Happy Thursday!
Here’s an excellent random thought I just posted on twitter and facebook: “People have a real chance at becoming great when they are surrounded with great people! I am on the path 2 greatness!” (my reply to a very kind comment from Pamela Myers)
A big thank you to Dave, Rae, and Kristin… for your great thoughts about prayer on yesterdays blog! As I re-read that blog and made a few necessary amendments, then read your comments… I started feeling very high, and I’m still feeling high right now! Thanks for sharpening my life!
Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Effective, consistent daily prayer… this really is one of the BEST ways to people to find real jollyness during the Christmas Season or at any other time of the year! Especially today, we so desperately need real reform and revival in the American church… not only for the American Christian people, but also for the blessed continuance of our struggling nation.
When considering todays news headlines, time is really becoming “of the Essence”… history has well established how there is an expiration date on every season of grace and opportunity. Consider the following:
- According to Reuters, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech, “The Zionist regime (Israel) and its (western) backers cannot do a damn thing to stop Iran’s nuclear work!” (this is a serious global situation)
- Over the next few months, 30,0000 additional US troops are heading to Afghanistan! These are our precious sons and daughters… they are leaving it all to go sacrifice for tomorrows better world!
- Look ahead five years-look deep into the prophetic horizon… consider the continued imminent threat of terrorism in America and throughout the entire world. What are we all heading into if God doesn’t help us all.
- Face reality about the ever worsening condition of this US economy and how much lower we could descend before hitting rock bottom… really, where will this stop?
- Consider our terrifying moral decline and ask yourself, “What will this mean for the future of the FAMILY unit… and for your children’s children?”
- Consider the lasting negative spiritual and social impact of more than 50,000,000 abortions here in the USA since 1973.
- Consider these present REALITIES of our national and global situation: and no matter how painful this may be at first, consider how YOU and I can REALLY MAKE IT BETTER!
Discussing world crisis always seems like a big old pile of gloom until one considers the historical POWER of a PRAYING CHRISTIAN CHURCH! Every day… I head over to foxnews.com for the latest state of our Union and world. At first, my heart drops and feelings of hopelessness laden me down. But never for more than a minute or two! Because EVERY DAY, the SPIRIT of God rises INSIDE me with great hope for a better day!
Every time I pray… I know that I am making a real difference!
James 5:16-18 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.
The American Christian population must to LEARN HOW TO PRAY again! We need to MAKE A 21st CENTURY COVENANT with an everlasting God… that we will re-discover the secret hidden power of prayer and fasting! That we will pray like Elijah until OUR SKIES OPEN UP… and the RAIN COMES DOWN… and our troubled earth BEGINS TO YEILD ITS CROPS AGAIN!
Today, let’s covenant to:
- Pray and fast just like the founding prophets and apostles of our faith!
- Live according to the teachings of Jesus just like the first century church!
- Lavish our finances on every good church and ministry in our land… until every MISSION OF HOPE is extravagantly resourced!
- Volunteer 10-20 hours a week or more to something that matters in the face of eternity.
- And SURGE at our enemy with all we have until his resolve is BROKEN and the moment shifts back into our favor again!
My God, this is STRONG IN ME today. I feel like I’m channeling a message… a prophetic rally call from the BIG GUY!
Selah
I couldn't agree more. Of all the things I want to teach my children, the importance of prayer is at the top of the list!!! The world is in need of prayer more and more everyday!!!
I will never forget when I was first saved I never really understood the power of prayer. I was raised Catholic and prayer sometimes is just something you do in a uniform way. There really isn't passion behind it. Not to say that all Catholics are like that, but in the services I attended you just repeated words to a prayer, but it didn't feel like we really believed that they prayers would help, it was just about obedience. Now you may say, but obedience is important, which is so true, but this put a huge barrier on my prayer life in the beginning. ( I hope I haven’t offended anyone, this is just where I was at in my life at the time.)
Then when I rededicated my life to the Lord, almost 6 years later, I began to feel the passion behind the prayer, and I started to feel the intimacy you could get with our amazing Father! Then I was hooked. There are many times I don't have an hour or two to spend in prayer in the morning, but I take the time on and off all day and keep putting it into my everyday activities and it brings about a joy and a peace beyond all measure! Sometimes they are the smallest prayers and sometimes I could write a book. It really doesn’t matter as long as it is from the heart!! Just imagine if we all became prayer warriors in our everyday lives and prayed for our nation and our world how much we could accomplish!
I had someone ask me the other day, "Have you ever seen the effects of your prayers?" She knew my family and I had been praying for my son Nechemya because he had problems in his kidneys. Well… this morning I was very happy to report to her that yesterday I took him up to UVA and his kidneys look beautiful! For the first time since he was conceived they look healthy and normal and are functioning correctly! Praise the Lord! Now she has rededicated herself to working on her intimate prayer time with the Lord!!!
How amazing is that. If just the number of people praying can produce those kind of results, just imagine what we could do for the world if the whole body of Christ would rise up!!! So YES Pastor I will join you in this covenant and I can’t wait to see the results we can produce with all of us together! I can’t wait to see it just as you said, “OUR SKIES OPEN UP… and the RAIN COMES DOWN… and our troubled earth BEGINS TO YEILD ITS CROPS AGAIN!”
Wow… where is everyone today?
Haha… I thought the same this Elaine-until I looked at the stats. People were here, they were just not very talkative yesterday. I wonder if it was the topic…
Your comments are amazing as always! And you and Jeremy have been on the front prayer lines since I've met you guys! You will always be this way… because this is WHO YOU ARE!
You know… its so true what you're saying here. Sadly, for so many people: prayers is part of their spiritual ROUTINE and not a LIVING ENCOUNTER with God. For me personally… I cannot image not being ABLE to BE WITH GOD every day. In my opinion, prayer is one of the greatest privileges of mankind… and there are not many other things I can do in life that compares to the amazingness of communicating with God.
Have a super day Elaine… and to all our other quiet friends out there today. I'm praying for you all this morning…
Hey Chuck,
I appreciate you posting about prayer, I feel like this issue is something that is so VITAL in our generation. I highly recommend checking out Dalton Lifsey, a leader at the Tauranga House of Prayer NZ, sermon on the role of 24 hour intercession in the Great Commission http://www.daltonlifsey.com. Also you should check out the Moravian Church's 100 year 24/7 prayer movement in the 18th century: http://www.intercessorsarise.org/24-7/247roots.ht….
There is no doubt in my mind that God is pouring out His spirit on people in this generation in profound ways, particularly in the youth of the world. I myself am only 19 years old but see such an opportunity for the reaching of world evangelism as we devote ourselves to prayer and fasting. Young people want something great to dedicate their lives to, something that will fulfill and satisfy like nothing else. Unfortunately, many of them assume that prayer is like an awkward conversation on the phone with a stranger: something to be avoided at all costs!
It's obvious to me as I travel around the world that what Christians have usually failed to preach and what will change the way we understand prayer in general has to do with The Superior Pleasure of Christ. To quote C.S. Lewis, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Prayer cuts through spiritual darkness like nothing else. That is why in Matt 17:21 Jesus said about the demon possessing the boy, "his kind does not come out but by prayer and fasting.” It's not about just about the actions of prayer and fasting, but about the lifestyle that they represent. A lifestyle fully SATISFIED and DESIRING of prayer. That is the goal I think we are all pushing towards and are seeing greater breakthrough in understanding/implementing. Prayer is the lifestyle for the believer who is fully satisfied in Christ!
Be encouraged, many of my friends are similarly throwing off the shackles of everyday life and entering a life of "Christian Hedonism" to borrow John Piper's term. I feel certain that we are going to see things even in next 5 years that will be unprecedented due to the amount of prayer going up around the world!