Praying In One Accord (part I)
God is shaking the foundations of the church and turning our hearts back to our First Love. He is restoring the tabernacle of David, a house of worship and prayer that will be the centerpiece of every other form of ministry. Even as Jesus was zealous for the temple of the Jews in the first century to be cleansed of idolatry and to become a "house of prayer for all nations" once again, He is zealous in our day to do the same in every church, ministry, and Christian University that bears His name.
The current financial crisis that so many are experiencing is only a hint of the great shaking that is to come upon the entire church, and then the whole world. Will we learn to build our lives and ministries on the Rock of His Kingdom through intimacy with Him, or will we stay upon the sand of worldly wisdom and charismatic personalities? The alarm is sounding: drop your other ambitions and worries and make prayer the first priority once again. Only gold refined in this heavenly furnace will last for eternity.
If we are to be a part of this glorious priestly ministry in a sustained way, there are practical aspects of prayer that we must come to learn. Jesus taught His disciples to go into their rooms and shut their doors and pray, yet He also worshipped with them and undoubtedly taught them by word and example how to pray as a group. His leadership was so effective that 120 of them spent 10 days in corporate fasting and prayer between Jesus' ascension and the day of Pentecost until the Spirit rushed into the room like a mighty wind. Jesus effectively taught His followers how to pray in private and how to pray as a group. Even John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray (Luke 11:1), and he himself lived in incessant prayer and fasting. In Matthew 24 Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree and advises His disciples to "learn" the lesson that is found therein. The moral of the story is to be awake, aware, and watchful in the hour of His return; to learn to be people that live with the spirit of prayer on their lives. This kind of watchfulness does not come naturally. One must practice it, study it, talk about it, and grow in it. The point of all of this is that we need to learn to pray. To become faithful intercessors and increase in our authority before God, we should learn to ask the question that the disciples asked Jesus in Luke 11 - "Lord, teach us to pray."
Derek Prince wrote in Shaping History Through Fasting and Prayer that the corporate assembly of fasting and prayer is the most powerful weapon the church has in her entire arsenal. Unfortunately the western church often strategizes and plans with everything else besides this mighty method of unleashing heaven on earth. Sustained weekly and daily prayer meetings are unimaginably powerful. Our weak words and faint cries are releasing angels in the heavenly places; where two or three are gathered in prayerful unity the rumblings of victory are already reverberating in the distance. In learning how to pray, perhaps we should start right at the top with the group prayer meeting.
The first goal of corporate prayer is unity with God's heart. As Noel Alexander used to say, "Pray heaven to earth; not earth to heaven." This means that we fix our eyes on Jesus before we fix our eyes on the nations. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He addressed this very issue for the first entire half of what has come to be known as The Lord's Prayer. He says, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Luke 11:2). He takes them straight to heaven and turns their eyes towards the Father and His Kingdom. It is essential that we realize He did not start the prayer with "Give us day by day our daily bread." Yet so many Christians spend their entire quiet time asking God for more money, friends, and influence. These things are not necessarily bad to pray about, but we must learn to pray God's prayers and not our own prayers.
Do you pray out of revelation or out of fear, insecurity, and selfish ambition? We must look to the Father and his Kingdom before we labor in supplication and intercession. We do this simply by abiding in Jesus and in His word. Soon, His desires will become our desires and we will become united with His heart in a greater way. On a corporate functional level, this is why we start prayer meetings with worship. We set aside our agendas and needs, come humbly before our Father in heaven and seek to get connected to Him once again. In the place of worship we are refreshed in the goodness, mercy, and joy of Jesus, and then we are open and ready to receive His zeal for the nations.
What a pity it would be to pray for hours but never pray God's will! Do you ever wonder how many prayers flounder into nothingness because they were birthed in our own selfish ambitions and fleshly motivations? I inwardly wince as I meditate on the fact that truck loads of prayer never make it into the sacred bowls in heaven because they were merely "good ideas" and not "God ideas." Now, I believe that all sincere prayer is precious to God. And we are always free to rant and rave before our Father in heaven and tell Him what is on our mind. But true intercession moves from honest intimacy to authoritative prayer and dominion over nations. Let your intimate conversations with the Lord drive you into the deeper regions of His heart and His will; don't stop with complaints and needs - read the Word and listen to the Spirit to see what God has to say about your situation. In the place of prayer the first goal is to seek Him and then pray His will be done over our families, schools, and regions.
True prayer arises from revelation. We can pray out of biblical revelation, prophetic revelation, and personal revelation. Biblical revelation is the inspired Word of God. We know we are praying God's will when we pray His Word. We can pray daily for a "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" with confidence because that is what the Apostle Paul prayed in the New Testament in Ephesians 1:17. I encourage you to fuel your prayer life by reading the Bible on a daily basis. Another way we can pray Kingdom prayers is by praying the prophetic revelations of God. Multitudes of believers in America are praying for the ending of abortion because God has revealed through His Spirit to many prophets and faithful believers that this is the great injustice of our day in our country. This is what Jesus meant when He repeatedly admonished the seven churches of Asia to "hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Revelation 2-3). We also pray what God shows us to pray through personal revelations. We do this by responding to the "nudgings" of His Spirit. I have specific prayers for certain friends, and I have different specific prayers for Vanguard because He has directed me to pray in these ways. In the group setting, we keep our ear open to hear what the Spirit is emphasizing in our midst. If someone prays a particularly anointed prayer and then three people instantly jump in with accompanying prayers for the same thing, you can be almost positive that God has His finger on it. Stay with it - this is the best part! Nothing beats feeling the Father's heart and praying in unity with Him and with other brothers and sisters.
How can we learn to be more fully united with God? Probably the most important of all is that we learn to repent for our sins and forgive others who have hurt us as we enter our personal and corporate prayer meetings. Jesus taught us to pray: Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us (Luke 11:4). We cannot be properly yoked with the heart of God and pray His prayers if we have secret sin or hidden bitterness towards our brothers and sisters. Come honestly before the Father and repent where you have consciously walked in unrighteousness. He is incredibly kind – He will gather you up in His arms as you return to Him and His will. He promises never to despise a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). Humility attracts the grace of God. The historic Hebrides revival began when one man stopped "playing nice" in the prayer meeting and finally got real enough to confess his sin and repent before God and man. The Spirit was poured out in an incredible way precisely when raw repentance reached its climax.
The second part of this process is to forgive those who have wronged us in any way. Whether it is your Dad, your roommate, or your wife - forgive them as you have been forgiven. Remember the cry of Jesus Himself as He hung bleeding on a cross beam: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The same merciful Jesus dwells within you. Hell has no hold when a Christian determines to walk in repentance and forgiveness...
The current financial crisis that so many are experiencing is only a hint of the great shaking that is to come upon the entire church, and then the whole world. Will we learn to build our lives and ministries on the Rock of His Kingdom through intimacy with Him, or will we stay upon the sand of worldly wisdom and charismatic personalities? The alarm is sounding: drop your other ambitions and worries and make prayer the first priority once again. Only gold refined in this heavenly furnace will last for eternity.
If we are to be a part of this glorious priestly ministry in a sustained way, there are practical aspects of prayer that we must come to learn. Jesus taught His disciples to go into their rooms and shut their doors and pray, yet He also worshipped with them and undoubtedly taught them by word and example how to pray as a group. His leadership was so effective that 120 of them spent 10 days in corporate fasting and prayer between Jesus' ascension and the day of Pentecost until the Spirit rushed into the room like a mighty wind. Jesus effectively taught His followers how to pray in private and how to pray as a group. Even John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray (Luke 11:1), and he himself lived in incessant prayer and fasting. In Matthew 24 Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree and advises His disciples to "learn" the lesson that is found therein. The moral of the story is to be awake, aware, and watchful in the hour of His return; to learn to be people that live with the spirit of prayer on their lives. This kind of watchfulness does not come naturally. One must practice it, study it, talk about it, and grow in it. The point of all of this is that we need to learn to pray. To become faithful intercessors and increase in our authority before God, we should learn to ask the question that the disciples asked Jesus in Luke 11 - "Lord, teach us to pray."
Derek Prince wrote in Shaping History Through Fasting and Prayer that the corporate assembly of fasting and prayer is the most powerful weapon the church has in her entire arsenal. Unfortunately the western church often strategizes and plans with everything else besides this mighty method of unleashing heaven on earth. Sustained weekly and daily prayer meetings are unimaginably powerful. Our weak words and faint cries are releasing angels in the heavenly places; where two or three are gathered in prayerful unity the rumblings of victory are already reverberating in the distance. In learning how to pray, perhaps we should start right at the top with the group prayer meeting.
The first goal of corporate prayer is unity with God's heart. As Noel Alexander used to say, "Pray heaven to earth; not earth to heaven." This means that we fix our eyes on Jesus before we fix our eyes on the nations. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He addressed this very issue for the first entire half of what has come to be known as The Lord's Prayer. He says, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Luke 11:2). He takes them straight to heaven and turns their eyes towards the Father and His Kingdom. It is essential that we realize He did not start the prayer with "Give us day by day our daily bread." Yet so many Christians spend their entire quiet time asking God for more money, friends, and influence. These things are not necessarily bad to pray about, but we must learn to pray God's prayers and not our own prayers.
Do you pray out of revelation or out of fear, insecurity, and selfish ambition? We must look to the Father and his Kingdom before we labor in supplication and intercession. We do this simply by abiding in Jesus and in His word. Soon, His desires will become our desires and we will become united with His heart in a greater way. On a corporate functional level, this is why we start prayer meetings with worship. We set aside our agendas and needs, come humbly before our Father in heaven and seek to get connected to Him once again. In the place of worship we are refreshed in the goodness, mercy, and joy of Jesus, and then we are open and ready to receive His zeal for the nations.
What a pity it would be to pray for hours but never pray God's will! Do you ever wonder how many prayers flounder into nothingness because they were birthed in our own selfish ambitions and fleshly motivations? I inwardly wince as I meditate on the fact that truck loads of prayer never make it into the sacred bowls in heaven because they were merely "good ideas" and not "God ideas." Now, I believe that all sincere prayer is precious to God. And we are always free to rant and rave before our Father in heaven and tell Him what is on our mind. But true intercession moves from honest intimacy to authoritative prayer and dominion over nations. Let your intimate conversations with the Lord drive you into the deeper regions of His heart and His will; don't stop with complaints and needs - read the Word and listen to the Spirit to see what God has to say about your situation. In the place of prayer the first goal is to seek Him and then pray His will be done over our families, schools, and regions.
True prayer arises from revelation. We can pray out of biblical revelation, prophetic revelation, and personal revelation. Biblical revelation is the inspired Word of God. We know we are praying God's will when we pray His Word. We can pray daily for a "spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" with confidence because that is what the Apostle Paul prayed in the New Testament in Ephesians 1:17. I encourage you to fuel your prayer life by reading the Bible on a daily basis. Another way we can pray Kingdom prayers is by praying the prophetic revelations of God. Multitudes of believers in America are praying for the ending of abortion because God has revealed through His Spirit to many prophets and faithful believers that this is the great injustice of our day in our country. This is what Jesus meant when He repeatedly admonished the seven churches of Asia to "hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Revelation 2-3). We also pray what God shows us to pray through personal revelations. We do this by responding to the "nudgings" of His Spirit. I have specific prayers for certain friends, and I have different specific prayers for Vanguard because He has directed me to pray in these ways. In the group setting, we keep our ear open to hear what the Spirit is emphasizing in our midst. If someone prays a particularly anointed prayer and then three people instantly jump in with accompanying prayers for the same thing, you can be almost positive that God has His finger on it. Stay with it - this is the best part! Nothing beats feeling the Father's heart and praying in unity with Him and with other brothers and sisters.
How can we learn to be more fully united with God? Probably the most important of all is that we learn to repent for our sins and forgive others who have hurt us as we enter our personal and corporate prayer meetings. Jesus taught us to pray: Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us (Luke 11:4). We cannot be properly yoked with the heart of God and pray His prayers if we have secret sin or hidden bitterness towards our brothers and sisters. Come honestly before the Father and repent where you have consciously walked in unrighteousness. He is incredibly kind – He will gather you up in His arms as you return to Him and His will. He promises never to despise a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). Humility attracts the grace of God. The historic Hebrides revival began when one man stopped "playing nice" in the prayer meeting and finally got real enough to confess his sin and repent before God and man. The Spirit was poured out in an incredible way precisely when raw repentance reached its climax.
The second part of this process is to forgive those who have wronged us in any way. Whether it is your Dad, your roommate, or your wife - forgive them as you have been forgiven. Remember the cry of Jesus Himself as He hung bleeding on a cross beam: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The same merciful Jesus dwells within you. Hell has no hold when a Christian determines to walk in repentance and forgiveness...
Comments