Over the years, there have been several things that have stuck in my mind from the pages of God's word. One of them is the word fervent. It is used several places in the NASB translation, and I am always blessed when I see it used in the lives of people. 
    It's a concept I think we can always use a little more of in our lives. The intended idea of fervent in the Greek is one of stretching out to a maximum limit and an intention that is without ceasing. The ultimate example of this can be found in Luke 22:44, "And being in agony He (Jesus) was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground." Let me ask you... when was the last time any of us prayed so fervently that we even perspired, let alone sweat so profusely that it dripped to the ground like blood running off our heads?!?
   Fervent comes up only a few other places in the New Testament and one of them is in my favorite passage in the Bible: Romans 12:9-21. Verse 11 says, "not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;" The thought here is to be continually seeking to serve God from a place of perpetual/constant growth in the spirit. And let us not forget that the context for this verse is serving others in love.
   Which brings me to my last reference today. 1 Peter 1:22, " Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of a seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. (verse 23 added for emphasis)" Love is one of our greatest assets and we should desire to use it maximally in every facet of our day.
   May we be a people who seek to live out our fervent spiritual life - seeking ways to live it out maximally, rather than figuring out what the minimum is that we could get away with and still be considered righteous. May we be a people who stretch out and fervently love others as Jesus did on the cross. 

Grace, Opportunity, Dignity

This morning brought me to thinking about my prayer life, again. In a recent post I pondered and tried to wrap my head around addressing the Lord in prayer and making prayer time more than using His name just as a pronouncement to begin a laundry list of physical ailments, money concerns, etc.
Today, I would like to address those prayer concerns that deal with everyday life that we all come up with. Of course God cares about them and He wants us to talk to Him about those them. However, in our culture, I think we are missing the boat (for the most part) when it comes to these things. Having been in prayer groups all across the country, I think I can confidently say that as a whole, we don't generally  pray for the character of the people in those situations. {Which makes the HUGE assumption that we are praying for others and that we are offering to others personal prayer requests that have to do with our own lives. But that is another post for another time}
The following is a list of character qualities, in no particular order, which are cobbled together from three different places (Galatians 5 , 2 Peter 1, Romans 12), combining certain words when repeated:
"Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control, Moral Excellence, Knowledge, Perseverance, Godliness, Humility, Hope, Wisdom, Abhorring Evil, Diligence, Fervent Spirit, Servitude, Rejoicing, Devotion to Prayer, Giving, Hospitality, Blessing Persecutors, Empathy, Unity, Being Teachable, Overcoming evil with good."
It excites me to see how invigorating my prayer life becomes when character becomes the focus. When we pray for people's character, certain things happen:

• We aren't fixated on the situation's outcome, but rather the personal development of the people involved.
• We can be an encouragement by letting people know how we are praying for their character in any given situation. This communicates a deeper authenticity of our love for them, which trumps the all too often automatic canned utterance, "I've been praying for you."
  
• We become more acutely aware of our own character strengths and weaknesses and these then become action points (and dare I say it... "prayer requests to give to others") in our own walk with the Lord.

Let me challenge you to be devoted to praying for the character of the people around you for a week. Let me know how that goes in the days that follow.