Padre santo, gracias por darnos a todos nosotros vida, aliento y todas las cosas. Ayudanos a que te adoremos en espíritu y en verdad. Gracias por todos los que estan presentes. Muéstranos tu gloria en tu palabra de modo que seamos más como tu Hijo Jesucristo. Bendice lo que se ha dado ahora por amor de tu reino y tu justicia. En el nombre de tu Hijo amado, Jesús de Nazaret.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Many churches that once had regularly scheduled prayer meetings have discontinued those services altogether. Some churches now meet in small groups instead of having a corporate prayer meeting at their churches.
For several biblical reasons, regardless of whether they also meet in small groups at other times, churches should have regularly scheduled corporate prayer meetings.
After the Resurrection of Jesus, a key group of believers were gathered together in one place and all “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). The Holy Spirit later birthed the Church when on the day of Pentecost He came on believers who “were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1).
Because the Church was born through God’s moving upon believers who had devoted themselves to praying together in one place, churches today that have regularly scheduled corporate prayer meetings continue in the legacy of Pentecost in a way that churches who do not have such meetings do not.
During His incarnation, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, acted forcefully to cleanse from the temple of God those people who were defiling it (Mark 11:15-16). On that occasion, He taught that it was written that God’s house would be called of all nations “the house of prayer” (Mark 11:17).
Christ obviously greatly valued the temple’s having that designation by all nations! It is unthinkable, then, that God would want that testimony to have ended with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
On the contrary, we would rightfully expect that God would act so that people of all nations would yet have the opportunity to call His house the house of prayer. When Jesus commissioned His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, how would that opportunity be best extended to the people of all nations?
Pauline teaching in 1 Timothy answers that question decisively. Paul taught Timothy that the Church was “the house of God” (1 Tim. 3:15). He also commanded Timothy that corporate prayer was to have vital importance in the churches of God (1 Tim. 2:1-8).
Based on Jesus’ teaching about the house of God, Paul’s declaring to Timothy that the Church of Jesus Christ is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15), and his instruction that corporate prayer have a vital place in the Church of God (1 Tim. 2:1), local churches most assuredly should be houses of prayer! As the house of God, local churches should maintain a vital testimony to their community and the world that they are houses of prayer—they should have at least one stated regular prayer meeting that affords anyone who would desire to do so the opportunity of coming to God’s house and rightfully calling it a house of prayer because they experience the primary importance that those believers place upon such prayer meetings!
Paul teaches believers that when they assemble together corporately in one place and all minister together, they put themselves in the position of having God use them effectively to bring people to worship Him in a way that their gathering non-corporately does not put them (1 Cor. 14:23-25; see this post for an exposition of this vital truth). Because churches are the houses of God, they should maximize their usefulness to God as His houses of prayer in all nations by having regularly scheduled corporate prayer meetings that He can use in the lives of needy people!
The regularly scheduled corporate prayer meetings of a local church continue the legacy of Pentecost and furnish people with the opportunity to be in God’s houses of prayer in a way that small groups do not. Such corporate prayer meetings allow the believers of a local church to be used by God to minister in the lives of people uniquely in a way that small groups do not!
Although small groups that meet for Bible study and prayer undoubtedly on many occasions benefit many of the believers who meet in that way, they are not corporate prayer meetings of a local church. For all the reasons presented above, churches should not discontinue their regularly scheduled corporate prayer meetings or replace them with small groups!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
A Google search (at 9:50 pm tonight) of “donald trump asking for forgiveness” produced multiple hits:
These articles document that Presidential Candidate Trump appears to have testified publicly that he may have never asked God for the forgiveness of his sins.
Jesus has commanded that people pray for the forgiveness of their sins:
Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
If Candidate Trump has, in fact, never directly asked God for the forgiveness of his sins, may he do so very soon, just as Matthew 6:9-13 instructs all people to do.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Te rogamos, oh Señor, que ninguno de nuestro misioneros haga nada malo y que ellos sean hechos perfectos (2 Cor. 13:7, 9).
Oramos por ellos que te sirvan en la plenitud de la bendición de Cristo (Rom. 15:29).
Padre, concédelos que sean prosperados en todas las cosas, y que tengan salud, así como prospera su alma (3 John 2).
Señor, salva a todas las personas que están en los ministerios de nuestros misioneros que no creen en Jesucristo de verdad.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Padre celestial, oh Dios de paz, que resucitaste de entre los muertos a Jesús nuestro Señor, el gran Pastor de las ovejas mediante la sangre del pacto eterno, haznos aptos en toda obra buena para hacer tu voluntad, obrando Tú en nosotros lo que es agradable delante de Ti mediante Jesucristo, a quien sea la gloria por los siglos de los siglos. Gracias por esta ofrenda. Te rogamos que bendigas esta ofrenda y la uses para glorificar tu nombre. En el precioso nombre de Jesús. Amén.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Padre celestial, gracias por la gracia de nuestro Señor Jesucristo, que siendo rico, sin embargo por amor a nosotros se hizo pobre, para que nosotros por medio de su pobreza llegáramos a ser ricos. ¡Cómo te alabamos, oh Padre, por tu don inefable! Concédenos que nosotros te sigamos plenamente a ti, oh Señor nuestro Dios. Gracias por esta ofrenda. Te rogamos que bendigas esta ofrenda y la uses para tu gloria. En el maravilloso nombre de Jesús. Amén.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Padre celestial, gracias por tu salvación y tu palabra.
‘Exaltado seas sobre los cielos, oh Dios; sobre todo la tierra sea tu gloria.’ [Sal. 57:11]
Padre celestial, te ruego que nos bendigas y nos guardes.
Hagas resplandecer tu rostro sobre nosotros, y tengas de nosotros misericordia.
Te suplico que alces sobre nosotros tu rostro, y nos des paz. [Num. 6]
Gracias por esta ofrenda.
Te ruego que bendigas esta ofrenda y la uses para tu gloria.
En el nombre de Jesucristo. Amén.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Padre celestial, te alabamos por la profundidad de tus riquezas de sabiduría y de conocimiento, oh Dios! ¡Cuán insondables son tus juicios, e inescrutables tus caminos! Porque ¿quién entendió tu mente, oh Señor? ¿O quién fue tu consejero? ¿O quién te dio a tí primero, para que le fuese recompensado? Porque de tí, y por tí, y para tí, son todas las cosas. A tí sea la gloria por los siglos. Amén.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
These six pointers provide much food for thought for believers who have a burden to pray for missionaries.
HOW TO PRAY FOR MISSIONARIES TODAY
by Allan & Robin Cuthbert, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1. CHRIST-GLORYING ESSENTIALS It is not so essential that you ask God to give us good health. The important thing is that He give us only the measure of health that will best glorify Him. Who knows but what it may be to His glory that we should be sick, and thereby demonstrate to the nationals about us that we have a God who can keep us in a perfect peace and joy, even in the midst of pain.
2. SUFFICIENT GRACE We do not want you to pray that God will give us an easy path on the mission field, but rather that He might give us grace sufficient to be overcomers for Him.
3. TIME TAKEN TO PRAY Do not pray so much that God will answer our prayers, as that God will keep us from being too busy to pray. Haven’t you thought of the fact that it is just as easy for us missionaries to be too busy to pray, as it is for you in the homeland to be too busy to take time with God?
4. STEWARDSHIP OF TIME It is not so important that you pray that God should bless our activities, as that God should censor our activities, for how easy it is for a missionary’s time and energy to be spent on second best things.
5. RESISTANCE TO TEMPTATIONS Please do not pray for us as though we were saints, living up on a high level, because we are missionaries. We who go as missionaries are subjected to temptation. Satan will determine in one way or another to hinder our testimony, to rob our lives of power or make our witness futile. We need your prayer that God will give grace and strength to resist temptation.
6. COMPASSION FOR LOST SOULS Won’t you remember please, that missionaries can become lonely; we can become discouraged, irritable, sharp, impatient with other missionaries. Above all, we want to tell you that we can do a great deal of missionary work without being on fire for the Lord. So we covet, above all, your prayers for us that we may ever live with our hearts aflame with passion for the lost and aflame with the glory and love of Christ.
–This article is from a prayer resource produced by my church.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
This Sunday, I taught Sunday school and preached in Spanish for the morning service at a local Spanish church. It was my first time to minister entirely in Spanish without any help from a translator.
My teaching and especially my preaching went far better than I was expecting, and the Lord gave me remarkable fluidity and clarity in speaking Spanish such as I have never had before in my life! Many people expressed their gratefulness for the clarity of my speaking and how easy it was for them to understand what I ministered.
Although I did have some trouble pronouncing a number of words and had to resay quite a few, my doing so does not seem to have hindered people from readily receiving the truths that were ministered. Even though I had manuscripted virtually everything that I said and was just reading what I had written, the people were attentive in such an encouraging way that I know that their doing so was a direct answer to many prayers.
I’d like to thank everyone who prayed over the past few weeks for my Spanish ministry this past weekend. Most of all, I thank and praise God for His graciously and abundantly empowering and enabling me to minister effectively in a language that I am by no means fluent in at this point!
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
Rajesh Gandhi holds a Ph.D. in New Testament Interpretation from Bob Jones Seminary; he's a long-time member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Greenville, SC.
