Prayer for my little children

I enjoy praying the scriptures. I've prayed these scriptures many times for my little children.


Create in our children a clean heart, and renew in them a right spirit. Psalm 51:10

May honesty and integrity be their virtue and their protection. Psalm 25:21

Cloth them with a heart of compassion. Colossians 3:12

May they be merciful just as you Father are merciful. Luke 6:36

I pray that our children would love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind.  And that they would love their neighbors as themselves. Matthew 22:37-39

That they may grow in the grace and knowledge of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18

I pray that as chosen by You, they may obtain salvation in Jesus Christ and its eternal glory.  2 Timothy 2:10

May they find Your Word more precious than much pure gold and sweeter than honey from the comb. Psalm 19:10

Let love and faithfulness never leave them, but bind these twin virtues around their necks and write them on the tablet of their hearts. Proverbs 3:3

Let their lives be overflowing with thankfulness.  Colossians 2:7

Let them grow daily in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52

We pray in the holy name of Christ our Savior. Amen

A prayer for our church

I found this this prayer that I love and I want to share. It was written by Chad Holtz.

God, grant us a spirit of repentance.   Help us to see our sin as you see it, and to turn away from that which displeases you.  

God, help us to fear you.  Forgive us for running our lives and our churches as though you are not the Judge standing at the door.   Instill in us a holy fear of you, O God, that we would tremble once more at your word and know you as holy and righteous.  

God, humble us.  Bring us down, Lord.  Forgive us for our prideful hearts and polished tongues.  Forgive us for not putting the needs of others before our own.  Forgive us for being more suspicious of your word than we are our own desires, thoughts, and feelings and theologies.   

God, bring revival to our churches!  Cleanse us from all impurity and unrighteousness and bring a holy fire upon us, one that will transform each and every person from the inside out.   Let our churches be places filled with the Holy Spirit, that all who enter these doors may know they are in the presence of a holy and loving God, one who has the power and desire to make us not better, but new.   Create in us clean hearts, and renew a right spirit within us.   

God, may our churches be overflowing with people hungry and thirsty.  May they have hearts soft and ready to hear the good news of the gospel, and may our pulpits be filled with preachers on fire for Jesus, eager to see souls saved.  Let our altars be lined with new converts falling over one another to get closer to the cross, and may we all grow up together, maturing in Christ, that you may present us all holy and blameless before Your Father in heaven.   Restore in us all a spirit of dependence, that we would want no other food than that which your hand provides.   

And God, let all this begin in me.   Today. This hour, and forevermore.   

In the precious, wonderful name of Jesus I ask this.  Amen.  

http://umcholiness.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/a-prayer-for-our-church/

The Secret: Colossians 1:27

I've enjoy reading books by Maxie Dunnam. I'm a Facebook friend and follow him on Twitter.  Pastor Dunnam was one of the founding fathers of the Walk to Emmaus. 

Sam, the secret is simply this: Christ in you!  

Yes, Christ in you bringing with Him the hope of all the glorious things to come. 

Suggested by Maxie Dunnam

Alive in Christ and the Intercessory Life

A prayer for me

A Prayer for Me.  Suggested by John Yates in his book "How a Man Prays for His Family.

Should we both pray for ourselves and ask others to pray for us? Yes we should. To not pray for ourselves would be prideful and suggest that we have no need for that which God wants and desires to bring to us as the result of prayer.

Father,

When you look at me, what would you like to see that I become? 

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who loves Christ.  

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who spends time with his creator each day in prayer.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who casts all care at the feet of my Lord.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who expresses love for his wife and children.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who is faithful to his church family.  

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who desires to be a servant to his fellow man.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who believes deeply in the power of prayer.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who desires knowledge of Your will.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who worships only the one true God.

I believe that You would want to see me as a man who recognizes his own powerlessness and inadequacies.

I pray that You will work in my life to bring about the changes needed in order to make me into the man you would want to see me become.

Prayer for our marriage

This is a prayer inspired by a book written by Bob Lepine. Jaime and I pray together each morning and evening. We've prayed this prayer hundreds of times.

We pray that Christ would be our first love, that through His love He would fill our marriage with His love and empower us to love each other more each day.

Teach us to look to You for security and self-esteem and not to our spouse.

Make our marriage a safe relationship, filling it with openness, honesty, and truth.

Unify each of us with You and with each other.

I pray that the two of us will constantly seek Your presence and power in our marriage.

I pray that You will protect our marriage from evil influences and temptations that can pull us away from each other and from You.

We pray that you use our marriage to touch the lives of others in a positive way, contributing to Your kingdom on earth.

Reflections on Columbia

Reflections on Columbia I would like to thank each of you for your prayers for the success of our mission. Your prayers truly helped Christ's church to bring healing to the sick and eyesight to the blind. Your prayers brought not only the King, but His Kingdom to people in Cienega, Columbia.

 I first learned of the MAPS trip to Columbia at Sunday School from Bob Wisor. He said that the trip would be in January and that it would be somewhat more expensive than the one we had taken 10 months earlier to Jamaica. My first inclination was to pass on this opportunity. Money is always an issue. This trip would be about $3200 for the two of us and I would also need to take a week's vacation time. Apparently God didn't see the circumstances of this trip in the same light as I was seeing it. The next day, my boss told me to come to her off ice to pick up a letter . The letter was an announcement that I was to receive a one time salary supplement of approximately two thousand dollars. This amount would be enough to cover more than half the cost of the trip to Columbia! God is so good!

Yet in spite of this blessing, I began to hear Satan's suggestion that I should perhaps hold on to this money for a rainy day. After all, wasn't my current service to The Lord sufficient? Two weeks latter would be commitment Sunday. That morning as the praise band concluded worship with the song "Here am I Lord", I was moved to accept God's calling to sign up for the Columbia trip. I remember saying to Jaime "we're going to Columbia." I knew that at this point in time that there might not be any available open slots and when Jaime called early Monday morning to inquire she was told that the trip had been filled ...but that the day before two people had backed out and now there was just enough room available for us to go! Nothing is too big for God!

 Some of you might ask, what special skills does Sam have that would make him of value to God in Columbia? He doesn't have any medical skills, his Spanish isn't good enough for him to act as an interpreter, his masonry skills are laughable, he doesn't plumb, he's not an electrician. Fortunately God has a place for each member of the body of Christ. Johnny, our team leader told me that I would not need to register those in need of medical services, the job I did last year in Jamaica, so I wandered into the eye glasses area and offered to help unpack the suitcases containing glasses and equipment. As we began to unpack one of the bags, I saw inside an unopened box containing rubber bands and a loom for making rubber band bracelets. Before I go any further I want to tell you that this was one of those God things. In this case it was a set of circumstances that only God could organize. You see, the previous weekend, my eleven year old granddaughter was visiting us and she had shown me how to make rubber band bracelets. I now had a skill that probably no one else on the team had. I could make rubber band bracelets and I knew what God wanted me to do with the skill He had provided me. We had a few Columbian children watching as we unpacked and began to set up the eye glass exam area. These were children who had attended the church worship service earlier in the day. I knew that God wanted me to use these rubber bands to begin to build a relationship with the children. I asked Sheila, our group leader if she had a purpose for the rubber bands and if she knew how to construct the bracelets. She said that she did not. I asked her if I could make some bracelets and she encouraged me. I opened the box, took out some rubber bands, took a seat near the place that the children were standing and began to build a rubber band bracelet. They all gathered around and I demonstrated to them how easy it was to build a bracelet out of rubber bands. Yet what was being built was more than rubber band bracelets. We were building relationships. They taught me in Spanish the names of the different colors of rubber bands. We asked each other What is your name? Como se llama ? How old are you? How do you say in Spanish , combo se dice en espanol? When I finished the first bracelet, I gave it to Andrea. Then I showed her the steps to make a bracelet. Everyone joined in. Everyone was making bracelets and giving them to their friends. In Columbia, we truly experienced God's power of reconciliation. We saw the work of the King in the bringing of his kingdom to his people. We saw the body of Christ, His church, be His hands and feet. We saw brokenness experience healing. We saw the sick healed. And in front of my own eyes I saw the blind see. His work is not completed. He is still reconciling Himself to all things. Whether things on earth or things in Heaven. His body the church must continue His work until He returns. The good news about the kingdom of God is that He wants to bring his kingdom not only to isolated and hard to get to places like Cienega, Columbia , but to conveniently easy to get to places like Phenix City , Alabama. If you think that God might be calling you to join in His work of reconciliation, answer His call. In fact, you don't have to go all the way to Columbia to have a part in Christ's ministry of reconciliation. He is working right here in Phenix City, Alabama. I'd like to in invite you to get involved in Circles of Transformation. It would be a great place to get started. Participation

Reflections on Jamaica

Before I was ever aware of a coming M.A.P.S. trip to Jamaica, I had been praying to God on my knees each morning that He might guide and direct my thoughts and actions regarding service to Him in missions. Some months had past when one Sunday morning at Sunday School Jodi Wisor told Jaime that there would be a meeting at Evangel Temple about a mission trip that She and Bob were considering going on.
The meeting was to be held that very week. Jaime and I made plans to attend the meeting, expecting to learn much more about this trip.
As the meeting began in a large Sunday School room in Evangel Temple where some fifty people had gathered, the speaker announced that he was circulating a sheet of paper where each person planning to go to Jamaica was to sign up.
I immediately realized that God had placed before me an amazing opportunity. Yet He was not giving me an opportunity go home and think about it, talk myself out of it, or find a reason that I should not go. He was sending the piece of paper across the room person by person and it would soon reach me. God"s question for me was would I sign the paper? Would I put my faith in Him? Would I answer His call to step way out of my comfort zone?
I thought about my prayer that I had been praying each morning on my knees, asking for Him to direct my thoughts and actions regarding mission service to Him.
So in complete trust in God alone, I placed my name on the paper.

I continued to pray for the mission trip. I prayed for the members of the team, that God would keep each one safe during the week. I prayed that all would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that lives would be saved, that God's will be done and His purposes be fulfilled. I'm happy to report that all of my petitions were answered.


The location of our mission was Ocho Rios Jamaica. We left Columbus early on Saturday morningon the Evangel Temple bus. Forty eight persons were on board. We carried not only our own luggage, but that containing medical supplies and construction tools. We arrived in Montego Bay, cleared customs, traveled by bus to Ocho Rios arriving at our quarters at Teen Challenge Jamaica by about 7 pm.

Our quarters afforded little privacy, but our comfort was adequate. Most of the women were In a 12 person bunk room. 12 of the men were in a similar room. The remaining men who were on the construction team were quartered in a motel closer to the construction site.

Teen Challenge Jamaica is affiliated with Assemblies of God. In Ocho Rios, the two are on adjoining properties.

On Sunday morning we attended church next door.
The church service was special. Seemed like God was in the house. God was Blessing Jamaica with his presence. Music seemed to flow throughout the entire service, including the prayers. I was surprised at the selection of music. Most were contemporary standards that could be heard at our9:45 service. The musicians included drums, bass and keyboard . Though it lasted for three hours, it seemed much shorter.

Sunday afternoon, the medical team was to provide for the medical, dental, and reading glasses needs of the church community. Instead of going with the construction team I was asked to work with the medical team. I was asked to receive the Jamaican patients and complete for each one a registration card which contained their name, age, and medical need. I also tracked the number of patients needing either medical, dental, or reading glasses being careful not to admit more than the available slots for each morning and afternoon.

It was significant for me that I had originally signed up for this mission to work on the construction team. It's mission was build a 4200 square foot greenhouse that would provide a means for teen challenge to raise vegetables that would be sold to resorts in the area, providing ongoing funding for it's mission to provide young men with a spiritual treatment method for their drug addictions.
God has a plan for each of us and for me, instead of working with the construction team, His plan was for me was to work with the medical team.


During the five days of the medical mission we ministered to more than 800 persons. We provided people with more than 300 pairs of reading glasses, provided medical examinations for more than 600 people, the dental team extracted more than 500 teeth from more than 120 people. The medical team also performed 2 surgeries.

I wrote in my journal on tuesday February 5th:
The teen Challenge Jamaica praise band is rehearsing in the first floor dining room. Very beautiful. We're having our souls healed and renewed. People are grateful and I believe that the love of Christ is being shown by our work here in Jamaica. We're being blessed. To God be the glory!

Our team leader Jon Connelly spoke to us at breakfast on Wednesday about David and the three smooth stones. The stones that were chosen were smooth, but not perfect. They were imperfect vessels. Jon went on to tell us that we are each called by God to fulfill His purposes. Like the stones we too are imperfect vessels. Yet in His hands the vessels can become great.


I would like to close with a short prayer:
Father teach us to pray. Open our hearts to the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Lead us to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Teach us to follow the example of Jesus. As He taught his disciples, so let us learn and teach others. Amen.