Locating God’s presence this past year.
(The Grand Prayer of Examen)
Look Back – Look over the past 6 – 12 months.
– Where has the Lord been present and at work in my life?
– What significant changes have come my way?
– When have I been the most stressed? the most blessed, and full of joy?
– What can I give thanks to God for?
– Where have I been?
– Where am I now?
Look through – Identify any patterns, connections or themes that have characterized the past 6-12 months.
– If you can, summarize the past year in a sentence or two.
– Do you notice anything or patterns? specific thought patterns or emotions?
– Ask the Lord about these patterns. How do they line up with the fruit of Holy Spirit?
Look forward – Where do you sense God leading you forward?
– What do you sense your spirit needs in this season?
– What are your hopes and dreams for this coming year? Ask the Lord what His hopes and dream are for you!
– Paint a picture of what you envision over the next six months.
– What are you asking the Lord for in the new year? for your community, your family?
Look around – What does your community need? How can you pray for them, help them? – Consider a prayer walk through your neighbourhood to help you see.
– Who are the people you can intentionally walk with? – What community support do you need in this season of your life?
– Who are the people you need to invite to walk alongside you?
– Who are the people you can intentionally walk with?
– How can others best support you?
Prayer prompts:
God, still my heart and mind.
I am silent in your presence.
You are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are fully here with me.
Father, I look back on my year.
Thank you for… (list off people, provision…)
God, help me to see where you were present and working in and around me…
…I bend my heart to you. Show me where I need to ask for your forgiveness and receiveyour grace. (If He brings things to mind, take time to do so.)
In humility, and renewed vision, faith and courage, I look toward the new year coming. I commit what I know and not know to you Lord. I ask for your discernment. Help me through your Holy Spirit to know you more deeply, to better love, serve, and lead others with your guidance and grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Scriptures for Reflection:
Psalm 103:2-5 (NLT)
2 Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. 3 He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. 4 He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. 5 He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Psalm 139:1-7 (NLT)
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!
7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
Psalm 51:10-12 (NLT)
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit[a] from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
I bless you with a new year of greater intimacy with your loving Heavenly Father, rich in Holy Spirit fruit, in the name of Christ Jesus! Amen!
Sources:
The Prayer Of Examen, Ignatian Spirituality
The Psalms, NLT
The Grand Examen – Locating God’s Presence in 2017 : New Life Fellowship Church – New York
This question… “How do you enter God’s presence?”, is so beautiful and has been asked of me many times lately. The answer from God’s Word is so refreshing…
1. Be still. Get quiet to allow Him to lead you.
Ps 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Ps 23 You lead me to streams of peaceful water, and you refresh my life… You are with me… Your kindness and love will always be with me each day of my life, and I will live forever in your house, Lord.
2. Enter His gates by giving thanks, giving praise to Him, singing for joy!
Psalm 100:1,2,4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs… Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
(Helpful hint: Try this… Get alone somewhere quiet. Start by listing 3 things you are thankful for. Say ‘thank you’ to God. “Thank you God for…”)
What do you long for, for the Church in Canada or even all of North America?
One day while on a rest leave during my time as an institutional church pastor, in desperation, I asked the Lord what His dream was for the church – both local and global. I began to write pages and this is what came out. I would later share this with my church leadership at the time and I was met with grown men weeping. It has since reached other church networks around the world.
Come dream with me…
My (God’s) Dream for the Church in Canada
I pray for the Church to be so blessed by, and hungry and thirsty for Holy Spirit.
I dream of…
People hungrily meditating on the Living Word… not for knowing about God, but for knowing Him personally and for heart transformation, enjoying rich fellowship, breaking bread together with loving hearts, fervent praying, sharing with each other in unity, worshiping God together, joyfully serving together, giving, empowering, with external missional focus, flowing in love and grace.
People bearing fruit of Holy Spirit because they are first abiding in Christ, seeking His kingdom (not our own), relying on the strength of Holy Spirit and not on human talent or ambition.
God wanting to draw the Church closer to Himself and away from relying on tradition and mere intellect. (People are hungry for testimony and spiritual relationship with a relational God. We are in a post-modern age of people who want to know our story, not how much we know.) God is wanting us to be in love with Him, trusting Holy Spirit, truly doing life with Him that we are willing to hear His voice because we are His sheep, and He is our Shepherd.
The Church being a community of dreamers and not dream squashers.
Love being the greatest in the Church– because principles without love is legalism / rules without relationship leads to rebellion / because lacking in love and lacking in 2 way relational prayer puts tradition and religion in the way of the Gospel.
The Church introducing people to our loving God, and showing His love, with people being drawn to Him and His abundant life within us, instead of spending our energies on arguing, and aligning with the enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.
The Church understanding that lingering and resting in God’s love is the starting place. We do not earn His love by doing things for Him, nor do we earn other people’s love by serving. We serve out of loving intimacy with our Father – practicing prayer, rest and worship, and not serving out of anxiety, guilt, neediness, and a never-ending to-do list.
The Church known as a community that lovingly develops leaders and not as the organization that burns out leaders and volunteers.
The Church playing a strong part in bringing God’s love to the world, truly knowing His love and showing His love to each other.
The Church becoming a community where broken relationships are restored because of a hunger for righteousness and God’s love far above a hunger to be right.
The Church being a community where friendships are forged for building God’s kingdom and not for meeting selfish needs.
The Church as being a community of inclusive welcome and not exclusive cliques.
The Church being a community of loving, edifying language that is helpful for building up the community.
The Church being known for admitting mistakes and seeking to repair and restore hurts previously caused in Church history.
I dream of…
Disciples multiplying disciples because they are simply contagious in their faith.
Every day, the Church people experiencing Divine appointments and conversations with people on the street, in the marketplace, etc.
People who can’t help but bring the presence of God everywhere they go. If you seek to build a church, you rarely produce disciples…If you seek to make disciples, you get the church.
Each believer praying for God to give them 3-5 people to invest life in for the next 12 months, and challenging them at the end of 12 months to replicate the process, and watching what God does. Jesus spent 90 percent of his time with 12 men and a few women. And out of that, he focused on three: James, John, and Peter.
I dream of…
Men being spiritual fathers and women being spiritual mothers.
Men recognizing women as sisters in Christ.
Women recognizing men as brothers in Christ and not threats to favour, or competition.
Women seeing each other as sisters in building God’s kingdom and not threats to friendship or favour.
Women with leadership gifts not seen as usurping Christ’s authority but seen as faithful stewards of their gifts.
Holy Spirit not being quenched in the silencing of both women and men.
Women finding the Church to be a place of freedom and safety – empowered to bear His image and serve faithfully.
Men finding the Church to be a community of safety where they don’t have to be stoic, but can be authentic and vulnerable with other men, with no shame of sharing struggles because Holy Spirit’s love is stronger.
I dream of…
The Church being a community of celebration and empowering each other – rather than comparison and competition.
A people who seek to bless each other during gatherings – seeing themselves as priestly brothers and sisters partnering with any hired pastors.
Children celebrated and encouraged as powerful prayer warriors, worshipers and kingdom builders, that they inspire their parents, their teachers, and their friends with their faith, their prayers, and their unselfish service.
Youth so hungry and thirsty to see God at work, that the older generation is inspired and blessed to join them in the hunger and thirst – not caring if their music is loud, their jeans have holes, or arms have tattoos because their hearts are filled with grace.
The older generation recognizing the younger as arrows to invest in, craft and shape with gentle loving care (Titus 2 intentional discipleship of the next generation).
Families adopting other families into a discipleship lifestyle.
Couples mentoring other couples in marriage.
Parents mentoring other parents in the journey.
Parents discipling their children and partnering with the Church (who is intentionally discipling parents), rather than expecting volunteers and leaders to do it all.
Pastors equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, not the pastor or the staff executing all the ministry.
Pastors leading with a kingdom mindset – not envious of other leaders/ministry areas.
Congregation seeking to bless and pray for leaders and not worshiping them as idols or resorting to devour them when expectations are unmet.
Pastors, elders, and congregation loving and trusting each other in transparency.
I dream of…
The Church viewing hardship as necessary to rest in our identity and rise up against the enemy’s lies and proving God’s goodness.
Leaders resting in patience and perseverance to stand ground in Holy Spirit conviction, not intimidated by fear of people or money. People may choose to leave, but Spirit-led leaders stand their ground.
The Church not afraid of people, or money leaving the Church when we stand for truth, because we worship a God who has the largest bank in the universe and we are building His kingdom, not our own. He cares more about our obedience and sacrifice than people-pleasing which is idolatry.
The Church believing God is working something out on our behalf.
The Church going in with a few small stones and trusting God to deliver as we stand up against intimidation of Goliath or like the little boy with his lunch not expecting to eat a bite only to discover God can feed a crowd and provide leftovers.
Fear not being our motivating factor, but Faith!
Choosing to fight from victory, rather than for victory.
God seeing that He can then trust us, and birth a greater anointing over us and trust us with more.
The Church being a community that selects pastors only because Holy Spirit called us to appoint them.
The Church not being afraid of bad reports like the spies to Canaan, but instead we trust in God who has promised us the land and His protection.
The Church being an apostolic sending station/missional outpost/church planting/kingdom building church – to the city, the province, the country, and around the world.
The Church in Canada continuing to financially provide for missionaries while seeing themselves as daily missionaries too.
People going out healing the sick, bringing life from death, driving out evil in Jesus name.
The Church moving outside the doors of buildings to bring the love and kindness of God to the city and beyond recognizing that Jesus left the building. (Interestingly, statistics still indicate that people are leaving the church in North America in increasing numbers to find …Jesus.)
The Church seeing the bigger picture together of kingdom building, dreaming and listening to Holy Spirit for each assignment.
The Church not limiting who is allowed to spread the Gospel of God’s redeeming love based on gender, or age, or education, etc… but on the anointing of Holy Spirit.
I dream of…
Prayer (2 way conversations with God) being a main activity because we are hungry for the voice and move of God – in community, not with just one person praying at the front, but clusters in homes, in gyms, in the sanctuaries, prayer walks throughout Church buildings and neighbourhoods, and throughout the city as the Spirit leads because we are commissioned with the building of God’s kingdom.
The Church not guilty of silencing God’s voice by shying away from facilitating corporate prayer in gatherings and events because it may cause seekers or even long time followers to feel uncomfortable. I dream of the Church to be unapologetically a House of Prayer where people can take part and listen in on the greatest 2-way conversation we have ever been gifted, and to come away knowing they were in the presence of God and His people.
I dream of…
The Church not driven by flesh, or fear, not by arrogance, and not making each other angry or resorting to jealousy, but being a Spirit-led church as in Galatians 5 – being a loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, self-controlled family who daily die to self, and who live by Holy Spirit. When God’s people truly follow Him both in Spirit, and in Truth, His kingdom increases and a world is introduced to His true nature. Hallelujah!
How do we turn these dreams into reality? Pray them! 🙂
For myself, I once crafted a 31 days of prayer guide to ask Holy Spirit to lead and fill the Church in Canada.
Love’s Journey to the Cross – Lent Reflections Easter Sunday – God’s Victorious Love
1 Corinthians 5; Ephesians 3: Romans 10
Today is the day we celebrate God’s victorious love! We have been counting down the days of Lent towards Easter Sunday. Today, we reflect and celebrate… Jesus is no longer in the grave! …He lives! …Hallelujah!
This Lent and Easter season, we have been focusing on dying to our selfishness and choosing to live free in Christ. …What things have you died to this Lent in order to live free in Christ? Have you traded in your disappointments, your worries, your fears, sorrows, selfishness, hang-ups, unhealthy and unmet expectations, or unhealthy relationships…? Perhaps you have not yet nailed something to the cross in order to live in Christ’s freedom. (Meaning, something you have not yet trusted Jesus with.) …Something you think you can find satisfaction in apart from Jesus, but only leaves you empty.
Today, we celebrate Christ’s victory! It’s His perfect love that satisfies our hearts. Whatever has in the past kept you awake at night, or has weighed heavy, Jesus died to set you free from! And now, Jesus lives! In your heart, may you hold your hands wide open to give Him what it is you have clung to, what you have felt trapped under, and instead receive His victorious love for you that couldn’t stay nailed to the cross. May you pray, “Jesus I give this to you…, I trust you with…, forgive me for… and I receive your forgiveness and your victory!”
Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we can say… “Oh death, where is your victory? …Oh death, where is your sting?” Our Good Father gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus, we live not for victory, we live from victory.
(Pray…)
Jesus, because of your resurrection, your Good News is victory! Those who have lived for you and have already died on this earth, rejoice! All things broken will be made knew! You reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. You died for our sins, and have been raised for our freedom. If we confess with our mouths that Jesus, you are Lord of every area of our lives, we are saved. May we choose this day, Lord Jesus, to love and live in your victory!
God, give us your inner strength and power through your Holy Spirit. Christ, be alive in us. I pray that your love may be the ground in which we sink our roots deeply and the only thing we build our lives on. I pray we will be in awe at how wide, long, high, and deep your love is… and that we would walk in all the plans you have for us… to show your victorious love to others around us. I pray this in the name of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, Amen!
(Written originally for Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016)
Love’s Journey to the Cross – Lent Reflections Good Friday
God is love, 1 John 4:9
Image source: cynthiacavanaugh.com
We have been counting down the days of Lent towards Easter Sunday, as we focus on love’s journey to the cross.
How often have you said you were having a bad day or a bad week? Could any of us say we’ve had a week like Christ did… leading up to the cross? Today, we call ‘Good’ Friday… only because we have a Good Father who didn’t spare his own Son, but handed him over to death for all of us to live in freedom!
Do you TRULY know that you can come to God and receive His unconditional love without doing anything to earn it? …Or are you stuck in trying to be good in order to be loved?
Reflect with me on 1 John 4:9…
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
Let me make it more personal for you…
This is how God showed his love to you: He sent his one and only Son for you, that you might live through him.
He chose to live through a horrific, yet Holy week and give His life on a gruesome, but very Good Friday. How can you and I even begin to live our lives in gratitude?
Because of the cross, He invites us to live in freedom. Freedom living is showing His love to others, like a reflection, …much like the moon reflects the sun’s light. The love we show is always, only a reflection of His great love. Matthew 2 calls us to love God, and then to love others. Our love for others comes from our love from God. God is love and we are His.
Let’s pray…
God, You are not simply loving, you ARE love itself. You ARE the source of all perfect love.
Hate sometimes leaks out of our fleshly hearts. Dry it up, Good Father, and help us to see others the way you see them. Live through us, that we may live in freedom, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
The 6 weeks before Easter is called the “Lenten Season”. It’s a time to focus on Christ’s sacrifice of death for our life. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we too can rise and enjoy heaven forever when we put our trust in Him.
LENT is a process of prayer and spiritual renewal. The Lenten season focuses on dying to our self and living for Him. Often Christians will fast from something in order to rely less on other things and rely more on Him.
The word ‘lent’ means ‘lengthen’ and stands for the time in Spring when the days grow longer. The original period of Lent was 40 hours, and was spent fasting to remember the suffering of Christ and the 40 hours He spent in the tomb. In the early 3rd century, it was lengthened to 6 days and then 36 days (36 being the tithe or tenth of the 365 days of the year). About 800 AD it changed to 40 days (or 46 if you include all the Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday).
In many traditions, Lent is a time for cleaning, in preparation for Easter and Spring. First your soul, then your kitchen, then the rest of the house was cleansed and purified of the past year’s accumulations. Old clothes are mended, or given away, new clothes are purchased. In the Ukraine, houses were whitewashed inside and out during Lent. In this way, everything was made ready to face the season of Salvation and Rebirth. Traditions of ‘spring cleaning’ stem from this.
I’ve been prompted to choose the following Lenten Focus:
Read Matthew 5 daily for every 40 days (Reflective reading)
Make a Gratitude list – daily
Pray for others I see as I walk
Choose forgiveness daily
I will also be taking my family through reflections on Jesus’ journey to the cross.
What will you set aside, get rid of and focus on in order to set your eyes on Jesus, His love and sacrifice for you?
You and I can do Christmas and completely miss the wonder and epiphany of it all!
Today is the Day of Epiphany (January 6).
What’s an epiphany?
• a moment of sudden revelation or insight. (A light bulb moment!)
• an appearance of a divine or supernatural being.
We just celebrated Christmas, now it’s a New Year… and Jan 6th marks an event that happened thousands of years ago where philosophers travelled a long journey following a star that would lead them to Divine truth. To the One who bears the name, which I have been pondering this season, Immanuel.
To understand the meaning of the name “Immanuel” in itself is an Epiphany…
It means, “God With Us”!
Image source: getupwithgod.com
Background: The Day of Epiphany reminds us of two events: the wise men’s visit to baby Jesus and later of the day of Jesus’ baptism.
Epiphany is also one of the oldest Christian feasts. It was celebrated since the end of the second century, before the Christmas holiday was established.
It commemorates the first two occasions on which Jesus’ divinity was manifested: when the magi visited infant Jesus in Bethlehem, and when John the Baptist baptized him in the River Jordan. The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches emphasize the visit of the magi when they celebrate the Epiphany. The Eastern Orthodox churches focus on Jesus’ baptism.
The point is… God is with us. 🙂
Recap of the story…
In 700 BC the Prophet Isaiah wrote… (Isaiah 7:14)
14 But the Lord will still show you this sign:
The young woman is pregnant[a] and will give birth to a son. She will name him Immanuel.[b]
Immanuel means “God with us!”
Read the passages below on Biblegateway.com and ask yourself,
“How is God with us today?”
“What does it mean if God is with me right now?”
And…“How does that make a difference in my personal life?”
Matthew 1:22-23 – 22 All this happened to make clear the full meaning of what the Lord said through the prophet:23 “The virgin will be pregnant and will give birth to a son. They will name him Immanuel.”[a](Immanuel means “God with us.”)
John 1:1,14 – God, the Word became flesh – 1 Before the world began, the Word[a] was there. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
But, how is God with us today?…
John 14:6, 16-19 – The Holy Spirit – He is that part of God that is with us here and now if we have welcomed Jesus to indeed be our Lord and Saviour.
We all have been given this gift, but some of us have left the gift under the Christmas tree and have not yet opened it. Or we have opened it, but we go on living as if we have never opened the greatest gift…
1 John 4:9-11, 19;5:4,12 – The Cross, truly the first Christmas tree. The Light of the world shone on it.
God is with us. He came as a baby boy – to hold him, cherish him, delight in him, he came humbly for you to know relationship with God.
Have you held a baby recently?
I love that God comes as a baby – a baby needs to be held with arms wide open, to be loved with a heart wide open. That is our invitation. God invites us to open our arms and our hearts to receive Him – to be God with us.
I also love that God chose to come into a messy stable with stinky animals and animal dung. You and I, will have yucky stuff happen to us in this life, but He came to be with us in it. He does not refuse to come to us in our yuck. He is there with us and He cleans it up for us.
There is nothing we can do to make our way to God, so at Christmas, God made His way to us. New life will not be found in anything we might do. New life is found only in what Jesus has done for you. Christmas is good news – God is with YOU.
This is a New Year. Are you open to inviting the Creator of the Universe who gave His son for your freedom, to be with you in every situation this upcoming year? The question isn’t: is God with you? But are you with Him??
Living for ourselves makes us overly concerned and consumed with our appearance, our success, how many likes or loves we get on FB or instagram… But, no matter the success …or likes we get, …we can still constantly feel inadequate, insecure, lonely…
But, living with God at the centre of our lives, holding Him in our hearts – makes us full! Our cup overflows! Our joy, our love, our courage overflows – we are contagious! People are drawn to us – when we are not about ourselves, but about someOne who is greater than us!
We will have people in our lives who will like us because of what we can do for them. Then, there are those who love us, because God loves us. Those people are contagious and deeply attractive, and when they dance, or even smile… it’s as if God Himself is smiling at you. I pray that you can be like that, that when people see you or hear your name, they feel the love of God Himself through you.
You and I all long for something greater, and yet we are far too easily pleased with things that do not last.
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink, and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses).
I pray with deepest emotion that you can be apart of making changes to focus our young women and men to live not as sex objects but as artists with a greater purpose and a greater message.
The lie from the beginning is that YOU are God, or things are God, or other people are God. (Gen 3:15)
But, Immanuel, God with us (the Bread of Life, who comes to us to feed us) comes to deliver us from this lie. He defeated death to rescue us and restore us. He answers the cry of our hearts – “O Come, O Come Immanuel…” which is literally… “O Come, O Come… God, Be with us!” One of the oldest Christmas Carols that is sung today was translated in the 1800’s, but written earlier!
Immanuel, God with us, came humbly as a baby but sits powerfully on His throne and offers you and I life and freedom, and His continual presence!
Imagine if you were invited to (…dance, sing, act, create… whatever you love to do) for royalty! Well, you have been! Every thing you do, you have been invited to do for someone greater! For our Creator, the King of kings, for Jesus, our Saviour, for Immanual, God with us! Dancers who dance for God in worship, dance with a greater joy and passion!
Know that He is here with you, that He loves you and smiles on you.
Picture yourself (…dancing, singing, acting, creating… doing what you love to do) and He is beaming proudly: “That’s my girl. That’s my boy! I made her or him to dance so beautifully. She/he has my great purpose. I just ask that she/he trusts me! I want to surprise her/him!”
You and I can do Christmas and completely miss the wonder and epiphany of it all!
Where do you need God right now? Where do you need to invite Him to do His mighty work? Do you have fear, shame, guilt, loneliness, grief…or even happiness, yet it is so temporary?
In this moment, let your heart be filled with God who has come and is coming again! May you not worship yourself, or others, or things, but worship Him alone, and you’ll notice how this shrinks your worries and your fears! The joy of the Lord is your strength.
A Blessing over you…
The Lord is your Shepherd. He gives you everything you need.
He leads you to rest in fields of green grass.
He leads you to streams of peaceful water to refresh your life.
He is true to His name, Jesus (Saviour), Immanuel (God with us)
He leads you along the right paths.
You may walk through valleys as dark as death, but you don’t need to be afraid.
God is with you. His shepherd’s rod makes you feel safe.
He treats you to a feast, while your enemies watch.
He honours you as His guest, and He fills His cup until it overflows.
His kindness and love will always be with you each day of your life,
and You may live forever in God’s house, in His presence.
I’d like to play for you…
One of the oldest Christmas Carols that is sung today, written in the 1800’s: O Come, O Come Immanuel… (God with us).
And as it is played, let His presence and love overwhelm you. Open your heart to Him…
It is written in old language, so let me share with you what it is literally saying in a prayer I once prayed over my church family a few years ago…
Lord of Might, you gave us your perfect law from Mt Sinai to protect us from self-harm. You raised the bar high for us because of your great love, and then you came as our rescuer from the family tree of Jesse, defeating the enemy, bringing victory over the grave.
Jesus, you are our Dayspring, our dawn, our sunrise. Jesus you send away the clouds of the night and send away the dark shadows of death to retreat. Jesus, you make a way wide open to heaven safely and you shut the road to misery.
O Lord Jesus, God with us, you came to rescue your people out of slavery, out of lonely bondage. And you are here with us now. You have appeared. Allow us to see you in our life today, to see your nudgings, your promptings – through people, events and your Word. Prevent us from overlooking your Godly authority in all things and help us to know deeply that we are rescued and not alone. We receive your love through the Christmas miracle. We receive your love this day. Open our hearts to worship you, Lord Jesus, for you came for each of here today. Amen.
(Take a listen…)
Closing Prayer:
Surprise us Lord, with your presence here today. Pour your Spirit on each reader to come to understand their incredible value – that you love each one and enjoy each one – so much that you broke into history 2015 years ago to be the Saviour of the world. You moved into our broken neighbourhood that first Christmas and you paid the price that first Easter, so that we can be rescued. You smile when we live for you! You delight in us! When we dance or sing or play or work, may we do it with passion for you! And with that passion, we can show your light and your rescuing love to the world around us. Thank you for your passion for us, God with us, so that we can (…dance, sing, act, create…) and live in passion for far greater things than what we see around us. We dance and live for you King of Kings.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Songs to further bless you as you reflect that God is with you…
How did God show his love for us? He sent his one and only Son into the world. He sent him so we could receive life through him.
1 John 4:9 NIRV
Treasuring this truth today deeply as we got a phone call yesterday that you don’t ever want to get. We found out our Aunt was killed in a car accident and our Uncle is in hospital with broken pelvis. Every emotion becomes heightened as we process and enter the stages of grief…denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and somehow acceptance…
We grieve deeply and call out to Jesus with this prayer… Fill our homes with your presence, Lord…
Fill our eyes with Your light. Fill our songs with Your joy. Fill our hearts with Your love. Fill our mouths with Your truth. Fill our minds with Your mission. Fill our spirits with Your courage. Fill our homes with Your presence.
Your wind is blowing across this lonely land.
We are Your messengers, Your touch is in our hands.
Use us, Lord Jesus, to care for our friends.
Help us to love them, it’s Your great command.
Oh, wind of the Spirit,
fill the sails of my soul –
send us on, Lord, let your wind blow!
(2x)
Your Spirit is moving with power and might.
We’ll walk together by faith, not by sight.
You’re calling an army to rise up and fight.
We’ll be Your soldiers, flooding darkness with light!
“25 years ago my first studio album, and it’s title track, Wind of the Spirit was released. That song found its way all over the world and into the hearts of many. Many guitar players first chords were that classic progression up the fret board and countless people identify with the song as a marker on their life and faith journey. Maybe you do too? With that release, we were propelled into the world of music and a fresh vision of following Jesus.” – Russ Rosen (http://russrosenband.com/news)
Russ Rosen Band. Lyrics by Russ Rosen, Sandy Rosen and Mike Oshiro, music by Russ Rosen, lead vocals by Mike Oshiro produced by Roy Salmond.
HE IS GOD! He cannot stay dead. HE IS ALIVE. The true Glory of God shines in the world. The Light has won! The Eternal Light! TheBright Morning Star! The Light of the World!
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
Death is no longer the final act. Because of Jesus’ victory over death, we have freedom to live eternally in restored relationship with God. Our history has been changed forever. Yet, we still have a choice to believe…daily.
How will you allow this amazing truth change you?
“Dear Jesus, I believe you defeated death. I place my trust in you. Transform my heart and mind to live fully in friendship with you beginning today!”
How will you let others know around you that Jesus is risen?!
“Dear Jesus, guide me to share this truth and hope with those around me – my family, friends and neighbours. Help them to see your love and hope within me and be drawn to your grace! Amen.”
What do you long for, for the Church in Canada or even all of North America?
Following and Trusting 
