نتأمل في اخر آيات الكتاب المقدس بمناسبة اننا في نهاية السنة وتبقى أيام قليلة وتنتهي السنة الميلادية ونستقبل العام الجديد كل سنة وحضرتكم طيبين.
” آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”هذه الكلمات هي ختام الكتاب المقدس وهي الكلمات التي تعدنا للسماء وهذه الكلمات يمثلوا شهوة قلب الإنسان نحو مجيء الله ، آمين بمعنى “استجب يا رب”، وشهوة الإنسان نحو المجيء الثاني نعبر عنها بطقوس كثيرة في كنيستنا ولكن من أهم الصلوات التي نصليها وبها هذا التعبير مرد الشماس “أيها الجلوس قفوا وإلى الشرق انظروا” ودائما الوقوف هو استعداد “وإلى الشرق انظروا” هذا هو الاستعداد الداخلي وانتظار مجيء ربنا يسوع المسيح ودائما نصلي ونقول “عيوننا عليك يا رب منتظرينك”، ويجب أن تراجع نفسك في كل يوم حتي لا تختفي هذه الشهوة أو تفتر انتبه…، فهذه الشهوة وهذا الاشتياق الذي يزيد كل يوم، وهذا النداء لا يقوله إلا الأبرار المستعدين وهناك خمسة محطات نتكلم فيها بهذا التعبير “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”

المحطة الأولى: الاستغاثة في وقت الصلاة:
فالصلاة موقف حياتي نقف فيه أمام الله ونستغيث به، في العالم هناك SOS أشارة الاستغاثة وهذه أشارة عالمية واستغاثتنا هي “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”وهي تعني الصلاة الحارة التي ننادي بها الله وهذا رد على قول السيد المسيح في نفس الأصحاح ” ها أنا واقف على الباب واقرع أن سمع احد وفتح لي ادخل واتعشى معه” يا بختك لو أنت في صلاتك الحارة تكون العبارة التي ينطق بها قلبك “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” وتشبة تسبحة السيدة العذراء “تعظم نفسي الرب وتبتهج روحي بالله مخلصي” رغم أنه لم يكن هناك الصليب بعد وفرح الخلاص لم يأتي بعد ولكن أمنا العذراء تعطينا هذا الأشتياق الحار في تسبحتها وصلواتها وهذه الصلوات صدى لصلوات حنة أم صموئيل في العهد القديم “استغاثة الصلاة” في الصلاة استغيث ودائما أجعل في كل صلواتك هذه العبارة “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”في كل مرة تقرأ الكتاب المقدس قول :أريد أن أراك وأشعر بيك، في الصلاة والكتاب هي استغاثة وطلب.

المحطة الثانية: الاستغاثة في التوبة.
محطة التوبة، الإنسان الذي يريد أن يتوب يريد أن تكون حياته نقية وأحيانًا لا نستطيع بأمكانيتنا البشرية ونحتاج لمن يمد لنا يده فتكون استغاثتنا “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” مثل الغريق الذي يستغيث، ويعلمنا سفر إرميا “توبني يا رب فأتوب” أنا بمفردي لا أستطيع لأن ارادتي ضعيفة والكنيسة تجعلنا نصوم لتقوية الأرادة لنرفض الخطية، فأجعل في كل مرة تعترف وتسمع أرشاد الأب الكاهن ودائما في نهاية السنة نفحص ذاتنا ، ابدأ عامك الجديد وقول”آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”.

المحطة الثالثة: الاستغاثة في الضيقات.
هناك مثل يقول” الصديق عند الضيق” ولكن صديق السيد المسيح هو أوفى صديق خاصة في وقت الضيق في مزمور ٥٠ “ادعوني وقت الضيق انقذك فتمجدني” وعلمونا أن هذا هو تليفون السماء ٥٠١٥، أحيانا نفكر كيف نخرج من هذه الضيقة ولا نعرف مثل دانيال عندما ألقوه في جب الأسود وفي اليوم الثاني جاء الملك فقال له دانيال : إلهي أرسل ملاكة وسد أفواه الأسود” وكان لسان حاله ينبض ويقول “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” لن أخرج من هذه الضيقة إلا بك أنت وبالمثل كان يونان في بطن الحوت ويونان كان يصلي في بطن الحوت “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” في كل مرة تواجه ضيقة على المستوى الفردي أو الجماعي أطلب دائمًا حضور الله وأطلبها بثقة والله يأتي ويفك الضيقة وينجيك منها.

المحطة الرابعة : الاستغاثة في المشاكل.
أجعل دائمًا نقطة الأنطلاق لحل المشكلة هي من عند الله وليست من عندك، أجعل القاعدة التي تنطلق منها هي كلمة الله “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” تعالى أكشف أبعاد المشكلة وساعدني لأخرج منها مثل هامان ومردخاي في قصة أستير وعندما قرر هامان ابادة اليهود وقتل مردخاي ينقلب الأمر في ليلة ويكرم الملك مردخاي هذا هو عمل الله، “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” أن كنت أمين تعيش بالأمانة في حياتك يحل الله لك المشكلة وتخرج منها بحل لم يخطر على بالك مثل الفتية الثلاثة في أتون النار ويظهر رابع شبيه بابن الألهه ويتم انقاذهم ويصير الأتون ندى بارد وفي كل المشاكل أطلب حضور الله لتحل المشاكل أطلب بلجاجة “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” وأختبر هذا الأختبار وليكون “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” أختبار للعام الجديد في كل صلاة في كل مشكلة في كل أمر تواجهه.

المحطة الخامسة الاستغاثة في الخدمة.
الخدمة عمل الكنيسة كلنا خدام لكن هذه الخدمة “إن لم يبني الرب البيت فباطل تعب البناؤون” أين عمل المسيح، تذكر أن لم يبن الرب الخدمة …. فماذا يفعل الخدام،مثل شاول الطرسوسي وكيف كان اسمه مرعب ولكن عندما ظهر له السيد المسيح في الطريق قال له شاول ” ماذا تريد يا رب أن أفعل” ويأتي يوم ويفتخر أنه سفير للمسيح في سلاسل ما هذا التحول !!! لأنه نطق بالعبارة التي تقول “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” وفي حوار السيد المسيح مع المرأة السامرية وفي النهاية تقول له أنت المسيا وبالتدريج وصل نموها الفكري والإيماني إلي “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع”. 

هذه محطات خمسة اضعها أمامكم في الصلاة والكتاب المقدس وفي التوبة والضيقات والمشاكل والخدمة وأطلب منكم أنها تكون تدريب العام الجديد وفي السنة الجديد أوعد ربنا وقول له” يا رب أنا أريد أن أبدأ معك سنة جديدة وكل يوم ادعوك وأطلبك وأريد أن تحضر معي في بيتي وعملي وخدمتي وكنيستي وحياتي الخاصة في كل ما أواجهه كل يوم “آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع” وأنت تحضر القداس وتسمع نداء الشماس ” أيها الجلوس قفوا وإلى الشرق انظروا”تذكر وضع الاستعداد والاشتياق لمجيء الرب المسيح، ربنا يحفظنا جميعًا ويعطينا أن نبدأ العام الجديد ونحن نشعر بحضورة معنا، لإلهنا كل مجد وكرامة من الأن وإلى الأبد آمين.

آمين تعال أيها الرب يسوع… عظة الأربعاء لقداسة البابا تواضروس الثاني على الساوند كلاود
https://soundcloud.com/media-center-157147919/whzq4gjy8ufr

“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
H.H. Pope Tawadros II – Weekly Wednesday Sermon
Wednesday December 18, 2019

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God. Amen. May His grace and mercy rest upon us from now and forevermore. Amen.

Sermon summary – 5 main points of the sermon – On when to cry out the SOS prayer to God: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
1-When praying and reading the Bible
2-When repenting
3-During times of trouble
4-When going through problems
5-When doing your Church-service or acts of service in general

The Day of the Holy Bible & the Bible Society
Today we celebrate the Day of the Holy Bible, which is a very important celebration, and of course the Holy Bible is not to be celebrated or limited to just one day but it is for every day.
And I would like to thank everyone who works so hard at Dar ElKetab Bible Society (http://www.darelketab.org/shopping/en/), they truly do a very great service to make the Word of God available to everyone and in a variety of appropriate and accessible ways. And it is a very important thing for us that when we give gifts to one another that they be good gifts, and so let our gift-giving during any occasion or celebration be gifts from the many resources offered by Dar Elketab.
A few of the Pope’s favorite Bible Society publications
I wanted to share just a couple of their publications that especially came to my attention:
1- A Children’s Holy Bible with beautifully colored illustrations, but most importantly, it is written in conversational Arabic, which makes it very easy to understand and so it encourages the child to read, understand, and study the Scriptures even more.
2- One of the publications especially formatted for our young people is a Holy Bible with beautifully illustrated pictures, and the book itself is a good size – light to carry and very attractive to look at, and so it is a great tool to help a person understand the Holy Bible even more, especially that it is written in a very clear font and separated into very clear sections, with section headings, and this helps a person when they are reading and studying.
3- Another very nice, new publication is the entire Holy Bible in large font, and they have also published a version of just the New Testament in large font. And of course reading in large font can be very helpful to people who are older or for those who wear glasses or for people who simply like to read more comfortably and not have to squint.
Again, this large print Holy Bible is available in the full Holy Bible version as well as in just the New Testament, but it also contains explanations of some difficult to understand terms as well as maps. And I have seen some very nice ones with zippers and beautiful leather-binding, making them appropriate for gift-giving, for preserving them from wear and tear, and for having them as a family-Bible in any new home.
There are many other very nice things that Dar Elketab offers but these are just a few that I wanted to share with you, and of course they are offered at a discount, no? Of course there is a discount, especially since it is the Day of the Holy Bible!
And so personally and on behalf of the entire Church I would like to thank all of you for all your effort and service and support, and not just in the publications you offer but also for your support with the conferences and gatherings held that are centered around the Holy Bible.
And how beautiful it is that a family gather together around the Word of God every day, there is nothing more beautiful than that, than a family getting together and opening the Holy Bible together. And it is not only important to have a Bible in the home but that it be an open Bible, meaning that it is a Book that is read and used, that we learn from it and live by it, and in this way we bless the home we live in and we bless the air that we breathe within that home.

Our Contemplation tonight: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20)

And on the occasion of this topic of the Holy Bible I would like to do a short contemplation with you on one of the very last verses of the Holy Bible, especially since we are nearing the end of the Gregorian year and we will be receiving the New Year in just a few short days – may you all be blessed and happy New Year.

Let us go to the 22nd Chapter of the Book of Revelation, which is the very last chapter of the Holy Bible, and I will focus on the next-to-last verse of that Chapter, and so it is one of the very last verses of the Bible.
Starting from verse 16 it says:
16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book;
19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” These are the concluding words of the Holy Bible and they are the words which prepare us for heaven, and these few words characterize the desire for God that is in the human heart. ‘Amen’ means, “Respond, respond O Lord. Come Lord, I want You.”
And a person’s desire for the Second Coming is expressed in many of our Church’s rituals, but one of the most important prayers that we pray that contains this desire is when the deacon calls out to the congregation at the beginning of the Liturgy saying, “You who are seated, stand, and look toward the east.”
Standing is always symbolic of readiness – a state of outer readiness, and “look toward the east” – this is the inner readiness. And so with my physical body I stand but what is even more important is the inner readiness, that my heart be ready, which is symbolized in the words “and look toward the east,” meaning, “Look and wait for the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and this is why when we pray we say, “Our eyes are upon You, O Lord” – we are waiting for You.
And you must examine yourself daily lest this desire disappear or that you become lukewarm or that you get swept away by the issues of daily life; that your outer life “steals away” your real life, steals away your time. And so beware, for this desire and longing should be increasing within you day after day. With every new day that the Lord gives you, this desire within you should increase, and that you desire Him more and more all the time; every morning and every night.
And I am sure that it must be clear to you that this call can only be made by those who are righteous and ready, because a person who is not ready or is not paying attention will of course not be able to say, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” A person who is not ready will not be able to make such a statement but on the contrary, he is trying to not even think about and to forget such matters altogether. At any rate, I would like to place five points before you that express what we mean when we say, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
5 areas when “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” can be a cry to God for help
1-When praying and when studying the Bible
This statement is a cry for help during our times of prayer because prayer is the time when we stand before God and entreat Him for help. In the world there is something called “SOS” (save our souls), which is a signal sent out when one is in distress. This signal is used on ships at sea, in cities, and in traffic – SOS is a universal signal and it means “save our souls,” or “save us.”
Similarly, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” is also a distress signal that we send out to God and embodies the fervent prayer by which we cry out to God. This is the response to what the Lord Jesus said earlier in this Book of Revelation when He said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20). And I want you to pay attention to the word “hears” here – if you hear. How blessed are you if the words and cry of your heart while you pray are, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
Do you know what this reminds me of? Especially as we are now in the month of Kiahk, it reminds me of how our mother the Virgin began her praise by saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (Lk 1:46), and so even though the cross and salvation and the joy of salvation had not yet come, yet our mother the Virgin here gives us an example of this fervent desire in her praises and prayers.
And of course the prayers and praises of our Mother the Virgin echo the prayers of Hannah the mother of Samuel from the Old Testament (1 Sam 1:10) – prayers of crying out to God for help. And so during prayer we are to also always cry out to God in anguish and let this statement be in all your prayers: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Likewise, every time you read the Holy Bible say, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” – I want to see You, I want to feel Your Presence, manifest Yourself in my life Lord.
I am reminded of an old story that many of you may know. During the days of World War II a Korean man was arrested and placed in prison for two years, and this happened very shortly after he had come to know Christ, so what was he to do while in prison? So he had a very beautiful idea, to write the Gospel of John on a single page, in very small handwriting, but to emphasize only a few of the letters on that page – to make them bold. And what emerged before him was the image of Christ in the letters that he had emboldened from the Gospel of John.
And so you also do likewise: As you read your Bible repeat within yourself and let your heart pulsate and say, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” And so during both your times of prayer and when you are reading your Bible, these words will be as a distress signal, a request and a longing for God.
2-When repenting
The second time we cry out this “distress signal” to God is during times of repentance. A person who desires to repent, if their desire to repent is really true, will want their life to be pure. And when a person repents of a sin they stand before the Lord and say, “Lord, I can’t! I just can’t leave this relationship … I just can’t stop this habit … I just can’t stop having this thought … I’m just not able to!”
And I suppose many of you have had the experience of going to your father of confession and his saying to you, “My son, this is a sin, stay away from it,” but then you return to Abouna again and say what? “Abouna, I just can’t! I’m not able to stay away from it.” And a person who says that they can’t stop a sin is expressing the limitations of his own human capabilities and that is why he needs a helping hand, and so it is that this help can be found in the words: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
Do you know how when a man is drowning he throws his hands up and screams, “Help! Help me!”? This man only wants one thing: For a person to give him a hand and get him out of the water, and this is why in the Book of Lamentations the prophet Jeremiah teaches us, “Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored [we will repent, be saved]” (Lam 5:21). Help me Lord. Alone, I cannot do it. I have weaknesses and limitations and sins, I have many negative emotions and I have a weak will.
And this may be one of the reasons why our Church has us fasting so many fasts, for the noble reason of strengthening our will, that we may have a will that is able to say “No” in the face of any sin. And so yes, we have many fasts, but the purpose of these collective fasts is for a person to strengthen their will so that they will be able to refuse sin.
And so make it that every time you are going to confess, when you are listening to the guidance of your father of confession, when you have intended to repent – especially as we now stand at the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, a time when each one of us is taking time to self-reflect and examine him or herself, searching themselves out and thinking about how to best begin the new year – begin your new year by saying, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” And so this is the second area in which you can cry out in anguish, when you are repenting.
3-During times of trouble
The third time we can cry out this prayer is when we are going through troubles or hardships. There is a proverb that says, “A friend in need is a friend indeed” – true friends are revealed during times of trouble, but your most loyal friend is Christ, especially during times of trouble.
In the Book of Psalms it says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Ps 50:15). “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” A long time ago they used to call this verse “heaven’s telephone number” – 50:15, of course this was before the age of mobiles and the much longer telephone numbers we have today!
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Sometimes we may sit and wonder how we will ever get through a troublesome situation, and we imagine it working out this way and that way, turning it this way and that way in our minds, but we can’t figure it out. Do you know what this is like? It is like the day when they threw Daniel into the lions’ den. Every stretch of the human imagination would say that in a matter of a few minutes this man would be a past tense, but on the next day, when the king came to check up on him because he felt sorry for Daniel, Daniel said to him, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths” (Dan 6:22).
What had Daniel been doing? I suppose that his tongue and his heart were pulsating with the words, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! I’m not going to be able to get out of this situation except by Your help. The only One that can get me out of this situation is You, Lord.”
Similarly, when Jonah was in the whale’s belly (after he had ran away from the Lord and was thrown into the water by the sailors on the boat) – a very difficult situation to be in, to find yourself in a foreign environment. And he may have not even known that he was inside a whale until he came out of it – we only know that it was a whale because we have read the story. But God had prepared a whale to swallow Jonah up and keep him safe until it was time for him to come out and continue on to complete his mission. And while he was inside the whale’s belly Jonah was praying, and as if saying, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
“In my distress I cried to the LORD, and He heard me” (Ps 120:1), and “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Every time you face a troublesome situation, whether a personal trouble or one that involves others, always ask for God’s Presence and ask for it with confidence, knowing that God will come and stretch forth His hand to solve the trouble and get you out of it, to save you from it.
4-When going through problems
The fourth example of times when we may experience distress and cry out to God in anguish are when we have problems. They are similar to troubles but they are those things that arise every day, one after another, problem after problem, and again, problems may arise as personal ones or as ones involving others.
Let your starting point and the basis from which you launch forth to find a solution to any problem always be, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”, acknowledging that the resolution for the problem will come from God alone and not from you yourself: “Lord, come enlighten my mind, come reveal the truth and the true nature of the problem that is before me, come help me and show me how to get out of it, come and manage the details by which this problem may be resolved.”
I remind you of the story of Haman and Mordecai in the Old Testament story of Queen Esther. Mordecai was “probably one of the porters or doorkeepers at the main entrance to the palace” (www.biblehub/commentaries.com ) – but Haman was a very high-ranking official, comparable to a Prime Minister today.
“When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai. Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus—the people of Mordecai” (Esther 3:5-6).
And because Haman was full of wrath and anger towards Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down before him, he decided to kill Mordecai and so he built a huge gallows (Esther 5:14), which is a piece of wood or a cross, to hang Mordecai upon. But Haman’s anger had greatly escalated to the point of his seeking to also destroy all of Mordecai’s people, and he managed to convince the king to “let a decree be written that they (the Jews) be destroyed” (Esther 3:9).
And had it not been for Esther’s intercessory prayer, Haman’s plot to kill Mordecai and all the Jews would have succeeded, but the entire matter was changed and resolved overnight – and this is how the Lord solves problems. God has it so that a person (the king) could not sleep through the night, and so in Chapter 6 of the Book of Esther we read:
1 That night the king could not sleep. So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. 2 And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. 3 Then the king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” And the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”
And since at that moment Haman was in the king’s court, the king asked that he brought in and the king asked Haman, 6 “What shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?”
And so our friend Haman went on to say:
“7 And Haman answered the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, 8 let a royal robe be brought which the king has worn, and a horse on which the king has ridden, which has a royal crest placed on its head. 9 Then let this robe and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that he may array the man whom the king delights to honor. Then parade him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’
10 Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry, take the robe and the horse, as you have suggested, and do so for Mordecai the Jew who sits within the king’s gate! Leave nothing undone of all that you have spoken.”
This is the hand of God. “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
If you are faithful and you live your life with honesty and faithfulness, the Lord Jesus is able to help you go through and come out of the problems you are asking Him for help with, and to bring you out with a solution that had never even occurred to your mind, never; a solution that would have never occurred to your human thinking.
Just like the three young men, they were bound with ropes and placed in the fiery furnace that had been heated seven times more than usual (Dan 3:19). And the king had said to them, “Who is this God who can save you out of my hands?” But they said to him, “We have our God and we know that He will save us but we do not know how He will save us; that is His business and not ours. Our business is to know our God and to have great faith in Him, and ‘Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus’ is our inner cry, but as for exactly how He will save, we honestly do not know and so we cannot tell you how He will save us because this is His business.”
In Daniel 3:25 it says, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” And so the result was that a fourth man appeared in the fire and saved them, and the ropes burned but the fire did not harm them at all, and so as we say in the Tasbeha Praises, “The fiery furnace became as cool dewdrops.”
Seeking God with anguish in our distressful problems. If you are having family problems – “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” – ask for God’s Presence so that the problem may be resolved. Problems at your place of work? Ask for the Presence of God so that the problems may be resolved. Do you have problems in the area of your Church-service? Ask, ask with fervor: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” – and in this way you will have a personal experience [of God’s Presence and saving help].
And so my brothers and sisters, let this prayer be the basis for your experience this new year. Place “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” before you in every prayer, in every trouble, in every problem, in every matter that you may face.
5-In your Church-service
The final area we may send out this “SOS prayer” to God for help is in the area of our Church-service. The work of the Church is to serve, and no matter what area we serve in or what our responsibilities may be, we are all servants, but as the Psalm says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Ps 127:1), because if God is not in the midst of every matter, then what?
You see, the problem is that in our service work and especially in our daily service and in our churches is that we often contain the problem within our minds and it stays there, so then where is Christ in this picture? Are you bringing Christ into the picture? Remember that if the Lord does not build the ministry or the service that you are doing then nothing is being accomplished, no matter how much attention and accolades it may be receiving from others on the surface. Always remember that if God is not the starting point and endpoint of every matter, then anything we do does not count at all.
And this may remind us of the man whose name terrified the Christians of the early Church – Saul of Tarsus. His name was so terrifying that at the mere hearing of it a Christian was likely to fall over and faint! But when Christ appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, Saul said something very beautiful to the Lord, he said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:6), which is the exact equivalent of saying, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
Lord, what would You have me do? I now belong to You. The past is dead and gone, so let us make a new beginning. I am in Your hands now Lord.
And there eventually came a day when Paul was proud to be “an ambassador in chains” (Eph 6:20). An ambassador? For Christ? And in chains? What a transformation! But it was because he had made the statement, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” in other words, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
And this is the exact same dialogue the Samaritan woman had with Christ, when in the middle of the conversation with Him she said, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet” (Jn 4:19), and then, “I know that Messiah (Christ) is coming” (Jn 4:25), and then, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (Jn 4:29). And so little by little, both her understanding and her faith grew and increased until she reached the point of, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” And this is why we refer to her as a saint, even though we do not even know her name.
Conclusion
I wanted to share these five points with you on praying with fervor and saying, “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” [We can say this prayer at any time but especially when:]
1- When praying and reading the Bible
2- When repenting
3- During times of trouble
4- When going through problems
5- When doing your Church-service or acts of service in general
And I ask you to make this prayer your practice in this New Year. And although yes, it is almost the very last verse in the Bible, but it is a verse to be applied throughout the entire year, every day of the year.
And so in this New Year promise the Lord and say to Him, “Lord, I want to make a fresh start with You, and in this new year I will call out to You every day and seek You, and I want You to be present with me at all times – in my home, at my work, in my Church-service, in my Church, in my personal life, and in everything I face every single day. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
And when you attend the Liturgy and you hear the deacon call out and say, “You who are seated, stand” – take the posture of readiness, “and look toward the east” – take the posture of desire and longing for the Second Coming of Christ.
May the Lord protect us all and grant us to begin the New Year with a continual sense of His Presence. To Him be all the glory and honor from now and forevermore. Amen.