Big J little i

I was getting toward the end of my preaching time on Sunday when I pushed the wrong button on the remote.  I carry a remote with me when I'm preaching--a remote that controls what we have up on the screen at Crossroads.  The remote has four buttons.  I duct-taped over one of them so I wouldn't mistakenly push it and, behold, that's what I did.  I pushed the "end" button and the slideshow I'd prepared to go with my message ended and there was no way to back up.  I felt small.  (You can hear the message and the worship service at this link: May 26 worship.)

Here's the slide that came up instead of what I had planned:

Not bad, is it.  Not bad to have a call to prayer cut off the message.  Not bad especially because the Lord had already impressed on us, by the Apostle Paul's example, the importance of prayer.

Preaching on Colossians 1:9-14, and specifically on verses 9-12 where Paul writes to the the Christian believers in the small town of Colossae and assures them that he and others were continually praying for them, I shared these words that had come to me from the Lord:

...we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

On Sunday then we stopped and prayed--for 5 minutes.

How does that work?  How is it that simply stopping and talking with God can make such a difference, filling us with his will, giving us wisdom and understanding from the Holy Spirit, moving us toward a life worthy of the Lord that pleases him in every way?

How does that work?

It works because of JESUS!

This coming Sunday, on June 2, we'll focus on verses 15-19, where the Lord gives us this description of Jesus:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by 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...

Prayer, that is, speaking with Jesus, the Big J, and listening to him speak to us, makes all the difference in the world.  He's big enough to do it all.  We'll share more of this on Sunday.

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