The Christian walk is all about following God. He leads; we follow. It sounds such an easy principle that I wonder why we struggle with it so much!

The Israelites, when travelling in the wilderness, moved when God moved. “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.” (Ex 13:21-22) Sometimes the Israelites stayed in one place for some time; on other occasions, they moved on quite quickly. It all depended on God and was, I imagine, rather disconcerting to the people at times. There was certainly no room for complacency!

Nor is there room for complacency with us. Chris Tomlin’s song ‘I Will Follow’ echoes the idea of Exodus 13:
“Where you go, I’ll go
Where you stay, I’ll stay
When you move, I’ll move
I will follow…” (Chris Tomlin, ‘I Will Follow’)
Chris Tomlin, ‘I Will Follow’

Jeremy Camp, too, in the song ‘Without You’ looks at this theme of our following:
“I’ll walk beside You
As you lead me through still waters for my soul
I place my hope in all You are,
And I know You’ll guide me
To places where there’s beauty to behold
There’s no other place I’d rather be, no

And I won’t make a move
Without You,
I won’t make a move
Without You
Right by my side
So I will wait for You
To lead me to
Any place where You need
I won’t make a move
Without You
Without You.” (Jeremy Camp, ‘Without You’)
Jeremy Camp, ‘Without You’

Paul tells the Romans “those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” (Rom 8:5) To the Galatians, he talks about being led by the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit (see Galatians 5), which is, I suppose, the New Testament equivalent of following the pillar of cloud or fire! Nonetheless, I don’t think it’s quite as easy as having that outward, visible sign to follow! Now we have that still, small voice within us, leading us and guiding us; now we have to learn to recognise the voice of the Shepherd if we are to follow. Sometimes that is not easy, but the principle still remains: where God leads, we follow. Socrates said, “The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.” Perhaps we need to keep the end point in view, for the scenery en route will surely change!

Prayer is a recurring topic for our church currently. Dave spoke from Acts 12:1-17 last night about what happens when a church prays. Here, the church was praying for Peter who was imprisoned by Herod. To their surprise, God worked in the supernatural to release Peter from imprisonment! Prayer not only changes situations, but changes us!

Do we really believe great things can happen when we pray? 2 Chronicles 7:14 reminds us of the part we have to play (to humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face) and the part God plays (pouring out blessing and healing). God hears us when He prays; He actively listens to us (Ps 116:1-2).

When we pray,
1) the supernatural happens. Peter was guarded by 16 soldiers and was shackled in chains, but he walked free from the prison!
2) the surprising happens. The church, despite their prayers, were surprised when Peter arrived back at the house of prayer. So often, we pray in half-faith, not really expecting God to do what we are asking!
3) the saving happens. Deliverance happened to Peter and as we pray, deliverance and salvation will be seen. In past revivals, there have always been those praying faithfully for the preaching of the Word as people are being saved. Do we pray for this too? Do we take the responsibility to pray for our meetings, for those bringing the Word to us, for those listening to have open hearts and listening ears?

Acts 12:5 tells us the church was earnestly praying for Peter. They were fervently praying and persevering in prayer. We need to seek God with all our hearts (Jer 29:13) and pray without ceasing. There needs to be personal prayer and corporate prayer (see Matthew 18). Let’s rededicate our prayers lives to the Lord and really pray.

Remember the prayer map I was telling you about here? I left the story with the frame completed and the board waiting to be filled with photos and the map. Once that was done, this is what it looked like:

However, given the amount of time taken to make the board and frame, it should perhaps come as no surprise to discover that actually getting the map to church proved quite a headache! Basically, the map was too big to fit in our car… and, as it later turned out, in anyone else’s! Undaunted, Garry set about making a frame for the frame so that it could be transported on our roof-rack:

The map duly arrived at church:

It features photographs with the street names of some of the streets:

It also has coloured stickers that are co-ordinated to our prayer topic for the month (in February, this has been local schools)as well as the prayer requests for that topic:

The prayer map is now in place in the foyer and this evening, we will be writing prayers to stick on the board to complete it. Each month, we will add new stickers as we pray for new areas of Goldthorpe and we will change the prayer requests and the prayers to keep the map up-to-date.

The Women’s World Day of Prayer meeting will be held on Friday 1st March. This year, we will be praying for France and the theme of the service is ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’

The local service will be held at the Salvation Army church on Straight Lane in Goldthorpe and will start at 6 p.m. Representatives from all the local churches will be sharing the readings and there will be refreshments served after the service. All are welcome to attend – including men and children!

Further information on WWDP can be found here and further information about France can be found on the France Mission website here. As always, it’s good to have real people to pray for; France Mission supports a number of missionaries working in evangelical churches in France, so if you want to personalise your prayers, this is a good place to start!

France Mission was founded in 1957 and now has over 60 churches in nine regions of France. France Mission’s churches tend to be small (under 100 people), democratic in structure, informal in style, and distinctly non-ecclesiastical in their premises, with converted shops, banks, garages and factories pressed into service. Of France Mission’s 125 missionaries, 14 come from the UK. Since 1970, when there were around 900 evangelical congregations, church growth in France has been spectacular, with over 1,400 new churches being added in the last 40 years. A new evangelical church is now planted somewhere in France every ten days!

As with many European countries, immigration is high on the political agenda. Because of its links with North Africa, there are many North Africans living in France and the Muslim population is growing there, often resulting in tensions and unrest. This year’s WWDP service looks at the diversity of the church and at Christ’s command to love all people, no matter what the nationality, so is very relevant to the women living in that country.

Stephen spoke from 1 John 1:4-10 this morning about the light of God. Light can be dazzling and dominating, but it can also be subdued (think of candlelight and how this ‘sets the tone’ for romantic meals!) Sometimes dimmed lighting is necessary (eg to protect the tapestries in the stately home Stephen visited this week), but that makes it difficult to see the splendour and grandeur of the works on display.

In God, there is no darkness at all; He is light. Are we walking in the benefit of God’s light or do we have a dim vision, in shadow, of glory concealed? In a light box, different shades of colours are revealed more clearly and we see colour and light in all their fulness. How much of God’s light are we in? How many shades can we see?

God’s light illuminates the path we take (Ps 119:105) and enables us to walk through darkness (“when His lamp shone on my head…by His light I walked through darkness”, Job 29:3). We need to know God personally so that we can walk in the light, as He is in the light, and so that our fellowship with Him and others is untainted.

A few weeks ago, Dave was preaching on Nehemiah and he talked about how Nehemiah prayed for God to work in Jerusalem… and how eventually he became the answer, so to speak, to his own prayers. He warned us that prayer can be a risky activity, because we may well find God stirring us to do the very things we are praying about.

Eugene Peterson has written a book on ‘the psalms as tools for prayer’ entitled ‘Answering God’. I like the ambiguity of that title: the idea that God is an answering God (how often have we heard that phrase that ‘God is a prayer-answering God‘?) and that in prayer, we also answer God. The psalms are eseentially a collection of prayers, many of which were set to music, and therefore were sung prayers. Eugene Peterson says that the psalms are tools, but ‘not tools for doing or getting, but for being or becoming’ (‘Answering God’ P 2). Prayer is not simply about ‘getting answers’ from God, but perhaps also involves becoming His answers.

As I wrestle with these thoughts and listen to songs, I realise that these songs, too, are prayers. I believe that what we sing is crucially important, because the words get inside us and become part of our lives. When we sing lyrics that are prayers, then, they effectively become our prayers. As I was listening to this song today, I reached the conclusion that this is a dangerous prayer to sing, but one which captures my heart perfectly. ‘Move me, Lord. Use me, Lord. Give me a fire that’s always burning. Show me Your glory. Open my eyes to the world I don’t see.’ It’s a prayer I don’t really know how God will answer, but I long for Him to use me and move me.

“Into the heart of the darkest places
Into the lost and the lonely spaces
Bringing the hope and the life You’ve given
I’ll move cause You move me.

We need to wake up
We need to raise up
Cause I will never stand still; Lord. keep me moving, moving.” (‘We Need’, Jeremy Camp)
‘We Need’, Jeremy Camp