Wednesday: Talking to God 3

"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen"

Good Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Wednesday, old hump day and on this line, and it is Salvation Wednesday. Let me see, if we get saved, give our very self over to our Lord Jesus, that in a way would take us over a big hump in life. Once we are saved, however, that is the time to really get started living for Jesus, putting aside our sins, repenting, and walking forward on our Christian Life. Growing each day in Jesus and helping others in His name. Will someone say Amen? Some people I think, believe that once they are saved, that is it, that you can just lay back and wait to get into heaven ... no, no, it is work time, for your faith without those works, well it is dead.

Please today pray for Pastor Charles Idler who has had a stroke, and pray hard warriors, as this man wants to preach some more. Pray also for Don, Eleanor, Sharon, and Bob Saylor. God's healing hand is needed in this house hold. Also pray for Dan Saylor and his family. Prayers also for Janet who is in a lot of pain, pray for Vicki who has many health issues.

Now this praise report ... I was at the doctor yesterday, got all my reports back from my heart tests, and all the blood tests back. Hey, I am alive and well, all tests are as good as they can get. Wow, I have been cleared for knee replacement surgery, but I am going to try and deal with the pain and give Dr. Jesus time to heal it. Folks, God is in the healing business.

Talking to God 3: Today, tomorrow, and maybe even Friday, I am going back in time to when I wrote about The Lord's prayer. This is the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. Years ago, I was preaching at Hope United Methodist Church. When it was time to lead The Lord's prayer, I forgot where I was. Miss Kim, Minister of Music, (Kim Murphy) bailed me out when I got lost, for when I stopped leading the prayer, everyone stopped praying ... except Miss Kim, who carried the prayer to the end. Thanks again, Miss Kim. Anyway, it made me think about was I praying this wonderful prayer that Jesus gave to us, or was I saying it? Meaning just putting together the words. So I went over the prayer and put a message together on what the prayer really means or what it means to me anyway ... and yes I am pulling notes from the past, I have written about this before.

Talking to God 3 Matthew 6: 9 "After this manner therefore pray ye." "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen" (King James Version)

As best as I can tell we have five different kinds of prayer.
1. Praise, 2. Thanksgiving, 3. Confession, 4. Intercession, 5. Petition --
Lets review these and then tomorrow dig into The Lord's Prayer.

1. Praise: When we give praise we are, in my terms, giving someone a pat on the back, or glory for something. In the case of prayer, we are giving God the glory, the honor for all things good. Yes, we are giving God the big old pat on the back.

2. Thanksgiving: This, in my opinion, is a lot like Praise prayer except we might be naming the things we are thankful for, and again giving God all honor and glory for them.

3. Confession: This one takes some time. Yes, confession is when we are owning up to the things we have done against God. We call them sins and we are confessing them over to God. Along with Confession, we need to Repent. If we do not repent from sins, our confession list will just grow and grow. The Bible tells us to Repent for the Kingdom of God is near.

4: Intercession: We pray this prayer daily on this line as we pray for others. We are indeed standing in the gap for those we are praying for. Sometimes we even pray for people who don't believe in prayer to start with. Intercession prayer is also praying for our enemies.

5: Petition: This to me is when we are going to God and asking Him (so often we seem to be telling Him) for things we need or sometimes want. We might be asking healing for our own self, or for food for our table. Or a new Caddy. I have already had my petition prayers seem to be like twisting God's arm ... or you might even say begging.

Here is some homework for you. Pray the Lord's prayer today, first try and pray it without looking at the words. Can you do it? Then ask yourself, when was the last time you really prayed it -- not just said it, but really, really prayed it? Tomorrow, we get started on it. In fact, let's just pray it together now.

"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen"

Go forth now sharing your blessings, talking to God, and working the fields of Harvest for Him.
Love ya, dan.