American Reformation Church Prayer Journal 68
ARC Prayer Meeting:
This past Sunday at the American Reformation Church we suspended our series on God’s love to honor Memorial Day. We covered the history and implications of Memorial Day as Americans, but also searched the Scriptures to discover God’s emphasis on the importance of memorials.
The Lord has two major problems with mankind. We are sinful and He is holy. He remedied that quandary by sending His only Begotten Son to be a propitiation for our sins. This means that through His perfect life and sacrificial death, Jesus satisfied God's justice for our sins and turned away God's wrath from us, which leads to the salvation of our souls.
The other problem is we tend to forget and God has to remind us. Thus, God’s Word is also strong on the concepts of memorials. This is why God used altars, such as Ebenezer Stones, Stones of Remembrance. It served two main purposes. First, it was to remember God’s faithfulness in the past and second, to have a point of contact to pass on a future and hope to our children. It was to pass on a multi-Kingdom generational vision to our posterity.
For our prayer meeting tonight, we will briefly cover another special memorial found in the New Testament. Acts 10:1-4 states, “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.”
This narrative in the book of Acts has always astounded me. A pagan, a Roman Centurion, who is a part of the occupying force that oppressed Israel somehow, someway came to honor the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Out of all the souls on the planet at that time, Heavenly Father takes note of this man. It says his prayers that must have been genuine and his alms giving, which means he used part of his salary to help the poor of Israel came up before God as a memorial.
In the New Testament, there are two recorded incidences where Jesus marveled. He marveled at the unbelief of the Israelites and he marveled at the faith of Gentiles. In this case, he is marveling at the faith of this pagan. God is so moved by this, He sends Peter to minister the Gospel of the Kingdom to save this man and his household. This is the open door that spreads the mystery of the Gospel, that Gentiles would be included in God’s salvation, to the ends of the earth. It all started with the prayers and alms giving of a pagan. This is powerful Kingdom truths my brethren. Let us seek God in a similar manner to see His glory, Kingdom, and great salvation continue to spread throughout the earth in Jesus’ name!
