It is time to make my calling and election sure and to go into the world calling all to repentance of sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. My desire is that these verses of Scripture would have a similar impact on the reader – to show the power and glory of God revealed in the person, work, and promised imminent return of Jesus Christ. In so doing, I pray that God would bring all men and women boys and girls in all places to know the time, that now it is high time to wake out of sleep, “for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (1).

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Acts 1:10-11
Are you prepared for Christ to return today?
Several years ago as I was reading the first thirteen verses of Matthew 25, I was struck with the urgency of the message. These verses weighed heavily on me for they showed me my own lack of urgency towards the things of the Lord. The wise virgins were ready, they heard God’s Word, believed, and were prepared for the Lord’s coming. The foolish virgins had heard the same word, did not believe, and were therefore unprepared. While trusting in Christ alone for my salvation was I acting like Paul who pressed on for the high call of Christ Jesus or like the man who decided tomorrow he would tare down his small barns and build bigger barns?
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There is no better thing for us to regularly pray for ourselves, our pastors and for each other than successful delivery of the Gospel, deliverance from evil men, for the Lord to make us stable, protect us from evil, and guide us into obedience. Along with those things, we should pray that our love and endurance would blossom as we look at Christ.

As Christians we know that we are supposed to pray, but do you ever get stuck on exactly what to pray for? If you are looking for some prayer prompts that will take you beyond, “uh, Lord…uh… be with them today?” look no further than the four important prayer points that are found in 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5.
“(v1) Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, (v2) and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. (v3) But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. (v4) And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. (v5) May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”

Pray for the Delivery of the Gospel

Paul asks the Thessalonian Christians to pray that the Gospel may “speed ahead” or literally “speed on.” In the same way that a marathon runner continues charging ahead, we are to pray that God’s glorious Gospel would keep going forward unhindered. They are to pray, not only that the Gospel would go forward, but that it would “be honored.” Paul has in mind here that the Gospel would be accepted and respected as saving truth. He reminds the Church that this is how the Gospel was received among them.
This kind of joyous reception of the Gospel is graphically displayed in Acts 13:47-48, “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”
Prayer Prompts: God embolden me, my pastors, and our church to be about spreading the Gospel message. Prepare the way for the Gospel to be received with great joy in my family, my workplace, my neighborhood, and my town.
Pray for Deliverance from Wicked Men
One of the most effective ways that Satan has devised to hinder the Gospel is through the works of wicked and evil men (and women). Here Paul asks the church to pray that they would be delivered from these wicked ones. There are several aspects of deliverance that are in mind here

Deliverance from those that are wicked (atopos) Lit: out of place ones. In the context of your local church, those that attend are a mixed crop of wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30).

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Jesus thanked His Father for the hell that He would endure on the cross because He knew that it would result in the redemption of those that the Father had given to Him. In short, the three things for which Jesus expressed thanksgiving were all bound up in the work of redemption. In this, Jesus teaches us that above all the things that we should be thankful for–not just on one day in November, but every day of our lives–is the redemption that we have in His blood, the forgiveness of our sins. 

Believers often meditate on the love, the joy, and the peace of Jesus. However, most of us probably do not give enough attention to the thanksgiving of Jesus. One of the things that we can be certain of–concerning all of the sinless perfections of incarnate Son of God–is that Jesus expressed full and unceasing gratitude to His Father for every provision, every kindness, every protection, every soul-strengthening support and every miraculous act that the Father worked through Him during His earthly ministry. Without doubt, Jesus is the most thankful person who ever lived. And yet, while we may safely be assured of this, there are only a few instances in which the Scriptures tell us about the thankfulness of Jesus. This should strike us as strange, given all that the Scriptures teach us about our own need to be thankful.
Thankfulness–and a sinful lack of it–is one of the foremost teachings of Scripture. Though there are so many other passages, consider the teaching of Psalm 107, Luke 17:11-19 and 2 Timothy 3:2 in this regard. So, what are we to make of the fact that there are actually very few instances in Scripture that reference the thankfulness of Jesus? And, what can we then learn from the Scriptural record of the instances of His thankfulness? In his sermon “The First and Last Supper,” Sinclair Ferguson points out that Jesus’ emotional life was not always evident to us because He did not “let His emotions all hang out.” He explained:
“If you read through the Gospels you will learn a great deal from the Gospel testimony to the character and attractiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Occasionally, you will see His inner emotional life coming to expression. Occasionally, in a deep sense of truly righteous anger. On occasion, in the tears that flow from His eyes. And very rarely in the way our modest Lord Jesus Christ did not let His emotions all hang out.”
While there is a reservedness on the part of Jesus in revealing all of His emotions, the Gospel writers have recorded several instances in which Jesus verbalized thanksgiving to His Father. They can be found in Matt. 11:25; 15:36; 26:27; Mark 8:8; 14:23; Luke 10:21; 22:17, 19; John 6:11, 23; 11:41 and I Corinthians 11:24. What is remarkable about these instances of thanksgiving is that they can all be placed into one of three categories; and, each of these three categories are bound up in or related to the work of redemption. In short, Jesus’ thankfulness teaches us to pour out our own hearts in thanksgiving to God–above all, for the redemption that He has freely given to us in the Son. Jesus’ prayers of thanksgiving fall into one of the following three categories:
1) Thankfulness for the miracles that served the purposes of redemption. The Apostle John leaves us the record of Jesus offering thanks to God prior to performing two of His most noteworthy miracle–the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:11), and the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:41-42).
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