of the Scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15:4, NKJV)
MORNING DEVOTION- "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee..." (Psalm 63:1)
Scripture Reading: Acts 6:1-7; 7:1-60
It wasn't long before the apostles found themselves back in prison. The religious leaders were jealous of their success, particularly because they were "unschooled, ordinary men" (Acts 4:13). Jesus, their faithful Teacher, had prepared them for such a time as this, telling them, "If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also" (John 15:20b). The Lord would not allow those who opposed His purposes prevent His faithful followers from fulfilling their task (reference Proverbs 19:21): "But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 'Go stand in the temple courts...and tell the people the full message of this new life" (Acts 5:19-20). They were flogged and beaten for disobeying the court order to stop preaching in the name of Jesus Christ; after the apostles received their punishment they went away rejoicing, "because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name" (v.41). Jesus had warned them, "They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God" (John 16:2). That time was fast approaching; and is upon us now!
Their suffering led to greater boldness in proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ, and the church experienced tremendous growth as a result. This led to increased problems within the church as the apostles attention became so focused on meeting the needs of the people and serving tables that they were neglecting the more important ministry of the Word and prayer (reference Acts 6:2). The enemy loves it when the people of God are so busy and distracted with ministry that they have little time for nurturing their relationship with the Lord, ultimately weakening them to the point they are unable to serve fully in the power they have been given. Much of the church today is spiritually starved because we have neglected giving our attention to prayer and the Word of God; we are unaware of how truly malnourished we are, and how this neglect has weakened the various members of the Body, and has tremendously impacted the health of the entire Body and the overall ministry of the church. The apostles quickly recognized their deficiency, and, with wisdom, chose seven men to handle the responsibilities within the church, while the apostles gave themselves "continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word" (v.4).
One of the men chosen, who was "full of the Spirit and wisdom", was Stephen. No one could "stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke" (v.10). He, also, found himself arrested by the Sanhedrin, but it was the Lord's divine providence that placed him in a position to preach the gospel message to these teachers of the Law; to teach them a history lesson that would take them back to their spiritual roots. Sadly their hearts were hardened and their eyes were blinded; deeply rooted in their religious traditions their ears were closed to the Truth spoken before them, and they missed a vital opportunity to express faith in the living God whom they claimed to worship. "These people come near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is made up only of rules taught by men" (Isaiah 29:13). Even though it was plainly presented to them, the truth did not penetrate their hardened hearts, it only shed light on the wickedness of a heart that is far from God and they stoned Stephen to silence him from speaking anymore in the Name of the One they refused to accept. Stephen responded to their threats and hostility just as Jesus had on the cross, by praying for their forgiveness while they put him to death, "Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit...Lord, do not charge them with this sin" (v.59b, 60b).
Heavenly Father,
"O LORD, You have searched me and know me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
and You laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it." (Psalm 139:1-6)
Lord, open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts
to the deep truths hidden in Your Word which You
desire Your children to learn, that we would have
the boldness of the early disciples and of Stephen,
who was full of the Holy Spirit, and whose only
desire was to please You and bring glory to
Your name through his witness and life.
May we take courage from his Words that
the leaders of his day failed to comprehend:
That You are always with us, that You are
within us, and that we can never move out
of Your Presence.
"How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more
in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You." (vv. 17-18)
Praise Your holy name.
In Jesus' Name. Amen.
We have a responsibility, as followers of Jesus Christ, to daily pick up our Sword (the Holy Bible) and sharpen our skill with meditation and memorization, so we will be prepared for those divine appointments the Holy Spirit schedules for us throughout our day. We need to be vigilant against distractions, both good and bad, that rob us of the time we should be spending in solitude with God and in the study of His Word. We cannot expect to lead others where we haven't been ourselves, and we cannot minister effectively when we have been drained of our necessary spiritual power that is only derived from spending time with the Lord and getting our necessary nourishment from His Word. There is no greater knowledge than the knowledge of God. Let us pray this morning that we would yield to the Holy Spirit's promptings and submit to His call in the first moments of our day and allow our Teacher to take us deeper into all truth so we can be prepared at all times to give the reason for the hope that we have. "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13a).
Throughout the Scriptures we read of the wisdom, understanding, and discernment that was given to God's servants who had placed a priority upon, and were obedient to, His Word (reference Daniel 1:17). "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them" (Daniel 10:12). The Lord desires that we would daily study His Word so we will grow up and become mature in the faith. "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good" (1 Peter 2:1-3).
The Word of God is "living and active" (Hebrews 4:12a); it is through God's Word and the Spirit of God that we are presented the gospel message and are enabled to recognize our sinful state and have an understanding of our great need for the forgiveness of the Savior. "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). We cannot carry a message we do not know or understand; nor will we have the passion and commitment of the early church as well as the faithful saints who have followed in their footsteps and who willingly laid down their lives for the sake of the gospel, if we do not learn to abide in Christ and submit to daily studying the Word of God and meeting with Him in prayer, so our hearts will be more fully yielded and open to the love of the Father and enabled to produce the fruit of love for those He desires to reach and save. "Everything is permissible" - but not everything is beneficial."Everything is permissible" - but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others" (1 Corinthians 10:23-24). We are called as servants of Jesus Christ to "speak the truth in love." We are not to not think of our own interests, but to daily die to self and concern ourselves with the interests of others, so that the body of Christ can be built up. Our time dedicated to prayer and the Word is the necessary preparation we need to be used in the lives of others; it is when we exercise what we have learned from the Scriptures and have claimed in believing pray that we are able to grow and become mature in the faith. As God's children, we are also His students, and we should always be learning and then sharing what we have learned with others.
As we read yesterday, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Corinthians 8:1b). The more we study, meditate, memorize, and understand the Word of God, the more enabled we are to build others up in the most profitable way - for the good of others, for increasing our own faith, for the health of the Body, and for the ultimate benefit of advancing the kingdom of God. The Lord has placed in our hands the most amazing textbook, the Holy Bible, and it alone can bring hope and healing to the world, but we, who have been given this sacred trust must first open our hearts to receive it, with ever-increasing desire and hunger (reference Matthew 5:6), and then open our hands to share it (reference 1 Corinthians 4:2). May God stir up a deep hunger in the hearts of His people for His Word, so we will be prepared to speak boldly His life-giving words into the lives of who are perishing from lack of truth all around us.
Heavenly Father,
"Justice is driven back,
and righteousness stands at a distance;
truth has stumbled in the streets,
honesty cannot enter.
Truth is no where to be found,
and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.
The LORD looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no one,
He was appalled that there was no one to intervene..."
(Isaiah 59:14-16a)
Father, "You have given me an instructed tongue
to know the word that sustains the weary.
Waken me morning by morning,
waken my ear to listen like one being taught.
Open my ears and help me to not
be rebellious" (reference Isaiah 50:4-5).
Lord, use this season of growing persecution
to draw Your people back to You with all our hearts.
Teach us to wait upon You and draw strength
from You so we can be
thoroughly prepared
to build up the rest of the Body and carry Your
torch of Truth into this dark world.
In Jesus' Name. Amen.
God's Word declares, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6a). It is no wonder therefore that God's greatest desire is that we know Him. He longs to reveal Himself to His people, and He invites us to meet Him in the secret place of prayer and yield ourselves to His Holy Spirit who will guide us into all Truth where He can reveal "deep and hidden things" (reference Jeremiah 33:3; Mark 4:11a; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 4:1); He has given us the "mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16b). This afternoon, let us pray for believers to all across this nation to begin to seek God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and become diligent students of the Word, so we can raise up a standard in this land and hold up the plumbline against which all information, laws and legislation are to be measured by. "Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land" (Hosea 4:1). It is imperative that we, the Church, be informed now more than ever, and go on to maturity in our knowledge and understanding of the Word of God, having our ears tuned to the truth so that we will not be "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming" (Ephesians 4:14).
EVENING MEDITATION -"...and on His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2)
Prayer Focus: Education - Our Schools
Abraham Lincoln has said, "The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next." The founding fathers of our nation believed in the teaching of the Bible because of the good it brought to society. They believed that every American should have access to the Bible, therefore they formed the first Bible societies. The first illiteracy law was enacted in 1690 because they believed it was vital that every child be able to read the Word of God and have a plumbline to measure the laws of the state so they would know how to vote. Great institutions like Harvard and Yale had written into their school directives that the entire goal of their studies was to "lead them into a saving knowledge of God and His Son Jesus Christ." Article IV of the Northwest Ordinance reads, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Sadly, our nation drifted from a its' once strong "spiritual" roots and placed it's reliance on the economy rather than God, and our history books were rewritten to align with this new belief system. Between the 1960's and 70's we saw a full-scale rejection of traditional values and watched as school prayer (1962), Bible reading (1963) and the Ten Commandments (1980) were declared "unconstitutional," and stripped from our schools and public displays. Today we are living in the most biblically illiterate generation since our founding. The increase in immorality, idolatry, and the resulting need for numerous laws only gives evidence to the high price we have paid for our rejection of our spiritual past. In His farewell address George Washington stated, "religion and morality are indispensable supports." These supports have become shaky, and now with the current Supreme Court ruling they have begun to crumble. The Church has the power and authority at our disposal to correct the destructive course we are currently on. If we don't rise up in this hour and repent and begin to pray with all earnestness our children and grandchildren will pay the price for our failure to keep watch and take a stand.
This evening may we pray fervently for our schools at the local and state level, both private and public, and lower and higher institutions of learning. The American School Board Journal has stated, "The longer U.S. students stay in school, the less they seem to know." Today, with what they are being taught from a moral perspective, there is much we don't want them to know. Sadly, studies also show that 80% of children who have grown up in Christian homes will walk away from the faith when they enter college. Secular, liberal institutions are robbing our children of their spiritual heritage while we, as parents, waste our money investing in an education that we expect to equip them to be successful in the world, but only robs them of their faith in God. Their greatest success comes from greater dependence upon God, and we should be preparing them for a lifetime of living in God's presence and walking in obedience to His Word in constant, fervent prayer. Tonight, let us pray for them to have godly teachers who will be provide a good example and offer wise counsel to our students, and that they would be equipped to do so with courage and without fear of persecution or losing their jobs (reference Hebrews 13:7). Let us pray for all our students, for administrators, coaches, teachers, board members and parent leaders to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Pray for all those who spend the greatest amount of time with our children and have a significant amount of influence on them to "be completely humble and gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love..." (Ephesians 4:2); that they would give their best to the next generation, "as working for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23). Pray for our students that they would not be "taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8). Pray for the protection of our children in this challenging age as they are faced with greater peer pressure and confronted with godlessness and blatant immorality. Pray that God would surround them with godly teachers and fellow Christian students. Pray for their protection and for boldness to not conform to the patterns of the world; but that they would be bright lights in their school who "shine like stars in the universe" (Philippians 2:15b). Pray for strength for ministries, parents, and those within the system who daily fight the spiritual battle that strives to take captive our children's minds, who distort the truth, and seek to rob them of their spiritual heritage. Pray for those who are diligently working to restore prayer, the Ten Commandments, and religious studies courses that offer Bible study courses to our children in public schools; may they find favor and success, and may those who are obstacles in the path of truth fail in their efforts and be removed from their position of influence in the lives of our children.
Practical things you can do as you pray for your local, state, private and public schools: Pray with your children before they leave for school each day, realizing they are being sent out as sheep among wolves (your prayers will also benefit children you carpool with). Pray for teachers and administrators at your school by name. Prayer walk around your school or establish a prayer group to meet weekly to pray for the students, families, and faculty at your school (we have a Moms In Prayer prayer group that meets in an empty room on Thursday mornings at our Christian school). Attend school board meetings and pray for the superintendent and board members who select curriculum and make other important decisions for your school district. Become informed about policies on parental involvement and about issues on sexuality that are being implemented in your school system. Parental involvement is vital in our public school systems now more than ever. Contact your state Family Policy Council for more information on how you can become involved to protect your children (click HERE to find your state FPC). Pray also for the protection and encouragement of families who homeschool their children. Join with students in prayer at the annual "See You At the Pole" event each September as well as adopt a college and pray on the Collegiate Day of Prayer. Pray for campus ministries like Campus Crusade for Christ. Get involved and become informed about what is happening in your child's school, and thoughtfully and prayerfully consider the curriculum your children are studying, and voice your concerns. Help other ministries and groups bring Bible study curriculum to your school. Pray for the Green Family (founders of Hobby Lobby who recently defended their religious liberty rights at the Supreme Court) as they build the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. to provide a place where all people can engage the Bible. They have also developed an innovative Bible curriculum for high schools. Visit their website and see how you can get involved and support this project (www.museumofthebible.org). "Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the LORD. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street" (Lamentations 2:19).
Heavenly Father,
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of
wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One
is understanding (Proverbs 9:10). May nothing hinder
