The Redeemed Rose

  The Christian life is about community. It’s about fellowship. It’s about being one Body. To do this you have to be willing to be open and vulnerable. To let people in and get to know you. You have to share your struggles and burdens.  Sometimes it can be easier to be the sympathetic ear than to let people into your life. But if you are always the “personal prayer warrior” and never the “prayed for”, there’s a problem.  Here are five dangers of not asking others to pray for you: No one may know you are struggling. Even in our knowledge-driven society where Google and Alexa can find out anything we want to know, we are still not able to be mind readers. And if we don’t know you are struggling, we can’t minister to your need.  This goes for “unspoken” prayer requests, too. I know that in some situations, details must be hidden to protect people, but those times are few and far between. Let your church family and friends know what is going on so they can pray more spec...

  Quick! Name the first person you would go to when you need to talk about your day. What about when you've got the flu? Or when your car breaks down? Typical answers are: best friend, doctor, mechanic. These are not necessarily wrong answers, but what about God? Do we seek His counsel first, or is He the runner-up? For this topic, I want to compare two kings in the Old Testament; King Asa (2 Chronicles 16) and King Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20).  "At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”" (2 Chronicles 16:7, 9) In 2 Chronicles 16, King Asa has a conflict with the king of Israel, and so he pays the king ...