A Passion for Prayer - 1/9/98

Dear All,

It has been a few weeks since I have written many of you. I trust the Christmas season went well for you all and that your heart was warmed by the fact of God's love for a world.

This thought comes from the book, "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire," written by Jim Cymbala, the Sr. Pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. I would highly recommend that each of you get it.

Jim Cymbala makes this statement at one of his Sunday morning services:

"From this day on, the prayer meeting will be the barometer of our church. What happens on Tuesday night will be the gauge by which we will judge success or failure because that will be the measure by which God blesses us.

If we call upon the Lord, he has promised in His Word to answer, to bring the unsaved to himself, to pour out his Spirit among us. If we don't call upon the Lord, he has promised nothing, - nothing at all. It's as simple as that. No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer.

This is the engine that will drive the church. Yes, I want you to keep coming on Sundays --but Tuesday night is what it's really all about."

A minister from Australia said this once; "You can tell how poplar a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the Pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting."

Charles Spurgeon, "The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by it's prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer."

Scottish devotional writer Andrew Bonar wrote in 1853, "God likes to see His people shut up to this, that there is no hope but in prayer. Herein lies the Church's power against the world."

Samuel Chadwick said long ago, "the greatest answer to prayer is more prayer."

Charles Spurgeon once remarked that "the best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything else but a cry."

Isn't that what God invites us to do all though the Bible? "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unreachable things you do not know" (Jer. 33:3)

Isn't interesting that in Mark 11:15-18 Jesus says, "my house will be called a house of prayer." It was if the atmosphere of my Father's house, Jesus seemed to say, "is to be prayer." The aroma around my Father must be that of people opening their hearts in worship and supplication. We are now his dwelling place. He lives in His people. How much more important, then is Jesus' message about the primacy of prayer.

I believe the secret formula in seeing things happen here on earth is prayer. This is what God calls us to. Maybe if we would spend half our time praying for our marriages, our children, our churches, our people, and our world rather than just doing stuff --- I am certain we would be in far better shape today.

I believe my success will not be how many teens I get on a given night, or how many I get to come to play in our new Activity Center we just built. But did I lead others to call upon God. What a tragedy that the quality of ministry is too often measured by numbers and building size rather than by true spiritual results.

The devil is not terribly frightened of our human efforts and credentials. But he knows his kingdom will be damaged when we begin to lift up our hearts to God.

Think about this, the history of past revivals portrays this truth in full color from the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Welsh revival, the 1906 outpouring on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. You find men and women who inwardly groan, longing to see the status quo change --- IN THEMSELVES and in their CHURCHES. They began to call upon the name of the Lord.

I guess I bring all this up to ask a few questions:

1. How is your prayer life?
2. Do you long to call upon the name of the Lord?
3. If Jesus Himself withdrew for times of prayer, then how much more important is it for us?
4. If we and the church are not praying, then can we really say that we are a New Testament Church?
5. If we and the church are not praying, is there really anything to boast about?
6. "If we don't want to experience God's closeness here on earth, why would we want to go to heaven anyway? He is the center of everything there. If we don't enjoy being in His presence here and now, then heaven would not be heaven for us. Why would He send anyone there who doesn't long for Him passionately here on earth?" Jim Cymbala

My prayer for each of you and for myself is that God feels us with a deeper passion to call upon His Name.

You are loved =)

God is Good All The Time!
"He Must become greater, I must become Less"
John 3:30
Brad

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Last Updated:  08/12/99 01:24 PM About this page contact: Mark Brumels