Sunday – November 11, 2012

November 11, 2012 – Read the Word on Worship

Pray For Kings and All Who Are in Authority from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

The elections are over, so now what? Maybe your candidate won or maybe they lost, but our job is more than just an election. Now is the time for us to get busy and be in prayer for all who in authority whether they are the President of the United States or local elected officials. Join us as we look at 1st Timothy 2 verses 1 to 4 and see why prayer for our leaders is of first importance and what our prayers can do to make the advance of the gospel possible.


Word On Worship – November 11, 2012 Download / Print

 Matthew 6:32-33
For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

One of our greatest problems with prayer is we do not fully know to whom it is we are praying. We have left God to the realm of human imagination and fantasy such that we say, “I would like to think of God in these terms.” That “I like” mindset guarantees that all concepts of God which come from our speculation and imagination will be seriously wrong. Such ideas continually lead to uncertainty about God because God is not the focus of our lives. The only place we can get a clear picture of the living God and understand why prayer is so essential is from the Bible, where God bears witness about Himself so we may begin to know who He truly is.

To  understand why prayer is so essential, we must first grasp how God is a personal God. Today, many people remove the personal attributes of God and think of Him as a “higher substance.”  Society enjoys the facelessness of such a God because we can collectively leave God on the shelf with our other faceless pursuits of career, family, and education, as if He were a fashion statement to be worn in the right season of Christmas and Easter. In other seasons where our devotion is spent in total pursuit of ourselves, we can fold Him up and put Him away until He is needed. The truth is, impersonal ideas about God will always be inferior to the true nature of God.

God is always described as a personal God of real people in Scripture. He speaks of Himself as “I” and addresses humanity as “you.” From Genesis to Revelation, God relates to people personally and is never seen as an “it.” Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to see Him as an object from whom we can stand apart and observe in the way scientists examine an organism through a microscope. God is always the subject, not a mere object, always above us, never below us. He presents Himself in personal terms and so we must always think of Him in personal terms as the God who is eternally here and has His eternal eye on us. He takes an active interest in us just the way we are.

So how does this relate to prayer? Since God is personal, it should be no surprise to find His relationship to humans involves two-way speech, where we listen as well as speak. There is a language between God and us just as there is between you and me.  As God used language to address the people in the Bible, such as Abraham and David, we are called to converse with God using language, seeking His Kingdom and His righteousness. His lessons and commandments as revealed in His wonderful Word remain our enduring and steadfast guide. And none of this would be possible if our heavenly Father were not a personal God who speaks to us and hears our call.

What do you think?