“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, o that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.“

In 2011, Loren Krytser was down on his luck.  He had been in an auto accident and was unable to work.  Having no family, he lived in a shack owned by a friend.  He had sold off his belongings and had little more than an old blanket he inherited from his mother.  

One night he was watching a rerun of Antiques Roadshow.   A man brought in a Navaho blanket, which was appraised for half a million dollars.  He looked at it in amazement. It looked just like the blanket he had received from his mother.  His was oily and dirty, but it looked very much the same. 

He took the blanket to an appraise who specialized in Indian artifacts.  Sure enough, it was a similar antique. He put it up for auction online, and it sold for 1.5 million dollars.  Krytser’s days of poverty were over!

Most of us will never have such good fortune–0r will we?  Could it be that we have something more valuable than this, something that we have also overlooked for years? 

We do. It is the love of our benevolent Father.  We may think we know what God’s love is worth to us, but in truth, we have not yet even begun to comprehend it. God’s love is capable of meeting all our spiritual, emotional, and even physical needs. If we came into a sudden windfall of money, there is no guarantee that we would be happy. Many people have discovered too late that wealth could not bring them happiness.  But God’s love can bring us more than we can ever imagine.  

Don’t neglect to count on God’s love.  Seek Him out, and get to know what He can bring to your life.  

In the 1850s the Dutch Reformed church on Wall Street in New York was losing members.  In desperation, they hired a former salesman named Jeremiah Lamphier as a lay evangelist.  Jeremy knew Wall Street well and was committed to reaching lost people. At first,  his efforts seemed to be a waste of time and money. He walked the streets with pamphlets and flyers, but no one came. It was clear that if he were to keep his job, he needed a new approach. Unfortunately, he did not have one.

Jeremiah refused to quit, though. He arranged one more meeting, a lunch hour prayer meeting in which he and whoever would join him would meet for prayer.

That was all, just prayer.  There was to be no speakers or music, just time with God.

When the moment for the first prayer meeting came,  no one showed up.  Over the next twenty minutes,  a half dozen people wandered in, and they all began to pray that God would do something.

By the end of the meeting, there was a general agreement that they should hold another session the following week.  This time, 20 people showed up.  The next week they had between 30 and 40. They decided to increase the meetings to daily, rather than weekly events. 

Within six months, there were 5,000 prayer groups in New York. Prayer meetings spring up in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington.  Two years later, over 15,000 cities and towns had prayer gatherings. All during the Civil War, revival fires sparked by the Fulton Street meetings blazed in military camps on both sides and formed the basis for the Evangelical movement of the late 19th Century.  

The Third great awakening cannot be attributed to Jeremiah Lamphier. He did little more than pray.  It was God who brought the increase when His people met with him regularly.  Today, Jeremiah Lamphier is hardly remembered, and that is precisely what he would have wanted.  It was God’s power and His Presence that is remembered–the same God Whom we can meet with any time and anywhere.

ke a piece of paper and write these words “God is_________ .”   Now as quickly as you can,   write down as many ways you can fill in this blank to tell what God is to you. Make this personal. Don’t include generalities such as “God is all loving” or “God is Sovereign.” Instead say “God is loving to me,” or “God is my sovereign.” The point of this exercise is to focus on your personal image of God in relationship to you. This is not a head exercise but a heart exercise. Write down what comes into your head, even if it doesn’t seem theologically “proper.” Once you have done, look back over your list. What does it teach you about your working image of God? Do you mainly see Him as loving or judgmental, caring or condemning? Now take this list to God in prayer, and ask God to expand your horizons.

Reformation Song–Sovereign Grace

O Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer

Christ is Mine forevermore