Responding to Flooding Rains, Pray for the Filipino Teams & Making Prayer a Habit

Churches in the northeast are working together to respond to flooding rains that have wreaked havoc in New England.

“New England and New York teams are in the early stages of response planning as they are waiting for waters to recede to begin assessment but are planning response and have teams on ‘standby,’” said Coy Webb, NAMB Send Relief Crisis Response director. “Missouri and North Carolina SBDR have also been in contact to offer support in response.

Webb says he believes it will take several to be able to get into flooded areas.

Vernont is one of the hardest hit states. A number of dams have been pushed to their limit and many towns are flooded with waters waist-high.

The area is expected to get more rain toward the weekend.

Learn how you can help at SendRelief.org.
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Filipino young people are responding to Jesus’ command to go (Matthew 28:19). This month, Filipino-led teams are going to unreached areas across the Asian Pacific Rim to share the good news of Jesus. Often, this means going into an area with a different culture or even language from their own.

The IMB is asking believers to pray for these Filipino teams to be bold in their witness of Jesus Christ as they bring the light of the gospel to people who need salvation and hope.
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Good News for Today is sponsored by The Voice of the Martyrs

Good News for Today is made possible through our friends at The Voice of the Martyrs, a nonprofit organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world. Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, VOM is dedicated to inspiring believers to deepen their commitment to Christ and to fulfill His Great Commission — no matter the cost. Find out more and sign up for their free monthly magazine at vom.org/goodnews.
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BUILD A HABIT OF PRAYER

Maintaining a passionate devotional life never occurs by accident. Our spiritual mothers and fathers “devoted themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14). The very word “devotion” implies that we’ve chosen a lifestyle of spiritual consistency and we’ve adopted a willingness to pay a price for spiritual growth. A powerful prayer life always occurs in the context of a daily habit—a truth made clear when Jesus instructed us to pray for our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Jesus obviously expects us to seek God daily for more than our meal plan. He calls us to pray daily about everything.

DECIDE TO PRAY EVERYDAY

Have you decided to pray daily? Deciding to do it is the single most important step in maintaining your passion for prayer because nothing can be improved until it’s started. The habit of prayer stokes the heat of prayer. As Charles Spurgeon said about those who pray, “He who prays much will pray more, and he who prays little will pray less.”

START SMALL BUT KEEP GOING

We love the sermons that challenge us with the stories of Jesus spending all night in prayer, Martin Luther needing 3 hours a day in prayer to get the victory, David Brainerd praying for 12 hours in the snow, or Leonard Ravenhill urging pastors to spend two hours in prayer or be counted as “not worth their salt.”

We honor the Lord and His praying champions, but it’s hard to imagine most people starting out with two hours a day in prayer. Still, we can’t improve until we start. Spending longer periods in daily prayer is a good goal, but it’s ok to start small and grow.

The key in developing the habit of prayer is consistency. In other words, in the beginning it’s not about how much time you pray every day, it is praying every day for some time that matters.