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Introduction

At a time when many Apostolics are 3rd, 4th or even 5th generation, many are losing sight of the landmarks that our previous generations have left us. This eagerness to depart from the things that identify us is not always a lack of love for truth, but is often the result of a lack of adequate teaching. This is reflected in my own life. Being a 4th generation Pentecostal myself, I fell for the "it's only a consecration" philosophy and for a period of time lost my way. It was not due to a lack of love for God, but it was because I had only been taught "The Rules" without ever really learning the reasoning behind them. By the grace of God my wife and I found our way back to fullness of truth and for that we will be eternally grateful. In retrospect we now know that by turning away from our heritage God opened our eyes to see that what before seemed like bonds and burdens was the very thing that brought us back and into deep relationship with Him.


Because of our past experience, God has given us a burden for what we will call Prodigals. The dictionary defines prodigal as a person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance. This seems very fitting as many former apostolics are using their God-given talent wastefully. Many fine singers, musicians, and even preachers are using their talents for pursuit of worldly gain rather than to glorify their Creator. We know that everyone is called to be a minister in some capacity and we pray that you will join us in praying for these that have gone astray.


Many days I will simply post the prayer requests that I have received while other days I may be able to post an encouraging scripture or story. To subscribe simply click the RSS subscription button below or simply visit this page to check for updates. Because of other excellent resources for prayer, such as World Network of Prayer (www.wnop.org), I ask that your requests would be limited to lost children of Apostolic parents. I will be accepting prayer requests, praise reports and encouraging stories for entry into the blog. If you or anyone you know is praying for a son or daughter who has wandered or has been led astray, please do not hesitate to send me a prayer request through the comments section below. Comments are not public and only prayer requests, praise reports etc. will be published. In order to maintain anonymity only first names along with the state of residence will be posted on any prayer list.


This blog is a new venture for me entirely and I will apologize in advance for any growing pains we may experience over the next few months. I pray that you will be patient with me as we begin this journey together.


Thank you for taking the time to view this blog. I hope and pray it will be a blessing to you.


For the Kingdom,


Mark Barnes

Thursday, January 23, 2014

The Sower and the Seed

Today in my Bible reading I came across the parable of the sower and the seed. For those unfamiliar, the parable is found in Matthew 13:1-9. In this parable Jesus tells us that the sower is sowing seed, some of the seed falls by the wayside, some springs up and wilts quickly, some is among the thorns and choked out and finally some produces fruit. The first part of the story spoke to me today. This year I am trying to live according to a new philosophy. That philosophy is that regret hurts worse than failure. This is something that my wife saw and relayed to me. I am so fearful of rejection or failure in my life that I often just do not do some of the things that I really need to do. In this parable though we see that some of the seed that the sower throws goes by the wayside and immediately fails, some of the seed springs up but then wilts and some of the seed is choked out by the thorns. All three of these examples could be seen as a failure and yet the sower still sows because he knows that some of the seed will fall on good ground and will produce a harvest. We must be like the sower, we must sow indiscriminately because we do not know when the seed will fall on good ground. If we never sow because we are afraid of the failure we will never see the 30-fold, 60-fold or the hundred-fold.
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