Link #279 - SUNDAY PREP
Greetings in the name of Jesus.
As we are about to begin another weekend at Bloor Central I felt compelled to send out one more note. On Sundays we gather with a very specific purpose to seek God. This is not a trivial pursuit but a quest I’d encourage you to take very seriously. Jeremiah 29:13 offers us a great promise that when we seek God we will find him IF we seek with “all our heart”. This indicates we don’t casually seek God, but we actually put effort into it.
Whenever we do anything important we take time to make sure we are prepared. Consequently, I encourage you to take some time to prepare your heart for tomorrow. There are many ways we can be preparing ourselves to make sure that we make the most of Sunday. For example…
Come with thanksgiving. Take time to identify something very specific that you are thankful for this week (its Thanksgiving weekend!). The more specific we can be the better. To thank God for “THE WORLD” is not inappropriate; however, it is very vague and lacks a focus on where God is specifically at work in our lives.
Take note of what is going on in your heart. Is there something that is distracting you and might block you from recognizing a divine voice? Do you have worries, concerns, hurts, hang-ups? We are trying to take time each Sunday to pray an “Anti-Fog Prayer”. Take note of what those distractions might be that we can pray against them tomorrow.
How will you take part in the giving tomorrow? Think about your offering. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:6-7).
We have been exploring the Lords Prayer over the past 5 weeks. Take some time in going over the prayer recorded in Matthew 6. You can consciously repeat it over several times and take note of any specific words that stand out to you. You could take 5-10 minutes to simply go through it very slowly considering each line as you go. Another idea is to simply take the two lines we’ve looked at so far “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name” and just meditate on what that might mean for your life.
You can pray for the service tomorrow. Pray that Gods word will be proclaimed fearlessly. Pray for others.
Lastly, right now you might consider someone you could invite tomorrow.
Lots of ways for each of us to be preparing for tomorrow. It is for the Kingdom.