RCC Prayer for buildings

RCC Prayer for buildings

Dear Heavenly Father, Creator of the heavens and earth

We praise you and thank you for your son Jesus Christ. We thank you that your plan has always been to reconcile us back to you and as we receive your gift of salvation we thank you that we are privileged to be called sons and daughters’ of the most high God.

We thank you that in your design for redemption you saw fit to include us, your church, in the plan to help establish your Kingdom here on earth. We are humbled and in awe that we at RCC get to call each other brothers and sisters in Christ as well as all who belong to the body.

I thank you for the vision given by your Holy Spirit to bring life from brokenness for Reading City Church and in your pleasure you have provided the buildings to create safe gathering spaces where the lonely, seeking, lost and broken can join in praising you.

We honor those who have gone before in prayer, in sweat and in hope in establishing the foundations for the physical structures for these churches. We are asking that you, Lord, continue to guide us and those who will come after in stewarding these buildings.

Let these edifices bring you glory through your Holy Spirit flowing out of us, emanating out to the neighboring communities. Let these places of worship team with life Lord. Our prayer though is that we would not hinder your will by our limited vision but we are asking in boldness to provide the vision and all that is needed to use these establishments to their fullest capacities. We ask that they not be used to build barriers between your church and the world but are invitations to the world to come and experience how good you are and experience being part of the  family of God.

Abba father we ask your store houses to be opened for all that is needed. We are asking provision of funds and workers and protection over the properties as well. We cannot do this without you. We ask that there would be continued unity and that the elders and we your body would work as of one accord as we together seek your heart and will.

"Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" Revelation7:12

The Fathers heart

The Fathers heart

Daddy’s and diaper changes,

Tickles and tosses in the air,

Nightly kisses from familiar faces,

Learning to risk and to dare,

Warm and hearty embraces,

Earthly glimpses of Heavenly care.

But so often, fathers equated to pain,

Safety and comfort out of reach.

The hurt and the lack, leaving many chained.

The Father’s love so hard to teach,

The sorrow, making hearts stained,

Unforgiveness creating wall’s not easily breached.

How to tell of a heavenly father

One who gave it all?

A daddy who will always honor.

The one who knew of the fall,

Ready with plan to redeem his sons and daughters,

The son in mercy, answering the call.

We his children so often reject.

 Abba  daddy always patiently waiting,

Looking for our return and to connect.

Hoping his love to be reciprocated,
 But the fathers love can bear our neglect,

Even in our selfishness he is captivated.

To know of his Son is to know his heart.

Salvation and reconciliation worth the cost.

A heavenly adoption that will never depart,

A celestial inheritance that cannot be lost,

Identity given that the enemy cannot thwart

In Accepting son-ship, spirit and soul thoroughly washed.

The giver of holy presents

The counselor left for good measure

Papa never leaving, always omnipresent

Looking for the one lost sheep, his treasure

In the trinity full embodiment

The fathers heart, for all to be together

God knows all of his children by name.

Being born of the spirit again,

No longer to walk in shame.

With him in heavenly places we reign,

Freedom in Christ we proclaim.

Father God’s touch never leaving the same.

My story/His story….

My story/His story….                        

 This was originally written in 2010 and shared with few but as I am following a study on If: Gathering called Redeemed, I feel its a good time to post part of my story.

                  11/5/2010
     I have felt led to write my story (or I should really say His story in my life). The theme that has popped up in my life is of a thread in a tapestry. This is not totally an original thought, one book I read talks of the scarlet thread and others have talked of the tapestry of life. Some how I can relate to being a thread in a great big tapestry…. I wish I knew more of my families past but I guess the thread of how God has moved in my family begins, for me, when my mom was a small child. She was a victim of ritualistic abuse and incest from the time she was a small baby. The abuse was horrific; enough to cause her mind to dissociate or split the memories and store them into different “personalities”. Needless to say Life was pretty horrible for her.   I remember my mom tell of an Aunt in the family who was good to her and tried to help her. She was a “goyam,” a non Jew. This Aunt also gave her a bible. Then my mom told of calling out to God to stop the abuse, to rescue her .And for a very long time she believed that he had not heard her.

     Now fast forward many years…the tapestry had continued yet at times, Gods work seemed almost invisible.  My mom married and had 4 children, a boy, then a set of twin girls and finally me. But where was God when one of my sisters was born with Cerebral Palsy? She was confined in a wheel chair unable to even feed herself.  Where was God when my parents divorced and sent my sister to live away because they could no longer care for her? Where was God when my brother turned to a life of drugs? Where was God when Davra, my sister, died at the age of 19? Where was God when my mom began to become unraveled? Where was God when I turned to boys to find love? Where was God when life was tumbling out of control…………….

     God was quietly piecing together the different threads that would lead to my salvation and journey towards wholeness. You see that cry of the abused little girl did not go unnoticed. The Lord has confirmed in my heart that he heard and saw and was at work. My sister Davra is even now walking with the Lord...She was “saved “before she died. A very caring church would come and pick up some of the special needs people at Davra’s school including her. She became good friends with a spirit filled girl named Caroline. At her funeral the Pastor came and spoke of God and the after life. Having a Christian at the funeral was very out of the ordinary for this “Jewish “family. So Davra was the 1st to become”rescued”. The thread continued to be woven..My brother had gone deep into his addiction and his only hope was to be sent across country to make a new life away from the drug culture in NJ. God was skillfully bringing together people and events that would ultimately transform / convert my brother to a believing Christian. And then there is my own  thread …God had been pursuing me for quite some time…I remember when my sister died that I wrote in my diary that God wanted her in heaven with him and some how I knew she was walking and talking  there.  Davra’s death is also when the enemy began to pursue. I was an adolescent trying to cope with a sister who died, divorced parents and a brother who blew away all trust. And like many have told of before …I turned to what the world had to offer….love, sex, illegal substances and many poor choices.  I was looking for a savior in human form.

     Fast forward I got married still making poor choices. Wanting more but not knowing how to get it. And then the thread became visible and the picture more clear. I went west to visit my brother who had been following God for about a year or more. It was Easter time and we went to visit an orphanage in Mexico and then to a church service where the Pastor made an alter call and some how my hand went up and my body moved forward. I wanted whatever they were talking about.  Those first few months were like walking on air. My heart knew what had happened but my head had not quite gotten a hold of all that I said yes to. It would take many years and many trials before the bigger picture of Gods handiwork would become more evident.  Trials in my marriage, trials with loved ones, illnesses, trials where Gods presence and purposes where interwoven; sometimes evident and sometimes not so clear.

     Even now I cannot comprehend the enormity of the work He is doing.  I picture this enormous weaving, with my family occupying the tiniest corner of the Tapestry and I know it is not done yet.  I continue to see His movement as I rejoice that my mother was “rescued/saved” about seven years ago. I also see what God is weaving into my children’s lives, how much more vibrant the thread is, and what possibilities await in their lives and their children’s lives. I will not be here on this earth when the Artwork is finished but am thankful that I can trust the Craftsman with his vision and that someday I will get to behold the beauty which His hands have made.  In the mean time my family’s story is being added to the tapestry one stitch at a time.
 

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11