Praise the Lord
again and still for theses sizzling summer days. This is the weekend we have the
annual Spiedie Fest and Hot Air Balloon Rally that is held in beautiful
Otsiningo Park. The Church has a huge Hope Tent on the Balloon Fest premises.
Mark Schultz is one of the Christian artists who will be ministering with music
and word. It is going to be a brilliant weekend.
Those of you live in
the area join us for weekly TV outreach this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner
channel 4.
` Praise the Lord
for the beauty of the earth. Alice and I took some of our nephews and nieces
picking blue berries not far from where we live. This is a beautiful blueberry
patch. I know the man who planted the blueberry bushes 45 years ago. The bushes
were loaded with juicy berries. We picked 30 quarts in no time. Praise the Lord
for all the varied, and colorful, summer fruits with which the Lord does
decorate His earth.
We serve a very
generous God. His grace is amazing. His love is measureless. His generosity is
out of this world. I love to read the Book of Ephesians from time to time. It is
written that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”
(Ephesians 3:20). God meets our needs, and then some. We are richly blessed.
Even in lean times, we sense God’s watch-care over us.
Have you ever gotten
something you didn’t pray about? I have. C.S. Lewis recognized that if had God
given him everything he’d asked for, his life would have been a mess! The most
loving answer God can sometimes give is “No.” to our requests. Eugene Peterson
points out, “Prayer does not seek God but responds to the God who seeks us.” The
Apostle James reports, “The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective”
(5:16). In spite of this we often have not, because we ask not. Sometimes I
think God is simply waiting for us to ask. The problem here is that some people
feel it’s inappropriate, even selfish, to ask for personal requests…they will
pray for anyone but themselves. Yet, there is nothing improper in praying for
one’s needs.
British Poet William
Cowper observed, “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.”
There is power in prayer, far greater than anything known to earth. Prayer is a
weapon of mass construction! When we are convinced that prayer is powerful, and
that God hears and responds to us, we will pray. God tells us to burden Him with
what burdens us. But asking and receiving aren’t the only reasons we pray. We
talk to God because He is our Father. Prayer invites us into relationship with
One who loves us like no other. Thomas Merton wrote, “The secret of prayer is a
hunger for God.” May we hunger for that place of quiet rest we find through
prayer.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/7PTvr755V8s
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