Last Sunday morning, Pastor Lorne said he wanted to talk about intercessory prayer for our friends and loved ones.
He drew our attention to 2 Peter 3:8-9 which says, ‘...With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise...He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’ Pastor Lorne says the scripture is talking about Jesus’ promise to come back, in His own time.
We then turned to 1 Tim 2:1-4 which says, ‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone...and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ Pastor Lorne said with this scripture, he’s trying to emphasize that it’s Gods will for everyone and God wants every person to gain knowledge of the truth and not perish (previous paragraph).
God doesn’t have certain people picked out that He wants to come to Him. He’s made it plain and clear that He wants everyone to know of the truth. He wants every member of your family to have a relationship with Him: your kids, your friends, your uncles and aunts, your neighbours, your work mates - everyone. No one is to be left out. If your best friend or a small child doesn’t know, you have to tell them. Everyone you deal with or have a relationship with.
God wants men everywhere to follow Him. He wants everyone to be a follower of Him. He doesn’t want anyone to perish, separate from God or go into hell.
The Bible is plain...everyone is to have a personal relationship with Him.
Pastor Lorne said he realizes that every person must make that personal commitment themselves, sometime in their life. In Christian homes, it happens sometimes when you’re very young and you don’t know the exact time you became a Christian because you’ve always believed. Others can tell you the exact time and place that it happened. But besides all that, we need to know that when we pray and ask God for salvation for someone, we can pray in confidence that we are praying totally according to the will of God.
When you pray for your adult child that he or she will return to God, or when you pray for your neighbour that they find their way to God, Pastor Lorne believes you are praying in God’s will because the scripture plainly says he wants everyone everywhere to come to the saving knowledge.
Matt 21:21-22 says, ‘Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt...If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."’
Pastor Lorne said everyone must make their own personal commitment. But as we seek out people in our lives, the Holy Spirit will work and bring people into our lives. People who will want to commit and serve God. ‘If you believe, you will receive...’
Pastor Lorne asked us to look at John 14:13, 14 which says, ‘And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.’
And in John 15:7 ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.’
Pastor Lorne said these promises are pretty clear. When we pray, if someone’s sick we pray for God to heal them. Or we pray for financial needs. We pray, seek God, commit ourselves to live in faith by Him and our needs are met. We believe Him and God answers our prayers and meets our needs.
He said he believes we need to take that same mindset into our life when we pray for people that are special in our lives whether they are family members, friends, neighbours, or people that we work with. We have to believe that God will do something in their life.
Pastor Lorne said the 1st scripture we read said that ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day’. Pastor Lorne wants us to keep having faith and keep trusting in God. Don’t be one of those people who say they’ve prayed and after 2 days nothing happened so they think God won’t answer their pray. Pastor Lorne said he himself is impatient and sometimes when he’s waiting for a phone call, he wants to call back and find out what’s the hold up, but he believes that if we put our trust in faith and ask God, He will do what we ask in His own time.
Pastor Lorne said he wanted to encourage us...if you’ve been praying and pouring out your heart for someone, and nothing seems to be happening, he knows that God will hear your prayer and honour His promise and bring it to pass.
Pastor Lorne said there’s one more scripture he wanted us to see. We turned to Romans 10:13 which says, ‘...Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ So, salvation is for everyone.
And today, (last Sunday) Pastor Lorne wanted to pray specifically for certain people. He said we can pray generally, and that’s great, but today he wanted us to ask for intercessory prayer for specific people.
So, the congregation gathered in small groups around the sanctuary and prayed for family and friends who needed salvation.
Communion followed.
If you would like to speak to Pastor Lorne about this, please email him.
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