Thought for the Week - 21st May 2023
Dear Friends,
We
are once again in the midst of the global ecumenical prayer initiative Thy
Kingdom Come (TKC), which runs from Ascension Day to Pentecost and invites
Christians to pray for more people to come to know Jesus. The TKC webpage tells
us that, ‘since it began in May 2016, God has grown TKC from a dream
possibility into a movement which unites more than a million Christians in
prayer, in nearly 90% of countries worldwide, across 85 different denominations
and traditions – so that friends and family, neighbours and colleagues might
come to faith in Jesus Christ. Every person, household and church are
encouraged to pray during the 11 days in their own way. It is our hope and
prayer, that those who have not yet heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and His
love for the world, will hear it for themselves and respond and follow Him’.
You may remember that we have previously used TKC bookmarks and been encouraged
to write down five names of people we are praying for that they would come to
know Jesus for themselves. I wonder how your praying is going; are you still
praying for them, have you seen any answers to your prayers, have you added to
the number of people you’re praying for? TKC falls between the celebration of
Jesus’ Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and in Acts
1:14 we read that Jesus’ followers ‘all joined together constantly in prayer,
along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers’. In
the TKC Novena booklet produced for this year we are invited to think about
those first disciples and those closest to Jesus who must have been ‘confused,
uncertain, perhaps even fearful as they considered the enormity of the task,
but also excited and on the edge of a whole new world as they knew themselves
to be loved and forgiven because of their Lord’s death and resurrection’. Perhaps
you might like to ponder and think on the Bible passage for today, ‘This is how
God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that
we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he
loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends,
since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’ (1 John 4:9-11).
Grace and peace,
Neil
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