A couple was arranging for their wedding, and asked the bakery to inscribe the wedding cake with "1 John 4:18" which reads: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."
The bakery evidently lost, smudged or otherwise misread the noted reference, and beautifully inscribed on the cake "John 4:18": "For you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband."
“I’ll be praying for you!”
Does this phrase sound familiar to you? How often have we answered someone’s need by telling them we would pray for them? Do you always pray like you said you would?
I remember one time as I was taking my Sunday afternoon siesta I was invaded by a dream that pierced the very core of my heart. In the dream my mother came to me and said with excitement, “I can’t wait to get to heaven and hear all of those prayers you prayed.” I was instantly gripped with shame, trying replay through my mind how many prayers I had actually prayed. It was reality hitting me. My mother had countless times asked me to pray and I didn’t always follow through with her wishes.
How many of us are guilty of this? This dream got me thinking. Does God really keep a tab on the unprayed prayers. In the book of Revelation you find a picture of God keeping the prayers of the saints under His throne. I believe that when we get to Heaven we will be able to see the many prayers that we prayed and the answers that those prayers brought. But what of the prayers never prayed? Are they also kept track of?
I believe that it will be revealed to us the results of not interceding for someone else. The prayer that we should have prayed could be for one of our troops whose life is in danger and our pray stands in between him and eternity. Will you pray? It could be someone’s loved one on a hospital bed about to breathe their last. Will you pray? It may be someone who has been depressed and someone asked you to pray for them. They are on the edge of the bridge about to jump. Will you pray?
You may be the catalyst to save someone’s life. You may be the one that will pray them through to their miracle. It may be your prayer that God is waiting on. Will you pray?
I challenge you, do not say half-heartedly, “I’ll be praying for you.” Go to the throne room of God and cry out to Him for their miracle. For their life! You are an important vessel to God! God wants you to pray and you will see results. The tragedy is, however, if you don’t pray there may never be those results. Your prayers are being logged and who knows even those unprayed prayers might be accounted for one day. Let’s make the choice to pray and when we get to Heaven we will see the results of those prayers.
I read this today from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers:
| “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” Luke 14:28 Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary – the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say – “This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”
The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. “If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . he cannot be My disciple.” Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious. All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put. |
Hannah badgered us for days to go to the carnival down the street from the house. She finally won with a statement made to Sonya, “When my daddy gets home from work, he’s going to take me to the fair.” Needless to say, I came through for her or Sonya made me come through.
Last night was a momentous occasion for the Cheney household. It is at the top of the list for greatest moments in history. In 1969, the United States put a man on the moon. In 2005, the Houston Astro’s went to the World Series (but lost). In 2010, Sonya ate fish. Yes, you heard it right.
To put that in context, she has been a vegetarian for years. Just in the last couple of years has she started eating steak (well done like beef jerky). On our second date, I took her to Taco Bell and she ordered two tacos with no meat. Yes, I continued to date her anyway:) All these years she has been a vegetables only person and her famous words were, “I will never eat fish.” Well folks, miracles happen. She ate fish. Not a whole piece but she ate about 4 bites of fish. The sky’s the limit! Next step is to get her to eat Crawfish.
Here is Sunday’s message. Part 6 of our Wisdom For Living Series.
Life of a Pastor Blog 