 Jesus is the hope of the world and He is the hope for you and America today. I'm Amy Schaefer, I'm here with Anna Fry and boy do we have some great stuff to discuss today. Number one being, tomorrow is the national day of prayer. Anna, I grew up, you know, in the 80s and the 90s and there was a song and it said, you've got to pray just to make it today. It was a great era. I hope that you were born and raised in that same era. But Anna, we're going to talk about the National Day of Prayer, all that's going on. We have a special pastor and guest, Jim Cabot, who is here from New Life Fellowship Church of Pittsburgh. So we're honored to have him. Can't wait for you to hear all the details. Yes, and today we're also going to talk about freedom and freedom through the power of forgiveness. Our guest, Vicki Coakley Thornton, who will be with us in the second half of this show, will share how you can live with more joy, peace and power by forgiving yourself or someone who has hurt you. So this truly is a power pack show. Freedom and prayer. Listen, there's no two more important things that you could grasp now in your life than freedom and in prayer. So let's go right now to Pastor Jim. I want to introduce you to him and let's talk about the National Day of Prayer that's happening tomorrow. It is always the first Thursday of every May of every year. So it's a good thing to remember. It's weird when it comes up. It's like, oh, yes, isn't that? And to think that a whole nation is gathering to pray on behalf of the nation to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is just an amazing thing. Pastor Jim, welcome to Hope Today. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just say I have never heard that song in my life that you guys were doing. Oh, well, you are missing out on half of your life. I guess I am. You'll have to YouTube it. Google it. Pastor Jim, tell us about the National Day of Prayer and your involvement in this. So I think the place I should start is about four, maybe five years ago. I have always heard, I have always heard of the National Day of Prayer, never went to it or anything like that. And just out of the blue, I was invited to come and pray for churches. And I went to that event and I was listening and praying with other people. And I said to myself, why haven't I ever gone to this before? This is wonderful. This is exactly what we should be doing. And so as it turned out, I think for the next four years after that, they kept inviting me back and I kept wanting to go back. And then last year, we became the coordinator for the Monroeville chapter, which is a wonderful group of dedicated people who want to see our communities come together and pray for our country, for our families, for our education system, our media. All of these things, they refer to them as the mountains of influence, right? And so I've only been involved for about four years or four or five years, but it actually began with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. He instituted the first National Day of Prayer. And to my knowledge, it has gone on every year since then, which would have been somewhere in like 1863. So it's been around a long time and it never goes out of style, right? Prayer never goes out of style. And the thing I like about the National Day of Prayer and these local gatherings like we have, I know they have one in Washington, D.C., and things like that. But the thing that I like about the National Day of Prayer and our local gatherings is just the very simple fact is it reminds us that anyone can pray. And God listens. You don't have to be a minister. You can be a housewife, a mom, a carpenter like me. You can be anything and God will listen because we are God's children and God listens to his children when they pray. And when we come together, when we leave our homes, when we leave our local churches and we come together with the larger body of Christ, I believe God looks at that. I hate to say it this way. God looks at that with special interest, right? I hesitate to say we really get his attention because we always have it, right? But I believe that that is a special to God when he sees his children doing what he wants them to be doing. Well, there's power in unity and in agreement. Of course. So, you know, when you say National Day of Prayer, it seems so global. It seems so big. So how do we take that and bring it to home? Like how do we get involved? What do we do? You know, if I'm watching right now at home, what is my action step for tomorrow? Well, that's exactly it. It all begins by making a plan to attend the National Day of Prayer event in Monroeville Park off of Tilbrook Road, pavilion number four at 530. There's the gory details. In the morning? No, no. I mean, you can come in the morning, but it'll be just you and God. And that's a very special time. I thought you were actually really committed to prayer. I am. It's 530 p.m. That's exactly right. So, again, I'll say it again because people need to know it's Monroeville Community Park at 2399 Tilbrook Road, pavilion number four. We'll have some signs out. There will be people there to greet you when you come. And then it's after that you just come and participate. If you show up, you have taken the biggest step and then God will do the rest when we simply begin to honor Him as we should. And Pastor, I like that throughout history, we have had 34 of 44 U.S. presidents signed proclamations for the National Day of Prayer. I mean, that's pretty significant that the senior leader of a country is going to say, we're going to pray. And it's not just prayer to any God, Pastor Jim. It is prayer to the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And that is significant. And thank you for mentioning that. It is. And, you know, I just assumed that people know that, but maybe they don't. And, you know, this is, we are praying to Christ. We are praying to Jesus Christ. We are praying to the Father. We are praying for the Holy Spirit to move in the midst of our families and in the midst of our countries and in the midst of our businesses and everywhere else. Yeah. Final thought on prayer. Why must we pray? Prayer moves the hand of God. Prayer brings peace to our heart, our minds and our spirits. Prayer changes things. It's that simple. We may not always see the change. We may not see it in our lifetime, but nonetheless prayer is what we are called to do. We are called to lift up our world. We are called to lift up our families. We are called to lift up people that don't know Christ. And that's what prayer does. If we can't reach out and touch them in a personal way on a one-on-one, we can at least pray and God honors those prayers when we put others before ourselves. Wow. Pastor Jim, thank you so much. Prayer moves the hand of God. And boy, do we need the hand of God to move in our lives, our churches, our community, our cities and our state. We'll be right back when we come back. We're going to be talking about freedom. This is your day, prayer and freedom with Annem. Present scriptural examples of those who lived alert, including Jesus, who noticed those who least expected to be seen. Gives creative ideas for showing love to friends and family. Suggests practical ways to reach out to the lonely, marginalized outcast. Helps you comfort the grieving and so much more. Ask for your copy of Listen, Love, Repeat when you give today. Call 888-665-4483 or go to ctvn.org-slash-donate. Thank you for your generosity. Hope happens here. Well, many of us know the Bible instructs us to forgive those who have hurt us, but often we struggle to fully forgive. Vicki Coakley Thornton, founder of Journey to Freedom, which is based right here in Pittsburgh, joins us to talk about the power of forgiveness and how it can usher you into more freedom. So Vicki, we're so glad to have you with us on Hope Today. Forgiveness. Gosh, it's such an important topic. And you wrote a journal about freedom and forgiveness. Why did you feel it was so important to take the time to write that journal? Forgiveness is so important because so many of us, especially even as Christians, we don't forgive. And it was something that, I'm in a group, Journey to Freedom. And that's one of our main focuses is forgiveness because we find that so many people walk around and they're holding. They're carrying people with them everywhere they go. They're carrying people with them that they have not forgiven. They have not let them go and they're just holding on to them very tightly, not realizing that the Father says that if we don't forgive, then He won't forgive us. And sometimes I think we kind of get that kind of. And sometimes we think that it has to be that that person has to come to us and say, Vicki, will you forgive me? Even if they don't say that to me, God has called me to forgive those that have trespassed against me. Those that have trespassed as a violation. You've went past a boundary. You've done some things that are against me. You've gone against what I wanted you to do in my life to me. So the scriptures say that we should forgive those that have trespassed against us. So anyone that has violated you, that has went past a boundary, that has done maybe something very heinous to us. God has called us to forgive them, not for them. It's mainly for us. It's for us to so that we can. So sometimes one illustration that we always use is that it's like when you don't forgive someone, it's like you taking the poison, taking poison and thinking that you're hurting that person. But in actuality, you're hurting yourself because you're carrying around that bitterness, that anger, all those things that it actually can make your life not be able to live in a life of abundance. And Jesus said I came that you might have life and life more abundantly. So for us to have an abundant life, a part of that is forgiving those that have really hurt us. And sometimes the person may, if you may go to somebody and say, you know, forgive me, and they may say no, or you think when they forgive you that they're going to change. So it doesn't always mean that the person is going to change, but you in your heart, for your freedom that you need to change. That's right. So for somebody who is really struggling with forgiving somebody that has hurt them, how do they practically start that journey? I would say one of the ways is to pray for that person, pray for those that, because when you'll know that you've forgiven them when they come in the room and you don't, your heart doesn't stop palpitating and your hands don't start sweating. You'll know that you've forgiven them when you really want the best for them. And that only comes from the Lord, that He, you will pray for them on a continuous basis and then you'll say, you know what Father, I want the best for them. I want you to bless them. I want you to, for their life to change. I really want the best. Then you'll know that you've forgiven that person. So it's about you. It's really about us taking that chance. Sometimes people think it's, you know what, when they come to me and say, you know what, when they ask me to forgive them, then I'll forgive them. I'll do it. And God has not called us. He's not told us to do it that way. He said, I want you to forgive them. So it's important that way. When we say that word forgive, it's like, like, I mean, there's just something that naturally happens because we can't do it without God's help to forgive. How can we break through past that feeling? I think sometimes it's just to remember what God has done for you, to remember that He's forgiven you in the same grace that He's given you, that we have to give those that have heard us, that we have to decide that I've done some pretty not so great things and the Father has forgiven me. Sometimes we don't see ourselves, you know? We've done some things and we've hurt some people and we don't always see ourselves. We see everybody else's faults. We see what they've done because we're so hurt and we're broken people. And so if we can see ourselves, then Father will show us. I think as we begin to just pray, begin to just really pray for that person, sometimes it's like, I don't want to even think about that thing. It's been, it's so terrible. It's so horrible. I don't even want to think about what happened to me. I don't want to think about what they did to me. But I believe if we begin to pray for that person, that's one of the ways that we can get free because we begin to pray for them and then God will show us how to love because He's lavishing His love. When we begin to pray, He's lavishing His love on us. I always like to use that word that when I pray that I feel like God is just lavishing His love on me. And so when He's lavishing His love on me, there's nothing, the only thing that's going to come out of that is good. And that love is going to flow to other people that have heard us. Yeah, I love that word lavish. We were just talking about that on the program yesterday. The lavish love of God and how truly that can empower us to be able to love and forgive those who are hard to love. So I always feel like when we talk about forgiveness, we also need to talk a little bit about what it is, what it isn't, because it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get back in relationship with that person. Like they might not be a safe person, right? No, it does not mean that you have to be best friends with them anymore that you're like, hey, come on, let's be buddies now, let's do... It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with you making that step in your heart. It has everything to do with us because we want to put other people into it. When Father is saying, no, Vicki, you, I want you to forgive them. It has nothing to do with... If they don't forgive you, if they're still that same person that you don't like, that's okay, that's okay, but I've called you to forgive them so that you can have a clean heart and you can talk to me freely without having any animosity, having any look that we have inside of us, that yucky stuff that can come out of us when we face that person or face that situation. And sometimes it's, we hide it so well. We hide it so well. The person will come and be like, hi, you know, or we just leave the room and I, there was a person that I had to forgive that I... Honestly, when she would come in the room, I would leave the room. Okay. The forgiveness lady, yes, me. Yes. I just... Come on, now we're talking. Yes, I would just leave the room. And actually it was during COVID that the Lord really spoke to me about it and you need to get that, you need to get that right. And I felt like this person was the person that lied continuously and I didn't want to hear what they had to say. And the person still lies, but I have a different relationship. They can sense that I love them now. It's a different kind of relationship because God dealt with me about that because he said, Vicki, I don't walk out of the room when you come in the room. When you pray, when you pray and you come to me, you have little things that you do, but I don't walk out of the room. So how dare you? Who do you think you are that you can walk out of the room when someone walks in? What do you think you better? Because that's what it is. We think that we're better. We're judging when God says he's not called us to judge that way. And he is the one that gets revenge. We don't have to get revenge. We don't have to get back at that person or retaliate because God says vengeance is his. So we have to give God room to do his work. That's not our job. It's the Holy Spirit that does the work, not us. You have an organization, a ministry right here in Pittsburgh, called Journey to Freedom. So you're working with women locally, but then this group of women you have empowered and now you are also working with people in Kenya, Uganda. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing. Journey to Freedom is about 12 of us now, but six of us about four years ago went to Kenya. God allowed us to go to Kenya. We've been going for the last four. This will be our fourth year this year. We're showing some pictures too. Yes. So that's us in Kenya. That's the hospital there in Kenya. We went to Kenya. God allowed us to go there. And we did a lot of forgiveness stuff there too, which is a whole different aspect with orphans and all kinds of different things. It's just a whole different thing, but God really has shown up. But we are in partnership with an organization called ICFM and Inter-Christian Fellowship Evangelical Mission. And they have a hospital there and they are in need of a CT scan. So God put it on our heart to do it. Now CT scans are pretty expensive. I didn't know how expensive they were when we decided that we would help them. But God does that with us, right? Someone said that if the project is big, then God is in it, right? And you know that the only way it's going to happen is if the Lord's in it, right? So we decided that we would take this. They already have their people of faith, right? It's a Christian organization. They already have the room ready for the CT scan, just waiting for it to come. So God put it on our hearts to do a gala. The gala will be on May 20th, 1620 Pennsylvania Avenue. And we will have dancers, African dance from the Congo will be there. We'll also have a quartet during dinner. We will have all kinds of amazing... It's going to be an experience. It's going to be like a Kenyan experience there at this gala. And we're just asking people to come. They can go to our website, which is www.journeytofreedompgh.com. And they can get tickets there to purchase. If you can't make it to the gala, you can also go on our website and donate. We can get sponsors to donate to give to this amazing, amazing hospital where people can go because we can go to our doctor and our doctor just write us a little script, some of us, and then just go and get our CT scan. But it's a little bit different there. At this hospital, they have to send people to another hospital, which is in the roads there are not like... We think our roads are bad. Well, the roads there are really bad. They don't have... So for them to just transport a person to the other hospitals, it can be life change. It's really bad just shaking up your body like that to go to these other hospitals. So we're helping them to purchase a CT scan in Kenya. We're believing that God is going to make a way for this to happen. We also do have an organization that is matching our funds up to $200,000 and matching our funds. So whatever you give will be matched by another organization that is helping us to get this CT scan. So it's an amazing experience. It has definitely shattered my faith as far as some days I'm like, Lord, how are we going to do this? But I believe that God is going to do it and he's going to make a way for us to be able to see this come to pass. That's awesome. Yes, God has a way of stepping us, putting us outside of our comfort zone. Yes, oh my goodness. But thank you for all that you're doing to bring freedom locally and also across the seas in Kenya. And I hope that you'll stay with us. We have to take a 60-second break, but we're going to take a look at a scripture when we come back and just have a chance to minister and look at God's word to empower your day. Stay with us. Tom, what you doing? Oh, I can't find anything good on YouTube to watch. The commentaries, the blogs, the tier videos, the gaming videos, it's all boring. Oh, have you thought about subscribing to Cornerstone's YouTube channel? Cornerstone has a YouTube channel? Of course it does. Hold on, taking a pause to remind you to subscribe to our channel. Hit that like button and ring that bell for notifications. Now, back to the video. I'll show you how to subscribe. Just search for Cornerstone Television Network and hit the subscribe button so you can stay up to date getting filled with the Holy Spirit with consistent uploads every day. Keep up with your favorite moments and never miss a beat. Will you help us as we race to 100,000 subscribers? We can't do it without your help. The content is never ending with countless hours of entertainment. So subscribe to the Cornerstone YouTube channel today. Hope happens here. Let's close this program today with a scripture. We need God's Word in our life. It's from Ephesians 6, verse 18. With all prayer and petition, with specific requests at all times, on every occasion and in every season, in the Spirit and with this in view, stay alert with all perseverance and petition, interceding in prayer for all of God's people. There are some strong words in there, like at all times, on every occasion, in every season, make our requests known. Anna, life is not always smooth. Life is not always great. I mean, there are tough struggles relationally, nationally, personally, and financially with your health. I mean, we need to press into God like never before. Who hears us when we pray? Yes, he absolutely does. And this scripture is at the end of a portion of scripture that we talk about the armor of God. And it's so appropriate for our conversation today because we do have a very real enemy in this world that is trying to take down everything that God is trying to do. But we know that our God is more powerful. He is victorious in the end. But if the enemy can get us believers to be discouraged, fearful, without faith, feel downtrodden, then what he's trying to do is to weaken us. And so, Amy, it is through the power of prayer, which is the sword of the Spirit that we have been given this mighty weapon to tear down all that the enemy is doing. There's a beautiful quote. I forgot who said it, but it says, God can do nothing lest man pray. See, we know right now Jesus is positionally seated at the right hand of the Father. And we know before he left, he said, listen, I'm leaving, I'm going away. I'm going to send you a helper and I'm going to give you the authority here on Earth. So we take that authority and we use that and we pray for thy will to be done on Earth as it is in heaven. We have to take our stance and we have to stand there for until we get what we're standing there for. And when we're standing there praying, forgive. Let's not go, Anna, into this National Day of Prayer tomorrow with unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment grouped up in our heart. My mom just beautifully explained a situation to me. She was hurt. Her feelings were hurt. And my mom's older. I mean, she's older and wiser. And she said, at first I was mad. Then I was sad. And then I got glad. And she said, and I did that process really quickly. There are times where people, they hurt you and it makes you mad. But instead of holding that anger and holding that madness in, let's move through the process quickly and say, okay, I'm mad. And you know what, I feel kind of sad that it really hurt my feelings. And it wasn't right. What happened to me wasn't fair. But then I'm going to move over quickly and into, you know what, I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to give it to God because he's faithful. And I'm going to have a merry heart to do good like a medicine. And I'm going to let nobody still my peace and my joy. Yeah. That's right. The Bible tells us to, to shut off all this sin that so easily entangles. Anything that hinders you today, take it off because friend, you have a race to run. God is calling you to step to the battle line, to pray, to forgive those who have hurt you. His love for you is so great. He has forgiven greatly in friend. And you have such hope ahead, such power as you rest in Jesus and fight through the power of prayer. Have a great day. On Tomorrow's Hope Today, discover how to change your life by changing your thinking. Author and speaker Kelly Balari encourages you with how to exchange the lies of the enemy for the mind of Christ and live victoriously in God's light. Don't miss Tomorrow's Hope Today. Our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.