Slices
Prepare
How do you react to trouble when it comes? Are you driven towards God or away from him? Pray: ‘Lord, I’m familiar with both directions and I ask that you would help me turn to you in my next crisis.’
Bible passage
The believers pray
23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. ‘Sovereign Lord,’ they said, ‘you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
‘“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.”
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Explore
It was the largest prayer meeting I’d ever attended. It was a Wednesday morning in Seoul, South Korea. I expected a small gathering and was totally overwhelmed. There were 5,000 people present, including a choir and orchestra. After the pastor gave a short sermon and we’d recited the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed, he invited the congregation to pray. Not silently, or in small groups, or even one after another. We were to pray out loud, in our languages and at the same time. It was a roar of prayer: a flow of words that seemed to ripple and dance across the large auditorium. I felt I was standing under a hot shower of faith. And I imagine this story in the same way.
Peter and John, on their return from custody, meet up with this fast-growing Christian community. Their instinct is corporate prayer before corporate strategy, and they lift their voices before God together. Before they mention their own urgent needs, they lose themselves in adoration of the God of all creation.
Respond
Find a place where you feel comfortable to pray out loud. This may be familiar or new, but Iift your voice to God and thank him that he is Lord of heaven and earth.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: 1 Kings 18,19; 1 Corinthians 16
Pray for Scripture Union
Bookworms is a fresh Faith Guide collection for 5- to 8-year-olds, introducing them to the person of Jesus through the Bible accounts and the idea of having a friendship with him. Please pray for the Development Hub team as they shape the resources.
