We Have Not Because We Ask Not.
Aug0
One of our great privileges as a child of God is the ability to now take our petitions right to the throne of God. Sadly, I must confess, I drop the ball in the area of my life. The Bible tells us that “you have not because we ask not,” (James 4:2) and even when we do ask, we ask for the wrong thing and the wrong way. Now certainly not all the time but many times we just don’t ask or ask the right way and we wonder why God doesn’t hear our prayers. I believe that is a good reason for corporate prayer meetings. Why? Well when we gather together to pray and you pray openly before other believers they can be that objective intercessor. What does that look like? Well, say for example you pray openly for your spouse and your prayer is solely focused on the Lord doing the work in them. I don’t want to say that this is prayer amiss because certainly the Lord does want to do a work in each of us but it does have somewhat of a self serving nature and by this I mean we are focused on changing our spouse rather than ourselves. Enter the objective prayer warrior. Someone in the crowd can be silently interceding for you, that the Lord will actually change your heart and do a neat work in you so that even though your spouse may not change, you will because someone has asked the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, even an objective prayer warrior can pray out of a self righteous attitude thinking they know what is best for you, but at least it gives the body and opportunity to cover all the bases because you have more than one person praying for all aspects of whatever the situation may be. My point is that corporate prayer is beautiful in that we come together praying together, sometimes for one another and for others and there is great strength because we are in the presence of the Lord. (Matthew 18:20) Not only that but we have the assurance that our prayers are being heard, answered, effective and able to affect our community, lives and the lives of those around us. (James 5:16) Prayer also increases our faith. As we enter into prayer our spirit bears witness with His Holy Spirit that we are His children and as we see Him answer our prayers we are encouraged to pray even more. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. (1 Thess 5:17) I have to admit, I have not arrived nor do I believe that any of us will in this life, but we should certainly strive to enter into a robust prayer life. We want to cultivate hearts devoted to prayer and that is why we placed an online prayer chain on our website. If you would like to pray for other or have others pray for you simply go here and take advantage of corporate prayer. Let’s minister to one another and watch what the Lord will do
Answered Prayer
Aug0
What an amazing God we serve. Just when you think that He has forgotten us or that He doesn’t hear us, He answers our prayer and on top of that He answers it concisely, clearly and immediately. You know that we have been asking you to pray for Syracuse, right? For those of you new to WZXV, we have been in negotiations with a WTVH in Syracuse to move to their tower in hopes to clear up our signal. We knew the Lord was the author of the whole thing. The Engineer for the station had spoken with us right about the time that our lease with our current Landlord was up. He was very helpful and offered to take us up higher in the air for a cost that was just too good to pass up. So, we prayed, we talked and then we began the build. Back in December of 2008 Patrick, Jeff and Grey set out for the day. The goal was to build the non penetrating roof frame on which our receive antenna would be mounted and to set up the equipment in the building. Once that was done we would contact the tower crew to climb, disassemble our current location and relocate us on the new tower that was only some 200 feet away. Seemed like it was going to be an easy transition, that was our first mistake. This is a battle being waged and you and I are smack dab in the middle and we are in the middle because we are the soldiers not the pawns as the world would have us believe. You see when you are talking about taking territory from the prince of the air for the Lord Jesus you are going to have to fight for it and the way we fight is on our knees. Maybe that is why prayer, often times, is neglected. I speak for myself when I say that it seems like much more gets accomplished when I am doing something not realizing that the Lord wants to do it (whatever “it” happens to be) for me. Does “not of works lest any man should boast,” ring a bell? Well as this process continued ownership of WTVH changed hands, out with all the old staff in with the new, to include the Engineer that started this whole process for us. Save for the large rack and countless cinder blocks we had left on the roof of their building no one had heard about this wonderful venture. Time for more prayer, searching the mind of Christ and learning to wait patiently on the Lord. Ever been there? I know you have and you may be there right now. Is that such a bad place to be? What did we do before the Lord? We charged, without direction and without orders and without certain victory. Our Lord tells us that “in patience we are to possess our souls.” So many times in the past we have been driven by emotions, feelings or by others. Much of our world system is driven by the “act now” mentality. Now that the Holy Spirit is in our life we are led by reason, rationale, and a mindset that is completely opposed to that of the world, the mind of Christ. His ways are not as ours and His thoughts are not as ours but He wants them to be and so we pray, we enter into fellowship with Him and if that means waiting patiently upon the Lord, then we wait. Prayer strengthens us, it gives us resolve, it purifies our thoughts as we realize that we are approaching the true and living God. I say all of this to say this, the Lord has answered all of our prayers. The new General Manager of WTVH has contacted us and he has told us that he is going to “move this move” forward. My point? Don’t doubt the Lord’s ability or His desire to hear and to answer your prayer.
What is going on here?
Jun3
Dear Family,
Please be in prayer. We seem to be under serious attack and we have to trust that Buffalo is going to bring great glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. For the last few weeks now and even months there have been several situations here at the station that warrant a close look at. Up until last week we have had a computer malfunction in the production arena that has caused total frustration and has been a hindrance in getting the next days logs done. Maybe you remember back in mid May the terrible sound of the same Salem Radio News playing over and over again? And no it was not a sinister plot to point out Speaker Pelosi’s back stroke on water boarding. We were on retreat that week, go figure the enemy would attack then. We were so grieved by all the errors as we know you were too and we apologize for that. Lately we have had another issue creep up. Our on air machine has of late decided that it would like to reboot at a moments notice, unfortunately, it does not tell us when it will do it. Sometimes it happens in the middle of Pastor Chuck or Pastor Skip or even in the middle of praise. No matter when it happens, one thing is true, it is annoying to us and to you. Please, bathe WZXV in prayer and know that we are doing our all to ensure the Word of God continues to go out. Thank you so much for your patience.
What is going on in Buffaloooooo???
Jun0
Well we are certainly thankful to all of you for your prayers and financial support. What a blessing to have you standing in the ranks with us in battle. Things in Buffalo? They are moving full steam ahead, Praise Jesus. The team has taken all the necessary measurements and now we wait for the Engineers to submit their findings to the Telecommunications Zoning Board so that they can submit a Construction Permit to us. Once we have that green light, we can set up a date to go and set up the equipment. This has been a long arduous battle but we trust that the Lord has great things in store for the body of believers as well as the unsaved. Did you know, that Buffalo is the second most Churched city in the nation? It is! Anyway, the battle wages on so please continue to pray. As I am sure you know, from your own experience, when the blessings of the Lord begin the battle seems tougher, things have certainly been tough around here. Jesus never promised that life would be easy but He did encourage us to be of good cheer because of His great victory. Thank you for listening to WZXV and stay tuned to “The WORD.”