Day 330: We Have An Advocate

1 John 2:1-2

“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.”
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Advocate-a person who pleads for or in behalf of another; intercessor.

We all want someone to be on our side. We all look for someone at some point in our lives to be an advocate for us to intercede for us and speak up for us when no one else is listening to us. It feels good to have someone fighting for us and pleading on our behalf. It feels even better to have someone on our side or in our corner even when we’re wrong. It’s always nice to have someone rooting for us and having our back through our darkest times in our lives. An advocate is someone who fights for you, someone who pleads and prays to God on your behalf. We all have one.  Someone is fighting for us, someone is in heaven sitting at the right hand of God pleading our case. Interceding on our behalf, repairing our relationship with God.  That someone is Jesus. We have an advocate that died for us, and rose again. We have an advocate that continues to plead our case. How great it is to have an advocate that not only fights for us and intercedes for us in wrong, but He calls us to repentance to right those wrongs. Jesus doesn’t walk away from us in fact He is the one praying for another chance. He is the one that made it possible for us to have another chance.

Sometimes walking through this life all we want is someone to understand, or sometimes all we want is someone to pray for us and help through whatever it is we are going through. I cannot count how many time I have had encounters with people who have said, “If people only knew what I was going through…” There have been so many times in my life when all I wanted was someone to pray for me, because I felt like I couldn’t do it myself. There’s two things I’d like to point out here. Jesus understands. Jesus knows what we are going through, He knows how are and taxing life can be sometimes. He also has faith in His people, He knows that we will get it right. Jesus has more faith in us than we have in ourselves, sometimes we give up on ourselves. We give up trying to do what is right because we continue to fall. But Jesus is picking us up every time and putting us back on our feet. Jesus is in God’s ear advocating for us every second of the day, we are like His cause. He carried a cross to calvary and was nailed to it, so that we can live. He always had us and still has us in His heart. One thing I know for sure is that Jesus will not give up on us.

Second, we have to learn to be advocates for one another. We must learn how to pray for one another, and intercede on someone else’s behalf. Sometimes all someone needs is to be prayed for, not told that they need prayer, but to be prayed for. One thing I know for sure is that the power of prayer can change things, it can make things happen. If we just take the time to pray for that someone who is struggling, pray for that person who is continuously falling into sin. If we just take the time to pray for them, God will work a miracle in them that we never saw coming. We live in the generation of tweeting out prayers, #PrayFor… or sending out a tweet to someone in need and saying “you are in my prayers”. We get these tags trending but how many of us are actually praying how many of us are taking the time to pray for our brothers and sisters. I can tell you right now that I can do more and I am going to do more. The point that I want to make here is that sometimes we have to plead someone else’s case. Sometimes we have to sit ourselves aside and go to God on behalf of someone else. That’s how this “love your neighbor as yourself” thing works. It’s what Jesus would do.

All this to say, we have an advocate in Jesus, and we have to be an advocate for someone else.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had an experience where you knew that Jesus was up there in heaven interceding for you?
2. How many times have you been an advocate for someone else?
3. What more can you do to love your neighbor as yourself?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Take the time to thank Jesus that He is an advocate for us all. Take the time to pray for someone, if there is someone you need to pray for do so, and if you feel led to reach out and pray with them do that as well.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 331!

Day 305: Trust In the Power of Prayer

James 5:13-18

Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

I think sometimes we underestimate the power of prayer, or we doubt while praying. Why do we turn to prayer as a last resort, and why do we still worry or why do we doubt if we pray. When we pray we are having faith that God will answer us, that He hears us and that He is going to answer our prayer. Sometimes we allow what we see to make us doubt what God can do.

I love that the answer to all the questions in the above scripture is prayer. Whatever is going on in our lives we should pray. If we’re sick, upset, happy, in and out of season we should constantly be in prayer, Sometimes we allow our situation to dictate our prayers lives. I think all of us have been there. When we are in trouble, when things are falling apart we are in constant prayer. But when things are going good for us, when life is treating us right, why is our prayer lives reduced to close to nothing? Our situation changes the way we pray and what we pray for but it should not affect our prayer life at all. The truth is it’s sometimes easier to pray when things in our lives are out of control because we need God to fix them. We need God to deliver us and bring us out of the hard times. But what about the good times. When things are going good, praise God. There’s nothing like taking the time to thank and praise God for what He has done, for who He is and how He has moved in our lives.

Many times we feel ourselves praying to God for the same things over and over again, as if we want to make sure that He hears us, or has heard us. There’s nothing wrong with constantly praying for something, but at what point is that constant prayer bred from doubt. What I mean is, when we pray do we really believe that God can do it. Are we praying just to pray or are we praying in faith? Some things takes a lot of prayer, and sometimes we are doubting God. There is no use of us praying if we are going to doubt and worry anyway. This is something God has taught me, don’t pray and worry, don’t pray and doubt. It defeats the purpose of prayer. We must pray in faith and trust in the power of prayer, and that means trusting that God hears us and He is going to answer us. This does not mean that we will always get the answer we want. It means that we are trusting God and His plans.

When talking about Elijah Peter says before anything, “Elijah was as human as we are…” I think that is meant to encourage us, yes we are human, so was Jesus, and Paul, and John, and Peter, and Timothy, and all the Apostles, but when they prayed God moved. That is because they prayed in faith knowing that it was not by human hands or human power but it was through the divine power of God that these things were done. Yes, we are mere humans but we serve an almighty God who can do anything! The scripture goes on to talk about how Elijah prayed that it would not rain, and it didn’t rain for three and half years, exclamation point! Then when he prayed for rain it rained! This is the power of prayer, something that seems so simple yet so hard for many people is one of our most powerful weapons. Prayer changes things, God moves when His people earnestly pray to Him, having faith that He will answer. Elijah did not talk about how it should stop raining or how it needs to rain again, no He went straight to God in prayer and asked. That’s what we as the body of Christ must learn to do, we must learn to talk less, pray more, and watch what God does.

All this to say, do not doubt the power of prayer and what God can do. Do not pray and worry but trust in Him.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led, and pray. Pray about whatever is on your heart, allow the Holy Spirit to fill you, and just pray.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 306!

Day 245: One With the Lord (The Power of Prayer!)

1 Corinthians 6:17

But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Today I want to talk about being one with the Lord, what I mean by that is, having a relationship with Him. When our spirits are in tune with God we are joined to Him as one spirit. As when two people get married they become one, well there’s another marriage we must have that comes before every other relationship in our lives and that’s our relationship with God. I can never stress how important it is to have a personal relationship with God. To get it for ourselves, not depending on the prayer of others to get by. As I talked about earlier this year, we are the generation living on the prayers of our mothers and grandmothers; but no matter how much or hard they pray, they cannot have a relationship with God for us. That’s a decision we make on our own. Once we make that decision we are joined to Him for all eternity, there should be no going back. I love talking about having a personal relationship with God because it is so important, but we also get to break down what that means and what it looks like.

It’s more than just standing up in church one day and making the decision, while that is very important it is only the beginning. The moment we make the decision to dedicate our lives to Christ is the moment we decide to be joined to Him for all eternity.  Our spirits become one with the Lord as our lives begin to change to emulate the word of God. Our lives are moulded by His word. We will get to a point where everything we do we do to the glory of God. There is also a point in our relationship with God when we know we are in tune with God. I can’t tell you when it is or what it feels like, but you will know when it happens. Being joined to the Lord we just know, we start to move through the Holy spirit allowing it to guide us through life. When we are joined to God, life seems to be easier, things seem to worry us less. We start to see the world through the filter of God’s eyes. Our lives start to look a bit different, as we continue to grow in Him, we will find deeper revelations of who He is and the more clarity in the word of God. We will start to understand things differently and live every day of our lives by trusting God. We start to live by faith knowing that God always has a plan, it becomes easier to jump when we have faith in God. Knowing that even when we feel like we’re falling He is right there to catch us. Knowing that we are never alone, that God is always there.

We get this to this point by continuously choosing to be in a relationship with Him. I’ve said it so many time, but this lifestyle we’re living is a choice, and that’s what makes is so rewarding. It’s something we want, we choose to put our faith in God. We choose to have a relationship with Him. We are not forced into this, we cannot be forced into it. It has to be our own decision.

All this to say, we are joined to God first through Jesus Christ, when we give our lives to Christ we are automatically connected with our father in heaven. But we also make the choice to trust in His word and dive into a marriage with Him. We are joined to God through His word, reading and gaining knowledge and understanding of His word. One last, but the most important thing, prayer. Direct communication with God, we cannot have a relationship with God without prayer. One of the main ways we communicate with God is through prayer. We cannot have a relationship without communication. I cannot stress how important prayer is in our relationship with God. I think sometimes it is often looked over, but it is imperative that we pray without ceasing. Prayer brings change, God hears the prayers of His people. HE heard the cries of the Israelites countless times and continuously delivered them. He heard the prayer of King Hezekiah and added fifteen years to his life. Prayer works! That is something that is constant throughout the entire bible, everyone prayed. There is no one in the bible who had a relationship with God without prayer. Prayer is key to being joined with God.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. But take the time to really pray, pray about whatever is on your heart. Ask God to help you with your prayer life, just take the time to talk to God and have a conversations with Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 246!