THURSDAY, May 1st, 2008

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER
Hey teenagers! Today is the national day of prayer! Make sure and make it a point to pray throughout the day today. If you dont do your devos until 11:59PM then just pray really really quickly! (Hopefully you are praying throughout the day anyway- if not - make up for it by praying all day tomorrow).

A Few Thoughts from Yesterday:
Josh S: Doughnut Boy??? I could have come up with a thousand nick names for you, none of which would have been doughnut boy :) You are silly!
Kasey: Great Thoughts about being "REAL" (Even in our devos)
Josh: How in the world can you mix gangster and redneck together... ... ...Oh Wait!!! (TC) :) J/K
David: I agree with you that Cary is confizzled... BTW what does that mean?
Tyler: I am praying for you and your family everyday!!

Philippians 1:1-10

1 Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ,To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy,
5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now,
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.
8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment,
10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.


Verse 1 is simply an introduction of this next letter. Paul explains that they are bondservants for Christ and that this letter is written to the people of the church at Phillipi. Verse 2 is simply a kind way of greeting each other. It would be like saying God bless you or something. Then In verse 3 we see Paul explain to the people of the church at Phillipi that He has been praying for them. (Kind of Ironic that TODAY is the NOATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER... who are you praying for?) He begins his prayer by thanking God for these people, Paul prays that they will experience Joy, and fellowship, and Paul explains one of my favorite verses. He explains that He is confident that God started something good in each of YOUR lives, and he will be faithful to complete His good work if you simply follow him. How great is that!! Verse 9 tells us that Paul wanted the people to understand what to love and what not to love (that is what discernment means- to know how to choose what is right or wrong). And verse 10 is exactly what Kacey did in her Devos yesterday... She told us to be REAL in everything, even our devotions. And she even said she didnt want to offend anyone, just like Paul said "without offence". Great Job! Finally we need to pray that we and our friends are filled with the fruits of Righteousness. In other words, Our actions are good fruit because of our relationship with God.

Take some time today and pray for a few things: When you do your devotions, add any other prayer request to the list that you may have and lets take some time as a youth group praying for each other.

Pray for:
Our Youth Group (the spiritual growth and number growth)
Sarah Watkins and Rachel Mace (that they will continue to heal quickly)
Tyler King and Family (I told Him I would pray for him... you can too!)
Katie and Will (Just because I love them and I want everyone to pray for them :)
Pastor Chip: That God will continue to use him and speak through him to our church
Pastor Dick and Mrs. Bev: They are out of town, pray that they make it back safely!
Pray for the families and marriages in our church. (Satan has many many marriages under attack in our church, we must pray that God will have the voctory and these relationships can be healed.