Passing the Baton
Heavenly Father I come into Your throne room today bringing praise from my heart. I praise You for my wife of now 31 years. She is wonderfully made by You and she helps keep me in line with You. I praise You for helping me through all the trials we have had to face and even for making us broken so that we can be used by You. I praise You for the beautiful children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces You have brought into our lives over the years. I praise You for all the people You have put in our lives whether they have worked by our side, served in ministry with us, befriended us, need us for mentoring or just plain enjoy being around us. I praise You for helping me to be a servant, who prays daily and I believe Your word to be true.
Heavenly Father I pray that You would start to prepare the heart of the minister that will be taking over the Haitian Church in Lansing. I pray that You will bless Pastor Bev who will be handing off the baton to this man in August. Help him to be admonished by Bev as Timothy was by Paul when he said, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. [1Timothy 6:11-16] Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. [2 Timothy 4:2-5]
Holy Spirit I pray that You will bless the Haitian Church in Lansing and will make it a mighty house of prayer and hospitality. Teach these people how to love their neighbors and be bold in Your Spirit so that people in Lansing will become aware of You through the works and faith of this church. Give these people a full filling of Your Spirit so that they demonstrate Your love, grace, mercy, power, and glory. Let this congregation become a mighty force for Your kingdom and help them to live lives that will make people take a second look and ask them from where does their hope come from.
So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body. So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. [Hebrews 10:19-25(The Message)] Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent, before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire! [Hebrews 12:28&29 (the Message)] God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” [Hebrews 13:5] For this we give You honor and praise and our lives for all eternity, Amen! Amen!