God is really among them

O breath of God come sweeping through us,

Revive your church with life and power. Elizabeth Ann Porter Head

 

Read 1 Corinthians 14:23—25

I may have become used to expecting little of my unbelieving friends. I may expect them not even to recognise the presence of God. Then I would struggle to believe that they would hear the voice of God. And I may come to expect little of my church. I may not expect that within it the voice of the Lord will speak in such a way that any but the old faithful will hear. Yet these things happen! Haven’t I at some point come to faith myself? Hasn’t God spoken to me? Hasn’t this gift, this prophetic gift to speak the word of God, been given to the church? And so to my church? Hasn’t my own life been arrested in this very way?

Prayer
Father, you have called me through Christ because you love to see an answering faith and hope and love. You have awakened me. You have brought me to life. And so I really cannot believe that you would have a church at all if you did not want it to pulsate with life. Surely you have breathed into us by your Spirit as into a valley of dry bones.[1] And it is not only so that we will live but that the very words that are passed among us may bring life to others, too, waiting to be awoken to you. It is this that I pray for my church this night.

 

 

 

 

[1] Ezekiel 37:1—14