J.R. Lee

I pray every day that Freedom Church would continue to become a powerful church.  A church lacking power isn’t an accurate picture of the character of God.   Jesus didn’t come come to this earth, die, and rise again so that His church could limp along until His return.

God is fully capable of making the extraordinary ordinary.  Leaders of every background, denomination, style, etc. are seeing God do what many had classified as impossible.  How?

Here is something that I’ve come to realize:  Vision is vital, but power comes through prayer.

Vision and strategy are important, but prayer produces the power that can shake a city, state, nation, and world.  My tendency is to spend disproportionate time on vision and strategy – while praying that God blesses the “work” we have done.

I need to stop praying “for” the work and realize that prayer “is” the work.

When your prayer life is lacking passion or the line of communication between you and God has become as erratic as cell coverage with AT&T.  These verses might help.

Isaiah 38:1-6  In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Not the kind of news you want to hear.  Look how he handled it…

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, ³ “Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Looked a little late for a prayer like that.  Maybe not.

⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: ⁵ “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. ⁶ And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.

Not a bad response.  Don’t be afraid to pray huge prayers.  The results could be life-changing.

Every week I pray a very similar prayer leading up to the weekly worship experience. I pray for…

Presence :: We are desperate for the presence of God.  If God doesn’t show up in a big way – then we have wasted our time.  We do everything we can to operate with excellence; however, apart from the presence of God – it is meaningless.

People :: We unapologetically pray for more people.  There are a TON of individuals who are far from God in Acworth.  As a result, we work hard to invest in their lives - so that God would continue to send them our way.

Power :: We don’t just want God to show up, we want Him to show off!  We desire for people to be changed from who they are to who God desires them to be.  The words spoken during the course of that hour are powerful words.  Words that bring life, hope, peace, and salvation.  We don’t take that lightly.  God’s power exhibited is an incredible thing – and we do not want it to be a rare occurence!

Because of my ridiculous lack of an attention span – I have to journal during “designated” prayer time. Here is an actual line from my journal this morning…

“Lord, my pen doesn’t work, so I will talk to you later.”

I thought that was funny.

The next several days are going to be pretty big…

Bikes or Bust begins tomorrow! That freaks me out a little bit as it initially seemed like a crazy idea that would never actually take place. Living outside for 48 hours while being suspended in the air – when it is 25 degrees…crazy! A lot of FC volunteers are going to be out in the cold as well – you guys and girls are AWESOME!

The Overflow offering is just 6 days away! We are praying for $15,000 that night. That is a HUGE number for a church that hasn’t launched. HUGE! I believe in setting goals so high that when they get acommplished – there is no logical explanation other than God’s intervention. This goal is no exception!

PRAY!