365 Days of Biblical Prayer

Come January 1, 2010, I will begin posting a daily entry on this website of the daily devotional I have recently begun writing called "365 Days of Biblical Prayer." By then, if I keep my pace of banging out one meditation per day, I should have a few months worth of the book already completed! Pray that the Lord gives me perseverance, wisdom and revelation in completing this project I believe He has given me. Below is an excerpt from the Introduction to the book. If you would like to have these daily devotions emailed to you daily, send me an email at jasonkelly@ihop.org and put "GIMME DEVOS!" in the subject line. Or just check this blog at you own pace and leisure. :)

One day recently, I decided that I wanted to find all the references to prayer in the Bible so that I could begin to wrap my mind around how prayer has functioned throughout the history of God’s interactions with humanity. So I went to biblegateway.com and typed the word ‘pray’ in the search box. I found it interesting that in the NIV there were exactly 365 different verses that had some variant of the word ‘pray’ in it: one for every day of the year. I have found that oftentimes, searching with a different version will produce a different number of references found, so I went to the NKJV and gave it another try. Again it read: “365 results.” And the idea came to me that I could meditate each day of the year on a different prayer text and that my meditations could be written down to make a helpful daily devotional for anyone who wanted to dive deeper into this vast ocean that is prayer. And hence, this book [or daily blog entry] you now hold in your hands.

Certainly these aren’t the only texts on prayer in the Bible. There are many places where prayer is implied by the use of other words. But for a good place to start, I decided to limit my focus to these 365 verses (I am mostly following the NIV listings). As you read each of the daily devotions, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the story or context from which the verse comes from. Also, I’ve included quite a few cross references in each meditation. I encourage you to look those up as you come across them, to see what connections the Holy Spirit begins making for you. I hope you find helpful and encouraging these musings on what the Bible has to say about prayer. Moreover, I pray that as you gaze at this subject, you would find the spirit of prayer coming upon you (Zechariah 12:10), and that the God who has seemed distant or conceptual would come close and share with you the secrets of His heart, and that you would begin entering deeper into the most powerful calling any human being can ever enter into: to encounter God in intimate communion and to partner with Him in shaping history through prayer.

We've Moved!!

Our last post announced that we sold our home in Idaho. Now we've officially purchased and moved into our new home here in Kansas City! Wahoo! We're still getting settled (a.k.a. there are boxes everywhere) but it's super fun to have our own place. The guest room is all set up and ready for visitors! For all of you financial supporters and people who just like sending snail mail, here's our new address:
8204 E. 103rd Terrace,
Kansas City, MO 64134

Sold!

We just returned from three weeks in the Northwest visiting family, supporters and packing up our house in Moscow, Idaho. Our Idaho house is officially sold! It was a bittersweet visit- good to see friends but sad to say goodbye to Moscow. Now we're excited for the opportunity to buy a house here in Kansas City where we can host small groups and out of town visitors! (hint hint)

It's Spring!

Spring has officially sprung in Kansas City. It's time to pack up the scarves and break out the flip flops! I love not only the warmer weather but the return of greenery, budding flowers and friendly backyard creatures (we have a ground hog living in our yard we affectionately call "fat albert") Of course, the bugs & humidity of summer are probably on their way, but at least the snow is gone!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Yesterday the IHOP community joined in Kansas City's St. Patrick's Day parade. Hundreds of "IHOPers" spent the morning talking to people along the parade route about who St. Patrick really was and his faith in Jesus. (The bottom picture is one of Jason and our friend Cory talking to a guy who was promoting a karate business in the parade.) Once the parade started we all walked and danced behind the big IHOP float. Our float (see middle picture) had a big green mountain with a guy dressed up like St. Pat giving mini sermons in an Irish accent. Behind him was one of our worship teams who would play the song "Grace Like Rain" while we all waved streamers and danced behind! It's hard to capture the feeling with words, but it was a fun celebration to dance down the street with a couple hundred people praising Jesus! To top it all off, it was the nicest day of the year so far- not a cloud in the sky and 80˚ warm! We believe there are people who came to the parade whose lives will be forever changed. For more stories on the St. Pat's day parade, keep an eye out for our newsletter in the next week or so. (If you don't get our e-newsletters and want to, email us. We'd love to add you to our list.)

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away, washed away

Weak Love

I thought I'd share with y'all the lyrics of my current favorite worship song. It's by Sarah Edwards and can be found on the Forerunner music album "Constant."

I can’t understand this work of grace
How a perfect God would come and take my place

The stars they don’t move You
The waves can’t undo You
Mountains in their splendor
they cannot steal your heart

This God who is holy
Perfect in beauty
Awesome in glory
Is ravished by my heart

Though I’m poor you say I am lovely
Though I’m dark you say I am beautiful

Somehow my weak glance has overwhelmed You
And somehow my weak love it has stolen away Your heart

You can listen to the song on her myspace website:
http://www.myspace.com/sarahedwardsihop

Longing for His Return

Here at IHOP we talk a lot about preparing ourselves for Jesus' return. People get ready, Jesus is coming. You see it all over the New Testament- the writers really were living for His return and hoping He'd to come back at any moment. We sing things like "Come Lord Jesus" and "the Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come'." Every believer knows that one day Jesus is going to come back and wants to be ready to welcome Him.

The other day I was challenged by one of IHOP's speakers, Dana Candler. She asked us this question, "At the heart level do we really want Him to return?"

Or do we hope maybe He'll wait to return until after we ________(get married, have kids, get that job... fill in the blank with your own answer.) She talked about longing for His return in a way I hadn't thought of it before. She talked about it like mourning. You naturally mourn the loss of a loved one. You miss them. You want them back. In Matthew 9:15 when some people asked Jesus why his disciples didn't fast he said, "How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast."

Jesus himself said his followers would mourn his absence when He left. Do we long for Him in this way? What challenged me most was when Dana said, "How much we long for Him indicates how well we know Him." You don't mourn the loss of someone you don't know. And the better you know them, the more you feel their absence.

I want to get to know Him so much better, so much that I want nothing more than His full-out- with-us presence- His physical return. What could be better than to have Jesus return? He's going to make all things new, right everything that's wrong and wipe away every tear! Why would I want Him to wait... so I can have one more day without Him? Wouldn't it be better to be with Him and not have sin and selfishness keeping me from really experiencing Him as He is?

Let's keep on getting to know Jesus so we can sing with all the saints, "Come Lord Jesus" and mean it! Maranatha!

~Kara