To bring God’s kingdom closer, we can’t just sit and pray. Of course we need to sit and pray, but we also need to take action and sometimes to take risks. Not the risks that the world might take with drugs or sex or the like – but risks involving our resources, our relationships, our reputation? Am I able to take risks? What is Jesus saying to you?

Pause and pray

If we only do what we know to be safe and what we have done before… how will God be able to lead us into the future? 

Read Romans 5:1-11

A famous comedian who had been a familiar figure on radio and television for many years, had quick wit and an endless supply of jokes, and had a guaranteed big audience. But when he died, the published obituaries told a darker story as well. He had fallen out with his father when he was still a young man, and the quarrel had never been resolved. Then the tragic pattern repeated itself. One of his own sons had fallen out with him, and had been cut off.

Imagine knowing that there is someone there, only a telephone call away, who is one of your closest blood relations … and yet he won’t speak to you, and you don’t want to speak to him, to see him, or to have anything to do with him. And imagine that going on for years and years. There is something deeply disturbing about the whole picture—and yet I know that not only the man in question, but a great many people, live exactly like this with someone close to them, but with whom they have fallen out.

Isn’t it great that God took the risk, he took the initiative and sent Jesus into the world – whilst we were still sinners? He died, demonstrating his love. Did he know the world would not just reject it? God took the biggest risk and he expects us to do the same. To leave a nation, to walk up a hill, to pick up a sling – or just to walk across the room, make a stand, take the initiative.

And yes, you may fail, you may get it wrong, you may suffer, but it builds perseverance, character and hope.

Pause and pray

Are you willing to take risks? To step out of your comfort zone? To go on your mission, to go where no one has gone before? Well certainly where you have not gone before? Where is God leading you? What is God calling you or us to do? Will you take the risk and stand up?

Pause and pray

Lord God, thank you for taking the initiative to rescue me, even while I was still a sinner. May I now know that I am saved for a purpose and that living this out in 2023, and beyond, will involve risk.

Amen.

Continue to pray and why not listen to Voice of Truth

Pray & Worship Together

Day 2 – Monday – 7am on Zoom

Day 3 – Tuesday – 7:30pm in The Link

Day 4 – Wednesday – 12 noon in The Link

Day 5 – Thursday – 7:30pm in The Link

Day 6 – Friday – 7am in Link

Day 7 – Saturday – 9am Intergenerational Prayer Breakfast