*This week’s blog post comes from Lindsay Tice. Lindsay is a wife, mother, and member of Faith Bible Church. She and Michael have attended FBC for over 18 years. Most importantly, Lindsay is a follower of Jesus Christ. Lindsay finds joy in leading our congregation in worship, in cooking and baking with her children, and in encouraging other women to find and follow Jesus.
Happy New Year. This is such a special time of the year for us as believers as we are able to reflect on the faithfulness of God in our lives as well as in the lives of our church family. We also look forward to the hope that we have for the future in Him. Just as Advent was a time of preparation, we are now still in a time of celebration that traditionally lasts 12 days. So we continue to celebrate God’s best gift of all in Jesus.
Looking back on this last year, we studied our way through the book of Acts. Throughout the year, we studied in depth how the church is a missional community shaped by Jesus’ power, purpose, and plan. Jesus, through the power of His Spirit, is shaping His people to be servant ambassadors (the purpose) to bring the Gospel to all nations (the plan).
In the 1955 preface to his first edition of Acts, British Bible translator J. B. Phillips wrote:
“It is impossible to spend several months in close study of the remarkable short book … without being profoundly stirred and, to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The newborn Church, as vulnerable as any human child, having neither money, influence nor power in the ordinary sense, is setting forth joyfully and courageously to win the pagan world for God through Christ…. Yet we cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this surely is the Church as it was meant to be…. These men did not make ‘acts of faith,’ they believed; they did not ‘say their prayers’ they really prayed…. But if they were uncomplicated and naive by modern standards, we have ruefully to admit that they were open on the God-ward side in a way that is almost unknown today.”
Just as New Year’s is a time to look back and reflect on the previous year and all that God has done, it is also a time in which we are able to also look forward in anticipation of how God might move in us and through our missional community of believers in the coming year. It’s a time when we consider how we have opportunities to be engaged in God’s work in our lives. A time for us to consider how we have the opportunity to step into something new in our relationship with God in this next year.
Take a moment as you are thinking about this coming year and ask yourself, “How am I going to continue growing in my life with Jesus this year which is different from last year?” Perhaps you will consider a recommitment to God, to being intentional in your prayer life, or to be dependent on God even more… consider what this looks like in Scripture.
In Genesis 4, after the story of Cain and Abel, we read that Adam and Eve had another son and named him Seth. Genesis 4:26 When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. At that time people first began to call on the name of the Lord.
Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, wrote the book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Heart of His People. This book shows that God desires to answer the fervent prayers of His church, He desires to work powerfully and visibly in the lives of His people and shows what the Holy Spirit can do when believers get serious about prayer and the gospel. He made this observation of the Genesis 4 passage:
“Men and women distinguished themselves from their ungodly neighbors by calling on the name of the Lord. These people affirmed their dependence on God by calling out to him. A God-placed human instinct came alive.”
We, too, have this God-placed human instinct in us to call on the name of the Lord. We as believers still need to distinguish ourselves from the ungodly world around us and affirm our dependence on God. In Romans 12, we are encouraged to “not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
In 2 Chronicles 7, just after Solomon completed the Temple of the Lord, the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
God refers to his Temple as a “house of prayer for all the nations” in Isaiah 56:7. Jesus refers to this passage in the New Testament gospels as he has just cleared the Temple of those who were buying and selling there, turning over the tables of the money changers. In Matthew 21:13, Jesus says, “My house will be a house of prayer,” referring back to this Isaiah passage. What does that mean?
Prayer is to be such an obvious part of our lives as Christians that when we gather together in worship, people will call these gatherings “a house of prayer.” It is so important for all of us to not only praise and worship God individually but corporately as we do on Sunday mornings. The same goes for prayer. Our church holds monthly prayer meetings on the last Sunday of each month from 6:30-7:30 pm. These prayer gatherings are an essential time for us to gather once again under a unified purpose of praying for our church body, for God’s mission through us to our community, and for our spiritual growth and development in Christ through discipleship.
Jim Cymbala puts it this way:
“The Bible teaches that we are always either drawing nearer to God or falling away. There is no holding pattern…. The more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. And the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray…. Only turning God’s house into a house of fervent prayer will reverse the power of evil so evident in the world today.”
“The Bible teaches that we are always either drawing nearer to God or falling away. There is no holding pattern…. The more we pray, the more we sense our need to pray. And the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray…. Only turning God’s house into a house of fervent prayer will reverse the power of evil so evident in the world today.”
Let us join our hearts together in prayer: Father, We come to you in Jesus’ name, asking that You draw us into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse us of our sins and prepare our hearts to pray in a way that pleases You. May prayer become as natural as breathing, and may You work through our prayers to help bring about Your kingdom and Your will in our hearts, our homes, our workplaces, and our communities. Forgive us for relying on our wisdom, strength, energy, and ideas rather than abiding in You and seeking You first. Use all of the circumstances of our lives to depend on You more and make each of us more like Jesus. Teach us how to pray according to Your will and Your Word. Make our church a true house of prayer and help us walk by Your strength and bring You great glory. Amen.
Let’s consider this in our hearts as our focus for this new year. In chapter 29 of Jeremiah, God is directly speaking through the prophet Jeremiah to the exiles. Many of us are familiar with verse 11 which says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” These words are just as relevant and true for us today. But consider verses 12 and 13, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.
Will you decide to draw near to God, to call on Him, to pray to Him, and seek Him with all of your heart in this new year?