Following Jesus in all of life Emmanuel Church Lurgan

This morning Phil introduces our new theme, focussed around our definition of discipleship “following Jesus in all of life”. Let’s look at two things today, the Person and the Path. Being a disciple of Jesus, is more than learning about Him; it includes following Him where He goes. I think one of the massive issues of the 21st century church is they talk more than they do! Today we will study three would-be followers, who meet Jesus in Luke chapter 9. And Jesus says to each of them something very hard and very powerful.

On our second week in our new series “Following Jesus in ALL of life”, we highlight the little word ALL. We will unpack five responses to being a true disciple of Jesus by a fresh understanding of the verse in Proverbs which says, “The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom”. It is just the beginning… now you must work it out.

This morning Dave continued to explore what it means to “follow” Jesus in all of life. Together we explored that the Christian life is not a one-off moment or prayer, but a journey in which Jesus is inviting us to become more and more like Him in each area of life.

I’ve entitled this the Platform for Prayer. The reason is this… all of our prayer lives are born out of need and imperfection! This week we begin a journey on prayer. The scripture reminds us... to pray in everything [in every difficulty of every kind!] You pray in everything because you have a promise for everything. God will give you everything you need. Under, in and over all our answers to prayer, Jesus gives us what we need most — Himself. This is the ultimate secret of contentment in every situation — the all-surpassing treasure is Christ Himself.

This week we begin looking at Intercession. God has given us the authority through Jesus to change circumstances and the works of the devil through intercession. This type of prayer can be defined as love on it’s knees in prayers for others. It is pleading to the Father on behalf of the needs of someone else. Paul’s amazing prayers to Ephesus and Colossae are a powerful example of this. (Ephesians 3:14-20; Colossians 1:9-17.

We continue looking at intercessory prayer and today we will focus on who can do this! Reading from Psalm 23, we will look at the importance of the first three words, THE LORD IS! When it comes to intercessory prayer these three words LEAP into importance. He is everything we need Him to be so we can trust Him. When it comes to interceding, you need to know you can trust the person you are interceding to.