God wants your church to be such a force for him that it infuriates the devil.

And God wants you to help your church become a force Satan has to reckon with the way Goliath had to reckon with David.

Don’t you want that too? Don’t you want to be someone who helps your church be what God wants it to be?

You can!

“Me?” you think. “Charley, you don’t understand,” you say. “I’m not one of our church’s VIPs. I’m not an officer. Can’t teach. Sing so poorly I throw others off-key. So, how can I be someone who can help our church be big for Jesus?”

Here’s God’s answer: being someone who helps your church be a force for God has nothing to do with what you can’t do. It’s got everything to do with what you can do.

What’s that? What can you do? This: you can begin super-sizing your prayers for your church.

Present Your Requests to God

What does it mean to super-size your prayers for your church? It means to make your requests bigger than the usual ones for surgeries, sickness, or stresses. It means to pray for more than just Aunt Matilda’s nephew’s job interview and the loan approval for the church’s new building project.

Now, understand, there’s nothing—nothing!—wrong with praying for these things. It’s never wrong to pray for something God says it’s right to pray for. And God urges us “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). So, it’s not only ok for you to pray for these things. It’s not ok for you not to pray for them!

And some of these things are big deals in and of themselves. Especially if they involve you. We’re all like the person who said, “There’s no such thing as minor surgery if I’m the one being operated on!” I want the people in my church to be advocating for me at the throne when I’m about to undergo bypass surgery. Don’t you?

We Get What We Ask For

But, truth be told, these things dominate our prayers as totally and continuously as a politician’s concern with poll numbers dominates his speeches. Eavesdrop on our throne-talk and you’ll find that, for most of us at least, these things are all we pray for.

The result? God answers these prayers. So, (usually) surgeries are successful, sick people get well, Aunt Matilda’s nephew gets the job and the loan for the building project is approved. Why? Because, as God never tires of reminding us, we (usually) get what we ask for (Matthew 7:7-11).

BUT—that’s ALL we get! And getting only this makes us like people who sit at a Thanksgiving Day feast eating nothing but dinner rolls while a big moist Turkey, sweet potato casserole, black-eyed peas, green beans, yellow corn and cranberry sauce beg to be enjoyed. We leave on God’s prayer table delicacies we could enjoy but don’t.

The result? Our church stays what it is: a good place with good preaching and good people but when push comes to shove not a place Satan loses any sleep over.

Why? Because our prayers aren’t big enough.

It’s time to stop. It’s time to stop fishing for minnows and to start fishing for Marlin. It’s time to stop eating crumbs and to start eating caviar.

It’s time for us to super-size our prayers.

And you can! You can! How?

Join us for Part Two and you’ll see!

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One Response to How You Can Help Your Church to Be the Force for God HE Wants It to Be, Part 1
  1. […] do you become someone who helps your church become the force for God he wants it to be? You begin super-sizing your prayers. How do you begin super-sizing your prayers? By making the Apostle Paul’s prayers for the church […]


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