SECC 6 Day Prayer Challenge

Thank you for joining the SECC church body in a 6 Day Prayer Challenge! The challenge is simple: using the Lord's Prayer as "a portal into the Kingdom of Christ" (if you missed the sermon on ENGAGED check it out at southeffingham.com, the sermon will be up by this afternoon) engage with your Father in heaven connecting one theme from our journey into BRAVE Christianity each day.


         Monday: BROKEN
         Tuesday: RAISED
         Wednesday: ABANDONED
         Thursday: ABLAZE
         Friday: VIVID
         Saturday: ENGAGED


Each day I will give you a bit of a push in the right direction for your praying that day. Feel free to leave a comment on how your time of praying in a more kingdom manner is going. What is God showing you? How is your prayer life different this week from your normal routine? What part of the Lord's Prayer is really pressing on your soul?


SECC, let's learn to pray with Jesus and like Jesus (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:1-4). And may His kingdom come for the honor and glory of His name!

Monday: BROKEN

Brokenness is simply embracing who you truly are before God and who God truly is before all mankind. 

Pray through the Lord's Prayer today with a heavy sense of your own unworthiness and sinfulness but a grateful sense of His forgiveness and acceptance through Jesus Christ!!! 

When I was nine years old God brought me to a point of brokenness. He pressed on my heart. I was very aware of my sinfulness and my need for some serious help! I remember kneeling with my Dad on at our couch and asking God, with a heart of brokenness, to save my soul. 

But even today I find that I am in great need of many more brokenness sessions with my heavenly Father. I need to get on my knees daily and cry out with a heart of brokenness for a continued refreshing, reviving and renewing of my soul!

I need to sense the true state of my heart before God today because I need a new awakening of the mercy of God today.

“God makes men sensible of their misery before he reveals his mercy and love.”  

Jonathan Edwards 

So today as you pray - pray about the honor of God's name, the kingdom, the will of God, daily provision, forgiveness, testing, and deliverance! As you pray remember your former, and often lingering, misery in sin and the amazing mercy of God!

Have a great Monday and take advantage of the kingdom portal of prayer! 

                          

                                   Leave a comment and join the conversation on prayer...

Disenchanted - A farity tale about love, marriage and the Kingdom of Self

          * I wrote this for the SECC Marriage Retreat 2011


Once upon a time there was a dashing prince who lived in the enchanted Kingdom of Self.

Once upon the same time there was a desirable princess who also lived in an enchanted kingdom called Self.

They did not live in the same kingdom, but in neighboring kingdoms of the same name, separated by the deep waters of Reality.

And so the story begins…

Over 300 Days to Get Christmas Right in 2011

I don't think I got Christmas right this year.

I have a nagging sense of not tapping into to the incarnational essence of what an extended time of reflection on the birth of Christ could be for me and my family. Oh, we sang about Christ, talked about Him, watched God provide in unusual ways through the generosity of others, and my wife even did a creative candle thingy with the kids that helped fill their hearts with a sense of biblical expectation. But I still feel like we missed something big.

I'm thankful that I have over 300 days to contemplate a renewed strategy for next year's Christmas season. I think it will take me about that long to come up with a more significant way of getting more of Christ out of a cultural event that just feels like an excuse to get more loot.

Oh sure, we Christians are quick to tell our children that Christmas is not about getting presents. And we watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special each year and take note of Linus' speech with tender appreciation. Then we go find the store adds and break out our own highlighters.

There tends to be five basic kinds of people at Christmas.