Crown Terrace Baptist Church

08/09/2026

8th September Thought - When We Pray, God Brings Joy
‘Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.’ (Psalm 16:9-11; NRSVA)
‘Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.’ (James 5:13; NRSVA)

Here we have another Psalm of David, a song of trust and security in God. David needs God’s protection, and God provides this for him. David has not ended up in the underworld, the place where communication with God cannot happen. He has been spared. His life has been rescued. This is why his heart is glad. This is how he can speak of fullness of joy - because he is in the presence of the Almighty who kept him safe.

James also recognises that life brings it ups and downs. He highlights ways that followers of Jesus can respond in these situations. In the struggles, God’s people are to pray to Him. In the blessings, Jesus’ followers are to rejoice and praise God.

Giving God our best first and showing our gratitude for what he has provided is something that Jesus continued to model. Jesus thanked the Father for aspects of everyday life (food, friendship) and for the miraculous. Jesus expressed gratitude to show us the way of gratitude.

Michael Wittmer states, “We must see God’s gifts of creation as windows into his glory and opportunities to praise him. But we must also find pleasure in them. We should thank God for our day on the lake, but we don’t need to say, ‘Praise you, Jesus!’ with each cast. We must thank God for our daily bread, but it’s okay to focus on the flavours of our sandwich while we’re eating it”

We do not know what life will bring us each and every day, but we are all too aware from past experience that there will be good and bad along the way. God wants to hear from us about all that we are experiencing. He does not just want to hear our prayers when life is an uphill struggle. He also wants to hear from us when we are enjoying life.

Its as we pray, we are drawn closer to God. It’s as we pray, we find more reasons to be joyful. This is because joy is a fruit of the Spirit of God. It’s a fruit that God will grow in our lives as we draw close to Him and talk to Him in prayer. Joy is something that God will bring to our lives, and He will help us to find it in some of the most unlikely experiences of life. All we have to do is trust Him and talk with Him in prayer.

07/09/2026

7th September Thought - Joy Is The Attitude Of Prayer
‘Blessed be the Lord,
for he has heard the sound of my pleadings.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;�so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.’ (Psalm 28:6-7; NRSVA)
‘I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.’ (Philippians 1:3-6; NRSVA)

David, who wrote Psalm 28, has been busy praying to God for help. His praying leads him to find reasons to give thanks to God. The reason he can do this is that he has discovered that God has heard his prayers as well as God being the one who will protect him. David concludes that this is the reason that his heart is filled with joy and his lips are overflowing with praise of God. Joy is part of prayer. Thanksgiving and joy are linked in David’s prayer.

Paul also recognised this fact in his letter to the Philippians. He is able to pray with joy because of the way the Philippian Christians have responded to the message of the gospel and their willingness to share this with others. They have been transformed, and they are looking to help others be transformed too. Thanksgiving and joy are once aging linked, this time by Paul, as being part of the right attitude when it comes to prayer.

The prevalence of makeover shows, whether focusing on a house, a car, a barn, a garden, or a person, speaks to our innate desire to be transformed. People long to see something as simple as a garden or as important as a person transformed into what appears to be a more fulfilling potential and a more beautiful outcome.

We have the joyful confidence that we, as believers, will be transformed and made to look like Jesus in all His glory. Part of that transformation comes as we engage fully with the gift that is prayer, a gift that keeps on giving.

Joy in our prayer life will help us to keep praying, even when it is hard to pray. As we discover things in our lives that we can be thankful for, we should naturally respond to them in joy. As we see how God has answered our prayers in the past, we will become joyful in the present. As we see God at work in the lives of others, we will find joy in our prayers seeping through. Joy is an important attitude for us to cultivate when it comes to praying, perhaps one we tend to neglect. Where will we find joy in our life, and our prayers, today?

06/09/2026

6th September Thought
Today's service is titled 'A Place Of Safety In The Storm'. Gary will be leading and preaching on this topic, with a look into Genesis 6-9 and the story of Noah.

The service will be live streamed on the church You Tube channel, which can be accessed here - https://www.youtube.com/.
The service will appear on the live tab of the page around 11am. (Apologies that the live stream, and recording, from last week are unavailable due to a technical issue. Hopefully that will not be the case this week.)

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05/09/2026

5th September Thought - We Can Intercede In All Kinds Of Ways
‘Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should.’ (Colossians 4:2-4; NRSVA)
‘Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.’ (Ephesians 6:18; NRSVA)

Paul challenges the Colossian Christians to ‘devote’ themselves to prayer. He is acknowledging that prayer will not always come easily. There will be distractions that come our way and stop us from praying as we may want to. This is where the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives can help us. The Spirit will intercede on our behalf. The Spirit will also guide us in prayer, if we are alert to His leading and prompting. This Spirit of creativity also applies to the different ways that we can prayer for others.

In summer 2016, Russia passed a packet of laws that more tightly restricted missionary activity and evangelism. Russian Christians fear enforcement of those laws.
Christians in the UK are blessed to live in a country with religious freedom. We often take that freedom for granted until we’re reminded by current events that not every Christian has the same privilege. We must share the gospel freely while we are still allowed to, and pray for brothers and sisters to have the boldness to share the good news even when their government will not allow it.

Whatever it is that we want to prayer for others, we need to remember that there are many ways that we can do this. The obvious one is to speak to God about it. However, there may be times that we want to shout it out. The Psalmist encourages us to sing our prayers to God. Others may want to explore drawing their prayers, as people of the past have done to express what is on their hearts. Writing, or symbolising the prayers is another way that we can engage with God on the behalf of others. Some people find that walking as they pray for others, especially the people around them, is a helpful way to keep praying.

Action And Prayer Plan:
What do you need to do today about intercessions?
When will, or can, you pray for others with others?
Choose three things to pray for today - one form the world, one from within the UK and one local.
Make time to pray over what you have been thinking about.

04/09/2026

4th September Thought - We Change History Through Intercessory Prayer
‘Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ And the Lord said, ‘If I find at S***m fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.’ Abraham answered, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?’ And he said, ‘I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.’ Again he spoke to him, ‘Suppose forty are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of forty I will not do it.’ Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.’ He answered, ‘I will not do it, if I find thirty there.’ He said, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.’ Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.’ And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.' (Genesis 18:23-33; NRSVA)

This is a slightly longer Bible passage today, but the message is quite simple - if we take time to intercede for others, lives will be changed. This was true for the people of S***m as Abraham prayed to God that the city would not be destroyed.

It can be uncomfortable to be confronted by someone who is hurting or has an obvious need, but it only takes one leader to change the dynamic of a conversation or interaction.
Following Jesus means furthering His efforts to reach and love those ignored by others. Mark 10:46-52 tells the story of Jesus calling out Bartimaeus and healing him of blindness. In this passage we see the crowd is not receptive, not wanting to engage the blind man, but Jesus shifts His entire purpose to a person they would have rather ignored. Whether it is the homeless person on the corner with a sign asking for help or a person with a developmental disability acting out in public, the tendency is to avoid eye contact, ignore the situation, and get away from the person as soon as possible. However, Jesus calls Bartimaeus to himself, and he sends his followers to tell the man to come near. It is then that the atmosphere changes. Bartimaeus is no longer a nuisance; he is welcomed. His need is not too big or messy or difficult to be brought to Jesus.

We need to challenge ourselves to see beyond the outward appearance, to the person. As followers of Jesus, we can respond in a way that acknowledges each person’s value and need for God. We can advocate for the most vulnerable in areas of society that would rather ignore them.

03/09/2026

3rd September Thought - Interceding Involves Asking God How To Pray
‘He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’’ (Luke 11:1; NRSVA)
‘And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.’ (1 John 5:14-15; NRSVA)

Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is introduced slightly differently from Matthew’s account. In Matthew, the prayer is part of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray in response to one of His disciples asking Jesus to help them to learn how to pray just as John had taught his disciple to pray. We need God’s help when it comes to praying.

This help becomes easier to accept when we realise what a precious and important gift prayer is. At the end of his first letter, the apostle John closes with a bold claim - we can ask anything of God, and if it is according to His will, He hears us. But the bold claim does not stop there. John goes on to include the promise that if God has heard us because what we are praying about is according to His will, then He will also answer us

Prayer, like any other discipline, requires … well, discipline. Richard Foster writes in, Celebration of Discipline, “Prayer is like any other work; we may not feel like working, but once we have been at it for a bit, we begin to feel like working. We may not feel like practicing the piano, but once we play for a while, we feel like doing it. In the same way, our prayer muscles need to be limbered up a bit and once the blood-flow of intercession begins, we will find that we feel like praying”.

Yesterday’s thought closed with the challenge to pray even for those that we do not like, find challenging, or completely disagree with. Yes, God calls us to pray for them, just as He calls us to love them. We will need God’s help in order to do this, and we will need His help in knowing how we should be praying for them.

Praying for them does not mean we will agree with what they are doing. This is why we need to develop prayer muscles that will help us to pray when we find it challenging, and that will include our praying for others. The more we pray, the more help we receive from God when it comes to praying. As we perceive in prayer, we will discover that the Holy Spirit will help us more and more when it comes to praying for the people and situations we find difficult to pray about, or have no words to express our thoughts and desires. God will hear our prayers as we pray according to His will. Let’s take comfort in that today.

02/09/2026

2nd September Thought - All Followers Of Jesus Are Called To Intercede
‘First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2:1-4; NRSVA)

Yesterday we were reminded that Jesus calls His disciples to pray for others in the prayer that He taught them in the sSermon on the Mount. This means that all followers of Jesus are called to intercede for others. There is no get out clause that means some of us can skip praying for others. All of us are to engage with God on behalf of others.

Paul picks up on this challenge in what he says to his young protege, Timothy. Paul implores that Timothy should be engaged in praying, and those prayers are to included praying for other people (alongside giving thanks and praying for himself). He even challenges Timothy to pray for rulers and those in loft positions in society. Paul knows they need prayer, and he knows that praying for them could benefit the people of God too and increase the Kingdom of God. So pray for everyone, not just the people you like.

In answering a question about the motivation for obeying the Lord, Tim Keller said, “In the long run, you should always do the right thing out of love for God out of joy for God. But in the short run, very often you should use any means possible to do the right thing, which means tell yourself, I’ll probably go to jail if I do that. God will be mad at me (which He will be, by the way, if you do that). Even inside being a Christian, you’re beautiful in Him and in Him there is no condemnation, He is still angry at his children, I think, who He loves, when they do something wrong. In the long run, beauty is your motivation. But in the short run, do it because it’s your duty to do the right thing.

There may be times when we have to “fake it till we make it” in obeying God’s commandments. Praying for those who we do not like, or like what they do, may well be one of those occasions. But the call to pray for everyone means all are included.

Because Christ has interceded for us before the Father, we can trust that we may strive towards obedience, no longer afraid of the penalty for falling short. This includes praying for others. It;’s easy to pray for those we know and like. It’s harder to pray for those we do not know. It is even harder to pray for those we do not like. But, according to Paul, we are to pray for everyone, even the government officials who do things that we do not appreciate, even the country rulers who cause conflict within their countries and with their neighbours. We will need the help of the Holy Spirit to do this well - more on this tomorrow!

01/09/2026

1st September Thought - Intercession Is Praying For Others
‘‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
‘Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.’ (Matthew 6:7-11; NRSVA)

One picture of intercession is that of someone standing in a gap. On one side of the gap is heaven, the dwelling place of God where He and all the infinite resources of His Kingdom are. On the other side of the gap is earth, which to some extent lack’s God’s presence and the resources of heaven. When we intercede, we stand in the gap and pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as in heaven (as we pray each time we say the Lord’s prayer - see above to be reminded of this).

Have you ever wanted something good for another person — that someone would get well from being sick or have peace in times of grief? That inclination isn’t just “good vibes” but an opportunity for intercessory prayer. Those thoughts of good for others are the beginning of understanding what God desires for us.
We might ask how should we intercede for others, what do we pray for them? The 1998 duet song by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli, “The Prayer,” shows the beginning of what we might pray: “I pray you’ll be our eyes, and watch us where we go, And help us to be wise in times when we don’t know.”

I wonder who God wants us to stand in the gap for today? I wonder who it is that God has placed a ‘desire for their good’ on our minds? I wonder what situations in the world trouble us enough to come to God in prayer about? These are all opportunities for us to intercede in.

There may well be a long list of people and situations. It may be so long that it seems daunting and beyond us. If that’s the case, start with some small steps. We could pray for a different person or situation each day for the rest of this month, then maybe look to add in another each day for the month of October. God’s not worried about how many situations we are praying for, or how long we pray for. He just wants to see and hear us praying for others because we love them as He loves them.

31/08/2026

31st August Thought - Prayer Includes Asking God For Things For Others
‘Jesus answered them, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.’’ (Matthew 21:21-22; NRSVA)
‘So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’ (Mark 11:24; NRSVA)

As we have been exploring these past couple of months, prayer is about having an ongoing relationship with God. It’s about knowing Him in Jesus Christ, and getting to know Him better and better through more and more conversations in prayer. As we have already covered, it’s about adoration, belief, confession, devotion, extemporary, fasting, gratitude and honesty.

That’s quite a list, but it only scratches the surface of prayer (we are less than half way through the alphabet of prayer). Prayer is also about asking God for things, both for ourselves (which is called ‘supplication’) and for others (which is called ‘intercession’ and is the focus for this week). God wants us to ask Him for things, but not just things for ourselves, He wants us to be asking on behalf of others too.

Children have certain privileges or “rights” in their relationship with their parents. A child wouldn’t expect a total stranger to help them with their math homework, but asking that of their parents is not an unreasonable request. Paul gets at this in Galatians 4:7 - ‘So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God’.

There are special benefits rooted in a relationship with God when He is your heavenly Father. When we think about our identity in Christ, we need to understand that we are children of God. He loves us, will take care of us, and will provide for us. And we can ask Him when we need something, just as a little child will ask their earthly parents.

And we can do this for others too. God has called us to love Him and to love others. If we are loving others, then we will want to be praying for them. We will want to know what we should be praying for them. We can do this by spending time with others and asking what we can pray for. We can sign up to receive newsletters from missionaries and mission organisations which will provide us with information that we can use in our prayers. We can watch the news or read a paper and see what God draws us to ponder and pray about.

There is much in thew world that needs prayer, we just need to take time do do it. And in doing so, we will change people’s lives for the better as we ask God to intervene in their situations.

30/08/2026

30th August Thought
Today's service is titled 'Learning And Loving'. Gary will be leading and preaching on this topic and picking up on a theme from his Sabbatical. As it's a fifth Sunday, the church will be laid out cafe style and the service will be a little less formal than usual with tea/coffee available throughout.

The service will be live streamed on the church You Tube channel, which can be accessed here - https://www.youtube.com/.
The service will appear on the live tab of the page around 11am. (Apologies that the live stream, and recording, from last week are unavailable due to a technical issue. Hopefully that will not be the case this week.)

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world