“These all continued with one accord in
prayer and supplication, . . . .”
Our best efforts apart from
the Spirit, prayerlessly never attain the desired results. The absence of
prayer exposes a work of “the flesh.” The flesh is mere human strength and
resource (Gal. 5:16-26). It’s foolish, frustrating, futile and doomed to failure
to think we can address ministry needs by throwing a few bills and checks in
the offering plate, buying a few new gadgets, and organizing some programs. This
is too often a mere fleshly response (e.g. Gal. 3:1-5). Our efforts, no matter
how expensive and exhaustive, will fall flat without prayer and the empowerment
of the Holy Spirit. Prayer needs to be our priority.
Praying will do more to make the Church what it ought to be than anything else we can do. Prayer will do more to root out heresy than all the heresy trials ever held. Prayer will do more to straighten out tangles, misunderstandings, and unhappy complications in the life of the Church than all the councils and conferences ever held. Prayer will do more to bring a deep, lasting, sweeping, real, God-sent revival, than all the organizations ever devised by man. . . . Humanly speaking, the Church today, owes its very existence to revivals. Time and time again, the Church has seemed to be on the verge of shipwreck; but just at the right time God has sent a great revival in the Church as a result of prayer. There have been revivals without much preaching; there have been revivals with absolutely no organization; but there has never been a revival without mighty praying.[1]
That unity in prayer should
go beyond the walls of the local church. We need to set aside the walls of sectarian
denominational non-essential doctrinal differences and unite in prayer. I’m not
speaking about overlooking any essential doctrine of the faith. And I’m not
talking about a one world religion. I’m
talking about setting aside Christian non-essential beliefs or traditions that
are often no more than petty differences that divide us.
We need to trust each other.
There is a lot of mistrust in the body of Christ. Unfortunately it is
frequently warranted. Those in the church need to stop robbing other shepherd’s
sheepfolds. Are we really concerned for the Bride of Christ or just want a
larger church or to win an argument? There needs to be some integrity and
accountability. We need to stop “evangelizing” the church. We need to stop with
our pet dogmas seeking to win converts to our side from the converted. There
are enough sinners in this world to go around. They are lost and the Lord wants
to use us to find them and bring them home to Him. He has elected us to reach
them; “we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
We need to come together in
love and respect for one another. Jesus said His disciples would be known by
their love for one another (John 13:35). Where is the love? Whatever we do,
including the adherence to sound right doctrine, if it is done lovelessly, is “nothing”
(1 Cor. 13). Without love everything we do is ear-splitting, heart-poisoning,
Spirit-quenching static. We need to unite in love and prayer.
Some churches are dead or
out of breath. At such times the church needs reviving. Like with Israel, the
Spirit can revive the church like bringing dead bones to life again (Ezek. 37).
A revival is when the Holy Spirit breathes life into the church that is out of
breath. The Book of Acts is a picture of revival. When the Spirit came in Acts,
He breathed incredible life into the people of God. United prayer preceded that
outpouring of the Spirit.
The need for revival is not
limited to the church. Our world needs revival. Our world needs the overflow of
the life of the Spirit from the church. I quote Torrey again:
The greatest need of the Church today is a general, widespread, deep, thorough, genuine revival. That is also the greatest need of business, the greatest need of human society, the greatest need of human government, the greatest need of international relations, and the greatest need of missions. In every department of life today – business, social relations, politics, international relations, education, the Church – we are facing the most menacing problems and the most important crises that have confronted the human race in centuries, in fact in human history. Since the incarnation of God in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the birth of the Church, which was the outcome of that incarnation, the only hope of the Church is a great revival or revolution throughout the civilized world. It is a real and larger coming of the life of God into the Church and through the Church into society as a whole. If not, it will be universal Communism: Communism in the Church, state, school, home, and everywhere with consequent chaos and midnight darkness on the Earth. It will be utter universal dissolution, desolation, and destruction.” [2]
Torrey wrote that in the
early 1900s and God also stemmed the tide by sending revival. Today we have returned
to a state not dissimilar to the one Torrey described in the above passage. We
are in need of another revival from God. We need to unite in prayer for the
Holy Spirit to come upon us in power. Prayer is the preparatory priority of the
Spirit to come in power. Christian, unite in prayer!
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