As we conclude our 40 days of Prayer campaign, we will look at the special power that comes from praying together with other Christians. As we'll discover, this is a power well-known to the early church but often under-appreciated by the church today. As a fitting conclusion to our 40 days of praying together, I hope to encourage you to continue to find ways, and to take advantage of existing ways, to pray together.
If God has ever said 'no' to one of your prayer requests, you are in good company. Elijah, Job, Jonah, Paul, Peter, and Jesus all had God say 'no' to them. When God says 'no' it can be one of the biggest challenges to our faith. Why would he say 'no'? How should we respond when he does? We'll try to deal with both of these questions in this message.
Many of us are in need of a breakthrough: a breakthrough in a relationship, a breakthrough in a job, a breakthrough against some persistent sin, a health breakthrough, a financial breakthrough, or an emotional or mental breakthrough. If we don't need one, we probably know someone who does. In this message we are going to take God's direction for praying for a national breakthrough and apply it to the breakthroughs we need. We're going to learn we can have a breakthrough in our life or in the lives of others.
During 40 Days of Prayer we've been developing the habit of daily prayer. Praying everyday is good, but is that enough? The Bible teaches us to pray throughout the day. How can we do that? We'll answer that question in this message.
Would you like to have more of your prayers answered? Then the promise we'll look at in the message is for you. It has an important condition attached to it, but one we can learn to meet.
What you think about God determines everything about your relationship to him, including prayer. In this message we'll look at the one character trait of God that more than any other defines how you will pray, whether you will pray, and what you will pray.
As we kick off our 40 Days of Prayer campaign we start with some of the basics of prayer. In this message we'll answer five fundamental questions about prayer: What is it? Who do we pray to? Why should we pray? When should we pray? and How should we pray? I call it A Beginner's Guide to Prayer.
Before we start our 40 Days of Prayer campaign I have a question to ask you. Do you want to grow up? Particularly, do you want to grow up as a Christian? There are two reasons that most Christian who have not grown up have failed to do so. We'll look at those in this message, and explain the habits we need to develop so that we can grow up as Christians.
There are two honest ways to obtain something. The first is by working for it. The second is by receiving it as a gift. In our final message on the special titles the New Testament gives to God we will learn that God is a giver. It is his nature to be gracious, he is the God of all grace. He gives to people what they do not deserve and have not earned. We'll see what that means about how we relate to God, and how we think about our own efforts to gain things from him.
The third special title given to God in the New Testament is "The God of Love." God's love is a prominent theme in the New Testament, and some might even consider it one of the New Testament's special revelations about God. In this message we'll see what this title tells us about the nature of God and about the actions of God. We'll see that born-again believers in Christ are the special objects of God's love, so that we can personally say, "My God is the God of love."
The second special title the New Testament gives to God is "The God of Peace". In fact, this title is used more often than the other four special titles are used. It appears five times in the New Testament. Here we'll discover that God is the source of inner peace, peace with others, peace with himself, and peace in every circumstance. We'll also discover what the New Testament teaches us about gaining all these types of peace for ourself.
God is given some special titles in the New Testament, titles mean to encourage followers of Christ. One of these is found in Romans 15:13 where he is called the God of hope. In this message we'll see just what it means to us to know that our God is the God of hope.
According to Jesus himself, he came on a rescue mission for the whole world. We'll discover what he came to save the world from, and why that reason is personally important to each of us.
In this third message on Why Jesus Came, In His Own Word, Jesus tells us he came as light into the world. Clearly he was speaking figuratively, but what did he mean? What is important about this reason for his coming? What difference does it make, especially for us? These are questions that will occupy our attention in this message.
In Luke 19:10 Jesus tells us another reason he came to earth: to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus revealed this mission as some criticized him for associating with sinners. Sinners, those who are spiritually lost, are just the people Jesus came for. He came to find them and save them. As we'll see, that includes all of us, since the Bible tells us that we are all sinners. How Jesus seeks lost people like us today, how he saves us, and what he saves us from are important questions we'll answer.
It's the Christmas season, a time to celebrate Jesus' coming to earth. Naturally, the question is, why did he come? That's a question he answered. This week we'll look at the first of four reasons Jesus gave for his coming. He came to give us life, and give it abundantly. What does that mean? Does it matter to us personally? Those are the questions we'll try to answer in this message.
Why Jesus Came, In His Own Words, #1: To Give Life