Women’s Day of Prayer - UECB 2024

Peace be with you, dear sisters!

Our denomination has declared 2024 to be the Year of Building up and encouragment. With the desire to support this topic, we offer the ladies a program for celebrating the Day of Prayer for the UECB churches, where we will remember where we get daily hope and building up, peace and encouragement for our hearts. Liliya Voloshina, from Moscow, will share her thoughts on this topic with us.

Daily Hope and Comfort

            Every person needs comfort and hope. Without hope we do not live, but only exist. Encouragement brings relief in our sometimes difficult lives. Hope looks to the future and brings to life such a state as “expectation” of better times. Hope moves us and, as it were, carries us towards the great day of the Lord that awaits us.

What do we know about hope? What is its role in our lives? How and what do we console ourselves with?

  Our Father in Heaven has provided for His children and given us His Word so that we can understand and apply His perspective on hope and comfort in our lives.

“...that through patience and the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope” Rom. 15:4

In our lives, we often talk about hope more as a wish: we want something to come true. For example, “I hope it doesn’t rain during the picnic.” This is "hope-wish". But in the Bible, the word "hope" is used from the perspective of waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled: we wait for something to happen based on the will of God. This is “hope-expectation”.

Read and study beautiful passages of hope and comfort that point our gaze to the future and can provide comfort in any circumstance: Romans 8:18-25 and 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 .

As we fall asleep in the evening, we wish for blessings, peace and success and hope that the coming day will not befall us with disappointments, conflicts and evil. But every day we suffer physically and emotionally. We are tormented by the question of the meaning of life, our body gets sick and grows old. We groan internally and see no consolation in the visible world. We feel weak and sometimes don’t even know what to pray for. We become discouraged and worn out (2 Cor. 4:16). But having described our sad situation today, the Apostle Paul finds comfort for us and lifts us out of despondency. From the routine and pain of everyday life , he sends us into the future , in which awaits us the “revelation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19), the final liberation from the power of corruption (Rom. 8:21), our complete adoption and the redemption of our bodies ( Rom.8:23)! The apostle says that God's children will receive eternal glory! And, as you will notice, not only the children of God are waiting for all this, but all of God's creation is waiting for this revelation (2 Cor. 4:19).

Look at the truths he comforts us with:

• All our sufferings are light and temporary compared to the glory that will be revealed at the coming of Jesus Christ.
• There will be no suffering in the future, and the present will end very soon, and we know this from the age that God has assigned to man.
• You need to be comforted by looking not at the visible, but at the invisible: you don’t need to fix your attention on pain, or dwell on suffering, but you need to immerse your whole mind in the truth, in the Word of God, in God’s promises, in Christ and His teaching.
• Consolation and encouragement are hidden in prayer and communication with the Holy Spirit.

Sisters, we see and experience a lot of negativity, pain and disappointment every day. Fear and despair can become increasingly widespread. But, daughters of God, we have hope and consolation: where two or three sisters met to pray to God; in a church prayer chat where we ask for prayer support and testify to the Glory of God; where they diligently search the word of God; they are hidden in the Bible; they are hidden in the future, on the day of the return of our beloved Lord Jesus!

1. Praise and worship God, who gives hope and promises

You and I all understand that without a thumb on our hand it will be very difficult for us to exist. Every other finger touches the thumb very easily. He, like a connecting link, encloses all the fingers in a fist. It makes it easy to hold on to something, etc. So in our lives, all our areas (family, ministry, external relationships and personal needs) should directly and easily come into contact with the Lord.

• Therefore, first of all, let us give honor and praise to our Creator as the God of Comfort and Hope, realizing that without Him we are weak and insignificant.
• Let us exalt Him and thank Him for all the blessings sent to us, for His strength and patience, and for the fact that He, allowing anxiety, experiences and difficulties into our lives, helps us endure them.

2. Prayer for our families

• Thanks to the Lord for the creation of new families, the birth of children and the healing of families in which there was chaos and discord.
• Let us ask the Lord that Christian married couples would build relationships with each other correctly, based on the Scriptures, that husbands would love and care for their wives, and that wives would be obedient to their husbands and act wisely in everything; so that there are no divorces in Christian families.
• Let us ask that parents wisely raise their children in the teaching and instruction of the Lord, so that children from an early age become involved in church life and also serve the Lord.
• So that the Lord protects our families from the spirit of this world, and so that the peace of God reigns in them.
• So that the Lord gives wisdom to believing wives to behave correctly with unbelieving husbands and children, so that they do not try with all their might to convert them to faith, but so that they trust the Holy Spirit to do His work in their hearts, and the sisters themselves take more care of their hearts and their walk before By God.

3. About our churches

• Let us thank the Lord for the founding of the church. Thanks to the ministry of our churches, we once turned to God, and to this day many souls are saved in this ark of hope and consolation.
• Let us thank God for the ministers who vigilantly care for our souls.
• Let us pray that the Lord will continue to give our UECB ministers and leadership wisdom, boldness, and fresh understanding, so that they instruct God’s people in the truth, that new churches are opened, and that the needs of ministers and their families are met.
• Let us ask that there be correct biblical relationships between brothers and sisters in the churches, that there is unity and mutual understanding, that there is no division and self-will, but that Christ is glorified in everything.
• Let's pray for all the ministries that our churches perform (evangelism, prison, social, youth, teenagers, children's, music, etc.). So that through these ministries the Lord would add those being saved to the church.
• Let us pray for the missionaries and their families and for their spiritual and material needs to be met.
• Let us pray for the restoration of burnt houses of prayer in Barnaul (Altai Territory) and Polysayevo (Kemerovo Region), so that the Lord will provide everything necessary for this (funds, builders, wisdom).
• Let's ask for apprenticeship among the sisters. New training centers, Bible schools, various online programs, etc. are opening. So that all this contributes to the spiritual growth of the sisters, so that the sisters, knowing God, do not become arrogant in their knowledge, but with their lives reflect the light of Christ and beneficially influence their families, churches and others.
• Let us pray for the development of sisterhood to help the brothers in our churches; so that responsible sisters wisely and in the fear of God instruct young sisters to love their husbands, to love children, to be caretakers of the home, so that the Word of God is not reproached; for the sisters in our churches to be prayer warriors, standing in the gap for their families and churches. For organizing and holding various conferences for sisters in our cities.

4. External relations. About evangelism among unbelievers

• Thanks to the Lord for all the brothers and sisters who participate in the work of evangelism and work together with the Lord to save sinners. May the Lord reward them a hundredfold!
• Let us pray that every member of our churches will be an evangelist where they are (at work, at school, among neighbors and unbelieving relatives), so that our sisters will be eager to tell people about Christ.
• So that the Lord would add those who are being saved to the church.
• Let us pray for our rulers and those in power. So that in this difficult time the Lord will guide them and give them wisdom in governing our country.
• So that the Lord gives His protection and security to the border regions where military operations are taking place.
• So that peace can be restored and the war end as soon as possible.
• For the protection, strength, wisdom of doctors, volunteers, rescuers and their service in the combat zone. For families who lost relatives due to the war, widows and orphans. For families that were divided during the war, for their unification and restoration. For wisdom in ministering to widows and women attending local churches.

5. Personal needs

• Let's ask God for personal spiritual growth and confession of sin to Him.
• Let's pray for each other.

May the Lord bless you, dear sisters, in these days to open your hearts, uniting with all the sisters of Russia in prayer to Him .

“May the Lord bless you and keep you!”

“May the Lord look upon you with His bright face and have mercy on you!”

“May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace!” Numbers 6:24-26

With prayer for you,

Sisters of the Women's Ministry Department of the Russian UECB.