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…because
without it, all we do is nothing but sweat work. It’s painful what one Chinese
Christian observed as he toured churches in North America. The observation goes
like this and I paraphrase… It’s amazing
what the church can do around here without God. Ouch!
Here’s another
painful fact. North American pastors hardly pray. The average pastor’s prayer
time is less than 15 minutes daily. Whereas our Korean counterparts average a
minimum of 40 minutes or more! Is it any
wonder that the biggest churches are in Korea? So please do pray for your
pastors that we will be faithful in doing what God called us to do: pray,
teach, love His people.
PRAYER & FASTING ==> SOLEMN ASSEMBLY… Saturday &
Sunday Dec 6-7
If you’re a
man, plan to attend the Alliance Men Christmas Party on Saturday morning Dec 6.
If you’re planning to fast and pray, and I encourage you to do so if you’re
healthy enough to skip meals, then whatever is served that morning will be your
last meal until we break our fast on Sunday noon after the prayer service.
Why a solemn
assembly? It’s our way of telling God, we want nothing else but You, Lord God.
Let’s not settle for the emotional high, the moving music and songs, the
eloquent prayers… all these are mere trappings of what we often mistake as
“worship.” Sometimes, we refer to this as the presence of God. But instead,
don’t you want the manifest, palpable, presence of the living God?
How can you
tell the difference? In the Bible, when God shows up, the person(s) who
encounters God is brought to a realization of one’s sinfulness, brought to a
point of brokenness and cry out to God for forgiveness and have that God-given
and God-driven desire to turn away from sin and even goes on to live for and
serve God.
Why do you and I need to pray? Jesus did. Can we do any less?
ricky
p. mapa, pastor
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