October 17, 2022

This Week's Teaching | Prayer Requests

​"Do These Things, And They'll Keep You From Stumbling In Your Faith!" 

Last week I taught on how God heals us spiritually. Where we’re lame, he heals us so we can walk. But we do need to walk, and that takes effort.

The healing is on him. The walking is on us.

Today many people live as if being in the Faith should require no real effort on their part. Some even feel like any effort at all somehow nullifies grace. As a result, they remain stuck in old ways, and never mature. “I thought God was supposed to save me!?” And their disillusionment becomes entrenched along with their sins.

I think most of us wouldn’t actually say it’s wrong to put in the effort. But we also live with a sense that God is supposed to fix our sin nature so that we no longer struggle with sin. And so, rather than working hard at it dying to self by resisting the sins of the flesh, we just wait to be released from it—and then we wonder why we aren’t fixed.

When Peter wrote his second letter, he twice used the phrase, “make every effort.”

1. First he said, “Make every effort to add to your faith.” And then he listed seven qualities that we apparently add by putting in the effort: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. And he said that, if we keep growing and growing in those qualities, they will keep us from “being ineffective and unproductive” in our faith.
2. Then he said that doing so will give us an assurance that we are actually saved, and a daily witness that we will receive our reward: “Therefore, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Of course, we all do stumble — especially if we put little effort into adding these qualities to our faith. But to whatever degree we do put in the effort, we stumble less. This is the apostle’s witness, it is my witness, and it is the witness of the Church throughout the centuries.

I hope you’ll take 20 minutes to watch this week’s video where I develop these thoughts further. And as you watch, reflect on whether and where you need to put in more effort. Of course, it all starts with what Peter calls participating in the divine nature. And that’s where the teaching starts.

Be encouraged!

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Devoted to Prayer

1. New Microchurches. Pray that our network with its “one faith, four devotions, and two loves” would be effective at connecting with disconnected and disillusioned believers, and helping them find a vital faith community. Pray for a microchurch outside of Kansas City, KS that recently reached out to us. Continue to pray for the people looking to plant outside of Portland, OR. And now add Ocala, FL to your list as someone there is actively discerning how and when to start.
   
2. Hurricane Ian. Continue to pray for the people of Southwest Florida who have been displaced and traumatized by Hurricane Ian. And pray for us that we would have wisdom and resources to help. We are currently considering several needs that have been presented to us. Most of it is such a scope that it seems overwhelming, but we look to start with those closest to us and work out from there. Your donations to X242 fund that as your prayers help direct us in it.
   
3. Healing. Continue to pray for those with cancer: one man’s mother whose cancer is growing, and another person’s business partner who is undergoing chemo. 
   
4. New Disciples. Continue to pray for those who are meeting with various microchurches and considering the faith. Pray that their hearts would be opened to Jesus as we open the scriptures together each week.

If you have any prayer requests, please reply to this email. God is faithful!

Amen.