11/15/2024 – Don’t Stop Praying
1 Thessalonians 5: 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Do not quench the Spirit.
For a long time in my life I missed the incomparable blessing of daily prayer. I preferred to invest my time in other things I considered more important. At the insistence of my wife, who reminded me daily of the importance of prayer, I made the decision to sacrifice a few minutes of the most delightful sleep, that of the early morning, and get up earlier to pray and read the Bible each day before going to work. I had done this before but only on “special” occasions, when I needed something from my heavenly Father. But from now on everything would be different.
My prayer is that if the lamp of God’s Word is not the guide that illuminates your path today, you will also decide today to devote daily time to prayer and reading the Bible. Before long, my decision became an inescapable encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. The most important change in my life, having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, resulted from this daily time of prayer and bible reading. The Lord took me from reading to meditation and study. He began to show me the need in others to know the truth of God’s Word. He called me to the ministry of teaching and preaching the Bible. The call was irresistible (And I confess that at first, I tried to resist). After a few weeks of devoting this time to my fellowship with God, people who knew me began to ask me: Are you losing weight? Did you shave your mustache? God was making remarkable changes in me, and I began to see the world in a different way.
The Lord allowed us to begin a Bible study in the basement of the first Presbyterian church in Wappingers Falls, focused on the spiritual and material needs of the immigrant community. There we saw the explosive power of God’s Word to save. We were swept away by the torrent of grace of God.
For over fifteen years, along with a wonderful team of servants, my wife and I have preached the gospel in the church that today is called Harvest Church. Hundreds of people have confessed Christ as their savior there. The Lord has built up a church whose ministries glorify God and extend his kingdom among those most in need.
Today I understand my continuing need for Him, and I confess as the Apostle Paul did that nothing in my life is more valuable than the knowledge of Christ. College degrees and job achievements are very important in this world; but compared to the excellence of Christ’s knowledge they are more appropriately compared with rubbish.