Encouragement and Prayer: Producing Earnestness! (04/25/22)

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This is the audio from the April 25, 2022 live social media broadcast of encouragement and prayer by Impact Prayer Ministry’s director, Tom Lemler.

“See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.”
2 Corinthians 7:11 (NIV)

Our “Lifestyle of Prayer” emphasis this week will focus on some of the things produced in our life by godly sorrow.  I suspect that most of us are much more aware of the sorrow we experience than the sorrow we cause.  As I read scripture, it appears that both the sorrow we experience and the sorrow we cause can be either godly sorrow or worldly sorrow.  One of the clearest ways to determine the true source of the sorrow is to examine just what the sorrow produces.  As you pray this week, ask God to help you see how a godly sorrow produces in you a variety of necessary things.  Pray that you would be a truthful messenger of God so that any sorrow you produce in others would be of the godly kind.  Pray for a growing desire to endure whatever it takes to bring about a maturity in your thoughts and actions.  Pray that God would use the sorrow you experience in order to help shape you more and more into the image of Christ.  Pray that God would use you to make Jesus known to those who are filled with sorrow.

“And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
Luke 22:44 (NIV)

Pray that your godly sorrow would produce an earnestness in your communication with God.  Pray for the humility to be earnest with those who have added to your sorrow and with those whose sorrow has been increased by you.

You can find the live video feeds of these encouragement and prayer times on Impact Prayer Ministry’s Facebook page.

In prayer,
Tom