21 Days of Prayer - Day #9 - January 16, 2023 Praying for the Church -

Day 9 - Monday - January 16

This week we are going to pray for the church.

Revival begins in the church. 

Today we want to talk about revival in the church.

I want it to begin in me and in our church.

Jesus’ final words in the Bible with a message or prophecy for the church:

Revelation 2:4-5 (NIV)

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 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 lampstand from its place.

The lampstand is the fire of the Holy Spirit. We don’t want to see the fire of the Holy Spirit limited from our life.

Revival is bringing something back to life - Damar Hamlin, the football player of the Buffalo Bills was restored by paramedics on the field.  That’s what revival is, bringing something (someone) back to life.

I asked the Lord to restore our energy and passion for the Lord.

Romans 12:11 (NIV)  

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

This means to be red hot and boiling over. That’s the kind of passion that is marked by revival

There are 4 areas I’m praying for the church.

1. Passion for prayer.

Let’s pray this would burn in our lives.  

James 5:16 (NIV)

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Let’s pray effective, fervent prayers. Praying with energy and passion.

2. Passion for praise and worship.

Not just low key, tap my toe - I’m going to lift my hands up to heaven.

I'm going to lift my voice, shouting His praise.

Mark 12:30 (NIV)

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

3.Passion for purity.

God, we just want to be restored to pure lives.

There are things in our lives that grieve and quench the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is sensitive to what we allow in our lives.

Psalm 139 - is there any offensive way in my life that you can help me remove.

Psalm 139:24 (NIV)

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

4. Passion for people.

This is having a love for the lost, those who are far from God.

We should not lose our passion for souls. 

Let’s always keep praying, reaching and helping people to hear the Gospel and have an opportunity to receive the Lord Jesus.

So let’s lift up our hands and our hearts. Let’s ask God to stir the fire in our hearts. 

Let’s ask God to ignite that flame within us! In Jesus’ name.

21 Days of Prayer - Day #7 - Saturday, January 14, 2022 Global Missions

Day 7 - Saturday  January 14

Prayer Focus: Global Missions

Matthew 24:14 (NIV) And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

One way or another, God is going to reach the world with His gospel.

Nations = ethnos, every language group. There are more than 12,000 language groups in the world.

Of the 200 nations where the gospel is being preached, it is growing faster than population growth in 183 of the 200 nations. There are about 17 that are either not growing or in decline and America happens to be in that not growing or declining group.

Revelation 7:9 (NIV)

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

This is a great picture of heaven and thereby the need to reach every nation for Christ.

I did not grow up in a strong mission sending and supporting church. However, the first church I pastored was a church of about 100 people (Lakeview Bible Church, Carter Lake, IA). I was really impressed that back in 1994 they had a $60,000 general budget but also $10,000 additional in mission support.

That’s one of the great things about our church (Better Life Church). It’s very much in the culture of our church.  From day 1, the first day of the month we tithe to missions (what we call our Points of Passion). This past year we have sent over $6.000 to various missions (local, national and international).

The best thing we can do is pray what is on God’s heart - which is reaching the lost or those far  from God. There are 5 areas that we should pray:

1. Unreached people groups - groups of people unreached. 12,000 people groups, 2,000 of them have no Bible, no missionary and no one there to reach them. Most of these are in the 10-40 window.

2. Church Planting - so we are partnered with ARC and planted over 63 churches last year which also translated into 556 salvations.

3. Leadership Development - We are investing heavily into developing leaders at BLC this year (Men’s, Women’s, Student and Kids).

4. Scripture engagement - we support World Missions getting the Word of God on audio to many churches in the 10-40 window.

5. Reaching Jewish people for Jesus.

How to pray?

1.Pray that God would bless our local church.

It takes thriving local churches to give to global missions.

Psalm 67:1-2 (NIV) May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us—2 so that your ways may be known on earth,  your salvation among all nations.

2.Pray that God would open doors of gospel ministry to the unreached.

Colossians 4:3 (NIV) And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

We need to have the favor of God in this.

3. Pray for workers to be called, trained and sent into His harvest field.

Luke 10:2 (NIV) He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

We have a worker problem.

The key word is “called” - train and go to missions but also called to support the points of 

passions that we pray over at BLC.

21 Days of Prayer - Day #6 - January 13, 2023 National Missions - Church Planting

Day 6 - Friday  January 13

Prayer Focus: National Mission - Church Planting

We need more life giving churches.

ARC (Association of Related Churches) has now planted 1,059 churches - on their first day 250,000 opening day attendance with 11,000 salvations

Today we are praying for churches in America.

Jesus loves His church. He describes it as His Bride. The big “C” Church. This church belongs to Jesus and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Revelation 19:6-7 (NIV) 

6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah!   For our Lord God Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and be glad  and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come,  and his bride has made herself ready.

Revelation 21:2 (NIV) 

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

1. Pray for a prepared church.

Jesus is coming back. There is going to be a wedding - there’s going to be a marriage.

That convicts me. I’m anxiously anticipating it. 

Acts 16:5 (NIV) 

So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

2. Pray for a healthy church.

Healthy things grow. Pray for BLC to be healthy. Pray for small groups to be healthy. 

Praying for every person to be spiritually healthy.

Matthew 9:37-38 (NIV)

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

3. Pray for a mobilized church.

The local church mobilized is “The hope of the world.”

It’s not inward but outward.

Revival must and will come through the local church.

Jesus said “Go.”  What does that look like for you?  What is your “go” in your context?

1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NIV)

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

4. Pray for a unified church.

That our local church and the “Big C” Church would be unified. 

We would come together. We would recognize what we each can do and collectively we can do great things when we are connected with one another.

We need people discovering their purpose and finding their place where they can serve.