By Jason and Crystal Allemand
Hi, guys, we are Jason and Crystal Allemand and are coming to you from downtown Grants Pass. It’s day 14 of the 21 Day of Prayer and Fasting. The topic that we’re doing is community, fellowship, and comfort.
I did a quick search on what fellowship meant. In the Bible, fellowship is a way of life that involves sharing a common life with God and other believers. In the Greek word for fellowship, koinonia means holding something in common. That’s used in the New Testament to describe the unity that comes from shared beliefs and behaviors.
I think of the word community as common-unity. And when we gather together for fellowship and to spend time together, it’s the things that unify us and our common ground that really, shape us and bind us together. And so there’s a portion of that that we can be bound together only by our interests or, by things we struggle with or even by our successes.
But really, at the end of the day, that’s a false community because it only lasts as long as those things are still our interest and focus, where there’s a genuine community and union that comes from just our essence being our made in the image of God’s selves, that edifies and builds us up in one another.
And so today, Father, we want to pray and just fix our eyes upon what your heart is for unity and community. And we want to pray that into our city and into our homes and into our spheres of influence and into the places we go, because those seasons change, as we change.
And I just wanted to read a scripture, Psalm 133:1, “just how good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity. It’s like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the color of the robes.”
And really what that just speaks to is when we’re dwelling in unity and caring concern for one another, for God’s heart being released to one another.
There’s something that cleanses us in a new way. It builds us up and helps draw the best of us out. We provoke each other to loving good works. We sharpen and strengthen each other. And so that’s what we want to pray about. We’re going to pray with you, and then we encourage you to stop the day as you’re going, that you would just be mindful of this and praying into the different ways that we can come not together around our struggles, not to gather around even our abilities. But to gather around who we are in our essence so that it transcends into every season.
So, Lord, we just come before you rght now, Father. And we pray that today, Lord, that unity would be there for us to think about. Lord, that, as your word says, we just meditate on it day and night. Lord. So we pray that into, our walk today in our thought patterns today. Lord, make unity and fellowship correct fellowship. Just be at the forefront for we thank you for what you’re doing and the unity that you’re bringing in the body here in Grants Pass, in the unity that is coming from true community. Lord, we thank you for that, Father. So we just lift our day up to you, and, Lord, we give you permission today to invade our thoughts.
And, God, we’re just so glad that you are good and that you withhold no good things from your people. And so we just pray, Father God, that the good things be edified, that where our vision can be so microscopic, or to just the problematic things of life, or even just that things are good and we just pray over our county, Josephine County, and we pray over this city and over this region that he would just reinvigorate vision for us, reinvigorate passion. We just thank you for the bond in the spirit of community.
We cast off the division from this place and Lord, we all have a desire to see our community strengthened and vibrant and victorious. And we know that is your heart as well. So we just pray that the greater that you who’s in us and he who is in the world would rule and reign over this region. Lord, give just fresh ideas.
We pray that the home would be a place of refuge, and it would also be a place of community where we would just, once again draw people into our homes. There’s something about leaving our peace in each other’s spaces. Lord, that you love. And so we just thank you for the areas in the community that are available for us to gather in.
We pray that those would also just be, expounded in this season, Lord, that you would bring innovative places and ideas that are based around a common unity of the essence of who we are. That we aren’t just problem solvers, but are victors walking in victory. But also, Lord, that our schedules and our lives would not be so packed that as a community, we don’t have time and space for each other.
And we just thank you for that dinner table being open once again. For that, the platform of just, Bible study and book study and just people really learning and believing, being in the home, not just in the community spaces and resurrected. And we thank you, Lord, that your heart is for this place. And we thank you for all you desire for release in this community in this season.
We said yes in a manner we agree with it. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
And we want to say good job for sticking with it two thirds of the way. 14 of 21 we’re almost to the end. God bless you. Love you guys.
