This year we started the Christmas season by watching the Frank Capra classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life, which stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. We have seen this movie many times, but this year we were struck by the contrast between Bedford Falls and Pottersville, and we saw in it a message for times such as ours. Sadly, it seemed to us that our world today looks much like Pottersville.

I learned early on that praise and worship is the highest calling for a believer because it fulfills the “First Greatest Commandment” given to us by Jesus. It’s true. However, we must also consider that praise and worship is a manner of prayer because we are communicating our love and adoration to God.

Often at church or in a Bible group meeting, there is a time of prayer among those gathered. Prayer requests are given and the group takes the needs to God in prayer. Of course, this type of prayer can take place anywhere two or more believers gather. Agreeing in prayer is an ultimate expression of unity in the body of Christ

The Essence of Prayer - Inquiring, Abiding, Listening

Prayer is and should be, a means of two-way communication more than an avenue to make requests.

There are limitless expressions of prayer offered by way of thousands of belief systems. However, as sincere Christians, praying effectively means that we seek to use patterns, principles and examples given to us through God’s Word. The Bible guides us to petition God by coming into agreement with His Word—we want to pray His way. Praying His way means finding out what He says about prayer and then submitting to Him and His ways when we pray.  

As God’s image bearer, Adam was given the mandate to execute God’s will upon the earth, to subdue and to have dominion over it. Through this delegated dominion, Adam’s objective was to fulfill God’s purposes on earth. That exercise of power was accomplished through close fellowship, communication and submission to God.

I challenge you to see your life in Christ as a beautiful and precious tapestry. Envision Jesus interwoven into the fabric from corner to corner. As you move through each day, your daily encounters and responsibilities require His love and His compassion. When He is included this way, God is glorified and you experience the abundant Life that Jesus came to give you.

The disciples did not understand the scriptures and did not expect the resurrection, and yet we have the hope of the resurrection.

The year was 1986. The boy, raised in church, knew God and knew how to pray just as Jesus taught his disciples in Luke 18:1 – praying always and not giving up.

If God has not given us a spirit of fear, why are so many in Church leadership in the United States fearful? Fearful of government, fearful of the media, fearful of the culture, fearful of public opinion, fearful of losing members – and with them donations.

“Christian Nationalism” is a pejorative that secularists (those that do not hold to a Biblical worldview) use to impugn the motives and actions of Christians who engage the culture and the government. Look no further than Wikipedia to find the lengths to which they will go to malign sincere Christians.

In Daniel 10, Daniel was serving a Persian King. He had made it through the Babylonian kingdom – the trials and tests of the Lion’s Den, the Golden Statue of Nebuchadnezzar and his friends getting thrown into the fiery furnace, and the dreams and interpretations from God surrounded by “the wise men”. He had been tested and tried and had come out of it all with a greater relationship with God and even more authority.

How does prayer impact a nation?

I never saw it coming. I had been a political consultant for 10 years and the main Member of Congress that I worked for announced his retirement. We couldn’t find a conservative candidate to take his place. So, after weeks of carrying a burden, seeing the need of the district, praying, and asking God to raise someone up, I acted on that burden. I jumped into the Congressional race. I never saw it coming.

Like a lawyer intercedes for his clients in a court of law, we petition God.

Like an assistant carrying out the orders of her boss and becoming the go-between of him and the other employees, we can ask for God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Intercession is delegation. It is mediation. It is carried authority through representation.

Behind the greatest evangelist of the Second Great Awakening — Charles Finney — knelt a man of intercession: Daniel Nash.

Finney, through his passionate appeals for people to come to God, saw hundreds of thousands of conversions happen all over New York and beyond in the early 1800s. Unknown to most, this move of God contained a secret weapon. Nash.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed and not know where to start when praying for government. 

There is so much going on and so many needs that you could find yourself praying 24/7 and still not include everything burdening your heart.

America was not handed freedom as a gift. Liberty was not bartered at a treaty table. This country was not bequeathed independence by a benevolent tyrant. America fought for freedom.

Our nation was born in the crucible of war. Independence was declared and liberty secured because courageous men and women chose to risk a “leap in the dark” over the inevitable dismal prospect of subjugation.

Time Management is crucial in everyday life. Family, work, and friends all demand our time.

How many of you have been so busy that you prayed for a 25th hour in the day?

How many of you want a stronger relationship with God but you just can’t find the time? You are just too busy at this moment, maybe later.

There is nothing that fills us up or fulfills us more than God’s presence.

There is nothing that gets us into the presence of God faster than thanksgiving and praise.

There is not a greater lost art in the Body of Christ than breaking out of selfishness into thankfulness and praise toward God.

Entering his presence with thanksgiving opens the gates of our hearts. When we are with Him, we are complete, whole, and free.

It’s still dark. The air is cool. There’s not a sound. It’s peaceful here—and beautiful. The large gnarled trees form a canopy over the well-trodden paths.

The sun would soon throw its brilliant rays across this rocky ground and illumine the mountainside.

A huge stone had been rolled across the entrance of the tomb two days earlier. This grave must be sealed—not to prevent a resurrection but to guard against an insurrection. To stop ardent disciples from stealing the body and claiming he’d come back to life. Guards had been dispatched to stand watch.