ENTERING 2021 FIERCELY IN LOVE AND PRAYER
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with ALL your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Last month we became grandparents for the first time to a precious baby girl, Nora. We experienced the joy of meeting and helping care for her. We also witnessed the love in both our daughter and son-in-law’s eyes for their new daughter. A fierce love; fierce in its powerful display of strong, heartfelt intensity!
Fierce! A word often used in a negative connotation as aggressive and violent. It’s a word found in the Bible in 20 books, in 22 chapters, and in 41 verses. Many times it’s used to describe God’s fierce anger with his people. Yet it can also be expressed positively in boldness; in unapologetic actions; and in powerful, positive feelings.
We see God’s fierce love through the many miracles He performed for His people throughout the Bible. He led Moses and the Israelites through the Passover, the exile from Egypt, even the parting of the Red Sea, bringing them victoriously through impossible hardships and battles. Jesus himself lovingly healed many and performed mighty miracles, even in His own death and resurrection!
As I’ve witnessed the fierce love parents have for their newborn infants, how much more fiercely does our Heavenly Father love us as His children? Love fierce enough as Sovereign God to break through time and space, entering into humanity Himself as a helpless, vulnerable baby to reconcile us back to Him! Love fierce enough that “while we were sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Yet as perfect, Almighty God, He also has a fierce wrath and righteous judgment! Praise God He doesn’t leave us there. His fierceness in wrath is overcome by His fierceness in love. A love to reconcile and redeem us back to Him for eternity; the Good News of salvation. This is the message the Palau team is proclaiming with intensity and urgency! We have witnessed this fierceness, tenacity, and urgency of the Gospel from Luis, Andrew, Kevin, and the entire Palau team as they share God’s message globally. Can we join them in this fierceness? Let’s enter 2021 with a fresh boldness as Christ-followers and with a passionate, urgency in prayer.
We have an opportunity to come together in love and prayer on January 26th at 1 p.m. Pacific time! Please join me and our prayer team! Let’s get fierce together in prayer for Jesus, the Gospel, and the work of the Palau ministry as we begin a new year!
In the Fierce Power of Love in Jesus’ Name,
Gail Stockamp
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:37-39).
PRAYER REPORT
Please enjoy opening the update below and keeping all the regions in your prayers: