Dear Church of the Open Door Family,

Sometimes I feel like we would do anything to avoid prayer. Some of us would choose a root canal over sitting alone with God, our thoughts and needs.

The last thing we want to do is come to God empty-handed, weary and heavy laden, helpless, full of weakness, unable to do life, unable to do ministry on our own.

We spend our whole lives hiding and disguising and pretending to have no weakness, and Jesus enters into that void and says, “Let’s not do this anymore. I died on the cross and arose victoriously from the grave so that we can bring an end to all these shenanigans!”

Do you remember Jesus’ response to Paul and his crisis of weakness?

My grace is sufficient for you. For My strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9).

Paul’s great theological revelation was that in his weakness, the power of Christ would manifest.

It’s true—God moves towards weakness. This is what the Gospel is predicated on. This is what prayer is predicated on. The natural trajectory of weakness and helplessness is prayer. Prayer mirrors the gospel.

Not only is prayer the fundamental way that God enters into our weakness and demonstrates His power and strength, but there is also something He wants to do as we pray together.

• He wants to unify us and expand our hearts towards Him and others.
• He wants to unify us and mature our trust towards Him and others.
• He wants to unify us as we praise Him together for His handiwork.

In 2019 I invite you to pray these Breakthrough Prayers together as a church family, trusting that God will expand our hearts and enlarge our capacity to trust:

With great joy and expectation,

David Anderson

P.S. As you think about ways to grow in prayer, consider joining the 9am or 10:45am prayer teams who meet on Sunday mornings in the Prayer Room. Come try it out – a list of requests is provided and there are plenty to go around. Come and pray with others, and see what God will do!