Prayer Meeting (April 23, 2025)

We have no strength of our own, but we can rest in God’s strength!

Isaiah 40:10–31 (CSB)

10. See, the Lord God comes with strength,
    and his power establishes his rule.
    His wages are with him,
    and his reward accompanies him.
11. He protects his flock like a shepherd;
    he gathers the lambs in his arms
    and carries them close to his heart.
    He gently leads those that are nursing.
     
12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
    or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand?
    Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure
    or weighed the mountains on a balance
    and the hills on the scales?
13. Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
    or who gave him counsel?
14. Who did he consult?
    Who gave him understanding
    and taught him the paths of justice?
    Who taught him knowledge
    and showed him the way of understanding?
15. Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
    they are considered as a speck of dust on the scales;
    he lifts up the islands like fine dust.
16. Lebanon’s cedars are not enough for fuel,
    or its animals enough for a burnt offering.
17. All the nations are as nothing before him;
    they are considered by him
    as empty nothingness.
     
21. Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
    Has it not been declared to you
    from the beginning?
    Have you not considered
    the foundations of the earth?
22. God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
    its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
    He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23. He reduces princes to nothing
    and makes judges of the earth like a wasteland.
24. They are barely planted, barely sown,
    their stem hardly takes root in the ground
    when he blows on them and they wither,
    and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.
     
25. “To whom will you compare me,
    or who is my equal? ” asks the Holy One.
26. Look up and see!
    Who created these?
    He brings out the stars by number;
    he calls all of them by name.
    Because of his great power and strength,
    not one of them is missing.
     
27. Jacob, why do you say,
    and Israel, why do you assert,
    “My way is hidden from the Lord,
    and my claim is ignored by my God”?
     
28. Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
    The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the whole earth.
    He never becomes faint or weary;
    there is no limit to his understanding.
29. He gives strength to the faint
    and strengthens the powerless.
30. Youths may become faint and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall,
31. but those who rest on and trust in the Lord
    will renew their strength;
    they will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not become weary,
    they will walk and not faint.

2 Corinthians 4

6. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

2 Corinthians 12

9. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Phil 4

12. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
13. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Ephesians 3:16–19

¹⁶(I pray) that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you:

1. to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
2. ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—
   • that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
   • ¹⁸may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
   • what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
   • ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
3. so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,
  according to the power at work within us,
    to him be the glory!…

2 Thess 2

16. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope,
17. encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good thing you do or say.

Colossians 1 (CSB)

9. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10. so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,
11. being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father…
29. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Ephesians 6

10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.