Christmas Prayers

Why not want. She can have a couple of chicken maybe it's not the get for your family but it is the perfect gift for poor family ninja chicken can break the cycle of poverty for poor family yes chicken chickens and provide nourishment for family and they can sell mosaics at the market for income when you donate a chicken or any other gospel for Asia one her percent of what you give goes to the field and get the ball went gospel fundraiser can support family of Jesus family this Christmas and give them a six explanation or see chickens and other animals campaigned on hello this is Matt slick from the match look like podcast right defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundational truths of God's word for Trojan Truth Network podcast starting in just a few seconds. Enjoyed Sharon but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing The Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network encouraging prayer, God offers opening the patient for his people to talk with him anytime about anything encouraging prayer Dr. James author of the best-selling and many other books on prayer provides weekly insight help you learn to mom and now we are prayer before Christmas and today working to talk about three Christmas prayer from the Bible with can be a huge help for us why I'm personally excited about James take away your three special Christmas prayers for Mary and one from her older cousin Elizabeth. Each one of them has a lot to teach us where to start with one of Mary's prayers and at first you might not think of it as a prayer because it's what she says to an angel, but because an Angel is a messenger of God, she's just sending a message back that makes it a prayer.

While it's a simple statement okay if it founded the gospel of Luke chapter 1 verse 38. She says I am the Lord's servant may your word to me before felt while I'm out word to her sure was easy. I mean she would conceive a child through the Holy Spirit and certainly people can think of worse.

But what others thought.

Didn't matter to her. She was being obedient to God right and that's what makes it such a powerful prayer she just wanted to be obedient to God and it's a good one for us to praise well especially the first part.

I'm the Lord's servant. This is really important prayer, we can overlook it because sometimes we can use the word Lord without realizing what it really means you know it's just sort of part of Christian speak if you will, but it means that everything we have and all that we are belongs to him, including our lives. In the words servant encompasses that really what a great prayer to pray every day as we try to live for him really is.

What a great reminder as well. So that was really good about the second the second prayer might not sound like a prayer either because it's a blessing prayer, but you have to understand that blessings were always made with the mindfulness of the presence of God was right there blessing was given because he was the one who had the power to bring the blessing about so after Mary visits her older cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth is overjoyed and she says why my so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me, which is itself an amazing statement because Jesus wasn't born yet and points south of the Holy Spirit to show the stupor, but what she does. After that she blesses Mary and says blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her. That's pretty cool because it's another reminder from God's word that we can say to him in his presence right. It's a reminder that were blessed when we believe God's promises to awesome because he's the one who blesses us.

It's a great promise to pray and really did take to heart so that's two down excited about the next one will be the best of all prayer so special, it's been given a particular name the Magnificat and this is Mary's prayer in the gospel of Luke chapter 1 verses 46 through 55.

But today were going to only look at one part of it. Verse 46 and 47 and this is what call the Magnificat from the work to magnify my soul magnifies the Lord in my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Okay, that's amazing.

So let's talk about that. I mean, someone might ask, what does it mean to magnify the Lord. I thought he was already in a pretty big money, why would we need to make better yeah actually I love that? So glad you bring it up again. This is one of those places where we could follow the sort of Christian speak in the quick answer to why do we need to make many bigger yet yes he is big and no we can't but listen Ben Patterson explained this way. There are two kinds of magnification, the kind that makes the small seam biggest microscope and the kind that shows what seems small.

Actually be big through a telescope. The world's glories are of the microscopic variety. What is really tiny is made to look big. God's glory telescope at variety. As with the pinpoints of light in the night sky so would be embryo and Mary's will. What seems small is discovered to be gigantic when seen through the lens of faith what Mary is doing by magnifying the Lord are glorifying some Bibles have. It is showing him to be huge in such a small world and the glory I think about that one. James I'm just blown away. Yeah that's exactly right when you think about how great our God is, who spoke this vast universe into existence with just a word. It helps you see how how small this world is and how small its ways really are and Mary was just making a statement of fact.

God is so much bigger and so much better than anything else we know.

And because he is all we need to praise him, especially when the world feels like closing try my soul magnifies the Lord in my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. It's like saying what I have in him is so much bigger than all this.

Some try to deal with. That's why love that prayer and all the more because he is Emmanuelle God with us, and that's maybe where the telescope analogy is helpful as it is breaks down a bit because God isn't far away through Jesus come close to us. He's right here, so maybe a better analogy would be really thick classic problem is that God is so far away that we can't see him as we should. Because of our brokenness and our sinfulness. But when we magnify him. It's like saying okay now I'm seeing things right, I love that so very habit three prayers.

Let's back over them briefly one more time. Okay, first, is I am the Lord's servant second is blessed is she, or we could say who believes what God has promised right. It's like saying I'm already blessed God because of your promises to me and I believe them. You know, and the third one is my soul magnifies the Lord in my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, so that's a way of making much of him in a world that has its priorities mixed up with a way of telling them we love it really a way of praising him and and when we do that he has a way of giving us so much more now. Yes he does in on this last Saturday before Christmas. Let's close with a prayer to just thank him and praise him for Jesus always and really always done, which is almost hard to even think about, but nonetheless Jesus father, thank you, thank you for sending Jesus proving your love for us by making a way that we could have a relationship with you with Jesus with the Holy Spirit. Lord I pray in this season that our souls would magnify you that we might see your face and that you would shine down upon us and that we would see so much of you that we would be a light like Moses was our faces would be bright and shining others would also enjoy the season like never have before and I thank you for my friend in his studies hear more from Pastor James by visiting the website James Banks.org or by visiting these church in Durham, North Carolina.

May God bless you and encourage you to pray. This is the Truth Network