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Nottingham connected Faith & Spirituality 27 PRAYER- THY KINGDOM COME By Densel Davy (LLM) Reader The nine days after Ascension Day [10 th May 2018 ], until the eve of Pentecost are observed as days of prayer and preparation for the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Thy Kingdom Come Global Prayer Movement invites us to pray with Christians from around the world during these nine days, on their theme: Changed Lives - Changing Lives, as we pray afresh for the coming of the Holy Spirt at Pentecost. But what is prayer? Unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything we ever wanted – all these can be ours; according to a best-selling self-help book. Think positively about acquiring something, it claims, and you shall have it. Is that what prayer and intercession is about? Like a divine shopping list? ‘Dear God, we pray for this for him, and that for her, this for me and that for the other.’ True intercession is not a wish list. It grows out of our relationship with our heavenly Father and our love for one another. We pray because we love, not merely to acquire things. Jesus Prayed all the time. He would find a quiet place and pray to His Father. Jesus showed us, by example that praying was a very important part of our spiritual journey of faith. In Matthew 6: 6-13, Jesus tells his followers this: ‘Your Father already knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven:     May your holy name be honoured; may your Kingdom come;     may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.   Give us today the food we need. Forgive us the wrongs we have done,     as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. Do not bring us to hard testing,     but keep us safe from the Evil One.’ But, is it a case of just saying the words that the Lord has given us or is there something deeper that we should know? grace, the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives, we need to hoist our sails with an expectant belief in our prayers for ourselves and in our intercessions for others. We need an expectant belief in Prayer. On that mountain top in Galilee as the Lord ascended into heaven, the apostles stood there looking into the sky. They were experiencing a deep sense of lost. Their leader and spiritual guide had gone. What now. They needed those angels to remind them that this was not the end of their story. In their journey of faith with the Lord, Jesus had equipped them with all that was needed to change the world; he taught them to pray, to share the Good News, to bring hope to broken relationships and lives. But, they could not begin to do all that if they down tools and look to the sky for the Lord’s return. It’s as if the angels were saying to the apostles you will be of no earthly use to the mission on God if you just stand there looking into heaven. The Day of Pentecost. On this day, a miracle occurred: Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.   Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there.   They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak. What difference should this event make to our lives? Well, on this same day the promised gift of the Holy Spirit was given to the Church. It is this force, the Holy Spirit, that has powered the Church all these two thousand years, kept it going, fed us and supernaturally strengthened us. Many, in fact, think of Pentecost as the birth day of the Church, because it was on that day that we received the promised gift that has made it all possible. Jesus said in John 14:26 “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” When our church started out on our journey with Partnership for Missional Church, we were given an image of a sailing boat being powered by the wind. For the boat to move forward, its sail had to be hoisted to attract the wind. Its direction wasn’t in a straight line, but its general direction was towards the sunrise. I pray that each of us will experience that invisible and sometimes visible, sustaining force of the Holy Spirit, giving us the energy to carry on, helping us to flourish, reminding us to pray with expectant belief that the Lord is listening, showing us people of peace and helping us to see where God is at work in our lives and in the lives of the people around us. If you and I want the experience the power of God’s Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done. Amen