Prayer Take 33/40

Our church praying for 40 days for our Take It to the Streets Ministry. Each day will have a scripture reading, a list things to pray for and I will write a quick devotional thought from the day’s passage. The schedule is not original with us but is built off of YouVersion’s Bible App.

– Philemon 1:4-7

It is easy to live in a bubble.

It is easy to create one to live in, all we have to do is retreat to the point where it is just us and no one else.

It is easy for the church to exist in a bubble.

It is easy to create one and may even be easier for a church to create one. It is easy to focus inward, do things that please us, and focus on getting our needs met. It is also easier to do things within the church, with the church people, with the church people we are comfortable with. It is easy to create an environment in the church that is a certain type of “ministry” that pleases everyone one in the church. It is easy to let go of all those who do not want to come and fit in with the bubble the church has created around itself. A bubble that has nothing to do with reality. It is also easy to be blinded by the bubble and think you are evangelistic and reaching your community when in reality you are not.

This scares me.

My hearts desire is that we would be known for our love, our faith and for our sharing Jesus with the community around us. That we would be known as disciples of Jesus that are moving into our community and being used by Jesus to pull the lost to Him.

I do not want to live in a bubble, thinking I’m serving God when I’m not. I want to go to the streets and be a part of Him pulling the lost to Him.

I desire the same thing for the church. In fact if Paul wrote a letter to us it would bring me great joy if what he wrote in Philemon 1:4-7 would be included in that letter.

– So today pray that God would show us if we are blinded when it comes to evangelism and if we are, that He would open our eyes so we can see Him and what He desires for us to do in the community.

– Pray that our church will continue to have the desire to see disciples of Jesus made in our church and in our community.

– Pray that we will see the day when the fruits of God’s efforts (that He has done through the ministry of His church Farmington Baptist) will cause other believers to give thanks to Him for the great things He has done.

– Pray for take 5.2 that it will accomplish great things for the kingdom. That the seeds of the gospel will be planted in those who desperately need to hear it, and those seeds would be fruitful for the glory of God.