"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude."At the end of the Christmas season, Craig (my pastor) announced that we were going to be extending the Christmas season. He was brought to this decision after seeing Trans-Siberian Orchestra before Christmas and then observing how our church pitched in and provided Christmas gifts for over 100 needy children and groceries for a week for their 50 families. He shared that these events should be what we do all year long, not just at Christmastime. So, we are leaving up the decorations and continuing with the season of giving. We are going to have twelve months of Christmas at Mulder! Our current ongoing sermon series is called "Christmastime, All the time", and today's sermon was specifically "Prayertime, All the time". Craig mostly discussed personal prayer, corporate prayer, and community prayer. I thought this was pretty cool, because earlier this week I happened upon a blog that discussed seven ways to "Build your house of Prayer" using the acronym SHELTER:
- Short, simple prayers
- Help from those who have gone before us
- Establish a place, a retreat for prayer
- Lists of names, needs, and nations
- Together, pray is a place of communion with God and community with others
- Establish a time to establish priority
- Reminders created and used to remember why you are building a house of prayer
I have been doing better in keeping up with my bible reading (with the goal to complete by the end of the year), but I have to admit that my prayer life has been lacking. I really need to follow this SHELTER idea and build my house of prayer. I need to be persistent.
"Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all Christians everywhere." Ephesians 6:18 (NLT)
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