Pastor Rick Hudgens | How Long Should I Keep Praying?

Sunday/Jan/2009 14:09

Today we continue in our series of messages entitled Living Life in High Definition, looking this week at the power of persistent prayer. We are told in Ephesians 6:18 to “stay alert and be persistent in your prayers.” How can we exercise the faith to really keep on praying? We examine that question today. Here is a light hearted account of one who exercised such faith as told by Paul Harvey:

We should be like the 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother. Before they entered the grocery store she said to him, "Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, so don’t even ask." She put him up in the cart and he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies and he stood up in the seat and said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any at all.” So he sat back down.

They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down and be quiet.”

Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart and shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?”

And everybody round about just laughed. Some even applauded. And, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy and his mother left with twenty three boxes of chocolate chip cookies.

Pastor Rick Hudgens | Time with God’s Word

Sunday/Jan/2009 14:09

G. K. Chesterton said, “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes ... Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a person be born again, they shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

If you had never existed before, how would you organize your life today? Born anew, what will you do differently? For my part, I believe I will organize my life in order to better know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and fellowship in His suffering, to become like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead. (see Philippians 3:10-14)

A good start would be to spend time daily in God’s word. Do you have a regular daily time set aside to read God’s word? A Common law of life is that “you become like the people you spend time with.” As Christians, our greatest desire should be to become more and more like Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 8:29). This being the case, we must make it a priority to spend quality time with God everyday in the Bible and in prayer.

As we continue in this series of messages about Living a High Definition Life, Pastor Rick will share with us today the Priority of a Time Alone with God, the Purpose of a Time Alone with God and a Plan for a Time Alone with God. E. M. Bounds has written: “God’s acquaintance is not made hurriedly. He does not bestow his gifts on the casual or hasty comer and goer. To be much alone with God is the secret of knowing Him and of influence with Him.”

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Pastor Rick Hudgens | Living Life in High Definition

Sunday/Jan/2009 14:09

On this first Sunday of 2009, we begin a new series of messages about Living Life in High Definition.

It has been said, “Man’s chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” And certainly, this is true and this should be the great desire of our hearts. But in reality, if we reflect on the past week, what were our thoughts as we faced each new day? Were they on how we might change our spouse who doesn’t treat us the way we want to be treated? Or how we might handle that situation at work? Perhaps our focus was on the car which keeps breaking down, or some item we need that would make life a little easier? Or maybe our goal is simply to keep our head above water financially. Like a thief, the world has a way of intruding into our lives to steal what should be our focus or the major objectives of life.

God doesn’t expect us to be oblivious to the problems and needs of life, but when our goals are God’s goals we are better able to look through our problems to the Lord and His supply. When our focus is on the Lord, something wonderful happens in us. It’s beginning to Live Life in High Definition-Bigger. Bolder. Brighter. God wants us to mature-to grown up spiritually. I believe that it is God’s will for every believer to become mature Christians. TO BE LIKE CHRIST-That is our goal, plain and simple. Living Life in High Definition is to your life what the equivalent of the Pentium chip is to a computer.

During the next five weeks we are going through the core teaching of spiritual maturity-Living Life in High Definition-and I want to help us establish a foundation of Spiritual Maturity here at North Raleigh Church of the Nazarene.

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