In 1 Peter 1:3-8, we read, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Easter has reminded us again of the living hope that we have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. While we are praising God for the inheritance that is being kept in heaven for us, this does not mean that we are exempt from grief that comes in all kinds of trials here and now. There are experiences that we and our families and friends and our world endure that we do not understand. As we hold tightly to our faith in God when life is painful, our faith is proven genuine. It is not necessary for everything to make sense to us for us to trust God. Our God does not ask us to pretend that everything is okay when it is not. The authenticity of a faith that can admit that we do suffer grief in all kinds of trials is a faith that sustains us right through this life until we do receive the inheritance being kept safe in heaven for us. We do not see and know everything about what God is doing, but we do not confine our faith to what we can now see. God is bigger than whatever we are struggling with at this very moment. This week in our prayers we will be responding by faith to the living hope that comes from loving Jesus even though we do not see him now and even though we do not see Him, we choose to believe in Him. We can anticipate that our honest prayers will deepen our faith as we affirm our hope in Jesus and love Him from the depths of our hearts. Please join us for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER today April 27th at 1 pm.
Praying that through our faith in Jesus, God will shield us by His power, Pastor Lola
We do praise You our God for Your great mercy and the gift of our living hope in You through Jesus our risen Lord. We need Your mercy God because there are things about life here that are so difficult to bear. We do believe that you are preparing an inheritance in heaven for us that can never perish, spoil, or fade. The realities that threaten us here will not threaten us in heaven, but in the meantime we do need to be shielded by Your power. We ask You our God to lovingly guide us until the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Today we are asking for Your grace for all kinds of trials that cause us grief. We are affected by illness. We are affected by broken dreams and disappointments. We are affected by complicated and hurtful relationships. We are affected by the loss of loved ones. We carry the heaviness of the uncertainty and instability of our world. We carry the heaviness of those who see no cause for hope for tomorrow. We carry the grief that directly affects us as well as the grief that others endure. All of this is too much for us to bear and so we turn in faith to You. When we keep wanting to understand why things are the way they are, we do not find satisfactory answers. We come to You in prayer asking You to shield by Your power what We cannot see and know. Our fragile faith when shielded by You is enough to carry us through and we look to You for this to happen. We do love You even though we do not see You now. Thank You God for all of our reasons to love You and to depend on You. We admit that believing in You without seeing You is yet another gift of grace. Thank You Lord for making this possible. And thank you loving God that believing in You does result in an inexpressible joy. We cannot find words to convey the surprising joy that You make possible when the burdens are the heaviest. You lift up our eyes to see and know that You are constantly with us. Our awareness of You that comes by faith does transcend what we can see with our eyes. In our gratitude today we acknowledge that seeing that comes through faith is entirely different than what we can see and verify with our eyes. We ask You to continue to confirm in us that You are real and that believing in You is not empty, but rather full of promise. We make it our humble prayer that our faith in You will give others reason to consider You and to find strength that only You can provide for their trials. We do anticipate that one day our faith will become sight and between now and then, we ask You God to keep on shielding us for what is to be revealed when Jesus Your Son returns to take us home to heaven. Glory to You our God! In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.