Tag: Unselfish prayers

My Prayer For You

On By Ed AlgreenIn Answered Prayer, Appreciation, Needs, Praise, Prayer, Recognize God, Unselfish, WorshipLeave a comment

DATE POSTED Tuesday, 2022-11-15
WRITTEN AT: O’Brien, FL

SCRIPTURE FROM: Philippians 1:9-11
TRANSLATION: Living Bible (TLB)

BIBLE TEXT: 9 My prayer for you is that you will overflow more and more with love for others, and at the same time keep on growing in spiritual knowledge and insight, 10 for I want you always to see clearly the difference between right and wrong, and to be inwardly clean, no one being able to criticize you from now until our Lord returns. 11 May you always be doing those good, kind things that show you are a child of God, for this will bring much praise and glory to the Lord.

APPLICATION: This gives a good opportunity for us to not only renew our faith in our Creator, but also to renew a right relationship with Him, so that we can talk to Him about our reasons to celebrate His goodness; our desire for our children; our concern for the needs of our neighbors; and our heart-cry for the lost in our circle of friends who badly need the blood of Jesus washed over them. My friends, let me ask you to try one thing at this time: Stop and share your feelings with Jesus about each of the people that I mentioned. Tell Him what you are concerned about. Humbly pray for a right spirit within them so that they may be drawn closer to the Lord. Enough with the backbiting and the faultfinding, love those very special people enough to pray regularly for them. I’m afraid that we have such a long laundry list for ourselves, that we may not always make it before the throne of God on behalf of our family and friends. Paul was instrumental in starting the church at Philippi, so to leave them was probably like leaving a part of his heart there. Of course he missed them, of course he wanted to see God’s very best for them. It makes me question how vested I am in the folk around me. I’m still on the prayer list from two previous churches, so I am reminded of the needs that exist there, and I pray for the needs as they show up in my inbox. Are you still praying for the church families that you left behind when you moved residences, or when you moved to a different church? Hopefully these people have become a part of your heart and you might even remember the many times that they blessed you. Think on them during your times of fellowship with your Master and Lord. The enemy is out to get the church dear friends, so let us commit to such a good relationship with our Lord, that we will also lift up a name from our past before Him. God knows them, and He knows the very struggles they are facing right now. Let Him know that you care about Him blessing them right now. let’s learn to take our eyes off self and concentrate on the needs of those that are close to us now, or with whom we may have crossed paths in the past. Paul exampled this before us, now let us follow in his example and obey the Word of God in praying one for another. Remember, we are the church, so let the church be the church – especially here on earth where Satan is rampant and trying to distract the lost of any good thing in Jesus, our Lord, and His chosen children.

BLESSING(S) NOTED: Oh, to imagine what our world, our churches and our families would look like if we did as Paul instructed – that we would overflow with love for each other and in our spiritual growth and knowledge. Perhaps then the unchurched will believe that God really does exist.

PRAYER: Thank You Lord for blessing Paul to encourage his followers to overflow in love and in the knowledge of You. Satan seems to be doing exactly the opposite, and we truly can’t handle any more of his wickedness. You showed us loved in its most extreme way – You were willing to lay down Your life for us – even while we were yet sinners. Please Lord, teach us to follow in Your footsteps, and to be obedient to Your commands. Please strengthen us to make every effort to follow the instructions You gave to Paul for us. Let the world see what true Christian love is, when they hang around us. Help us Lord to understand Your Word sufficiently and be willing to share that knowledge with others who are searching for the real love of Jesus Christ. AMEN!

FOOTNOTE: There are two more pages on my blog that will provide you with additional information, one of them being ‘To Know Jesus’. If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please click on the above page, or speak with a local Bible Teaching Pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com. Please allow someone to pray with you and give you help and/or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Words underlined in my blog might indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to Nuggets From God’s Word and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. You may also visit me on Spotify and listen to Nuggets while you’re out and about. I would encourage you to find a church home near by your home, and attend as frequently as you could. Get to know God, and allow His people to encourage and strengthen you in your Christian walk, while making every effort to be a blessing to them. God is at work among His people! Please consider growing in your faith, as you worship with fellow believers!

Pray ‘In The Spirit’

On By Ed AlgreenIn Answered Prayer, Appreciation, Leadership of the Holy Spirit, Needs, Power of Prayer, Praise, Prayer, Recognize God, WorshipLeave a comment

DATE POSTED Saturday, 2022-11-12
WRITTEN AT: O’Brien, FL

SCRIPTURE FROM: Ephesians 6:18
TRANSLATION: New Century Version (NCV)

BIBLE TEXT: 18 Pray in the Spirit at all times with all kinds of prayers, asking for everything you need. To do this you must always be ready and never give up. Always pray for all God’s people.

APPLICATION: It seems pretty obvious that most of us tend to think, love, speak, and pray from a very selfish perspective. I attended a party one time, where the icebreaker was a challenge to avoid the first-person pronoun in your conversation for the first 15 minutes. Suddenly, the normal challenges of remembering names of people you meet; introducing yourself to strangers; and avoiding cliques of people you know; all became very easy compared to this new challenge! If presented with this challenge, be prepared to quickly acknowledge how dependent you are in sharing ‘all about you’ to others. Try it, write out a small paragraph about your last party, without using the first-person pronouns! I believe this alone will help us to quickly understand the importance of making every effort to ‘Pray in the Spirit’, because instead of the usual ‘gimme, gimme’ prayers, we will suddenly find ourselves praying about things that the Spirit provokes. We all know that no one else in the room of people you are with have greater pain and misery than you have! No one else hurts from disappointments and unfulfilled dreams like you do. But when we seek to ‘pray in the Spirit’, He will direct our minds to the person who has only one leg, so that we don’t whine and complain all evening about the knee-ache we’ve had since we woke up that morning. Friends, I am convinced that when we pray for others more than ourselves, God in His infinite mercy, causes us to lose sight of our minor aches and problems. When Paul demands that we ‘stay alert’, I believe he is suggesting that we ask God for eyes to really see the needs of others. Isn’t it amazing how we enter a room where many needs are represented, but we quickly bring our own needs to the forefront, even though they are insignificant, compared to others? While theologians have a lot to say about their knowledge on this topic, I believe that God is merely saying ‘follow in my ways and in what I found to be important. Enough about self’. Churches often hurt from their members who attend looking for a word of encouragement and strength for the week ahead, yet they leave without ever being talked to, loved on, or shown appreciation for. Perhaps ‘praying in the Spirit’, is just the beginning of a Spirit-filled believer who should also ‘live in the Spirit’, ‘encourage in the Spirit’ and ‘bless as the Spirit would’. Be reminded that at church, it’s not all up to the pastor to meet every need. God placed each of us among fellow believers so that we might imitate ‘iron sharpens iron’. We need each other, especially those who are living, acting and portraying one who ‘lives in the Spirit’. Try being the hands and feet of Jesus to someone else today, dear friends.

BLESSING(S) NOTED: Just as we ‘pray in the Spirit’ and ‘live in the Spirit’ and allow the Spirit to live out His blessings through us, we too can expect to be blessed as other believers do the same!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, it just seems natural for us to act out our selfish desires, wants, like and dislikes. But as Your faithful servants seeking to follow in Your footsteps, please help us to persistently seek to ‘pray in the Spirit’ and live out all the ways of our Master. Others may not read their Bible, but may they see Your children as thorough images of our Master and Lord, and may this cause an ongoing desire to seek the Lord while You may be found. thanks for drawing us to the cross of Calvary and showing us the road to eternal life. As we live in the Spirit, may others also see that wonderful image portrayed in and causing them to have a growing desire to know You as their personal Savior. AMEN!

FOOTNOTE: There are two more pages on my blog that will provide you with additional information, one of them being ‘To Know Jesus’. If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please click on the above page, or speak with a local Bible Teaching Pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com. Please allow someone to pray with you and give you help and/or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Words underlined in my blog might indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to Nuggets From God’s Word and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. You may also visit me on Spotify and listen to Nuggets while you’re out and about. I would encourage you to find a church home near by your home, and attend as frequently as you could. Get to know God, and allow His people to encourage and strengthen you in your Christian walk, while making every effort to be a blessing to them. God is at work among His people! Please consider growing in your faith, as you worship with fellow believers!