Father, we pray that You would bring fresh fire to the church. Fill our congregations with passion for prayer and constant intercession, Lord. Christianity is dying in the west, divorced from a church that once worked passionately to fuel it. If we hope to save our nation, we must do so on our knees, engaged in constant intercessory prayer. Behind the greatest evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, knelt a man of intercession: Daniel Nash. Weeks in advance of an outreach by Finney, intercessor Nash, would come, praying within the community, crying out and asking God for His intervention in the hearts of men. Nash had been a burned-out pastor. But through prayer during an illness had found personal revival with God. And through prayer would go on to fuel a national revival. History belongs to the intercessors; we are the ones who are really stirring up national revival and change.
We are now in 2023 — a long time past the days of Charles Finney and Daniel Nash. But our nation is in more need now than even then. Take America for instance. In 3 short years, America will be 250 years old — the only democratic republic in history that has survived this long. This is a pivotal moment, and we all know as Christians with discernment that America is at a crisis point. Will it make it to it’s 250th birthday? When we think about our nation right now, the decay in our educational systems, media, entertainment, government, business ethics, and more, we must look ourselves straight in the face and realize that we, as believers in Jesus, are not having the greatest impact on our culture. I believe the root of this failure is our individual loss of a daily connection with God. We don’t pray. We don’t spend time with Jesus. If God doesn’t awaken the Church in this hour in history, we are in trouble.
Prayer is the first spiritual discipline that we all think we know and understand, but really, few of us do. If we truly understood prayer and realized the value of it, we would prioritize it in our lives and in our local churches. Unfortunately, in western Church culture, our prayer meetings are the smallest gathering on our weekly or even monthly calendars. A woman told me the other day that she is a member of a church with over 3,000 members and their weekly prayer meeting has only 2 people attending it. Does your church have a corporate prayer meeting? How often is the prayer meeting? How many people come to it? Prayerlessness is rooted in a key problem: We don’t really believe prayer works. When we pray, God hears us, and He collects those prayers. This is an incredible picture of prayer that is something that we can get our heads around.
Just like we go to the bank and deposit a cheque, prayer is a deposit. Just like we look at our investments on our phones and buy and sell shares, prayer is a share purchase. Just like we invest in our marriage by spending time with our spouse, prayer is an investment in relationship. If we are going to see revival — and better yet, another Great Awakening — we need to cry out to God. We need to ask Him to grow faith in our hearts to believe that when we talk to Him, He hears us. And that when we petition Him, it changes hearts and lives. What do we need in this important moment in history? We need YOU! Your participation. Your heart. Your care. Your prayers. Your votes. Your engagement in the culture. Your intercession.
Source: Article written by Bunni Pounds. Bunni Pounds is president of Christians Engaged. She is a former congressional candidate, a former 16-year political consultant, motivational speaker, and preacher of the gospel.
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