40 Days of Praying - Day 26

Turning Point Equipping Classes: Ask God's power on our Wednesday nights together. Pray for powerful classes that equip and motivate more to serve the king.

Ephesians 1:18-19 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Ephesians 3:16-21 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

What are we praying for today is that God will transform us. Paul prays for the same thing. He prays that as we see and love God--with greater passion and reality--we will be transformed into his image and in the process we will agents of transformation for others. We were saved and blessed to be a blessing. In other words, what God does to change us is for the benefit of other people. As he says in Ephesians 2, we are created for work. We were called to do good work; God ordained work.

Too often we lose sight of our mission. We forget that wherever we go, whatever we are doing, whoever we contact, we are to be representatives of the love of God and the mercy of Jesus that has touched us.

That is what our new training series is about. It attempts to move us from thinking only in terms of what we receive to what we become. We are training and assisting each other to become better parents, better fathers and mothers, more effective witnesses, stronger men, more godly women. We are engaging each other in places of deep pain and calling for the healing power of Jesus Christ to touch the wounds of divorce, the helplessness and oppression of addictions, the frustration of rebellious children. This is not just for the benefit of those who are healed and helped. Healed men and women can witness to Jesus power and point others to the source of true healing. It is not just for ourselves, but for the world God loves. We want to ground new believers in the word of God and call LifeGroup leaders to new places of service.

Sit, soak and sour? We don't want that anymore. How about engage, equip and energize? That sounds better to me.

O God, release us to serve. Use our time on Wednesday nights to open our eyes to ministry possibility. Anoint every teacher. Transform every learner. Make this a great time of growth. Lord, I pray that you will especially bless those who go to "Contagious Christianity." We pray for workers who will lift up their eyes and work in the harvest. Please God, unleash your people to represent Jesus wherever they are and whatever they do. In Jesus name, Amen.

Grace.