All teenagers are going to go through crisis, problems, and all the stuff the world and the devil will throw at them. I think the difference is that those that are being prayed for survive and come out the other side. Those who aren’t being prayed for are in most cases the casualties. It’s really crucial that those we love the most are prayed for. In James, he says we don’t have because we don’t ask.

Do you want them to have the right friends? Ask for them. Do you want them to have godly instruction, godly counselors, and godly professors? Ask. Do you want them to connect up with the right mate? Ask.

God has a desired plan, but He doesn’t do things until His people ask Him. When it sunk into my head that God waits until His people pray before He moves, I decided that I didn’t want to miss out on all the things He has for me and my family. I vowed to start asking then and there!

Prayer is hard work. The devil fights it, and we don’t often see immediate results or get the immediate gratification we’ve been trained to expect. You have to spend time, you have to hear from God, you have to tie it to His Word, and you have to pray in faith.

Out of that process, He eventually gets us praying the things that He wants. It is then that we really connect with Him; it just takes quality time. It happens best when we set aside a time and place and really cry out to God.

Over the years, I have used some of Tom’s books to help me with my prayer life.  They can all be downloaded for free by clicking here.

The gunman said he had a 2-year-old child to support and asked for prayer about overcoming his hardships.  So, the clerk invited the gunman to come around the counter for a time of prayer.  Police say the man removed the bullet from his gun and gave it to the clerk before kneeling for prayer.  All of this was captured on the store’s security camera.

After saying “Amen,” the gunman got up, took a twenty dollar bill, grabbed the clerk’s cell phone, and ran out. Later, however, the suspect, turned himself in after his mother saw him on television.

One investigator said this about the bizarre robbery: “I’ve been an investigator for three years now and I’ve never seen anything like this. Especially one where the robber reaches out to hug the victim and then the victim later on hugs the suspect. Very unusual.”

For sure, the clerk gets my “Missional Living Person of the Week Award!”

Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

This fasting changed the course of history.

John Piper notes that it is almost impossible to overstate the historical importance of this moment in Antioch in the history of the world. Before this word from the Holy Spirit there seems to have been no organized mission of the church beyond the eastern seacoast of the Mediterranean. Before this, Paul had made no missionary journeys westward to Asian Minor, Greece, or Rome, or Spain. Before this Paul had not written any of his letters which were all the result of his missionary travels beginning here.

This moment of prayer and fasting resulted in a missions movement that would make Christianity the dominant religion of the Roman Empire within two and a half centuries and would yield 1.3 billion adherents of the Christian religion today with a Christian witness in virtually every country of the world. And 13 out of the 29 books of the New Testament were the result of the ministry that was launched in this moment of prayer and fasting.

So I think is it fair to say that God was pleased to make worship and prayer and fasting the launching pad for a mission that would change the course of world history.

What do the Foothills elders hope that God will “launch” through our prayer and fasting?  We hope and pray that God will launch us into our 36th year together in such a way that He uses us to usher in His Kingdom here on earth (in Albuquerque, Africa, Japan, South Asia, Iraq) as it is in heaven.  Thank you, Foothills, for joining us in this act of discipline, sacrifice, and worship.

Jonathan Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., died during the night of Sept. 1, hours after being shot by undercover police officers outside a gas station where he had just gotten money from an ATM machine.

The Stephens County Sheriff’s Office initially identified the shooting victim as a suspect involved in a drug transaction. Later officials clarified that drug enforcement agents were not investigating Ayers, but a woman who was riding in his car whom he had dropped off moments earlier.

Jonathan Ayers had been pastor of Shoals Creek Baptist Church a little over a year.

Officials said the officers didn’t know who Ayers was and wanted to talk to him. They were in plain clothes, but they claim they wore badges around their necks and identified themselves as police when they asked him to open his car door. Instead, they say, Ayers put the car in reverse and fled, striking one officer and causing minor injuries.

Police fired at the fleeing vehicle. One bullet struck Ayers in the abdomen. He managed to drive away but crashed about a half mile away. Police found him conscious and alert, but he died several hours later after surgery.

Friends and family believe Ayers thought the men were going to rob him and that he got scared and tried to run away.  Police have not identified the woman, who is charged with selling cocaine. Ayers’ sister, Rebecca Floyd, said her younger brother was known to help strangers.

“I could bet my life on it that he did not know her,” Floyd told television station WYFF News 4. “I could bet my life on it, because that’s the kind of person he was. He was a good Christian man…. His goal was to lead souls to Christ.”

My heart breaks for this man’s pregnant wife left without a husband and for his church left without a pastor.  I served on the grand jury for three months last year and gained a whole new respect for what officers go through each day on the streets.  But, to open fire on an allegedly innocent man who was driving away from undercover officers in an unmarked car seems excessive.

Please join me in praying for the family and church of Jonathan Ayers and for the officers who were involved in this tragic situation.

Eating is one of the highlights of my day.  I wake up…and eat.  Around noon…I eat.  After work…I eat.  Before bed…I snack (which is probably why I’m not as skinny as I used to be).  I follow this routine every single day, and quite frankly, I dig it!  Interrupting this routine is not enjoyable – unless it’s adding to the routine (as in an afternoon snack) – and it seems like when I fast, the passing of time does not live up to the name of the exercise in which I’m participating.

As much as it pains me to break my beloved routine, I know that it’s spiritually good for me, and it’s good for us as a church to do this together as we embark on the implementation of our amended constitution and as we select a new batch of elders to lead us.  John Piper, a pastor and well-respected author wrote an entire book on the topic of fasting called, A Hunger for God.  In it, he says this…

Christian fasting is a test to see what desires control us. What are our bottom-line passions? More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. This is a wonderful benefit to the true disciple who longs to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We cover up what is inside of us with food and other things.

Psychologically, that sort of thing is spoken of a lot today, especially in regard to people who have much pain in their lives. We would say they ‘medicate’ their pain with food. They anesthetize themselves to the hurt inside by eating. But this is not some rare, technical syndrome. All of us do it. Everybody. No exceptions. We all ease our discomfort using food and cover our unhappiness by setting our eyes on dinnertime. Which is why fasting exposes all of us – our pain, our pride, our anger.

One of the reasons for fasting is to know what is in us. In fasting it will come out. You will see it. And you will have to deal with it or quickly smother it again. When mid-morning comes and you want food so badly that the thought of lunch becomes as sweet as a summer vacation, then suddenly you realize, “Oh, I forgot, I made a commitment. I can’t have that pleasure. I’m fasting for lunch too.” Then what are you going to do with all the unhappiness inside? Formerly, you blocked it out with the hope of a tasty lunch. The hope of food gave you the good feelings to balance out the bad feelings. But now the balance is off. You must find another way to deal with it.

Throughout the day that I’m fasting, the way that I deal with the hunger pangs, the headache, the sometimes overwhelming desire for food, and a mushrooming bad attitude is to pray.  Whenever I feel hunger and am consumed with thoughts of eating, I pray. I ask God to help me to hunger for Him like I hunger for food.  Whenever I feel my head throbbing and entertain the desire to bite off someone else’s head for no reason, I pray.  I ask God to forgive me for my sin, and I thank Him for the suffering of Jesus on my behalf.

And when the 24-hour period is over, I feast…and pray, thanking God for providing daily for me and for allowing me to grow a bit closer to Him through the slow hours of fasting.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

We are a common people, each of us a fallen man
Let’s find that common ground and stop drawing lines in the sand

We are a common people, living in a common life
There are ties that bind us all when we look beyond the lines
Common people, you and I

Can’t we tear the fences down
Can’t we rip the labels off
Can we share the common ground
Instead of judging what is not

Can’t we love instead of hate
Can’t we trust instead of fear
Can we stop fighting for a moment
And feel our common tears

Is it us against them, wrong against right,
black against white, my kind your kind
There comes a time to put the argument down
and have a party on the common ground

I see a blind man on the street
He doesn’t know what I look like
So he can’t judge the man I am
Except by what he sees inside

I see a child on the street
He doesn’t know the mistakes I made
I know he takes me where I am
He sees a friend not a crusade

Lord help me live like this
Lord help me love like this

I see a brother on the other side
Of my crusade, my holy fight
I think I know where I went wrong
When I gave up love to be proved right

I saw a man die on a cross
He forgot the mistakes I made
He died for me the way I was
and He wants me to love the same

Lord help me live like this
Lord help me love like this

I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of expectancy and anticipation. Today truly does start a “new day” in our country. There’s a new president-elect, several new senators, and the congress will look a lot different in the days to come, but this is not what I’m giddy about.

I’m giddy, overjoyed, and excited not about the results of the election necessarily…but that Obama’s victory speech last night marked the end of an incredibly long and annoying election season. Let the prognosticating and predicting end. We now know who won, and now we can move forward. The airwaves will no longer be diseased with politicians spewing their rhetoric, mudslinging, and hollow promises. It’s safe again to watch television and listen to the radio without having to worry about being politically accosted.

All skepticism aside (which is hard for me to do), last night was also a good night because not only did the people of the United States speak with their votes…but the Lord of the universe spoke with the results. Romans 13:1 says that all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. What happened last night was not the result of millions of people voting for their favorite candidates, but the result of the God of the universe placing men and women into positions of authority in order to accomplish His purposes.

Yesterday, Michelle and I voted. Then we came home, grabbed some good food and drinks, turned on the television and watched the election results with our kids. It was a party atmosphere in our home. We were not partying because the candidates we voted for were winning. That wasn’t the point. Most of them lost. We were partying because we knew that no matter what happened last night, the almighty God of the universe was powerfully and perfectly placing the people He wants into positions of authority. So we watched and went to bed fully confident that what the Lord did last night was good and right.

As I was tucking Taylor and Alexis into bed last night, Taylor said something pretty profound. He is a pray-er, and he regularly prays through a long list of requests that he’s accumulated over the years. This list includes lots of family members and friends, but it also includes President Bush. Taylor regularly prays for him. As I was preparing to pray with the two of them before turning out the lights, Taylor said, “I guess I’ll have to add Barack Obama to my prayer list.” What an incredible statement from a 12 year old! In 1 Timothy 2:2, we’re told to pray for the people in authority over us, and Taylor takes that verse very seriously.