General Epistles and Revelation Final this Morning

Please pray I get there in time to do some last minute studying and that I can remember something to write down in response to the questions. Something will probably be the best I'm going to do :-) There's way too much material!

Prayer Request:: Speed reading

Please pray that I can read really quickly! I'm studying for finals over the weekend and most of next week. I have my General Epistles and Revelation final on Tuesday and my Ancient Church final on Thursday and I have to read a bunch of stuff for both classes so prayer would be appreciated. I'm a really slow reader (1o pages an hour when I read nonfiction).

Prayer Request: Concentration

I'm pretty depressed right now and it's affecting my seminary work. I need to concentrate so I can write an exegesis paper for my General Epistles and Revelation class. It's due this week and I haven't been able to write it (I've started but it's pretty disjointed). I'm working on it now, please pray that I can keep my focus until I finish it.

Indonesia Sentences 41 Christian To Five Years Imprisonment

For praying that Muslims come to know Jesus. It's amazing to me that Muslims wouldn't understand that the Christians are demonstrating great love for them by praying that their persecutors would not face the justice that they deserve but be given mercy by the Almighty God. What will be even more amazing is the next group who attempt to pray for the salvation of the Muslims knowing that they could be imprisoned for doing it.

We are so blessed to live in a country where we can freely pray for our enemies and not be persecuted by the state. I pray that remains the case for my lifetime and that of my kids and many more lifetimes until Jesus returns.

Join my in praying for the Muslims in Indonesian that the Lord will open their eyes and lead them from darkness into the light of truth that they may understand that Jesus is Lord and the Son of God and is God.

An Indonesian court has sentenced 41 Christian leaders to five years imprisonment on charges of blasphemy because they openly prayed that Muslims "come to know Christ," local Christians and a well-informed human rights group told BosNewsLife Thursday, November 1.

Voice Of the Martyrs (VOM) Australia said the Christians, who are linked to the international mission group Campus Crusade for Christ, participated in a December, 2006, prayer gathering in the Indonesian province of East Java.

"During this time they prayed for their nation asking that all Muslim leaders come to know Christ. Video footage of this prayer meeting was filmed and was leaked to a Muslim organization," VOM Australia said.

The organization quoted local sources as saying that the 41 believers "have been found guilty of abusing the Koran," seen as a holy book by Muslims. "The judge sentenced them to five years in prison". Their lawyers are planning to appeal the sentence in East Java High Court in Surabaya, VOM Australia added.

(via)

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue Plans Service to Pray for Rain

Uh-oh! The atheists are not going to like this at all! But I think it's a great idea. I've been praying for them ever since I read of the drought becoming so serve.

What to do when the rain won't come? If you're Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, you pray.

The governor will host a prayer service next week to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast.

"The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power," Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said on Wednesday.

Perdue's office has sent out invitations to leaders from several faiths for the service, set for Tuesday.

Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer - along with water conservation - as the state's drought crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon, Ga.

[...]

The prayer service will be held outside the state Capitol on Tuesday. Unless, of course, it rains.

Prayer request for Greek Quiz

Please pray that I will be able to translate the verse on the quiz.

Atlanta has less than 90-days of water left

Please join me in praying that Atlanta gets rain soon. They are in the middle of a severe drought:

With the South in the grip of an epic drought and its largest city holding less than a 90-day supply of water, officials are scrambling to deal with the worst-case scenario: What if Atlanta's faucets really do go dry?

So far, no real backup plan exists. And there are no quick fixes among suggested solutions, which include piping water in from rivers in neighboring states, building more regional reservoirs, setting up a statewide recycling system or even desalinating water from the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's amazing that things have come to this," said Ray Wiedman, owner of an Atlanta landscaper business. "Everybody knew the growth was coming. We haven't had a plan for all the people coming here?"

[...]

More than a quarter of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought—the National Weather Service's worst drought category. The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 million, is smack in the middle of the affected region, which extends like a dark cloud over most of Tennessee, Alabama and the northern half of Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.

State officials warn that Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre north Georgia reservoir that supplies more than 3 million residents with water, is already less than three months from depletion. Smaller reservoirs are dropping even lower, forcing local governments to consider rationing.

Prayer Request

I plan to read a book today that I have to read for my Ancient Church class. I have a low attention span, so I really would appreciate your players for the ability to focus my attention on the book and concentrate so I can finish it this week.

The prayers of the left

I wonder if anonymous thinks these prayers glorify the Lord.

What are they going to do with all that hatred when Bush leaves office? Set up support groups?

Thanks for the prayer!!!

I made it to school on time which was one of the things I was most concerned about and I think I did OK on the test but I made a really stupid error (very embarrassing). Oh well! I have another test on the 30th, please pray that I will be more prepared for that one :-) I will be tested on twice the amount of verses (1 Peter 1 and 2).

Prayer Request

Help! I've got a Greek quiz tomorrow! EEP! Please pray that I'm prepared for it and that I get to class in time to take the quiz. I have to drop my daughters off first, so if there is traffic, I won't make it in time.

Ebola Outbreak in the Congo

And they aren't saying if it's been contained.

Do Christians believe in prayer despite the evidence that it’s ineffective?

VJack of Atheist Revolution makes a number of assumptions about a Christian’s view of intercessory prayer that really don’t support the facts:

The Utah mine collapse is all over the news. Several broadcasts show local residents displaying large banners that say something like "pray for the miners." When I see such signs, a question never fails to pop into my mind: Why? Of course, we're all hoping that they'll find the miners unharmed, but why would anyone call for prayer when there is clear evidence that intercessory prayer is ineffective?

Of course, many believers find evidence completely irrelevant. They believe because their parents believed, and they've never really questioned it. They believe because they are rewarded by their communities for doing so. Most of all, they believe based on faith, precluding the use of reason or evidence.

Is prayer effective? Are we just blindly praying because our parents taught us to pray or because of blind faith? We have no evidence that prayer works yet we do it anyway.

But there is something missing from these assumptions: God. Prayer is not some entity that is effective or not on its own. We pray to a sovereign God who is in control and who does not bend to our will. We come to him in supplication knowing that he is a just and loving God and will answer our prayers the way that he will. We may not understand it completely but we don’t trust him blindly or in a leap of faith. We trust him because we know who he is and what he’s done in the past, not only in the life of those recorded in the Bible but in our own life as well. We see that he is faithful and that he has done what he promised to do. Over and over again people go to God in supplication and he responded to their requests. He sometimes answered the prayers that were asked and sometimes he answered them in an unexpected way. We understand that he isn’t our genie and will answer prayers the way that fits his will.

Not only do we have the evidence of the Bible we have our own experience as antidotal anecdotal evidence that God does answer prayer. I could give you a whole list of times that I prayed to God and he listened and responded. I’m sure many of our readers would say the same thing. Studies prove nothing because God isn’t our lab rat who will perform on our command. He isn’t going to answer prayer to prove himself. He doesn’t have to because the proof is in his word and in the life of his people.

Update: Sheesh people! Could you let me know when I use the wrong word?

Praying for Hollywood instead of boycotting

This seems like good idea:

It's around 10 at night and Lewis Payne puts on his pajamas and eases into a chair in his study to say a prayer – for Paris Hilton.

Payne resides in the tiny city of Quincy, Ill., on the banks of the Mississippi, but at this late hour his mind is typically 1,500 miles away in Hollywood.

"Tom Cruise doesn't know he has a lot of prayers being sent up for him," he says.

Payne is among a growing number of people across the country praying for celebrities.

While most of us shake our heads, snicker or secretly gloat over celebrity scandal and misfortune, the Hollywood Prayer Network views the planet's "most influential zip code" as an important, yet written off, "mission field," rife with people just waiting to be introduced to God.

Karen Covell, a producer of documentaries and TV specials ("Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer"), founded the non-profit ministry partly out of frustration with other members of her own faith.

"Sometimes the Christian church outside Hollywood hates Hollywood," she says. "If I can get the church to pray for the people of Hollywood, they can't hate them or be afraid of them anymore."

In what may be a first, the prayer network is calling for Christians to stop boycotting movies and asking them to turn their TVs back on.

Instead, the network gives away stickers that you can put on your remote control to remind you "to pray for the people involved in the shows on your screen" while you channel surf. You can also buy (on the network website) red rubber wristbands embossed with the Hollywood zip code, 90028, to remind you to pray for "America's culture shapers."

Nearly 5,000 people are on the network's email list; "people who want to create art but keep an ethical and moral code to our lives," Covell says.

(via)

I never boycott movies or TV because it's a waste of time and backfires as it creates a buzz that it wouldn't have had if it had just been ignored. I think I'll pray for Lohan, she really needs it.

Here's the link to their website if you want to join.

Tags: Hollywood

I am sooo smiling!!!

Cause I'm done!!

Celebrate with me, people!

Thanks so much for the prayers, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can live again. I can read novels and watch TV. I can take my daughters shopping and I can finally blog again.

I'm taking my Greek test at 10:30 tonight

So, prayer would be helpful. Please pray that I remember something, preferably Greek :-)