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This week, we’ll be practicing the act of compassion. Dallas Bible Church partners with Compassion International to mobilize our body in helping to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. This mobilization involves encouraging individual monthly sponsorships and organizing annual mission trips to minister to the kids we sponsor.

In April 2021, DBC began to partner with Compassion as we took on sponsorships for 100+ kids! Today, we want to call you to pray specifically for the country and people of Guatemala.

Let’s spend a few minutes getting to know Guatemala here, here, and here. 

Now, let’s go to the Lord in prayer for these things:

1. The children of Guatemala, for their protection from drug and sex trafficking, gangs, and child labor.
2. The tribes of Guatemala who have yet to hear about Jesus or have a Bible in their own language.
3. The leadership of Guatemala, as they rebuild from 36 years of civil war.
4. The people of Guatemala, that Jesus will make himself known in powerful ways.
5. For violence to cease.
6. For hope to reign in areas of great suffering.
7. For the church to grow and prosper there.

This week, we’ll be practicing the act of compassion. Dallas Bible Church partners with Compassion International to mobilize our body in helping to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. This mobilization involves encouraging individual monthly sponsorships and organizing annual mission trips to minister to the kids we sponsor.

In April 2021, DBC began to partner with Compassion as we took on sponsorships for 100+ kids! Today, let’s consider the heart of God for the world as we do some Bible study.

Let’s read from Genesis 12:1-8:

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord

At age 75, Abram appears for the first time in the biblical text of Genesis 12. What we know about him is quite little. Commentators have compiled descriptions of him that include the words “wealthy,” “nomadic,” “pagan,” and “polytheistic.” Whether or not the God of Israel (Yahweh) had spoken to him before is not made clear in the text. Regardless, we see Abram take radical steps of obedience to this God who speaks.

Underline or circle the promises that God makes to Abram. What stands out to you about these promises? Who is going to receive blessing?

Now let’s read from Revelation 7:9:

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb…”

What parallels do you see between Genesis 12 and Revelation 7? 

We serve a God who loves the entire world. He creatively and passionately pursues all ethnicities to bless them through His Son Jesus.

Spend a few minutes in prayer. Thank God for His commitment to bless the world. Ask Him to give you a love for the nations as He has. Recite Revelation 7:9 out loud. Anticipate the coming day when you’re with Jesus, praising Him from among the great multitude. Let that fuel your vision of the world today.

This week, we’ll be practicing the act of compassion. Dallas Bible Church partners with Compassion International to mobilize our body in helping to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. This mobilization involves encouraging individual monthly sponsorships and organizing annual mission trips to minister to the kids we sponsor.

In April 2021, DBC began to partner with Compassion as we took on sponsorships for 100+ kids! Today, let’s pray for those 100+ kids and families.

Set aside 10 minutes and join us in these prayers:

• Holy God, thank you for the lives of these precious children. They are made in your image and have your likeness within them. They are a gift to this world. Let us honor them in the way we speak and think about them.
• Father, we pray for the very real needs of these kids and their families - spiritual, emotional, physical needs. Meet them in generous and abundant ways.
• Lord, make your Son Jesus beautiful to these kids. May they come to trust in Jesus soon, at a young age, and love Him and serve Him their entire lives.
• God, what is it that you want to teach us as we give monetarily to these kids and families? Make this not about us or our fame; make it about your fame. Transform us as we serve you faithfully. Remind us that you want, more than anything, for us to be like your Son Jesus. 
• Father, would you fill us with compassion? Not just for the kids we sponsor, but for the world? Would you make us like Jesus, who wept over human sorrow because of His deep empathy? Give us the heart of the Father toward those in need.

This week, we’re in Practice #3: Grow in Prayer. If you can, give yourself 15 minutes to just be with God. Set a timer and put everything else away except for you, your Bible, and the device you’re reading this on.

As we did on the previous two days, let’s continue researching the six Greek verbs used in the New Testament to describe prayer. Start by visiting this webpage and reading the fifth entry for “Prayer (1162) (deesis).” Write down what you learn.

The words you likely listed carry with them

1. A profound awareness of the person’s lack of resources
2. A realization that only God can supply what is needed

Evaluate your own prayer life. Do you feel needy? If not, why not? 

One of the self-deceptions that can overtake those of us living in wealth is that we forget that we’re actually in need. We begin to believe the lie that we can take care of ourselves and that God is just an extra, an add-on to our life. 

Prayer reorients us to reality. We are in desperate need. The things we have (food, clothing, jobs, families, security, money) have all been supplied by God and could be taken away at any moment. His provisions are designed to make us grateful to Him, not self-sufficient. But self-sufficiency is an alluring idol.

Spend some time in prayer. Talk to God. Tell Him how much you need Him! List out the ways. Praise Him for how He sustains you - get specific. 

Confess the sin of self-sufficiency. Recite 2 Corinthians 12:7a-10 out loud:

“Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant. I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

Linger in God’s presence as you ask Him to be all that you need and all you desire.

This week, we’re in Practice #3: Grow in Prayer. If you can, give yourself 15 minutes to just be with God. Set a timer and put everything else away except for you, your Bible, and the device you’re reading this on.

As we did yesterday, let’s continue researching the six Greek verbs used in the New Testament to describe prayer. Start by visiting this webpage and reading the third and fourth entries which include the words “Pray (4336) (proseuchomai)” and “Pray (2172) (euchomai).” Write down what you learn.

The words you likely listed carry with them

1. a sense of direction (moving toward God, not away from him or toward anyone else)
2. An emphasis on expressing a thought (whether verbally expressed or silently expressed)

Evaluate your own prayer life. Does it involve directionality toward God? In other words, when in need, is God the FIRST one you run toward, knowing that prayer with Him is the only solution? Why or why not?

Does your prayer life involve you expressing the real you? Many of us like to censor ourselves before God and present to Him a less-than-complete version of ourselves. Consider how you express your prayers before God.

Laura Murray, in her book “Pray As You Are,” says that “God invites us every day, wherever we are–to pray as we are. The God who created us longs to communicate with us in the everyday, real-deal issues of life. He initiates the conversation repeatedly. The demand of communication is that of a two-way street; a sender and a receiver are required. He starts, we respond, and this ebb and flow of words, language, passion, silences, pauses, movement, and waiting lead to these rich conversations–prayers that come from places we never knew and lead to the untouched depths of our hearts” (pgs. 1-2).

Let’s read from Psalm 139:13-16 from the NET:

13  Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb.

14  I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly;

15  my bones were not hidden from you, when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth.

16  Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.

Spend some time thinking about the amazing nature of God’s knowledge of you. He knows you, created you, and loves you. Imagine God to be sitting next to you as a trusted friend or therapist. 

Now pray - express whatever is within you. Speak up with the good, the bad, the questions, the doubts, the confidences, the praise. Just be you - that’s who God wants to connect with today.