Sunday’s Message
Acts 11:19-12:24
“The church never stopped praying to God for him” Acts 12:5
New Year Resolution 3 – Pray for Friends and Neighbors and Never Stop
Pastor’s Reflections
This was a dangerous time in the early church. James had been killed by the sword which stirred anti-Christian sentiment. Peter had been thrown in jail. Meanwhile the church prayed and didn’t give up.
What follows is actually a funny story, but quite descriptive of many of us. As many Christians were praying in John Mark’s house ( the author of the Gospel of Mark) (they were also “hiding out”), God was answering their prayer. Peter escaped and came knocking on the door. Rhoda went to the door, heard his voice, and without opening the door ran back to the prayer gathering and told everyone that Peter’s here! No one believed her! They went back to praying while the answer to the prayer was right there knocking!
We can be like that too. We pray but somehow don’t really believe that God will answer and when he does, we still don’t believe it. The difference between them and us might be that they kept praying.
Luke is perhaps noting in practice what he records Jesus having taught in Luke 18:1, “pray and never give up”
The first and most important work of connecting someone to the saving work of Jesus Christ is praying for them and not giving up.
How true - we are impatient people and my experience is that God is usually long term with answers to prayer. A woman I know prayed for her father's salvation for more than 40 years - he was continually antagonistic until he was given a vision in his 80's and asked for someone to share the Word with him. He came to know the Lord and died about 8 months later. How many of us would have given up after just a few years let alone 40.
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