The Headwaters

While living in Minnesota, we lived close to the exact location where the mighty Mississippi River starts it's windy path through the United States from top to bottom. It all begins in a lake at Itasca State Park. It was incredible to me how such a large River that stretches so many miles, gets its start from a modest size body of water. Then it winds through nine different states and eventually ends in the Gulf of Mexico. The headwaters of the Mississippi is Lake Itasca.

The headwaters of true prayer is relationship. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, as recorded in Luke 11:2, He began by saying when we pray, use the words, "Our Father". This is the launching pad for all prayer. At take off, we are immediately introduced to our loving Father. He wants us to encounter His radical love, demonstrated in His Son, Jesus Christ. We do not have to live or pray as orphans; He wants to adopt us into His family. Apart from Christ, we have no right to call God, "Our Father". However, when we are in Christ, we can receive our adoption, the right to call Him our Daddy, our Abba.

If our prayer does not start at the headwaters, and we jump into the middle of the river, our prayers will be prone to becoming religious, stale or even intimidating. All too often, we come to God out of desperation and jump directly into our needs and wants. When we receive His love and take our time building our relationship, then we are able to pray His heart for our situation. The brevity and strength of our prayer lives hinge on our ability to encounter and receive the Father's love.

One issue that could clog the river of our ability to receive the Father's love is the orphan spirit. This is an evil spirit that makes you feel as if you do not have a Heavenly Father and specifically that we are not loved. We have all had imperfect earthly fathers. Because of this, it is easy to develop a view of God, as our Father, based on what we experienced with our earthly father. This results in living under this orphan spirit, and we allow the orphan spirit to take the place of God's blessing and His love for us. Father God wants to re-parent you.

If your prayer life does not start at the headwaters, in the Father's love, it's time to break off the orphan spirit and allow Christ to heal your love receptors. Friends, we need God's love! We need the Father to re-parent us. The health of our soul and strength of our prayer life hinges on our ability to receive the Father’s love. Come to Him today and open your heart and allow His love to enter.

The ability to receive His love will absolutely revolutionize your prayer life. It changes the way we pray. Every time you pray, jump into the headwaters. It's refreshing!

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* I credit Lesson 3 from Year 1 of the College of Prayer International. For more information, go to www.collegeofprayer.org

Racial Reconciliation

 

Every human being was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). It does not matter if you are of Asian decent, Australian, African, European or Hispanic; we were all created in God's image. It doesn't matter our skin color, our ethnicity our economic status, if we grew up in the city or the farm country; we were all created in the image of our Creator. For anyone to think otherwise would go against the truth of God's Word.

Over the years, we have seen barriers put up that have caused division among different groups within society. People have allowed their minds to create ideas that belittle people who are different than them. God's word tells us in Philippians 2, "But in humility, consider others better than yourselves." This is a call to love. To put it another way, 1 John 3:16 says, "Jesus laid down his life for us, we ought to lay our lives down for our brothers." It does not get much clearer than that. These verse do not leave any room for excuses. God calls us to consider others better than ourselves and to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters - no matter who they are, where they come from or what they look like.

In the past, I have been a part of several gatherings that were designed to bring together people of different color. Reflecting back, these were significant occasions. One of my favorite memories was back in 1996. My Dad was invited to speak along with his friend, Pastor Richard, at a Promise Keepers gathering of men at Atlanta's largest arena. The theme that year was Racial Reconciliation. My Dad and Pastor Richard had rolled up their sleeves in bringing their congregations together in prayer and worship of Christ, and to tear down the walls of racism in our area of North East Atlanta. I can remember them standing before the crowd of 67,000 men, that day at the Georgia Dome, linking arms together, swaying back and forth and singing the song "We Shall Overcome". That was a powerful moment!

Even with all that has been done over the years, to tear down the walls of segregation, we have seen this problem come to the forefront again this year. We must continue to fight for one another. We must love first. This is certainly a kingdom need. Racial reconciliation is close to the heart of God, and the value of every human is found throughout the pages of His Word. 

As we come to this election, we are faced with the question in November, who is the best candidate to bring our country together? Who will pour gas on the flames of division, or who will do his best to invite the healing of Jesus to our land? We need a leader who will bring unity. We must vote the Kingdom.

Psalm 133:1 says, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity." As we vote this November, we must vote for unity." Let us be those who champion unity.