Praying for Spiritual Protection for Your Children

January 2020

Do you pray for your child(ren) on a daily basis? Is it a “Lord, please protect my child today” prayer? Or something similar and routine? I know mine get like that more often than not. Praying the same thing, at  the same time for each of my children. Covering them with a blanket prayer. Even after reading Jodie Berndt’s books “Praying the Scriptures for Your Children” , “Praying the Scriptures for Your Teenager” and “Praying the Scriptures for you Adult Children”, I still fall  into that routine prayer. And yes, God hears all of our prayers and He answers all of our prayers. There is something powerful about praying God's Word over your children.Praying for our kids does make a difference. It needs to always be with determination and don’t let it become routine and be a  half hearted mentality. 

Praying for our child’s physical protection is great, but we also need to be praying for spiritual protection too. Satan’s work can be found in books, music, movies, cults and false religions. Satan will sneak into our lives when we allow other things or interests take place of God. Ephesians 6:12 says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against  the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Demons are everywhere, and they are real. They will do anything they can to turn us and our children away from God. That is why we need to be praying for our children’s spiritual protection as well.When we pray for our children’s spiritual protection, we must do it with joy, faith, and assurance. Jesus is our rock and as he said to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “ ...and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”  Pray that Jesus will be your child’s rock.

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The Bible has so many great verses to pray for spiritual protection. Below are a few examples that Jodie Berndt wrote in her book “Praying the Scriptures for Your Children” in the chapter “Praying for Spiritual Protection”.  In the blank you can insert your child’s name. 

Lead _____ not into temptation, but deliver her from the evil one. Matthew 6:13 

Help _____ to submit to you, O God, and to resist the devil. Make the devil flee from _____ as he draws near to you.    James 4: 7-8

Do not let anyone lead _____ astray. Cause him to do what is righteous rather than what is sinful. Thank you for sending your Son to destroy the devil’s work.    1John 3:7-8

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Join us on Sunday, January 19th at 6:30 pm in the Harvest Kids wing for more scripture based  prayers on praying for your child’s spiritual protection. 

Citation: 

Berndt, Jodie. (2001) Praying the Scriptures for Your Children, 120-129

The Life Application Study Bible , New International Version

Q&A Day - A Question that Came in Too Late but Absolutely Must Be Answered for All of Those Who've Wondered...

First off, let me say wow. This was such an obscure reference, and SOMEONE was really studying their Bibles closely to catch it! Kudos to this guy, legit scholar. So here it is:

Search hedgehog in ESV and NIV... Why are these animals (both books written in Hebrew I assume) interpreted as different animals? Any significance to these for the Jewish culture?

The reference is Zephaniah 2:14. In the passage, God is pronouncing judgment on Nineveh, saying this bustling city will become a ghost town as a result of His judgment. But what exactly ARE the animals in verse 14?

No one is 100% sure - there is some discrepancy over what animals the Hebrew words were referring to. Does it matter? It really doesn’t. It doesn’t change the meaning of the text at all.

The point is crystal clear: the day is coming when God will judge this city, and the destruction will be so thorough that when the dust settles, there will be nothing but wild animals living there. Whether it’s an owl or a hedgehog or ANY wild animal living in the ceiling, it’s the same message. Your big bad city is about to be abandoned.

Amen to Action Outreach

On November 29th, a group of us got together to participate in Amen to Action. Amen to Action works along side the greater Pittsburgh area food bank and meals of hope. We helped prepare over a million bags of apple cinnamon oatmeal. We worked together in an assembly line filling each bag of oatmeal with dried apples, cinnamon protein mixture, sugar, and oatmeal.

In this photo, you can see some out our Harvest representatives working hard! I’m not sure how many volunteers there were altogether, but we were all working on the same goal of helping feed people in need in our area. All the meals prepared today will stay in the Pittsburgh area. They said the million packets of food we prepared today, will be gone before Christmas. The greater Pittsburgh food bank gives out over 30 million meals a year.

https://www.amentoaction.org/

A Thank You from Team Thailand

First, forgive me for the much delayed response.  Please let my lateness be no indication of my gratitude for your support or the impact of this trip.  As I’m sure that you are experiencing with me, life is busy.

Thank you so much for your support of our trip to Thailand in September.  I am happy to report back that God is doing and will continue to do incredible things in Thailand, and specifically, through the ministry of Barnabas’ network of churches. 

During our first week, we spent day and night preaching and teaching during a pastors’ conference titled “The Five Stones of David”.  It was called this because during each of the five days we taught on a particular theme (stone) covering salvation, scripture application, prayer, stewardship, and evangelism.  Each of the four of us teachers had six to eight 1-hour lessons covering this wide and deep range of topics.  We even had a special request from the women there for two additional lessons focused on how they can serve their families and the church – Praise God!

The reason that this conference was requested by Barnabas was to provide Bible training to his network of pastors that typically receive very little formal Bible education before going into ministry.  I can testify that these 50 to 60 men and women were hungry for God’s Word and were diligently writing nearly every word we said all week long.  Additionally, this conference served as one of the first opportunities for this network to fellowship and worship together – and they definitely did that whole-heartedly!  We loved eating with and singing with them, and were greatly moved by their passion and generosity. 

I should say that there were some challenges along the way – first and foremost being the language barrier.  In all of our lessons, we taught through a translator (both of whom were excellent).  But the additional complication was that every sentence that we spoke was translated from English into Thai and then immediately translated into Lisu (a hill tribe language) back to back.  This required much precision with our words and calculated simplification.  In the end the response was fantastic, we formed strong bonds of affection and connection with these people and plan to continue to partner with them going forward. 

During our second week, which was kind of a whirl-wind, we drove for hours over the northern hills of Thailand visiting the village churches.  This was very humbling and insightful.  We saw first-hand the difficulties these churches faced as a result of the sinful world in which we live.  We prayed over many people and situations.  While seeing how sin is the same no matter where you go, also, God is the mightiest even on the other side of the planet.  Additionally, we visited one of the three children’s homes under the ministry umbrella.  Here we saw 60 boys and girls loved and cared for with the heart of God.  The children’s homes allow village kids attend schools in the city because otherwise they would receive no formal education.  At the children’s home, they are also taught the Bible, many worship songs (these kids are talented beyond description!), and Chinese to provide them the best opportunity for future employment. 

On the last day, we were just tourists, as we visited two “zoos” that definitely wouldn’t have legal backing in the States.  The Elephant park was first, where we saw elephants trained to paint, play soccer, throw darts, and give rides.  You could just walk right up to them and touch them!  The second place was Tiger Kingdom, where we were in a cage with two live white tigers, who while huge, were not yet at their max size.  I have to ask myself sometimes, “Did this all really happen?”

Thank you again for your support in all of this.  Financially, we had every need met and were able to leave a sizable gift to the ministry.  That money will go unimaginably far in that part of the world and under Barnabas’ stewardship.  He is definitely modeling Jesus’ command to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves”.  Spiritually, I testify to you that we daily felt the prayers from you and all of our friends back home.  We needed God in every way and in line with the prayers of His saints, He exceeded every need.  This short letter barely scratches the surface of what we saw in those two weeks and how I am forever changed by God calling me to this trip. 

In everything God gets the Glory; may His name be praised forever!  In Christ alone, 

Dan Thompson