WITNESS ~ INSTRUCT ~ NURTURE / Volume 1 Issue 5
Mar 23, 2005
Hi !
In this issue, you'll read:
WADING INTO THE DEPTHS
BACK TO THE KINGDOM - PART FOUR
A WORD FROM PASTOR DANIEL
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR - WEEK FIVE In Joshua 1:8, we read these words: "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Sound like work? Let me just say that anything worth having doesn't come easy. Yes, Salvation IS a free gift of Grace and can never be earned no matter how hard we work. But to walk in the fullness of God's Word and to experience His prosperity and success will take some effort on our part. We are required to "meditate in it [God's Word] day and night," and "observe to do according to all [that's ALL] that is written in it." Blessings to all, ***ATTENTION***The W.I.N. E-mail newsletter may now be accessed on the Internet by navigating to www.fcgm.org and clicking on the "Newsletter" link to find the edition that you are interested in reading or printing. Please feel free to copy as many as you need and pass them out to family and friends. Thanks to all our faithful readers who use this newsletter as a witnessing tool to reach others. For those who decide they would benefit from having this newsletter sent directly to their e-mail address, they may simply send an e-mail containing their name and e-mail address to winsubscribe@fcgm.org. Read Ezekiel 47:3-5 In this passage, the Lord uses picture language to describe the nature of our relationship with him. Ezekiel describes water that is: (1) Ankle-deep (2) Knee-deep (3) Waist-deep (4) Swim-deep It is most comfortable paddling around at the edges of the river. There is not much of a current and we can go on about our lives with little challenge to our schedule or lifestyle. But as you spend time with the Lord, you will find that He will begin challenging you to launch out into the deeper waters with Him. Starting with our next lesson, we will be introducing a new format. Each weekly study will contain two parts. (1) A Devotional Reading (2) A Bible Study The Devotional Reading will be your focus for the week, setting the pace for your daily walk with the Lord. The Bible Study will be a time set aside for in-depth study of God's Word. Not the study of topics in God's Word, but the study of God's Word itself - the strong current of its message, the white water rapids of its passion for God, the deep waters of its wisdom and revelation. We encourage you to begin to wade into the depths with the Lord. The river of God beckons! II. Putting it into Practice In your devotions this week, read Psalm 46. As you read, talk to the Lord about the content of this psalm. When you have finished, go back and find one or two verses and meditate prayerfully on them. III. Memory Verse Here are a few suggestions that may help you to memorize your memory verses: 1. Ask the Lord to help you remember his Word (see John 14:26). 2. Use the version of the Bible you are most familiar with. What you normally read in your Bible is what you need to be memorizing. 3. Don't just memorize the contents of the verse; memorize its “address” (the verse reference) as well. You can do this by following this pattern: Step 1: reference; Step 2: verse content; Step 3: reference. Then repeat steps 1-3. Note that you are quoting the reference twice as many times as you quote the actual verse content. This gives the verse a clear “reference tag.” 4. After you have read your memory verse out aloud several times, try going through your memory verse without reading your computer screen. 5. Look up your memory verse in your Bible. Look at its immediate context and read the verses that come before and after your memory verse. 6. Print out your memory verse or jot it down on a piece of paper. Take this paper with you when you go to work or do other daily activities. Meditate on the meaning of the verse throughout the day. 7. During your noon appointment with the Lord, take out your memory verse and go over it again. Talk to the Lord about what this verse means to you personally. 8. In the evening (at either your evening study or your evening devotions), see if you can quote your memory verse from memory. Then, without looking at the memory verse itself, see if you can find it in your Bible. 9. The next day, before you begin committing a new verse to memory, rehearse your previous day’s memory verse and see if you can remember it (without cheating!). 10. Finally, at the end of the week (possibly on Sunday), collect all your week’s memory verses, rehearse them and see if you can recall them without reading them. Spend a little extra time on any verses you have difficulty recalling. 11. Remember: Don't just memorize a verse. Put it into practice (James 1:22). It is not being able to quote a verse from memory that counts. It is His Word abiding in your heart that counts (John 15:7). When you actually apply a verse consistently to your daily life, that is when you truly know that verse! Last week, we discussed the intimacy and fellowship required by the second action in our text; "in the breaking of bread..." In this edition, we are continuing that examination with the next action; "and in prayers." Before we look closer at this, let's take time to read the complete text again. Acts 2:42-47; "...and in prayers." Sounds simple enough, right? Not so! Prayer, while actually being simple according to Scripture, has become a very complicated action for the people of the modern day church. Why is that? What complicates it so? In order to understand the answers to these questions, one must first define "prayer." What exactly is prayer? What is so special about it and why is it so hard for many of us to grasp its meaning? Let's take a look, shall we? According to Elwell's Evangelical Dictionary, there are many types of prayer. Three of them are as follows: 1. "In the prayer of primitive man God is envisaged as a higher being (or beings) who hears and answers the requests of humans, though he is not generally understood as all-powerful and all-holy. Primitive prayer is born out of need and fear, and the request is frequently for deliverance from misfortune and danger." 2. "Ritual prayer represents a more advanced stage of civilization, though not necessarily deeper or more meaningful prayer. Here it is the form, not the content, of the prayer which brings about the answer. Prayer is reduced to litanies and repetitions that are often believed to have a magical effect." 3. " Philosophical prayer signifies the dissolution of realistic or naive prayer. Prayer now becomes reflection upon the meaning of life or resignation to the divine order of the universe. At its best, philosophical prayer includes a note of thanksgiving for the blessings of life. " But what exactly is Christian Prayer? First of all, Christian prayer is both a gift and a task. God does take the initiative (Ezek. 2:1-2; Ps. 50:3-4), but his children must respond. That response requires revealing our innermost selves to God, and relying on His revelation of His desires to us (Prov. 1:23). This type of prayer may be spontaneous, or it may take a structured form. But the form must never become a barrier to having a real conversation with the living God. True Christian prayer has its basis in the Spirit of God. While petition and intercession may seem primary, especially to one in a crisis, adoration, thanksgiving, and confession must never be forgotten. Christian prayer is the pouring out of one's soul to God. Such an attitude accepts that God's ultimate will is unchanging, but the way in which He chooses to realize this will is dependent upon the prayers of His children. In this sense Christian prayer may be said to change the will of God. Secondly, Christian prayer is sharing with God our needs and desires so that we might be more fully conformed to His ultimate will and purpose. While Christian prayer may consist of groans, sighs, shouts and cries of jubilation, it is not complete or full prayer until it takes the form of meaningful communication with God. Christian prayer is inspired by both the felt need of God and the gratitude for his work of reconciliation and redemption in Jesus Christ. It may involve both wrestling with God in the darkness and resting in the stillness. There is a time to argue and complain to God, but there is also a time to submit. Submission to the will of God must come after our attempt to discover His will through heartfelt supplication. Christian prayer is pleading with God that He will hear and act upon our requests, then trustingly surrendering to Him, having full confidence that he will act in his own time and way. But the confidence comes only through the struggle. Finally, Christian prayer must be both corporate and individual. We may find God in solitude, but we must never remain in a solitary condition. Instead, we must seek to unite our sacrifices of praise and our petitions and intercessions with those of the Body of Christ. While Christian prayer may find God both in solitude and in fellowship, even in solitude the Child of God is not alone! Instead, he or she is surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1), the saints and angels in the church triumphant. So why is Christian prayer so ineffective in our modern era? Is it because God no longer honors His Word? Is it because He no longer cares for His people as He once did? Could it be that He is too busy to listen to us when we call on Him? The answers to these questions are NO! NO! and NO! Rather, it is because we have turned prayer from its intended form, that of worship and (two-way) communication with our Heavenly Father to a "one-way gimme session" of noise and senseless babbling. This in no way refers to "praying in the Spirit," which this author both supports and practices. It merely calls into question the five or ten minutes of (daily?) prayer triggered by a crisis in our lives which consists of a round of "why!" followed by crying, pleading, and promising. Whatever happened to praying daily just as a means to come before our Heavenly Father in an attitude of worship, thanksgiving, and praise? We should all ask ourselves the following two questions. "When was the last time I prayed without asking God for anything for myself?" "What exactly is the goal of true Christian prayer?" The answer to the first question can only come from inside each of us. As to the second, the goal of true Christian prayer should be for the transformation of the world for the glory of God. We should not simply pray for personal happiness or for protection (as in primitive prayer) but rather for the advancement and extension of the kingdom of God. Remember, the purpose of our study is to get to the same result as shown in our passage of Scripture regarding the early church. "And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." After all, is this not the most important goal in this life? Until next time, we are trying to get "Back to the Kingdom." Bishop Sam T. Leigh Greetings from India. We sincerely thank you for standing with us to reach the lost in India through different ministries. I am writing this letter with a special concern. Two days ago a Pastor from Kulachal ,Tamilnadu, called asking for some help to feed the Tsunami affected children living with him. There are 15 orphan kids living with him. The parents of these kids died in the tsunami tragedy and these kids are handed over to this pastor by the government. As there was no other choice he took them all into his prayer hall. He has no other means to feed and house these children. When he heard about our Mercy Home ministry, he approached us for help. Our enquiry shows he is genuine and has a heart for these kids. We want to adopt all these kids into our mercy home ministry and help them with their food and education. We heard these kids don't have any basic necessities like toilets, drinking water, or mats to sleep. Any contributions to help these kids will be faithfully distributed to them and the pictures will be sent to you. Looking forward to hearing from you, EDITOR'S NOTE: Anyone desiring to help Pastor Daniel with the needs of these orphan children may go online at Unless otherwise noted: All Scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
As I was compiling this week's Bible lesson, "Wading Into the Depths," I became very excited! In these first five issues, we have been developing a framework of prayer and meditation on God's Word for the sole purpose of preparing our readers for more in-depth Bible study. This week the preparation ends, and in our next issue, we will be presenting a simple, but challenging method of Bible reading designed to help the student fall in love afresh with both God and His Word.
Rev. Sam T. Leigh
Presiding Bishop
Freedom Covenant Global Ministries
E-mail:
Website: www.fcgm.org
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WADING INTO THE DEPTHS
I. Developing a Devotional Lifestyle
Isaiah 50:4 "The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, he awakens My ear to hear as the learned."
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BACK TO THE KINGDOM - PART FOUR
We have been examining each of the twelve actions of the early church listed in Acts 2:42-47. As you know, we are continuing to study this passage of Scripture to help us establish, for comparison sake, a pattern of conduct within the early church. Our goal is still to determine how far removed the 21st century church has become from this pattern in order to better understand its condition. As always, for the purposes of our examination, we will work on the premise that "with all things being equal, we can expect the same end result."
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A WORD FROM PASTOR DANIEL
Dear Prayer Partner,
Pastor Daniel
Voice of Gospel, India
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This newsletter Copyright © 2005 Freedom Covenant Global Ministries. All Rights Reserved. Individual articles displaying copyrights from other ministries are used by permission, have been formatted for use in this publication, and remain the property of respective ministry. Permission is granted to copy, print, and distribute this newsletter for ministry purposes, whether whole or in part, so long as ALL copyrights remain in place and no copies are printed or distributed for sale or commercial purposes.
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