Saturday, February 20, 2016

Louisiana Legislators and Governor Edwards at Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast which is in its 17th year!


The Mission Foundation
P. O. Box 46358
Baton Rouge, LA 70895

February 19, 2016


Our dear friends,

I would like to begin by saying that Bec and I are profoundly grateful to each one of you who have sent financial gifts to The Mission Foundation to enable us to carry out our work.  Thank you!  Thank you very much! 

This morning, as I was sitting in the back corner of one of the legislative committee rooms, I took a moment to try to begin this letter.  I have come home at lunchtime to put my fingers to the keyboard to bring a few of my scrawled notes (and some other thoughts) into some order on this page. 

The legislative committee meetings at the Capitol have been numerous, lengthy, and intense.  All day every day, hour after hour (including last Saturday and Sunday afternoon), our legislators and Governor John Bel Edwards and his team have worked tirelessly in their effort to find solutions to the incredibly difficult financial situation of our state.   I have been there with them every day, and sometimes into the evening.  They greatly need your prayers!  They want your prayers!  

LEGISLATORS AND GOVERNOR IN BIBLE STUDY AND PRAYER:  This past Tuesday morning, we held our first Legislators’ Bible Study / Prayer Breakfast of this session, which included approximately one third of our legislators and our governor and four members of his immediate team (all five of them being former legislators).  I am very thankful to our Lord for the wonderful spirit of oneness and peace that was evident throughout the room.

In my introductory remarks, I focused on the words of Jesus in His prayer to His Father on the night before He was to be crucified.  He prayed for you and me, asking “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.”  The oneness among us, for which our Lord prayed, must be a oneness that is clearly observable to “the world”, the lost society that is all around us. For it is by our oneness that they will come to know that what we believe is actually true, that is, that God the Father really did send God the Son into this world!  Do the people around you and me see our oneness and marvel and become convinced of the truth of the Incarnation of the Eternal God?! 

Whereas it is true that our legislators and our governor and his team will be more effective in serving us if they are “one”, there are more fundamental reasons why they (and we) must live in oneness:  Jesus prayed for it!  And it is our testimony to the world!  And please hear this: it is inextricably connected to our oneness with God the Son and God the Father!  Jesus says, “. . . that they also may be in Us.”

So please pray for the men and women of our legislature and for Governor Edwards and his team that they will all be one!  Also, please pray for yourself and for me that we will all be one!  And may the world see it and believe in our Lord!    

Your brother and sister in the Savior,

Rod and Bec 

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