21 Days of Prayer - August - Day 2 - Praying For Revival

2020 - Aug. 21 Days of Prayer

Day 2   Praying for Revival

Faith is what prayer works. Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God.

Revival is bringing something back to life. Biblically and historically it begins in the church and then the world.

I am believing God for another great awakening in our world.

Speaking at a conference in 1917, R. A. Torrey gave this prescription for revival:  

Let a few of God’s people, they don’t need to be many, get thoroughly right with God themselves—the rest will count for nothing unless you start right there; then let them band themselves together to pray for a revival until God opens the heavens and comes down. Then let them put themselves at God’s disposal to use them as He sees fit. That will bring a revival to any church, any community.

We get right with God, then we get together in prayer and then in revival.

 We can’t organize a revival, but we can agonize for it in prayer. We can call on God to send it.

God has some things He wants to do and say in the world yet to happen.

It begins with the church at Ephesus.

They had lost their first love.

Here’s the remedy.

Revelation 2:5

5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.

Remember the height from which you have fallen. Take a few moments and ask God to show me areas where I’m not where I used to be and bring me back (that moment when you were a bit more fired up for God).  

CF Psalm 139:23-24

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Repent - This is the most positive word in the Bible. You make a  U Turn. You change your direction from where you were going, and you head in God’s direction. One of the conditions of God moving for us is that we turn.  

2 Chronicles 7:14  if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Lord, today, I am actively repenting. I am turning into the direction you want me to go.

Repentance is a moment of pain, being unrepentant is a lifetime of pain.

Acts 3:19 19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

Repeat - do the first works and in fact add some things that are not there now. 

There was a time in which I used to “woo” Michelle to bring her. Well, I need to repeat and doing the things at first when I first gave my life to Jesus.  I had some much fire and zeal. Sometimes that dims. I don’t want that to dim. I want boldness. I want to be a soul winner. I want to do the things I did at first because I’m so in love with you.

If we remember, repent and repeat, I believe this will get the attention of God and we will see a mighty revival and God will be glorified.

When You Walk Close to God, You Bless Others - 2 Chronicles 31:20-21

S. 20 This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. 21 In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

O. Hezekiah had an amazing life. He led Israel back to being a prosperous people. He led them back to a spiritually strong relationship with God (Read 2 Chronicles 29-31), because he led such an exemplary life before the people and God. In EVERYTHING he sought the Lord. That was the key to his prosperity.

A. I desire that kind of focus and relationship with God as well. I would love to be a man who follows God so closely, that other people see the life and desire the same. That’s what spiritual leaders do. They have an aura (anointing or blessing from the Lord), that is evident and desired.

P. Thank you Father for Hezekiah’s tremendous example of a prosperous life. Grant me wisdom and strength to be such a man, who lives so close to you that it becomes infectious to those around and blesses them. In Jesus name!

Complete the Faith Test Process - James 1:4, 12

S. James 1:2-4, 12

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

O. James teaches that we should allow perseverance finish its work. People possibly do not want to continue what I might call “faith testing.” Possibly many think they need relief right now from things that test us. Yet, James says that perseverance (to keep going, endure) has an end. He says “let perseverance finish its work.” Perhaps such “faith testing” is a process of faith building and when the process is complete, those persisting do not lack or have need of anything.

Such perseverance (of “faith testing”) then is really what we might term faith or spiritual formation.

A. I will not seek to “bail out” of my present circumstances. I will not “run to Egypt” (a thought I have from the Bible of when God’s people seek what they think is a for sure stability by someone/something other than God. Mentioned BTW in Isaiah 31:1). Rather, I will persist in prayer and keep my faith focused and my provision requests to God alone, knowing He is developing me even more for continued Kingdom work.

P. Thank you Father for your word today. Holy Spirit help me to learn from such faith testing that I might grow, mature, encourage others and thereby glorify God.