Revival Prayer Pointers

51 through 60

Week 51: Praying for something over the “long haul” requires faith.  All of you in The Revival Prayer Initiative are being asked to sign up for a new year of praying.  It takes faith to keep praying when the answers are longer in coming than we might like.  Let’s ask God to increase our faith this morning before we begin praying.  It really is too soon to give up!

Week 52: Charles Finney writes in the book “Experiencing Revival” that “to pray effectively, you must pray with submission to the will of God.”  Jesus prayed in the Garden “nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” (Mark 14:36) And, Jesus taught us to pray “Your kingdom come.  Your will be done. . . .”  (Mt. 5:10) Before we begin to pray this week, let’s be sure our wills are submitted to the will of the Father.

Week 53: How badly does The First Family want to see God bring revival to our lives and our church?  Each of us has to answer that question; there isn’t a “corporate” answer.  God tells us that “ . . . those who seek me diligently will find me.” (Prov. 8:17) We begin a new year of the Revival Prayer Initiative this week.  May God give us great hunger for Himself–the true source of revival!

Week 54: For the next five weeks, let’s connect our prayer for revival with the declaration that “He is Worthy!”  Our hunger for revival flows from our understanding that God is the one who revives us and that we need that revival.  As He brings the fresh wind of His Spirit into our lives, we are better able to let the world know that “He is Worthy!”  Let’s begin our prayer time this week by letting God know that we declare Him worthy!

Week 55: How worthy of our worship, love, devotion, sacrifice and service do we believe God–the Triune God–to be?  The more we’re able to declare that He Is Worthy!, the more we’ll want His work in our lives.  Before we pray this week, let’s ask God’s Spirit to reveal our hearts to us.  We need to know if we really love Him with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength.  If we don’t, this week is a good time to start nurturing that kind of love for God!

Week 56: We can all choose to devote ourselves to many things.  We throw ourselves into them because we care about them.  The pursuit of revival will push us to devote ourselves to God in new and growing ways.  Meditate on Psalm 119:10 before you pray for revival today.  May God’s Spirit have freedom to build greater devotion to God into our lives.

Week 57: Revival and sacrifice often go together.  David had some sense of this when he went to offer a sacrifice for his sin.  The prophet told him to offer the sacrifice on the threshing floor of a man named Araunah.  Araunah offered to give David the space, but David insisted on buying it.  He refused to “offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.”  (2 Sam. 24:24)  We may need to ask the Lord this week, prior to praying for revival, if we’re willing to make the sacrifices that revival may require.

Week 58: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”  (Rom. 12:1) One prevailing issue in the pursuit of revival is our willingness to let God have all of us.  God is worthy of living sacrifice . . . a sacrifice that is reasonable when we consider who He is.  As we pray for revival this week, let’s ask Him to reveal the breadth and depth of our sacrifice and service.

Week 59: Attitude is important when pursuing revival.  In thinking about God being worthy of our gratitude, we might want to take a few moments prior to praying this week.  We can use those moments to do an “attitude check.”   Do our lives reveal a spirit of thanksgiving?  Or, do we often allow a spirit of dissatisfaction distort our walk with the Lord.  Revival cannot rule our hearts if we choose something other than an “attitude of gratitude.”  Take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5:18 before you pray this week.

Week 60: In Psalm 119, the psalmist asks God nine times to revive him.  His heart is clearly hungry for God’s renewing work, and his desire is a closer and more intimate relationship with God.  Psalm 119 is long, and it will take you some time to go through it.  It may well be worth your while to review the Psalm and see how desperately the psalmist wanted God’s revival in his heart.  Let’s then pray that God will do that kind of work in our hearts.