"let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful."
Hebrews 10:22-23 NAS
Greetings prayer partner,
As we stepped into 2026, we invited you to join us in a “Season of Seeking.” We explained that we seek the Lord every day for His will and purposes but encouraged you to take specific intentional time to seek Him at the beginning of this milestone year of celebrating His love and light guiding and guarding America for 250 years.
We encouraged you in praying and applying Scripture that it would “save yourself a lot of wandering, worry, and wondering by simply seeking Him to set you on a straight path filled with good works He has prepared and answered prayers you have been seeking.” We committed to pray before we planned, seek and submit to Him before we set goals and strategized.
We pray that you have continued to seek God daily for His fruitful plans, wisdom, and direction for His glory. Now as many of you are praying through Lent and we are all approaching Holy week in a few days, we have turned our hearts to prepare by asking the Holy Spirit to search us and if there is anything that is not holy, anything that is not from God, of God or to the glory of God, to please remove it from us. We not only want to be cleansed but also found consecrated with God’s Word abiding in our hearts and all of our heart, soul, mind and strength saturated in our love for God and from God.
Our Jewish friends in preparation for Passover purify their homes and hearts from “Chametz,” anything containing leaven that symbolizes sin during this season. It is a very thorough cleaning process, not just cleaning out cabinets of products such as bread, pasta, cookies, cereals containing wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt, but every crack and crevasse of their homes, clothes, and cars. This is not a sprucing up of their house but a deep, meaningful preparation to remember and celebrate God bringing them out of slavery in Egypt and the passing over of the Jewish homes that night that every first born in Egypt died because of Pharoah’s hard and prideful heart refusing to release the Hebrews to leave and worship God.
As Christians we celebrate Jesus and His sacrifice of paying our sin debt in full; defeating death and the devil that we might believe in Him and have everlasting life with Him. Hebrews 10:14 – 17 reminds us, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, "THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART, AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM," He then says, "AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE."” NAS
Although we are called to do this daily, we invite you again to a deeper, diligent season to prepare our hearts by taking this time to confess our sin and seek God’s forgiveness as we repent from the things that we have allowed to build up in our hearts and homes that do not righteously respond to our Savior’s sacrifice and our sanctification.
Would you please begin this season by joining us in prayer now to ask the Spirit to search us and prepare us to celebrate our risen Savior, as God continues to sanctify us?
Holy Spirit, please search every corner and crevasse of our heart for generational garbage or social souvenirs we have gathered or even treasured, that add or subtract from the Word of God. Purge us of “political correctness” that does not reflect righteousness. Please remove all comforts and preferences we have picked up in our education and experiences that stand against Truth, anything that we set on the throne of our hearts as our relevance and our reputation. Lord, please cleanse us from stored up shame and lift the weight of worry and guilt that belongs in the garbage, not in our lives. Prompt us to forgive as You have forgiven us. We hand You the boxes of unforgiveness we have harbored and mislabeled “protection” instead of rightly seeing it as pride. Help us to let go of useless thoughts and things we hold on to, “in case Your promises aren’t true, and the “just in case” junk we drag around instead of faithfully, fully relying on You. Please forgive us, cleanse us, and fill us with Your glory, for Your glory. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen!
Kathy Branzell
President
