Pray or not?

Leonard Ravenhill in his book Why Revival Tarries says,

“The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!”

I find it incredible that across most of the Western world, prayer meetings are the least attended meeting in the whole church calendar. It is the forgotten hours during the week, not given much thought and quickly cancelled. I believe that you can gauge the spiritual life of a church by the prayer meeting numbers and quality of prayers given.

How can we expect to see revival in our community when we can’t be bothered to go to prayer meetings and not see that we are in a battle to see souls saved. If our prayers are dead, then what are we?

Ravenhill goes on to say, “Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet.”

D.M. McIntyre,D.D. has been quoted “Before the great revival in Gallneukirchen broke out, Martin Boos spent hours and days and often nights in lonely agonies of intercession. Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flame, and the hearts of the people as grass.”

How much more could be done in the spiritual if we spent more time on our knees, pressing into God and His Word. How much would our lives be changed, to become more like Him.

Why are we waiting?

God does not give us the full details of our journey in life, and our walk with Him. If anything, He gives us very few details of our future, which is probably more for our protection and safety. He gives us hints in the Word that there will be issues and things that can hurt us or times we will feel persecution. John 16 vs 33

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

What an awesome verse! God knows what is out there for us, and what we will be walking through later, but that He has total control in every circumstance and every issue. He has us in His hands, and will never let go. If God wants us to go through something, He will always give us the strength to keep walking and keep fighting ‘the good fight’.

The question is, why are we still waiting and waiting, expecting God to bring the world to us? God has a plan for our life. He wants to see us do something, not wait for Him to reveal it all to us.

God is amazing, as when the next fight or hard time comes, He will remind us all of how He was there with us during the last one. He lets us know and reminds us how He won that fight, He had control of it all, He let us grow and mature each time to make sure we have what is needed for each and every situation we face during the rest of our walk with Him. We are not alone. We have the whole host of heavens armies at our side and God walking the whole road with us feeling our hurts, rejoicing with our victories and holding us when we feel like giving up.

Listen to what God is saying to you. Hear His words and where He wants to take you and the walk He wants to take you on. It might be hard, there is a uncertainty and we are unsure about not knowing the future, but He knows. He knows how strong we will be in Him. He knows the victories we will have over sin and its bondages. We are victorious, we have the best on our side.

Victorious

Jesus is Always victorious. He won the battle on the Cross. No matter where we are or who we are, the battle has been won. He walks with us in victory, but how many of us do not live victorious lives? How many of us are battle worn, down or low. We can live a life showing the victory of Christ by walking ever closer to Him. Life throws all it can at us and Satan will use everything in his power to keep us from not living in Christ.

Letting go of the past is one good way of a life full of victory. Every one of us has stuff that lingers from things that have happened. If we allow it to, it will affect us for the rest of our life, and personally I don’t want to let old hurts ruin a future that is God given through His own sacrifice for me. Forgiveness is not as easy as it seems. It is something we are called to do though, and even if it is hard, we are to forgive and love in place of hurt or anger.

Jesus cant fill dirty cups. Our hearts and soul are like cups we hold out to Jesus to fill with His Spirit with blessings and love. If our hearts are filled with dirt and sin, He can’t fill them with His blessings. Our cups need to be washed with love, forgiveness and repentance. Jesus is standing next to us waiting to fill us. Our cups, our hearts get cleaned at the Cross, and cleaned with the most precious treasure we have. His blood.

Dont let things get in the way of who we are in Christ. We are His family. His children. His bride.

Live the victorious life we already have.