20 Days of Prayer Challenge!

The Bible says in Matthew 17:20 that if you simply have faith has big as a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, you can move a mountain. Prayer can make an impact in everyone’s life. The Bible also says that Satan has to flee at the mention of the name of Jesus, and he knows prayer is a weapon he can’t fight. Unfortunately many have truly gone blind to how powerful prayer is. We really want to encourage people, especially kids, to learn the power of prayer and to pray more.

The Bible is full of verses in regards to praying to the Lord and prayer does change things. In Philippians 4:6 it says “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”The Word says to pray, pray, pray, and that’s what we want to do! We want to challenge you to take the next 20 days and pray for one country. Whether it’s America or Africa or India. We also liked to encourage you to make a list of different things about that country that you’re going to prayer for.

Some key things you might pray for:

-God’s Word would reach the people
-The people would accept it
-The salvation of the people
-The leadership of the country
-The false religions to fail

We don’t want to make this challenge a chore so please don’t do this just for show. We want you to do this with a willing and loving heart towards those who are lost. We want Prayer Warriors who will be diligent in praying for those who need Jesus. The Bible says that when just one person comes to Christ all the angels celebrate.This challenge was supposed to start on Thursday May 1st, which is the National Day of Prayer, But I didn't see it until a couple days ago, so I'm starting now. We hope you’ll pick a country you’d like to spend the next 20 days praying for (along with specific things about that country to pray for) and post about it on May 1st. Please just leave a comment if you’re going to join us in this fight against the forces of evil, and post about it on your blogs to spread the word.

You’re also welcome to take one of the 20 Days Of Prayer icon and put it on your site! Let’s make the Gate of Hells shake as they did when Jesus rose again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Be sure to check out this link and get the code for this icon and/or sign yourself up on Miss Jocelyn's blog.

Instead of praying for a country, God has been laying orphan children on my heart. Our pastor adopted a boy from Kazakhstan and it was really sad what he went through before they got him. I met a 6-month-old, absolutely adorable, African-American baby recently with no parents, no name, and no prospects. I'm going to pray for these zillions of kids out there who have nothing, that God will raise them up, draw them to Him, and change their circumstances. Hope you'll pray for a situation or country that is on your heart and start up some prayer in this world!

Jesus Suffered - so WHAT?

Queer title? We know that God sent his only son Jesus to earth; He suffered and died for our sin, and rose again. Christians know that God made this sacrifice because He loved us and wanted us to be with Him.

But some may look at that sacrifice and think, “how is that any worse than the things we go through today?”

You may know someone who has died of cancer in horrible pain and their family is devastated. There is a place I go to check up on kids with cancer in Arkansas Children's Hospital on the internet. There is a list of children on the page that have died of the monster. Many of the kids I had come to virtually know passed unexpectedly, and whenever I see that list of familiar names all I can think is, "WHY?"

Your own brother may have taken his life for reasons you don't understand, and you know that you will never see him again in this life on earth.

I know you've walked through Wal-Mart and seen those "Have you seen me?" charts of an abducted child who has been stolen away and ten years later, nobody knows what happened.

So with all this pain and suffering in the world, for God to send His only Son to die... only to be raised again just three days later... does not seem to measure up to all the hurt we endure today. It may just not seem like enough to you.

What do we know of Jesus? "Well, let’s see... He healed people, He taught people, He worked miracles, He had twelve disciples, He was God's Son... what else?" The most important thing about him is that He was without sin. He had never ever sinned in His whole life. Let's talk about inner pain. The kind that sin causes. The kind that happens when you know you've done something wrong and it preys on your mind all the time. Put yourself in Cain's shoes for a minute. When he killed his brother, it was probably the first time he'd ever seen a dead person, and knowing he had done that awful thing probably gave him nightmares for the rest of his life. Would you want to live with that? Maybe you've stolen something of little consequence and then you realized the guilty conscience you got wasn't worth the four dollars you still have in your pocket. Do you like living with that? It's hard to admit what you did and apologize for something like that, and knowing that you should do it and can't bear to only makes the guilty feeling worse. Imagine how you'd feel if you robbed a jewelry store! Some people have. Imagine if, in spite of your guilt, you kept on stealing and lying and getting away with it, feeling worse and worse and not knowing what to do about it. Not a good feeling. What do you do? We've all done something that's preyed on our conscience and it feels terrible. Where am I going with this?

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." ~ 2 Corinthians 5:21 Christ had no sin. We talked about that. No guilty feelings, no pain that sin caused.

In those days people would sacrifice these perfect little lambs who hadn't done anything wrong every day in order for God to forgive them of their sin. Innocent blood is the only way to get God's forgiveness. But it wasn't enough. Too much sin, too little lamb. Every time you sinned, God's judgment was upon you. God didn’t want things to be this way. He knew there was a way - a greater sacrifice that could be sacrificed – that would enable Him to forgive us our sin. So He sent His own perfect Lamb, and instead of just sacrificing Him for our sin, the sacrifice became sin. Jesus didn't just "wear" the sins that had already been committed - He became sin. He was sin. All the sin that had been and EVER will be committed! Something disgusting for God to look at. Can you imagine having every sin there will ever be on this earth on your shoulders? Can you imagine everything being all your fault? You know the bad feeling of "a little" sin - can you imagine all the sin ever? Jesus had never even had the sin of putting gum in a classmate's hair, so this was all horrifically new. THAT was the sacrifice. The ultimate perfect lamb has enabled God to forgive all the sins you will ever commit. It wasn't how He suffered, necessarily, though the cross makes it more special. The cross is not the cup He prayed to be taken away in the garden. It was becoming sin. It was having God too repulsed to look at His own son.

READY

A bit back, I started posting of the Girls of God Blog after a long delay. I noticed a little something. These blogs may be familiar. You may even be an author of blogs like Undercover, Soli Deo Gloria, or Extreme Revival. Anyway, I noticed that some of these blogs were getting, well, slow. Nobody commented anybody else. Sometimes posts took a long time too, but it was the lack of encouragement that bugged me most. I thought, "We share the same faith and beliefs in a lost world - so why don't we talk about it and encourage each other on the most widespread thing on earth - the Internet?" I thought I should do something about it, but I wasn't sure quite what besides just commenting people myself. THEN I felt a revolution coming on. THEN it turns out I wasn't the only one! My dear friend Emy has started a blog called Jesus Freak Teens for anyone who wants a Internet revolution like us!!!!! I think the next step is to promote each other's devotion blogs when we can comment each other, post on our own blogs, and most of all pray for each other. My point:
I, on behalf of all others who have expressed the same opinion, hereby call an INTERNET REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope you'll all join us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Comment me if you want to be a part of this, and I'll get you linked to our main blog, the Jesus Freak Teens. On this blog you can watch videos, read scripture, read my posts about faith and Jesus Christ, and learn about missionaries and Jesus Freaks of the world!

Everybody ready for a Blog Revival?

Tell me if you want the code for the widget on the left. It links straight to this blog.

Also, tell me if you want the JESUS FREAK TEENS widget. Be absolutely sure to check it out!!!