Prayer and Fasting Day 4

January 7-13 is Victory Christian Fellowship's corporate prayer and fasting week.  It's officially Day 4, 3 more to go.  Richard and I attended the prayer meeting at VCF Fort and I was encouraged, inspired and challenged by the message.

P&F week is also the week for writing down faith goals for the year.  Today's mainpoint was: Are you praying only for the probable?  The lesson is not to underestimate/undermine the powers of God by asking for the things that are going to happen or a likely to happen anyway.  Pray for the big things, the seemingly impossible things so that when they happen, you'll know that they can only be by God's hand.  If God does not grant them, then it's still ok...

Today's Bible reading is from Joshua 6:1-5

Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.  March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.  Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.  When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in."


The lessons from the Israelites' experience in Jericho:


1) God chooses big targets.  Of all the territories that God could have chosen for the Israelites to conquer first, it had to be Jericho - a heavily fortified city.  In the same way, we should not be afraid to aim for the big targets.  Again, not to pray for just the probable but go for the humanly impossibles.

2) God goes ahead of us.  In Joshua 2:8-11, Rahab from Jericho said to the Israelite spies, "I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.  We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.  When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below."

God goes ahead of us and prepares the way for us.  In this case, the people of Jericho were trembling in fear of the Israelites because of what God has done for them since coming out of Egypt.

3) God fights for us.  There is no way that walls can come down just from trumpets playing and people shouting.  But the walls of Jericho did.  The lesson here is that our skills/capabilities/efforts do not have to determine what outcome we see.  God can make the impossible happen.  Whatever our Jerichos are, they will fall down, by the power of God.

Thank you, Lord!

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