{"id":5053,"date":"2022-01-09T17:26:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-09T23:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/?p=5053"},"modified":"2022-01-09T17:26:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T23:26:07","slug":"praying-for-more-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/2022\/01\/09\/praying-for-more-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Praying for MORE in 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beginning January 10, 2022, we\u2019ll focus <a href=\"https:\/\/iphc.org\/dayofprayer\/\">a week of prayer<\/a> on our desire for <em>more <\/em>of God: more of his grace, more of his love, more of his peace. Our scriptural focus will be the Beatitudes, the 8 \u201cblessed\u201d statements given by Jesus at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. In this short list, Jesus explains the good life, the blessed life. But these statements are not a spiritual to-do list, the things we ought to try to do and be to receive God\u2019s kingdom. That only creates a new law.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the Beatitudes remind us who we <em>are<\/em>, and what kind of people God\u2019s kingdom comes to. We <em>are<\/em> poor in spirit\u2014\u201cspiritual zeroes,\u201d as Dallas Willard put it\u2014but the kingdom comes to us anyway. When we are hungry and thirsty for righteousness\u2014as happens to people starved of justice\u2014the kingdom fills us up with <em>real <\/em>kingdom righteousness that is as satisfying as a banquet. That\u2019s the heart of the Beatitudes, that the kingdom of God is coming and has come to the least likely to succeed, the ones who couldn\u2019t possibly lift themselves by their own bootstraps.<\/p>\n<p>We want to be such a people, sure of God\u2019s blessing because of his goodness rather than our own righteousness, but empowered by that very goodness to do the good work God has given us to do. Our corporate identity, as a place of hope and a people of promise, <em>depends<\/em> on our receiving God\u2019s kingdom now\u2014<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>despite our spiritual poverty (v. 3);<\/li>\n<li>though we grieve and mourn (v. 4);<\/li>\n<li>if we don\u2019t assert our rights (v. 5);<\/li>\n<li>when we\u2019ve endured injustice (v. 6);<\/li>\n<li>despite choosing mercy rather than vengeance (v. 7);<\/li>\n<li>even if we refuse to \u201cgo along\u201d with the worldly way (v. 8);<\/li>\n<li>even when we choose to make peace rather than conflict (v. 9);<\/li>\n<li>even when the world\u2019s brokenness means we suffer <em>for <\/em>God\u2019s right way (v. 10).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the days that follow, we invite you to join us in these prayers. Each day <a href=\"https:\/\/iphc.org\/dayofprayer\/\">we\u2019ll provide<\/a> the day\u2019s Beatitude focus, several prayer requests, additional scriptures to pray, and a written prayer you may use as a skeleton for your own prayer. You can find a shortened form of these resources on our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IPHCMinistries\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/iphc_ministries\/\">Instagram<\/a> feeds each day.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s pray <em>together <\/em>that God would help us receive the <em>more <\/em>that is already ours in Christ Jesus, praying as the Apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 3:14-21 (NKJV):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ \u2026 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height\u2014 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,<sup>\u00a0<\/sup>to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":5054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general","8":"category-win","9":"entry"},"title_es":"","content_es":"","author_name":"James Cain","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/Featured-Image.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb62Bx-1jv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iphc.org\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}