We have just posted a new sermon on the Keep Believing website called Why We Pray. Here’s an excerpt:
In the last two years God has led us in a new direction. After almost 27 years as a pastor, I now lead Keep Believing Ministries. And after spending all our time in large cities (Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago), we now live in Tupelo, Mississippi. As a result we rarely see most of the people who support our ministry, and I’m using the word “support” in the broadest sense of standing with us and encouraging us. In the pastorate you grow accustomed to seeing the same faces every Sunday, and you look forward to greeting your congregation, hugging them, laughing with them, chatting with them, praying with them, and sometimes weeping with them. Because of the nature of our ministry, we don’t have that privilege any more. Marlene and I have often talked about how much it means now to know that someone is praying for us. I have a friend in Texas who emails me and says, “I pray for you guys every day.” That blows me away. I haven’t seen Mike but maybe once in the last 25 years, and he prays for us every day.
Just as I wrote those words, I saw the face of Janet Kerns who is one of the program directors at Cannon Beach Conference Center in Oregon. When we saw her last week, she welcomed us with a hug, told us about all the people who were coming, and then with infectious enthusiasm she said, “How good is that?” That’s what came to my mind when I thought about Mike in Texas praying for us every day even though we haven’t seen him in years.
How good is that? It is very good indeed. We are learning in a new way to depend on the Lord and to find strength in the prayers of God’s people on our behalf. Prayer builds unity because it joins hearts together in the greatest cause of all—the global cause of Jesus Christ.
You can reach the author at ray@keepbelieving.com. Click here to sign up for the free weekly email sermon.
