Each year, students gather around their school's flag pole for SYATP - the Global Day of Student Prayer. This year, SYATP is on September 25 and we want to show the power of prayer in the Nashville community.
Welcome to The Belonging! We are a Church that loves God and loves people. We are passionate about seeing people encounter God through worship, and experience the freedom that comes through knowing Jesus. Whoever you are, and wherever you come from, you are welcome!
A clarion call has been made to gather the saints for a grassroots effort across the state of Tennessee. We will serve those in authority from the Courthouse to the White House. We will serve through intercession for and interaction with governmental leaders in order to impact our cities, our state and nation. We will not only minister to those in the high place, but also those in the forgotten place. We will discern the heartbeat of cities and communities from mayors and city and county officials to determine how we can best serve those in authority. May we rise up rather than fall back in this hour and walk through the gates of government to serve with the heart and mind of Christ.
The power of prayer is an incredible thing. At Philanthropy, we know that prayer is something important – but let us attempt to explain how much the Lord blesses us every day. About a year ago, Philanthropy started The Prayer Wall based on a story of a personal battle with cancer, and a mission set on our hearts from one of our customers. A random interaction turned into a very important day for all of us.
The following article, containing dozens of spiritual quotes by our United States Presidents, is taken from Ed Moore's book, Prayer Force One: Across America. It is presented here in order to preserve the foundations of our nation's spiritual heritage. You may order Ed Moore's book by clicking on the book at the right.Now, Now, Don’t You Be Afraid to Follow Jesus
Some warm up quickly to the notion of following Jesus, but some do not…. not at first anyway. And some people frankly, will never believe and follow Jesus, and that’s their choice, but to the many that will eventually believe & follow Him, I think fear is the main culprit for, what I will call, faith procrastination.
First of all, we don’t know what we will be getting ourselves into….
fear of the unknown ….
relinquishing life as we know it can be a scary thing, especially when we read things Jesus said like this:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. Matthew 16:25
It’s just not that easy for us to, ‘let go and let God’, when we’ve been in control of our lives….for all of our lives.
Our flesh can be afraid to follow Jesus.
Our flesh is afraid to follow Jesus, because it may have to lay down a few things. We have developed some habits in our lives that we have grown fond of that might not fit into the ‘holy’ narrative. The fear of giving up a lifestyle we have grown accustomed to can be overwhelming and even insurmountable to some.
Our minds can be afraid to follow Jesus.
Following Jesus is not what the ‘popular’ crowd does. We may want to stay with the in-crowd; remain socially accepted. We may want to avoid ridicule. Pride could make it very difficult for some of us to come down off of those ‘ivory towers’ or ours.
The truth is, we don’t really lose, when we ‘lose our lives for Christ and the Gospel’s sake….we win…we win life abundant and eternal. Our soul’s win, when in Christ. I think it is ironic that this world loves the idea of ‘soul searching’ and finding our ‘soul mates’, but I can honestly tell you, without Jesus, no one can’t really have a clue what those two things mean.
Our hearts can be afraid to follow Jesus.
We know that it is with our hearts that we follow Jesus. We make the ‘heart decision’ to follow Him first, so our minds and our bodies can follow afterwards. Giving our hearts away is always a scary thing to do. The Holy Spirit of God helps us with this, with a ‘love tug’. We just have to trust and submit to that ‘love tug’.
It’s a heart/faith thing….
Obviously, the devil has created a ‘false narrative’ out there in this world about Who God is, and he has done this to scare us away from the good life only God can give us.
So the rest of the above verse goes like this:
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26
Again, another scary phrase to our natural minds.
The truth is, although it may look like we’re gaining or winning in life, if we’re not following Jesus, we are frankly, losing in life and losing ‘our souls’.
I suggest that the next time we hear about Jesus, or we feel that gentle love tug from God and one of those fears show up, that we question the fear, because truthfully;
fear is a false narrative; fear is a thief.
Fear is there to steal the good life from us.
Now, we could say, Jesus kind of followed us first…well it’s more than that….Jesus came from heaven to earth to actually, walk a mile in our shoes. I’m not saying this was a scary thing for Him to do, He is God after all, but it was a sacrifice for Him to leave His life in heaven to pursue after us, don’t you think? How much more shouldn’t we submit our lives and go after Him? Believe me, we are getting the better end of this deal. We may be entering the unknown when we decide to follow Jesus, but I assure you, all that unknown is good. Christ knew very well what He was walking in to, but He did it anyway….for our sakes, because love does that.
Following Jesus is dropping everything and following after Him with all our might, with all our mind. . .with all our hearts.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31
So, after the ‘love tug’ , let us….
Believe~Confess. . .CHRIST
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10
Prayer:
God in heaven, I pick You to be the leader of my heart. I repent of my sins and receive the everlasting life You have offered me through believing on what Jesus Christ has done to save me. I believe He died for my sins, was buried and resurrected. Forgive me of my sins and lead me nevermore into temptation. May Your will always be done in my life. Deliver me from evil. Thank you for leading me to Jesus, forever lead my heart in righteousness, in truth, in the right paths for my life, into the land of uprightness and into the way everlasting. I believe that Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen
After we submit to God by that first prayer of faith, we should go out there and find a good church and get water baptized…baptism is an outward demonstration of our inward conversion.
He that believes and is baptized shall be saved… Mark 16:16
Then may we continue on walking by faith, following after Jesus Christ. . . by attending/joining a local church and loving God and others.