Welcome to day one of our 14 days of prayer and fasting devotional series!

We are so excited to walk with you for the next two weeks as we come together to consider how our God wants to move in our lives individually and collectively in a brand new way.

Each day of this series we will dive into a Spirit-led word from one of our amazing Angelus Temple and Dream Center Ministry Leaders and Directors! We encourage you to prayerfully join us as we humbly examine where our God is leading us in this new season, as well as the new thing He has already begun in our midst.

Today, we will be hearing from our First-Time Visitors Coordinator, Giovani León, about how living lives submitted to the truth of the Gospel allows God to give us a truer, and fuller, view of who He is, who we are in Him, and what His purpose is for our lives.

“But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus-the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” - Acts 20:24, NLT

Another year is gone, another year has come, and as a nation, a world, and a people, we face a brand-new and yet all-too-familiar set of transitions and life circumstances. In all that lies ahead of us in 2024, turbulence and peace alike, let us look and cling to what is true and plant our life’s flag on it before feast and famine come knocking on our doors demanding our attentions and affections. This is truth: God alone is God, He alone is good, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is enough, for all.

My prayer for you in 2024, and for the rest of your lives, is that you would stand firm with the belt of truth around your waist, the readiness of the gospel of peace fitting your feet, and that you’d take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit daily (Ephesians 6:14-17). I pray that you would trust God with every step (Proverbs 3:5-6), trust God with every breath (Job 33:4), that He leads you in all things with His peace (Isaiah 55:12) and calls you to repentance by His kindness (Romans 2:4). I pray you worship Him with your whole self for all your life (Romans 12:1) and that you’d praise Him greatly because He alone is worthy of praise (Psalm 145, 86:9-10). I pray that “the glorious Father would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation that you would know Him better” (Ephesians 1:17), and that by seeing Him fuller you would see and know yourself as He sees and knows you-Beloved Child, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Healer, Savior, Baptizer with the Holy Spirit, and Soon and Coming King.

This prayer of confession by Timothy Keller has deeply impacted my life this past year and allowed me a truer perspective on myself, my sin, and the glorious goodness of our God. I hope it blesses you as much and that you’d carry it with you in 2024.

“Dear Father, my sin is ever before me. I have desired control and that has only produced fear. I have desired power over others and that has only served to alienate them from me. I have desired my own comfort and that has only brought forth anger when my comfort was not achieved. I have sought the approval of others and have meticulously kept them from seeing my true self for fear of rejection. Idolatry plagues my heart! I am consumed with thoughts of self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, and self-service.

In my deepest parts, I doubt that you are God and I want to rule myself. I cry out to you, Father. Only you can deliver me. Show me the cross. For without Jesus’ glorious robe of righteousness to cover my nakedness, I’ll die. Show me the love of my beautiful Savior who gave up his glory and even his life that I might be delivered from idolatry. May the work of Jesus ever stir me towards radical, joyful obedience. May he be my reason for living and my eternal source of joy, hope, faith, and love. Amen”