About five years ago, while closing a particular Sunday service, my Pastor at the time prayed that God would lead us to our prepared places that week. I said, \u2018Amen\u2019 not completely understanding the importance of that prayer but I saw it answer for me in the same week. Now that I understand better, \u00a0this prayer is perpetually on my lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prepared places are real, but let\u2019s back up to the Old Testament for better understanding. In Exodus 23:20<\/strong>, God speaking to the Israelites said to them, \u201cSee, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared<\/em>.\u201d (New International Version). Eventually, they got to the prepared place (Canaan Land) by the hand of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving on to the New Testament, in Mark 10:35-39<\/strong>, James and John, the sons of Zebedee tried to lobby for the right and left hand side of Jesus when He\u2019s taken up in glory. Replying them in Mark 10:40<\/strong>, Jesus said, \u201cBut to have you sit in the position of highest honor is not mine to decide. It \u00a0is reserved for those whom grace has prepared them to have it.\u201d<\/em> (The Passion Translation)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice the last phrase- those whom grace has prepared for them to have it. <\/em>Meaning, there is a place prepared for you. However, neither your skills nor your efforts can get you there. Only grace will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like my Pastor prayed, I pray God will lead you to your\nprepared place this week in Jesus name; Amen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “It is reserved for those whom grace has prepared them to have it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditation-monday"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"1nebody","author_link":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/author\/1nebody\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\"It is reserved for those whom grace has prepared them to have it.\"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1976,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nebody.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}