Bible Text 2 Chronicles 6:21

May you hear the humble and earnest requests from me and your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from heaven where you live, and when you hear, forgive.

A praying remnant can change everything. A remnant of believers has the ear of God, it’s just that simple. And I believe one of the reasons in these desperate days why God has restrained a hand of judgment upon our land is because of a remnant of pray-ers.

We need to understand how serious the times are. We need to understand that this is a serious and difficult day. We need to understand that the church has often fallen asleep, and we need to pray that God would turn the hearts of His people back to Him. Unless the hearts of His people return to Him the nation will never turn back to Him. The nation will not turn because we say, “You’re doing bad and terrible things.” The nation turns when the hearts of God’s people turn to Him in repentance and say, “Lord, have mercy on us.” A heart that is humble before God, is a heart that God can use to change and motivate the hearts of others.

Take Him seriously and understand the critical nature of this hour. Come before the Lord in constant prayer recognizing that politics will not change the future, but prayer turns the nation around. Prayer is heard by God who does incredible things. If the prayer of Elijah could turn Israel back from drought to fruitfulness, then the prayer of a remnant can change our land as well. Rather than spending our time moaning and groaning about what is happening, and what is going on with our morality, and what is taking place in our culture, I believe God is calling us to be on our knees before Him, and to understand when the enemy says, “Oh, one person can’t do anything about this,” that one person with God is a majority! One person with the living God is one who is equipped with power to change the future!

The Lord is calling us to take Him seriously and take prayer seriously. You can vote, you can express your opinions, you can display your flag, but in the end the prayers of God’s people alone can turn the land around, beginning with the church.

Prayer: Join with us as we get down on our knees today to pray for America.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

Bible Text:

James 5:16The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

“May you hear the humble and earnest requests from me and your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from heaven where you live, and when you hear, forgive.”  2 Chronicles 6:21

“The world is shaking today, dear friends, and it’s not because we have gotten so good, it’s because we have wandered so far. And the Lord is using a brutal and evil force to call His children back to himself, that we might understand how deep the root of evil and sin is in this world and how much we need the only One who can redeem and reclaim us and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming King. In Hezekiah’s day, Hezekiah saw that reality, and he took to heart what God was saying. Today God is calling you and me to do the same, to take to heart what we are seeing and what He is saying and to be people who hear His voice and respond to His truth, and follow where He leads.

The Bible says, “The prayers of a righteous man avail much before the living God.” The scripture says that the Lord listens to the prayers of His people. The scripture cries out, “I would that at least one would stand in the gap, but none were found.” But in Hezekiah’s day they were, and one of them was Hezekiah, and that’s what we see in 2 Kings 19. And I believe it has much to say to you and me today. This does not simply speak to the church of Jesus in general, it speaks to His followers in particular. It speaks not only to others, it speaks to you and to me. And God is saying to us in these dangerous days, turn to me all the ends of the earth and be saved. God is saying to us at this time,  look to the one who is the Holy One of Israel, the One who is faithful and just and true, the One who loves His children, the One who desires to deliver them from the sword and from tragedy, from danger, and from the might of the enemy.

A praying remnant can change everything. A remnant of believers has the ear of God, it’s just that simple.

We need to understand how serious the times are. We need to understand that these are serious and difficult days. We need to understand that the church has often fallen asleep, and we need to pray that God would turn the hearts of His people back to Him. Unless the hearts of His people return to Him, the nation will never turn back to Him. The nation will not turn because we say, “We’re doing bad and terrible things.”  The nation turns when the hearts of God’s people turn to Him in repentance and say, “Lord, have mercy on us.” A heart that is humble before God, is a heart that God can use to change and motivate the hearts of others.

Take Him seriously and understand the critical nature of this hour. Come before the Lord in constant prayer recognizing that politics will not change the future, but prayer turns the nation around. Prayer is heard by God who does incredible things. If the prayer of Elijah could turn Israel back from drought to fruitfulness, then the prayer of a remnant can change our land as well. Rather than spending our time moaning and groaning and lamenting about what is happening in our cities,, and what is going on with the pandemic, with our morality, and what is taking place in our culture, I believe God is calling us to be on our knees before Him.  

Understand that when the enemy says, “Oh, one person can’t do anything about this,” that one person with God is a majority! One person with the Living God is one who is equipped with power to change the future!

I believe the Lord is calling us to take Him seriously and take prayer seriously.

Prayer: Join with us as we get down on our knees today to pray for America.

Prayer: Humbly come before God today and prayer earnestly for America. Be assured, He hears your prayers for the prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

Bible verse:

“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.” 1 John 4:16-17

Today, we will continue with 1 Corinthians 13.  Paul goes on to say, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth.”  Boy! How important it is for us to internalize this considering we live in a world where evil reigns.

Paul continues, “It always protects, always trusts.” That’s trusting God, by the way.  “It always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” And it never fails because God never fails, because the Lord Jesus did not fail to go to the cross for you and me, because he did not fail to rise from the grave and because he will not fail to return. And so until He returns He says to you and to me, “The measure of a real follower of mine is one who loves in the way I do.”  

There is no way I can do that on my own, but I also know something else.  God‘s Holy Spirit who dwells in you and me, gives us supernatural power to love like Jesus.  Our Lord is speaking to each of us today and He is reminding us of the incredible importance of not simply letting our light shine, but letting our LOVE shine, because that love is His love. It is built on His love. it is anchored in His love. It is refined by His love. It is practiced because He is great and His word is true and it is possible to share it through His Spirit dwelling in us.

Oh, how we need to take sharing His love to heart.  It is why the Scriptures remind us time and again of the importance of showing true love.  We are called to practice what Jesus says, “A new commandment I give you. Love one another, even as I have loved you. By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Prayer: This is my prayer, help me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love ALL. Lord, make me truly understand how much you love me and help me to live out that love each day and as I live each day in You, grow my love and give me the strength to live like Jesus.  Let me share Your love with everyone. Amen.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

WE WILL BE OFFERING A GATHERING TOMORROW AT 6:30PM CT FOR THE LORDS’ SUPPER, PRAYER AND WORSHIP. Pre-registration is required. 

You are invited to join us.

When: Nov 1, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvduisrzspEtb9WyfYagRWl-0xsflpwyaD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Bible verses:

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.  1 Chronicles 16:34

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Jesus’ character, the character of the Living God, is His love endures forever.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.” Put another way, because God so loves me I will be patient with others even as He has been patient with me. Because God so loves me I will be kind to others even as my Lord Jesus has been kind to me. Because God still loves me, I will not envy others who have more than I have, but instead I will rejoice with them. Because God is all in all, I will not boast because everything I have, I did nothing to merit or earn, therefore I will not be proud.

The apostle Paul continues, “Love does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs.” What happens when you and I put this type of love into practice in our lives with our family? With our friends?  And, yes, even with those who are hostile toward us? What does love like this do? The answer is, it speaks volumes! It communicates in a way that nothing else can match because living like this is a living reflection of the Lord Jesus Himself and that changes situations.

It also changes us!  We become different people. There’s no way we can do this on our own. God‘s Holy Spirit through the incredible gift of Christ Jesus makes this not only possible, but DOABLE!  Even when we slip up, we have One who picks us up, dusts us off, shows us His enduring, faithful love and says,  “Now, go on from here.”  He is a good and gracious and loving God and His faithful love endures forever, and it is that love, His love reflecting in us, that He wants us to share.

Prayer: Thank You for Your faithful, enduring, steadfast love! Thank You for Your gracious goodness that is given to me daily. It is my desire to share Your love with others. Make me an instrument of Your love with my family, my friends, with strangers and even with my enemies. I want to shine with Your Light and Your Love.  May people see You through me. Amen.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

WE WILL BE OFFERING AN ONLINE GATHERING FOR THE LORDS’ SUPPER, PRAYER AND WORSHIP. 

Pre-registration is required. 

When: Nov 1, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvduisrzspEtb9WyfYagRWl-0xsflpwyaD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Bible verse:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

I’d like to share a great story that comes out of China that I think is a powerful portrayal of Jesus’ kind of love.  It is a true story told by a man by the name of Watchmen Nee. Watchman Nee was an incredibly brave and courageous Chinese Christian teacher and author of the 20th century. He endured great persecution.  He was a man who lived his faith and he told a story about a fellow believer in China.

This fellow Christian believer had a rice patty next to another rice patty that belonged to a communist official. Every morning the Christian got up and worked a pump that was basically built around a bicycle. (You would pump with your feet and it would pump water from the river into the rice patty.) Every morning the Chinese Christian pumped that water into his field and as soon as he was finished and left, his communist neighbor came and removed the boards that separated their two rice patties allowing all of the water to flow into the communist official’s rice patty. As the believer understood what was going on, he cried out to God. He said, “Lord, I need this rice patty to provide for my family and if this keeps up I’m not going to have any rice and we are going to be in absolutely desperate straits.” It was at that point in prayer that the Holy Spirit revealed to the believer what to do next. On the next morning the Chinese Christian got up earlier than ever, went to the rice patty and removed the boards, went to the pump and watered his neighbor’s rice patty.  Then he put the boards back in and watered his own.  He did that day after day and in a matter of just a few weeks both rice patties were flourishing, but something else happened. His communist neighbor became a follower of Jesus, because you see, genuine love speaks to even the most hardened of hearts.

Love, dear friends, is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It is at the heart of what it means to be a genuine and true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is something that you and I need to take seriously in our lives, especially as we find ourselves in these days, on display to the world and questioned by many. We’re living in a time when many are incredibly hostile to the things of God and, I might add, often hostile to those who follow the Living God. Yet our response is not to be one of anger and bitterness. It is not to be one of outrage. Instead, it is to be the very thing Jesus spoke, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Because the true measure of discipleship, the genuine indicator, the ultimate indicator, is Love.

Prayer: Lord, I want to be like Watchman Nee’s friend who displayed genuine love to his neighbor.  I want to return love to all, to those who are easy to love, but also to those who are difficult to love, and even to those who have hurt me or even hate me. Fill me with the heart of Jesus. Remove any outrage, anger and bitterness in me and replace those with genuine Love, like the ultimate Love shown to me by Jesus, who came not just to give His love to me, but because He came to give His love to ALL. Help me be part of passing that Love on. Amen.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

WE WILL BE OFFERING AN ONLINE GATHERING FOR THE LORDS’ SUPPER, PRAYER AND WORSHIP. 

Pre-registration is required. 

When: Nov 1, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvduisrzspEtb9WyfYagRWl-0xsflpwyaD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Bible verse:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Jesus says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Let’s step back from that for a second, is that really a NEW commandment? Doesn’t the Torah say, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” in Leviticus 19? Jesus, in fact, said that verse was one of the two greatest commandments, when He was asked the question, in Matthew 22, “What is the greatest commandment?” He replied, “The greatest commandment is this: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.” So, is this verse in John 13:34, really a NEW commandment?

Yes, because it goes further than what we read in the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Now that is supernatural love for He laid down his life for us, because He loved us to the cross.  That love is absolutely amazing! Or as the song writer put it, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” It is truly a NEW commandment but let’s not stop there. In verse 35 Jesus goes on with, “By this,” He said, “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  That is the ultimate indicator of a disciple of Jesus, that we love as Jesus loves, there is no other way.

There is no way that you and I can ever do that in our own strength. The only way we can do this is by the influence and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Living God, and by lives that are transformed, because they are lived in the presence of the Living God. They are lives that are built on a relationship with Jesus and that is at the heart of what our Savior was speaking that night. It is at the heart of God and it is what God says to us, today.

We are living in a time of unbridled hatred and anger and the only way to respond to that, that will make a difference, is the way Jesus spoke. As He has loved us, so we are called to love one another.  At the heart of Jesus’ teaching is this:

“Our devotion to the Living God is demonstrated in the way we love other people… including even our enemies.”  (Pastor Chris Dodge)

And oh how I need to hear that, oh how we need to hear that, because it is so easy to get carried away by prevailing winds of public opinion and by the foolishness and folly of a world that rejects the Living God.  

You and I are called to a far higher calling and it is not possible to live that calling out in our own strength.  It is only possible under the influence and authority of the Holy Spirit, in a relationship with the Heavenly Father, and through Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for laying down your life for me, for loving me all the way to the cross.  Thank You for demonstrating Your amazing, divine love. I ask for a transformed life in my relationship with others. I ask to receive Your love into the core of my being through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and through my relationship with You.  I ask that You transform my heart to love others as you have asked in this NEW command. Lord, help me to love others as You have loved me, as You have loved the world, so that everyone will know that I am Your disciple because of Your love in me. Amen.

By Pastor Chris Dodge

Bible verses:

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”  Daniel 7:13-14

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Matthew 28:18

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.  For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:15-20

Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus demonstrated His authority over nature, His authority over storms, his authority to feed 5000 men not counting women and children with five little loaves of bread and two tiny fish, a small boy’s lunch. He demonstrated authority over sickness, over blindness, over disease, and even over death. And now following His resurrection as He gathers His disciples with Him up in Galilee, He says to them these important words, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  That means that He is the supreme power in the universe. It means something else. He is the supreme power in your life and in mine! He is powerful.

All power. Not some power, not a good deal of power, not a measure of great power, ALL power. All power has been given to Christ Jesus. All authority is His.

Please look very carefully at the words. They do not say will be given, about to be given, will someday be given, or may come about eventually. No, it says, “has been given.” Do you realize what that means? It means He has it now, for your life and for my life. It means we can depend upon Him completely, and implicitly. It means in these difficult days He has authority! Over us, over what’s going on, over America, all authority is His. It means that when we are wondering, “God, why are these things happening?” we can go to the One who has all authority. He will speak into our hearts and into our lives.

Jesus’ authority is not just a general authority over all, everything, everyone. His authority is over us. That is good, and that is gracious, and that is an incredible blessing, especially when times are difficult, challenging, chaotic, and unsettling. Jesus HAS ALL authority! 

Prayer:  Pray for the Authority of Christ to be seen. Read Philippians2:9-11 “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  Pray for revival to breakout across our land, pray that every knee would bow and tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Pray for America to bow before God in humility and confession. Pray for God’s glory to be revealed. Thank Jesus for the incredible blessing of being under His authority.

By Pastor Chris Dodge