“The time of the Lord’s favor has come.” Luke 4.19
Greetings,
This past weekend, many of us will have gathered with our families and in our various church communities to celebrate the forgiveness of sin. Our forgiveness was completed through the resurrection of our Lord and Savior as he conquered the grave. I found myself reflecting back to the time when Jesus was starting his ministry, specifically, when Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath.
After Jesus had been tempted by the devil in the desert he returned to Jerusalem, as Luke 4:14 puts it, “in the power of the spirit.” Then on the Sabbath he stood up and read an excerpt from Isaiah 61.
When God first spoke to me about starting the LIA there were several key passages that He revealed would be the bedrock of this ministry. In fact, when we first started construction on our new Training Center in Karen, Nairobi we printed out the those verses, laminated them, then climbed deep into the holes dug for the foundation, and laid them there—covering them with the first shovel of cement.
One of those passages was Isaiah 61, the same passage that Jesus read on that Sabbath as recorded in Luke 4.18–19:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” (NRSV)
Then he goes on to say in verse 21 “…this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. Then as the crowed in the synagogue grabbed him to throw him off the cliff he was able to over come. On another day, another crowd would lead him to the cross and, again, he would over come in order to fulfill the prophecies laid out in the scriptures.
Already in this year God has brought to fruition many things he had prophesied years ago. One such promise is the training center that we opened on February 7th. Yet we know there are greater things for us to accomplish, and greater things that God would have us do. However it will not be easy. It will require sacrifice. It will require many nights of prayer as we feel that we are being pushed to the cliff’s edge. So I would make this humble request: As you take time to pray for LIA today, would you stand in the gap for our present, and for our future. Would you stand in the gap for the things God wants to fulfill through us, and that the schemes of the devil would be diminished. For the time of the Lord’s favor has come!
Also as you may be aware, there was a terrorist attacked on Thursday last week at Garissa University College in northern Kenya near the Somali boarder. Fortunately no one in our LIA family was affected. However for the many other families that lost loved ones I would ask that we pray for them as we ask God to bring peace and restoration to that region.
Thank you for faithfully partnering with us in prayer.
In Christ,
Florence
