Well, today is the beginning of the 50 Days of Prayer and Fasting, something that I’ve really been looking forward to participating in ever since God first laid this on my heart.  During this journey I’m going to be sharing some of the thoughts I have in response to each of the devotionals in the accompanying prayer guide.

This weeks theme for the journey is that of personal introspection.  This week we are going to be prayerfully allowing God to search our hearts and reveal our true feelings about the lost who are in our town, our motives, and our faith in what God will do.

I believe the focus for today is very important to consider in beginning this journey.  It really does make this journey and praying for Hanover more personal.  It’s easy to talk about praying for the lost, it’s easy to talk about telling others about Jesus, and it’s easy to talk about the necessity to do so.  But when it comes right down to it, if we don’t love the lost, then more than likely, talking is all that’s going to happen.

How appropriate that we have been reminded this past weekend of the depth of God’s love in the brutality of cross and the majesty of the resurrection.  It was God’s love that moved Jesus to endure what He did for the sake of those He loved.  It was God’s love that had devised a plan from before the foundations of the world to deal with the curse of sin that in His foreknowledge He knew would come upon the world as a consequence of His creating man with free will.  If it weren’t for God’s love, the world as we know it, would be a very different place.  In fact, it probably wouldn’t exist.

It is my prayer more than anything else that God will put in our hearts a love that moves us to acts of compassion - that gives us the perspective that He has on those who are perishing without Him.