Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church     
 
Dr. James Ombiri - "A Product of Prayer"

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This Sunday
Sept. 27, 2015




Sermon Title:
"We Should Pray" 
(Pastor Tim)
 



Scripture:
Acts 2:42-47 
(and additional selected verses from the Book of Acts) 
 
September 25, 2015
 
The subject of this upcoming Sunday sermon is prayer. Acts 2:42 reminds us that God's New Community is "devoted to prayer." I therefore asked our Ruling Elder for Prayer Promotion Ministry at MLEPC, Dr. James Ombiri, to write our weekly Pastoral Letter, sharing some of his experience with prayer. Read on . . . you will be encouraged! Pastor Tim
 
Dear MLEPC Members and Friends,
 
When Pastor Tim asked me to share about prayer in the pastoral letter, I thought to myself O, what an honor! Then my mind started thinking about many things in my life with regards to prayer. I realized that my very life is a product of prayer. I will explain this in a short while. My parents loved the Lord and were very prayerful, so I learnt about prayer at a very tender age. My mother found a way of teaching her little children how to pray for food before they eat. She taught us to sing (in my native language, Luo) a prayer before every meal, which when translated goes "For our health and strength and daily food we praise your name O Lord, Amen!" We were also taught to pray before sleeping and when we wake up. It was much easier to do these things as children because they were our family tradition. But when I grew up and went to boarding in high school, I realized that I had to make a personal commitment to prayer and devotion. My parents were not with me to announce prayer or family devotion time. I had to be intentional about prayer, devotion, attending church and living as a witness for Christ.
 
Just to take you a little back when I was two years old, I got a very severe polio infection. My parents told me it was so serious that they thought unless God intervenes I would not survive and they prayed and had faith in God. God heard their prayers and I survived by God's grace and mercy. I am indeed a product of prayer!
 
As I grew in the Lord, I learned that prayer is not just about asking the Lord for things for myself. Whereas it is a good thing to ask God to provide for us and to give us our heart's desires, the Lord also wants us to stand in the gap. "Standing in the gap," is a phrase used for intercessory prayer - that is praying for others. We are beneficiaries of intercessory prayers. There are many fellow believers interceding for us. And more importantly the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God the Father always interceding for us! (Please read Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25.) The Holy Spirit also intercedes for us with groans that are beyond our human utterance (Romans 8: 26-27). What we are as believers is as a result of prayer intercession of fellow believers, intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are indeed products of prayer!
 
About six years ago I was very sick with an acute pneumonia. I was in a semi-coma and was hospitalized for 3 months in 4 different hospitals. My condition was so serious that had it not been the Lord that intervened through fervent prayer of the church family, it would have been a different story. I thank God for the great work the doctors and nurses did and indeed God used them in a very special way. But unless the Lord intervened, their efforts would have been in vain. God hears the prayers of His people. The church prayed fervently and updates were posted on the prayer chain. Dear friends, I am a product of prayer! Dear church, let us make use of prayer chain. (The email address of MLEPC prayer chain is: prayer4mlepc@verizon.net. You can send prayer requests and also request to join the prayer chain using the same email address.) Let us post prayer concerns and pray! Let us be men and women committed to prayer. Let us be a praying church. A praying church is a revived church, a praying church is a powerful church. God is calling us to be more passionate about prayer and we will see Him do great and mighty things in us and through us to the glory of His name (please read Jeremiah 33:3).
 
As a community of believers here at MLEPC, we have seen God move mountains through the power of prayer. The challenges that we faced when leaving PCUSA were enormous, but God intervened for us through fervent prayers of the faithful. Our church is indeed the product of prayer!
 
James Ombiri 
 
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