By Bob Flynn on
1/28/2012 8:00 AM
What better can we do, than — prostrate fall Before him reverent; and there confess Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek? (William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing)
Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. (Colossians 4:2 NLT)
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By Bob Flynn on
1/27/2012 8:00 AM
"But we will give ourselves continually(G4342) to prayer, and to the ministry of the word." (Acts 6:4 KJV)
For God does not employ prayerless ministers, since He has no dumb children. (A. W. Pink)
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By Bob Flynn on
1/20/2012 8:00 AM
In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? (Dr. Benjamin Franklin, LL. D.)
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By Bob Flynn on
1/18/2012 4:10 PM
In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding? (Dr. Benjamin Franklin, LL. D.)
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By Bob Flynn on
10/31/2011 8:00 PM
"But obedience in the matter of prayer is costly and takes commitment. On Monday night as our week of prayer began, a mere thirty-four adults showed up out of a regular church attendance of twenty-three hundred. By Thursday, only seventeen adults were praying. I was totally discouraged." Stephen Arterburn, Every Man's Battle
Perhaps some would find a book on the temptations men face and their fight for purity a strange place to find the aforementioned comment on prayer. However, I find it most timely indeed.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/27/2011 8:00 AM
"There is in the Christian life great need of watchfulness and of prayer, of selfdenial and of striving, of obedience and of diligence. But "all things are possible to him that believeth." "This is the victory that overcometh, even our faith."
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By Bob Flynn on
10/26/2011 8:00 AM
What a difference there is between a deeply exercised and spiritually burdened heart pouring out itself before God in fervent supplication and the utterance of verbal petitions by rote! Arthur W. Pink
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By Bob Flynn on
10/25/2011 8:00 AM
A much loved prayer of St Francis of Assisi:
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By Bob Flynn on
10/24/2011 8:00 AM
"By consequence, 'whatsoever he doeth , it is all to the glory of God.' In all his employments of every kind, he not only aims at this (which is implied in having a single eye ), but actually attains it.... (John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection)
The battle ensues in our culture to secularize the religious for the sake of tolerance in the public arena.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/21/2011 8:00 AM
To-day we go forth separate, some of us to pleasure, some of us to worship, some upon duty.... (Robert Louis Stevenson-Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn)
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By Bob Flynn on
10/20/2011 8:00 AM
Lord, receive our supplications for this house, family, and country. Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the treacherous, lead us out of our tribulation into a quiet land.... (Robert Lewis Stevenson, Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn)
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By Bob Flynn on
10/18/2011 8:00 AM
Giving thanks for the providence and tender mercies of the day is fitting lest we presume upon the watchcare of His Sabboth Rest while we sleep defensless were it not for His Grace.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/17/2011 8:00 AM
How do you start your day? Is it with coffee only? We would think ourselves misused if we did not fill our stomachs with food. But what if we began our day without fellowship with the Father? Take a short sojourn with the Lion of Dundee and see if you might find some encouragement for your souls.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/14/2011 8:00 AM
"When thou prayest let thy words be few, but thy thoughts and affections many…" Martin Luther
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By Bob Flynn on
10/13/2011 8:00 PM
Lord, the creatures of thy hand, thy disinherited children, come before Thee with their incoherent wishes and regrets:
"Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves." (1 Corinthians 6:9 NLT)
We often wallow in our "vain resentments" and miss the blessing of Christ's work of Grace upon our hearts.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/12/2011 8:00 AM
PRAYER has to do with the entire man. Prayer takes in man in his whole being, mind, soul and body. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in its gracious results. E. M. Bounds — The Essentials of Prayer
"Yes you have been with me from birth; from my mother's womb you have cared for me. No wonder I am always praising you!" "Psalm 71:6 NLT)
The heart of prayer is found in the bending of the knee. It is found in the contrite heart of him who would confess that his heart is like a valley of dry bones that needs to be brought back to life (Ezekiel 37).
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By Bob Flynn on
10/11/2011 8:00 AM
We are His lambs, and therefore ought to be ready to suffer, even to the death, without complaining. John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection
"Do everything without complaining and arguing," (Philippians 2:14 NLT)
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By Bob Flynn on
10/10/2011 8:00 AM
Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother’s. Robert Louis Stevenson-Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
How quick we are to see fault in others! How crafty we are to justify our own actions and rationalize their effect.
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By Bob Flynn on
10/7/2011 8:00 AM
No matter how much we anticipate the pending loss of a loved one, knowing the result of age, ill health, or injury will have its way in the end, their death still comes unexpectedly. Our hearts are never ready to say goodbye. Isaiah says that "we all do fade as a leaf." James says that our life is like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Why is it then that as vapors we should cling so tightly to our sojourn here?
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7 NASB)
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By Bob Flynn on
9/23/2011 8:00 AM
"I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural. Christ arose before day and went into a solitary place. David says: ‘Early will I seek thee'; ‘Thou shalt early hear m y voice.' Family prayer loses much of its power and sweetness, and I can do no good to those who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then when in secret prayer the soul is often out of tune, I feel it is far better to begin with God—to see his face first, to get my soul near him before it is near another.” (Robert Murray M'Cheyne)
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By Bob Flynn on
9/14/2011 8:00 AM
It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life. . . . Ultimately, therefore, a man discovers the real condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is alone with God. . . . And have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others? It should not be so; but it often is. So that it is when we have left the realm of activities and outward dealings with other people, and are alone with God, that we really know where we stand in a spiritual sense (Martin Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount)
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By Bob Flynn on
1/1/2011 8:00 AM
"Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. (Catherine Booth)
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By Bob Flynn on
12/31/2010 9:02 AM
“…that of his great hymn, is faith, not jubilant until the end, yet victorious, praying, believing, seeing in vision what it prays for, and triumphing in that, of which it sees no tokens, whose only earnest is God’s own loving-kindnesses to His people, and His Name, under which He had revealed Himself, “He Who Is,” the Unchangeable.” (Dr. Albert Barnes)
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By Bob Flynn on
12/26/2010 8:00 AM
Brevity: Shortness; conciseness; contraction into few words; applied to discourses or writings.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/17/2010 8:00 AM
The wondrous ministry of prayer is an opportunity of the heart to be lifted to places never imagined! We oftentimes think of prayer as a duty (it certainly is that) or heavy work (a weight upon the soul), but when we truly experience a sojourn within the Holy of Holies we experience a foretaste of our new nature.
"Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT)
The soul must solemnly remind itself of Who it is that is to be approached, even the Most High, before whom the very seraphim veil their faces (Isaiah 6:2). Though Divine grace has made the Christian a son, nevertheles
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By Bob Flynn on
12/15/2010 8:00 AM
Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, brace us to play the man under affliction. Robert Louis Stevenson - Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
The armor of His peace surrounds me undisturbed so I need not be anxious for the Lord of Glory guards my heart.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/14/2010 8:00 AM
The sea around us, which this rain recruits, teems with the race of fish; teach us, Lord, the meaning of the fishes. Let us see ourselves for what we are, one out of the countless number of the clans of thy handiwork. Robert Louis Stevenson-Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
I, like George, think I have mastered the little things only to find that there is a complexity hidden from my eyes that I am incapable of understanding. In the very midst of the process, I have failed to give thanks for the providence unfolded.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/12/2010 8:00 AM
"I ought not to omit any of the parts of prayer—confession, adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and intercession." Robert Murray M' Cheyne
I once heard a monk say that there is no such thing as prayer but only people who pray.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/11/2010 8:00 AM
"Aid us, if it be thy will, in our concerns. Have mercy on this land and innocent people." Robert Louis Stevenson - Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
What a great sentiment of the Father's love who does not relate to us based upon the pain we cause Him. Rather He relates to us based upon what we need!
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By Bob Flynn on
12/10/2010 8:00 AM
For our absent loved ones we implore thy loving-kindness. Keep them in life, keep them in growing honor; and for us, grant that we remain worthy of their love....Robert Louis Stevenson—Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
Let us not only be a gentle rain of blessing to a parched land but also a mighty river that flows through the desert bringing a valley of dry bones back to life.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/9/2010 8:00 AM
And now, when the clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down; let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but, like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness....Robert Lewis Stevenson
It is easy to say that I trust in the Lord when all in my world is right. But what of the days that are dark beyond description when the pain of Job is felt to the core of the heart?
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By Bob Flynn on
12/8/2010 8:00 AM
Grant that we here before Thee may be set free from the fear of vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains before us of our course without dishonor to ourselves or hurt to others, and, when the day comes, may die in peace.... Robert Lewis Stevenson
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By Bob Flynn on
12/7/2010 8:00 AM
Your wickedness has deprived you of these wonderful blessings. Your sin has robbed you of all these good things. (Jeremiah 5:25 NLT)
“These mercies were kept back from them in order to humble them, and to bring them to a sense of their sins, and an acknowledgement of them.” Dr. John Gill
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By Bob Flynn on
12/6/2010 8:00 AM
We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. (1 John 1:4 NLT)
Before we show how that possibility may be realized, let us solemnly ponder what brought that poor soul into such a sorry plight a plight into which both writer and reader will certainly fall unless we are ever on our prayerful guard. Arthur W. Pink, Practical Christianity
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By Bob Flynn on
12/5/2010 8:00 AM
"Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do." Andrew Murray
When Isaiah saw the throne room of Grace he remarked that he was a man of unclean lips. I often share the same thought. Who am I that I would speak in any way to to the power the created the universe.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/4/2010 8:00 AM
The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry....Robert Lewis Stevenson—Vailima Prayers and Sabbath Morn
One would hardly think of morning as a time of rest....For that is why He has created a new day and called it Today so that we may enter into His Sabbath Rest.
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By Bob Flynn on
12/3/2010 8:00 AM
For Success: "Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace…
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By Bob Flynn on
9/5/2010 5:32 PM
Some Protestants have the deeply reinforced habit of jumping directly from the first century to the twentieth, overleaping, as with seven league boots, all nineteen centuries of pastoral wisdom in between. Others are more likely to leap from the early fourth century to the sixteenth or nineteenth century over more than a thousand years of “dark ages,” more dark in our own memories than anywhere else. Oden, T. C. (1987). Becoming a Minister (7). New York: Crossroad.
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By Bob Flynn on
9/11/2009 6:06 PM
Don't forget that Tomorrow, Saturday, September 12th, 2009 is a day of prayer and fasting for our military!
Click Here for Info
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By Bob Flynn on
2/2/2009 2:25 PM
The Association for Christian Conferences, Teaching & Service, (ACCTS), Christian Military Fellowship (CMF), Officers Christian Fellowship (OCF) and other Christian organizations invite you to help us “pray our military forces through the war on terror.”
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By Bob Flynn on
8/11/2008 1:14 PM
No matter how much we anticipate the pending loss of a loved one, knowing the result of age, ill health, or injury will have its way in the end, their death still comes unexpectedly. Our hearts are never ready to say goodbye. Isaiah says that "we all do fade as a leaf." James says that our life is like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Why is it then that as vapors we should cling so tightly to our sojourn here? When faith call us onward and we trust to take
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