Broken Bread 3

Week Two: Breaking Ground    Day 12: Rock of Ages      April 7, 2016 
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"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of
unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes
and showers righteousness upon you."
(Hosea 10:12) 
Day Twelve Devotions:
 
MORNING MEDITATION
 
Glean the Word: Daniel 9:1-27       
   
Glimpse of Glory: "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.  It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." (Daniel 2:44) 
  
Our time in prayer and fasting these forty+ days are meant to be a time of preparation in prayer.  After His resurrection, Jesus appeared frequently to His disciples for forty days to prepare them for the work they were commissioned to do. They never knew when He would show up and make an appearance, but their hearts were being strengthened to learn to wait for Him with great expectation.  In addition, they were commanded to wait for an additional ten days for the promise of the Holy Spirit who would come at Pentecost.  They were being taught to believe in and depend on His Word.  Those forty days were days of preparation in prayer, because from this point forward the Lord would no longer be with them, and prayer would be their means of communication with Him and the channel through which the blessings of heaven would flow.  "After His suffering, He showed Himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  On one occasion, while He was eating with them, He gave them this command:  'Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:3-5).

Prayer is the root of our spiritual life and power in the Church.  The Word of God and prayer are the foundation stones of the church (Acts 6:4).  "The Word of God and prayer are inseparable - the power of the one is dependent upon the presence of the other."  Prayer is the power of the heavenly life; through prayer we are equipped to conqueror the world for Christ, and empowered to overcome the power of this world. It was by prayer that the early church flourished and triumphed.  For Daniel, his prayer would affect the future of the nation of Israel. He was most definitely a man of prayer; he prayed three times a day (Daniel 6:10).  He knew that it was absolutely necessary to have his heart right with God if he expected his prayers to be heard. "So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with Him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3).  While the Jewish nation refused to repent, praying instead for judgment to fall on Babylon, Daniel stood in the gap as a faithful intercessor and sought the face of the Lord and asked for His forgiveness. "Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to Your truth" (v. 13).  Daniel stands in good company with other faithful intercessors whom the Lord raised up to bring deliverance for His people (i.e. Moses, Elijah, Jehoshaphat).  All it takes is one person who is more concerned about the glory of God rather than the burdens of this life; whose prayer life is based on worshiping God; and who is willing to stand in the gap in the full-surrender of heart, mind, and soul which comes with fasting, for God to bring deliverance and restoration. This morning, as we meditate on  Daniel's prayer for national deliverance, let us learn from his faithful life of prayer and focus our attention on the greatness and glory of God, as the Lord continues to prepare our hearts and minds to be the vessels He will use to bring the restoration and revival we so desperately need. "We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy.  O Lord, Listen!  O Lord, forgive!  O Lord, hear and act!  For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name." (v. 18b, 19). 
     
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AFTERNOON DEVOTION

 

Glean the Word: Matthew 24:1-35           

 

Gift of Grace: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (v. 14) 

 

Daniel's faithfulness to seek the Lord in the Scriptures and in prayer opened heaven for him to be able to receive revelations from God.  His close fellowship with the Lord, moment-by-moment throughout the day, prepared him to be able to stand firm and to be a stable force in a time of great uncertainty; having been dragged off to exile in a pagan nation, and unjustly accused, because of his devotion to God in prayer (Daniel 6:4-5, 11-12).  It was while Daniel was speaking and praying and confessing his sin and the sins of the nation, that the Lord sent him a message: "Daniel, I have now come to give insight and understanding.  As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed" (Daniel 9:22-23).  Daniel was esteemed of the Lord because of the devotion of his heart towards the Lord, and his humble and fervent intercession for his people and for the nation.  "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word" (Isaiah 66:2b).  Daniel's prayer for restoration was answered with a revelation of the reconciliation of his people and God's future kingdom (Daniel 9:24).

In the Gospel of Matthew, we have the prophecy of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the promise of the coming of Christ, and the establishment of His kingdom. The glory of God came back to the temple while Christ ministered on earth, then "Jesus left the temple" (v. 1) and shared with His disciples about the end of the age.  They had questioned the timing of all these events, and Jesus gave them insight and understanding, not to satisfy their curiosity, but to prepare their hearts. Jesus warned them to be on their guard against false prophets, who would deceive them and lead them away from the truth.  The Lord provides us warnings in His Word, so we will not fear.  He wants us to trust Him and remain in the warmth of His presence and to walk in the light of His Word so that our hearts won't grow cold. May we allow His heavenly fire to purify our hearts and lips, so we can have the access and knowledge we need to pray and lay hold of heaven's blessings for the world.  This afternoon, let us praise God for His prophetic word which prepares us to be instruments of His higher purposes in the noble place of prayer.

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EVENING PRAYER
 
Glean the Word: Psalm 110

Fruit of Repentance: "Your troops will be willing on Your day of battle.  Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth." (v. 3) 
 
 
This evening we offer up a prayer of restoration through the Word of God (click on the image below for our evening prayer).

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform  any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:1-2). 

Click on the image below to draw close to the fire
and experience the warmth, love and light of Christ
as we come boldly before the Throne of Grace and
 join our hearts together in prayer:

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HARVEST The Kingdom of God  

Copyright � 2009, 2016 Traci A. Alexander. All Rights Reserved.

 


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