Dear First Pres,
 
     Have you been praying this week that the Lord would give you boldness to proclaim the Gospel as the Spirit leads?
 
     If you missed Sunday's sermon, I hope you'll listen to it, listen here. I believe it was a very important message for our congregation to hear and consider.  So often, though, in the midst of our active lives, Sunday's sermon becomes a distant and fuzzy memory by the time Thursday rolls around. To keep that from happening this time, I invite you make the prayer for boldness part of your daily prayer life in the month of October.  In fact, you can simply pray the prayer exactly as it is written in Acts 4:29-30.  "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." 

     It's a prayer that comes from courageous faith, but it's also a prayer that led to more courageous faith. It's a prayer that helped those first disciples persevere in the midst of opposition; it's a prayer that reminded them of God's sovereign plan; it's a prayer that God used to empower them to continue to lift up the name of Jesus.

     Theologian N.T. Wright says about the prayer, "The church needs to learn, in every generation, what it means to pray with confidence like this. We do not go looking for persecution. But when it comes, in whatever form, it certainly concentrates the mind, sends us back to the scriptures, and casts us on God's mercy and power. The church needs, again and again, that sense of God's powerful presence, shaking us up, blowing away the cobwebs, filling us with the Spirit, and giving us that same boldness."

     May it be so in us.

Blessings,

PS Did you see the rain today?  Keep praying that the Lord sends more of it.