Meditating on Psalm 63

Once a month, all the ministries and meetings during the week are canceled in order to focus our attention on prayer and fellowship with God. God willing, this will take place this week. We once again encourage all of you to be present at such gatherings, since this is becoming not only the foundation of your spiritual life, but also something vitally important for the whole church. It is in prayer that we grow both in unity and in zeal for the work of the Gospel.

We have observed that even an allotted hour and a half is often not enough to fully immerse ourselves in the text of Holy Scripture and then to pray according to that text. Therefore, in order to help us all be better prepared and to gain the greatest benefit from the prayer meetings this week, we suggest several steps that will help you participate with greater earnestness, with a prepared heart, and with thoughtful prayers.

1. Pray for the prayer meeting. We are convinced that any gathering depends on God’s work. Let us pray that our hearts would be zealous for fellowship, prayer, the Word, and God Himself.

2. Reread Psalm 63; meditate on it, reflect on it, and even memorize what is said in this passage of Scripture.

3. Ask several practical yet important questions of the text, and this will help you participate more meaningfully in the prayer meeting. Here are a few questions:

• What do we do in desperate situations?
• How does David use the circumstances in his life to strengthen his relationship with God? (thirst – longing for God; wilderness – dryness of the soul, etc.)
• Why is it important, when we are in the House of God, to see or experience God’s power and glory? (vv. 1-2)
• What is the value of God’s faithfulness? (v. 4)
• What brings joy to the heart of a believer? (vv. 5, 7, 11)
• How can a believer praise God?

A request from elders: Dear Church, if you are sick or know of someone who is sick and cannot attend services and be in fellowship with other believers, please let us know so we can visit them.

Continue supporting the churches working among the people who have suffered from the war in Ukraine:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away."
1 Corinthians 13:1-8