the Holy Spirit guide you in the exact words you use.  And as you read the Bible, take notice of the prayers that are recorded for they can serve as a model to help your prayer life.

Blessings,
Mike

by:  Dane Tokushige

When I first became a Christian I remember people telling me that they were going to pray in their prayer closet.  I always wondered why people would try to smash themselves into a closet to pray.  After a few years I finally realized that a “prayer closet” does not really exist is just something people say.

A lot of people think they dont know how to pray.  A lot of people are intimidated to pray.  To help us understand how to pray I thought a good place to start is by looking at what Jesus says about prayer…

1. Pray in faith.
22And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matt 21:22

2. Do not pray so that people can admire you.
7″And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Matt 6:7

3. Pray in Gods will.
24Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:24

Matthew 6:5

Beginning January 16 GBCK will be engaging a 21 day Daniel fast.  As we chose to deny our stomachs so that we can pursue Jesus our staff an leaders will be posting blogs here at GBCK.org designed to encourage us as we walk through this fast.

Look for blogs helping us understand better fasting, prayer, and pursuing Jesus.

“When the culture is is right, almost any method will work.  When the culture is toxic, even the best method will fail.” Steve Murrell

Loved this thought from the Accidental Missionary.  Most leaders are smart enough to come up with some great strategies, but the majority of these leaders are not patient enough to create the culture needed to see these strategies succeed.

The question that remains then is how can we create a culture?  here are some of my thoughts:

1.  Do it.  I have to learn to model the culture personally.  I have to go out and make disciples.  I have to take individuals through essentials.  I have to recruit people into encounter weekend.

2.  Talk about consistently.  Our methods need to be talked about at every meeting and to every person.  People have to hear us asking the same questions over and over again.

-Have you done essentials?

-Have you been through an encounter weekend?

-Are you in a small group?

3.  Learn to say no.  Practically every day there are opportunities of a lifetime to make the church magically grow.  Most leaders jump on these opportunities of a lifetime and jump off of the focus to make disciples.  If the opportunity is not helping every member to make disciples dont do it.  Events dont make disciples.

4.  Trust.  A culture of discipleship is more than a few pastor making disciples.  This is going to mean trusting people to make disciples.  Even though they might make more mistakes than disciples I have to learn to trust anyways.  Are people in the church honored that they get an opportunity or are they burdened that they have to do something?  If the answer is the later maybe we took to long to trust people.

I am sure there is a lot more to creating a discipleship culture, but this should keep me busy for a few years.

Every once in a while I visit my stationary bike, and I’ll even get on it now and then.  When I do, I use a 30-minute program, which on my bike means for the first 15 minutes the resistance incrementally increases with the highest resistance happening at the 13-15 minute mark.  After minute 15, it’s all down hill from there, so to speak.

What I notice is by minute 25, when the resistance is down to its lowest level, I want to end the workout.  I finished the hard part.  I’m out of breath, my legs hurt, and I got a good sweat going, so quitting five minutes early shouldn’t hurt.  Right?  But for some reason I don’t.  I stay on until the end.  I guess mentally it feels like the workout would be incomplete, and like I cheated.  I like the feeling of completion and seeing something to the end, so I push through the last five minutes.

As 2010 winds down, with only days before the beginning of a new year, I think we should be sure to push through to the end.  It may be a “low resistance” time of the year, but let’s finish well.  This will mean different things to different people, but for Christ-followers, let’s stay spiritually sharp.

Here are three reminders to help us stay sharp:
1.  Have an attitude of gratitude: The end of the year is the perfect time for reflection.  It’s easy to remember the bad stuff, but let’s be intentional about remembering the good stuff.  Use the good stuff to fuel your worship of God, thanking him for his goodness, grace, and mercy.

2. Keep on eating: The holidays often mean lots of eating, but don’t forget to feed yourself spiritually with regular Bible reading and prayer.  Let’s not just fill our stomachs, but let’s fill our souls.  If you feel like you’re not getting fed then you better start eating.

3. Focus on others: The holidays remind us of the joy of being with others.  Gathering with family and friends make this such a rich time of the year.  It also should remind us that in our circle of “others” there are those who God loves but have yet to put their faith in Jesus as their Savior.  Remember, you are God’s instrument to communicate the Gospel of Christ to those who are far from God.

The last 5 minutes of 2010 are upon us.  Let’s stay on the bike and finish strong.

This is how you do me!!!

Buffalo Bills wide receiver, Steve Johnson, dropped a game-winning pass a couple Sundays ago when playing the Pittsburgh Steelers.  After the game, the upset football player tweeted this to God:
I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…

Apparently, God owed Johnson the touchdown catch because Johnson praises God all the time.  It seems comical at first, but Johnson’s tweet does reflect a common belief about man’s relationship to God.  It’s a belief that if I do good things then God owes me a good life. In Johnson’s case, he says he praises God “24/7″ (a good thing) and in return God should have helped him catch the pass (a good life).

The problem with this belief is we put God into our debt; that is, God owes us a good life if we do the appropriate good thing.  The truth is, because of sin we are the debtors.  Scripture tells us that the payment for sin is death, and that there is no way we could ever repay what we owe. Sure, we try to repay our debt.  We try to love people, live good lives, recycle our bottles, vote, and use our blinkers on the freeway, but in the end, our good works can never pay off our debt.

This is why we need a Savior, one who was willing to pay our debt for us with his life.  Jesus paid our debt by going to the cross and dying for our sins; not because we deserved it, but because of his grace.  Our debt has been paid in full, the collectors don’t call anymore,  our account has been replenished, we are “whole” and in right standing.

Our response to this incredible gift is to put faith in Christ and to praise him for his generosity and grace.  Let’s remember, we praise him because of what he did for us, and because we want Him, not because we want something from Him.