The Lord Answered Our Prayers
Earlier this year the leaders of Reforming met to prayerfully consider what would be our vision for our church and region in 2022. When the Elders, Board Managers and Ministry Team Leaders gathered, we didn’t presume that using words like “vision” or “strategy” would make our plans right or become reality.
Rather, for Reforming we recognise that we need to be depend upon God in everything, through prayer. It’s why those things we identified as important then became our plans and prayers for 2022. These plans and prayers we then prayed for every Sunday of gathered worship all year.
Here is what we had written on the service sheet under the Pastoral Prayer section of our gathered worship each week:
We asked the Lord with a patient persistence, a petitioning that was characterised by always praying and not losing heart (Luke 18:1-8). Then as we asked, we have seen again and again the Lord’s faithfulness in answering our prayers, so that Reforming Church can praise the Lord with all our soul - for he is worthy of our praise.
Now, God is always worthy of our praise, and we can and need to always rely on him in everything, by prayer - but we also get to recognise where he provides for us again and again.
God is always worthy of praise, and we can and need to rely on him in everything, by prayer
Friends, look at how the Lord has grown us more like Christ this year, he has grown us more as a church that has a culture of Christ. Praise the Lord! Yes, we are still sinners who are justified and need to live a lifetstyle of confessing our sins to one another and the Lord - but can we see how we have grown in this across the last 12 months? Thank you Lord!
We can thank the Lord that he has grown our capacity of care and in our love for the lost. Even though we came out of that covid season of 2020-21, we still had bouts of sickness as a church - yet just look at how we cared for one another in that! All glory to God, thank you Lord!
We asked again and again for the Lord to give us the facilities needed to facilitate gospel ministry - particularly for our growing children’s ministry. Wow, if we need a tangible reminder of what the Lord has done this year, then just take a look into our Kids Church Rooms. Amazing. The ministry of making little-disciples that happens in those rooms is something we can thank the Lord for every time we use them.
And then we can thank God for his generosity to us, and through us, in seeing much gospel ministry applied to the hearts of us all in our church - and then through us to our region. We can thank the Lord for such ministry through Bible teaching, gospel preaching, evangelistic events and partnering with our missionaries. The Lord has grown us in having generous hearts, more like Christ.
What does this mean for us now as a church? I would like to take this opportunity to encourage us, you dear reader, to cultivate a healthy prayer life with a joyful heart in the Lord Jesus.
It’s so easy for us to lose heart in praying, when we have every reason in under the Lord to pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). It’s so common for us to ask the Lord, and yet not thank him for all the evidences of his grace to us. Worse, it’s sadly normal-mode for us sinners to grumble and live on the daily disgruntleness that grows in discontentedness, when instead we could have joy even in difficulty by having the eyes of faith that see God’s faithfulness toward us.
The Lord has indeed answered our payers, dear Reforming, and this means as we head into 2023 we can keep bringing all our needs to him, with of course all our thankfulness.
