The Power of Prayer

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Prayer is the most powerful tool God has given us. It is a way to connect and unleash our hearts to God. It is a way to praise God, confess our sins, give thanks to God, and petition our needs or others' needs to God. 

Prayer teaches us to be dependent upon God and not on the world. God wants a relationship with us and wants us to draw close to Him. However, we must remember that God is not some genie in a bottle. You cannot rub the bottle and expect God will pop out of the bottle and grant your wishes. That's not how God works. We must be open to doing God's will and be accepting of God's answer to our prayers. Also, we must abide in Him and live holy lives.

There are numerous examples of prayer throughout the Bible. There are accounts of men and women praying to God in the Bible. Such as Moses praying on behalf of his people in the wilderness, Hannah praying for a child, Mary, the mother of Jesus, exalting God, or Jesus going off alone to pray and be with the Father. 

King David was a man of prayer. The Psalms have many of King David's prayers to God. There is one particular prayer by King David in 2 Samuel. This prayer shows his humbleness and adoration of God.

David’s Prayer 2 Samuel 7:18-29 (NIV)
18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said:
“Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign Lord, is for a mere human!
20 “What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Sovereign Lord. 21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
22 “How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? 24 You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Lord, have become their God.
25 “And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established in your sight.
27 “Lord Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28 Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 29 Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, Sovereign Lord, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.”

Even King David knew how powerful prayer was and had a close relationship with God.

American pastor and televangelist Pastor John Hagee, knows how powerful and how important prayer is. Pastor Hagee gives a moving short sermon on the Power of Prayer in the video below. He says, "a prayer-less Christian is a weak Christian. A prayer-less Christian is a miserable Christian." Prayer strengthens us and gives us peace and hope. Prayer teaches us to put our trust in the Lord and not in people. Nothing is impossible for God. Prayer is powerful. 

Heavenly Father,

We humbly come before You and we thank You for hearing our prayers. We want to draw close to You and depend only on You. Help us to be prayer warriors like King David. Help us to exalt You as Mary once did. Help us to be faithful and devoted to prayer just like Jesus. We praise You and give thanks for all that You do. Amen.

Pray you all have a blessed week!

Love and Blessings,

Carol

The Perversion of the American Church

As you will see in the following videos, many churches in America today no longer preach the Gospel, for they have been seduced by the world and led astray. They have fallen for the great deceit or the great lie. These churches are no longer recognizable as a church that serves, praises, and worships God, nor preaches sound Biblical doctrine. Instead these churches have wicked leaders that have clawed their way into the church and have cut and sliced God's Word to satisfy their needs and desires. Just as it states in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (ESV), these leaders are preaching words to tickle ears that seduce people and feed them lies.

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."

 

These Christian leaders and individual Christians have made the Church into a corrupt, wicked den of lawless followers of Satan. In 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 (ESV) it states how deceitful and rebellious these false leaders are, 

"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness."

These false leaders silence or cancel those who speak the Truth, or who are against their agenda, or against their beliefs. They scream racism or disinformation that helps contribute to the spreading of the serpent's great lie.  

This great lie that Satan is using to destroy the church perverts or denies Biblical Truth. As Larry G. Johnson from CultureWarrior.net states,

"Satan’s strategy is to defeat the church by subtly injecting the god of self into the church body. It is the little foxes that destroy the vine. At first he encourages a little compromise here and there. Mix in bit of disunity. Allude to the harshness and inflexibility of the Bible. Question the relevancy of the Bible and the church in light of modern problems. Concentrate the churches’ focus and efforts substantially if not exclusively on the temporal problems and injustices in the world. Attempt to discredit the truth of the Bible through science and psychology. Finally, the church elevates self above God. The new church is now consumer-oriented, and its patrons are clients to be pampered. The gospel is softened so as not to offend. Therapy replaces salvation in dealing with sin. Worship becomes entertainment. Commitment becomes optional as church attendance for many is limited to an hour or two on Sunday mornings a couple of times a month. The gospel of self-improvement is preached instead of the word of God found in the Bible."

Satan was created by God. He was a servant of God that rebelled against God, for he wanted to be God. Satan is a fallen angel and a creature of evil. He is joyless, unholy, and hateful. He is against Christians and wants to see their demise. He wants to see the fall of the Church. He wants to pervert the Church. He wants to draw people away from the Church. He wants to transform the Church into a body that is unholy, ungodly, disobedient, and rebellious to God. He wants all of mankind to perish and spend eternally in hell. 

Jesus Christ is the son of God who died on the cross for our sins. He rose on the third day and now sits at the right hand of God. One day he will return and rule over the earth. Jesus Christ is good, full of joy, holy, and he loves us. He died for our sins so that all who have been called would be saved and spend eternally with him and dwell with him on the new earth.

The greatest threat to Satan's plan is for the Church to be empowered and be obedient to Jesus Christ. If the Church lives and preaches sound Biblical doctrine, it cannot fail. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we need to share and teach the Truth and expose these great lies that these false churches, false leaders and false Christians are using to attack, infiltrate and cause a great perversion of the American Church. Awaken! Rise up and share the Gospel.

Heavenly Father,

You are almighty and faithful. You are good and loving. We thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to empower the Church. We thank you for choosing us to be your holy people. May Your will and thoughts direct us. Help us to reach those whose ears have become deaf to the Truth. Let them hear your voice as we share Your word. Destroy Satan's work and all his plans to attack Your Word. May all that we do and say bring You the glory.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

May God bless you richly this week!

Carol 

Silent Christians Part 1

In Truth Talk USA's interview podcast with Christian author David Fiorazo, he discusses the current situation going on within the church.  

By keeping silent and not sharing the Truth boldly we are now seeing chaos and lawlessness abound not only out amongst the secular world but even within churches. Church attendance has dropped, division is occurring amongst churches, there is moral decline, and false doctrine abounds within many so called Christian churches. Consequences are now stemming from our silence. We were told many a times throughout scripture what would happen if we turn our backs on God and pursue wicked ways. God’s wrath against sinful humanity is clearly unfolding right before our very eyes as it is revealed in Romans 1:18-32

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,

slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

You can learn more about the consequence of Christians being silent in David Fiorazo's book The Cost of Our Silence: Consequences of Christians Taking the Path of Least Resistance

I will share Part 2 of this video series next week. 

Grace and Blessings to you all!

Carol Moore 

31 Day Challenge

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31 Day Challenge

A thought to ponder.... 

I wonder if there were to be a poll on how many Christians grumble against each other, what the outcome would be?

In July, I got the chance to go to a Ladies Camp Retreat. I had the most amazing enlightening privilege and experience of listening to the guest speaker, Kari Patterson, teach about One Courageous Community within our churches. The theme verse was John 17:11 “That they may be one as we are one.” When Christians are not unified and are divided, they cannot produce the fruit that God intended them to produce. In order to reach the lost, we must be unified with one spirit and one mind and live in a Christ-like manner. We cannot be isolated into groups, ostracizing each other, treating each other as outsiders, and causing strife, for if we do, we only demonstrate that the community within our churches is fragile and fracturing. If the vine is fractured and splitting into pieces, it will not grow and produce fruit. We must love and serve one another.

At the end of the camp retreat, Kari asked us to take on the 31-day challenge of practicing with friends and family to transform ourselves into being more Christ-like and strive to attain that one community - one spirit and one mind. Within the next few posts on my blog, I want to share a few of these challenges to help others grow into One Courageous Community. And if you have never heard Kari Patterson speak, I encourage women ministries at churches to attend one of her engagements.

One of the first biggest challenges brought to my attention at the camp and one I really struggled with is,  don’t grumble against each other. I think that this is something we can all struggle with and are all guilty of doing. There have been times in my life when I grumbled about someone and then later felt convicted about what I said. I thought to myself, "I just failed God in so many ways." My mouth was spewing out poison. In the book of James, chapter 5, verse 9, it states, “Do not grumble against one another, brothers so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” We are told not to grumble against each other, but when certain people aggravate you, or they are rude to you, or they are unkind to you,  it can be difficult not to grumble or complain about them. However, it is so important that we speak encouraging and positive words about each other. We are to love one another and speak in a positive light. 

In Exodus 16 and 17, the Israelites were grumbling against Moses and Aaron. They could only think of themselves and their circumstances. They blamed Moses and Aaron for leading them into their present situation. They were so focused on themselves and their struggles that they forgot it was God who led them out of slavery. They should have been focusing on God, and praising him for all he had done for them. 

Grumbling can be a cancer that can grow and spread division. By not grumbling against each other, we can take the first step in demonstrating a Christ-like character and a step towards having a one unified courageous community.

Love to you all and God Bless!
Carol

The True Meaning of Christmas

The True Meaning of Christmas

Artwork by artist Carol Moore
https://mooresartgallery.blogspot.com/

A Christian thought to ponder ...

As people flock to the stores this Christmas season, pushing, shoving, grabbing, and filling up their carts full of worldly things, I wonder how many of them stop to think about what Christmas truly means. 

Understandably, each person celebrates Christmas in their own way and for their own reasons, but for Christians, it is a day when all mankind received a gift – a gift of salvation. It is the day a Savior was born in the most humbling unadorned place - a manger in a stable. Jesus was brought into this world to fulfill God’s promise as stated in KJV Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Thus this verse testifies that God promises to redeem mankind from its fallen state, and the world's Redeemer, Jesus, will bruise the head of the serpent whose name is Satan. Although no one knows the exact birth date of Jesus, Christians began to celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th back in the 4th century. The hope was to reform and stop the Roman pagan celebration, traditions, and worshipping of their pagan gods (The History of Christmas).

Many of the Roman traditions are still celebrated around the world, such as the Christmas tree. Not only are these traditions still celebrated, but Christmas has now turned into a secular commercial frenzy. It has become about “I want” and “I need.” We have forgotten what the true meaning of Christmas is - Love (What is the true meaning of Christmas?). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (KJV John 3:16-17). God sent his Son to save us all because He loves us all. No matter what sins we have committed, He loves us all.

Furthermore, Christmas is a day we should be thanking God for giving us such a glorious gift. We should celebrate Christmas with great joy and reverence.  It was the day that the Word became flesh. Christmas is a time of loving one another, giving to one another, and showing goodwill toward one another. All of these are characteristics that Jesus portrayed while He walked upon this earth.

Despite the many pagan origins behind many Christmas traditions and the commercialism that has enveloped the true meaning of Christmas, for many Christians, Christmas is the time to be still, stop and reflect, and thank God for His precious gift. It is a time to remember that over 2000 years ago, one night, in a little town called Bethlehem, a Savior was born in a manger within a stable, fulfilling the promise, the prophecy, and the ordained plan of God to save mankind from its fallen state. And as it states in Isaiah 9: 6, “his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Resources

Got Questions Ministries. “What is the true meaning of Christmas?” http://www.gotquestions.org/Christmas-true-meaning.html#ixzz2nF09SPjL. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.

McGowan, Andrew. “How December 25 Became Christmas.” http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/. 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.

SimpleToRemember.com - Judaism Online. “The History of Christmas.” http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.