Today is the beginning of a journey I'm taking called Pray Greater for Four Days, a leap of faith through prayer asking God to do something big in my life, because I believe He has called all believers to live in faith and dependency on Him. Pray Greater for Four Days is based on the best-selling book, 'Greater', by Steven Furtick, and the program has been compiled together on a website that walks you through each step of the prayer journey by emailing out prayers and devotionals that accompany the theme for that day. I'm doing this because I have a vision of what God wants me to do in my life but I want confirmation and clarity. I want God to radically use me to touch others, so through prayer, I will ask that of Him. I want to invite you to go on this journey, too. Prayer does not merely exist; prayer is vital. Prayer is essential. Prayer is how we communicate with God and ask Him to reveal Himself in our lives.For this blog series I will simply share the emails and devotionals sent to my email. If you'd like to sign up to receive them, too, or would like to watch a video with more information, click here .
Today's Prayer: Greater Confidence
God, I read the Bible stories of the many things You did through Your people. Amazing things. History changing things. Greater things. And I have to admit, I have doubts You could use a person like me in the same way. Otherwise, I'd be living in all out pursuit of Your plans for my life. I'm not doing that. I'm living to get by and be comfortable. God, I'm asking You today to give me greater confidence to embrace the plan You have for my life. I want to take the first step today. I want to follow you like never before. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
'Go to the land I will show you.' -Genesis 12:1
Devotional: He will do the showing if you will do the going.
We all know instinctively, even if we can't articulate it exactly, that something isn't squaring up. There's a huge gap between what God said in His word and the results we see in our lives.
It's like we've been lulled into comfortable complacency. Then we wake up one day to find ourselves stuck in miserable mediocrity. So we tuck away any dreams and notions of the great things we'd like to do for God.
After all, we're doing good. Good enough. It kind of sucks. But it's all we know.
If that's where you are today, I need to share a strong word of warning with you.
You can't keep living this way. It's not fine for you to settle. Base-line living is not okay. Not for a believer in Jesus. There are opportunities awaiting for you to be used by God, to touch lives, to get outside yourself and be a part of something greater.
How?
As you pursue your something greater, God isn't going to tell you how He will do it, only that He will do it. God's directions can be painfully vague and incomplete sometimes. After He tells Abraham, "Go to the land I will show you," He abruptly stops talking (Genesis 12:1). He doesn't give him a road map. He doesn't give him a detailed life plan. He doesn't give him a GPS. Only a directive: "Abraham- just go."
He'll do the showing if you will do the going.
You can't think too far ahead about where you'll end up. You can only go where He tells you to go today. When you wake up the next morning, He'll show you where to go tomorrow. The day after that, He'll show you where to go that day and the next.
If He told you the whole thing at once, it would probably freak you out. Besides, He's trying to teach you how to walk by faith. And most of all, His greatest ambition in leading you into greater things isn't that you would know what to do. It's that you would know who He is.
That's why the simple, uncomplicated word "go" is not the Father's plan to disorient you but His attempt to develop you. It's an imperative born out of compassion, not out of cruelty. This is God's method of teaching us to draw near to Him. And in that process, we receive so much more than just good instructions. We experience deeper intimacy with God Himself.
Ask yourself today:
If you already have an idea of what greater thing God might have in mind for you, what is it?
If you don't yet have an idea, what do you see as the plus side of going on this trust journey with God?
*Via email from the ministry, 'Pray Greater for Four Days', by Steven Furtick and Elevation Church
