Last week’s sermon looked at the single most important factor in accomplishing any great feat in life. Like conquering the Promised Land (Joshua 1:1-8) or kicking off the world-wide church (Acts 2:42-47), if we wish to achieve our vision of ‘bring glory to God by calling all to delight in him as their ultimate treasure’, it MUST start with private devotions.
Proper service to God must adhere to his ways. While God CAN use sin to bring about his good purposes, He is not in the habit of blessing people who go against him. Furthermore, there are consequences of breaking the natural laws God designed his universe to follow. The greatest chance for success in life is to live according to God’s ways. May we be reading huge slabs of the Bible each day, to allow God’s living word to be our most trusted conversation partner in life?
Alongside God’s word is of course prayer. Our vision is nothing short of calling for a revival. As Psalm 85:6 says, in order for God’s people to ‘rejoice’ in God (i.e. delight in God), we need God to ‘revive’ us. No matter of hard work on our behalf can achieve this. Revival is God’s realm. To achieve our vision, we must become a church dedicated to prayer!
As such, we are handing out bookmarks today, designed to be used in our Bibles. The purpose of this bookmark is to remind us to pray for our church’s vision for revival each day, as part of our daily devotion. The 7 points are for our 7 core values, which under God, will help us reach our vision. So may we become a church that is dedicated to prayer!
Brendan McLaughlin
