Day Eight
I do not take it lightly that you are still reading this prayer update and praying for The EDGE. You are following through on a commitment, and I am extremely grateful. Prayer as a "spiritual discipline" is tough. I often find it so much easier to put my hands to a task, to sit through to a meeting, to make a phone call or write an email than to pray to God. But to stop within our activity long enough to acknowledge God, moment by moment, that is difficult and that is what God wants from us.
Psalm 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
I find most days that I am well into the daily grind before something slows me down long enough to pray. It is one thing I want to better the second half of my life than I have done the first half. I want to learn to be still. Check out this verse from my reading today in the One Year Bible:
2 Samuel 7:1 After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent."
It is not until David has sat down on his throne for a bit that he realizes that he has built himself a very nice little palace, while the place where God was worshiped remained a tent. It is like David one day wakes up and says, "Woah, this is all about me, and not about God. My house/palace rocks, and God's house is a dusty tent outside of town."
Today, join me in asking God to make us less selfish.
If The EDGE is to become the church God want's it to be, we will need to take the focus off of ourselves.
It is totally the opposite of our world, where the focus of it all is on me, me, me.
Do you hunger for a stronger connection with God? We must fight against pride and selfishness. I was struck today by this quote: "Real intimacy, which by its nature takes time to develop, is obliterated in quick hits of self-centered fantasy." Interestingly, I found that quote in this article about pornography by Nicholas Black: http://harvestusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=427:how-and-why-pornography-hurts-a-marriage-&catid=48:questions-you-ask&Itemid=57 Selfishness takes many forms, and all must be fought with a conscious effort to make God our #1 priority.
Action items:
1) Be still (no seriously, right now - just stop for a minute).
2) Worship God.
3) Ask that those who attend The EDGE would make God first in their lives, that our worship times would grow deep and rich.
Thanks, Mark
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