Prayer and the Harvest

Prayer and the Harvest

Saints,                                                                                                             17 Jun 2011

I share all of this to honor God for He is at work. He draws us to prayer. He awakens dead hearts to His life. He awakens churches!

I recently witnessed the Word of God manifest itself through a 24-hour prayer watch at our church.

About 116 people attended the prayer watch in person. Some chose to pray from their homes. One woman shared that she would be praying from home between 2:00 and 4:00 am. Praise God! One brother emailed from Russia saying he could handle an early morning slot because it was afternoon for him. Many said that we should do this regularly. One called-out missionary friend who will be moving to another country asked if we would pray like this at least monthly for God’s blessing and protection on missionaries.

We asked folks who came to pray to fill out anonymous surveys. These surveys had a few questions.

What main impression did you get from the Lord during your prayer time?

How did God bless, direct, encourage, and convict your heart during your prayers today?

What verses did the Lord bring to mind as you prayer?

What themes did you notice as you prayed?

The surveys revealed many different impressions and themes that folks experienced during their prayer. One common comment was that folks were surprised at how quickly an hour went by as they prayed. Prayer stations aided folks in their prayers—these were focused on different subjects like adoring God, the persecuted church, missionaries, lost folks, a prayer wall, the church, and a room dedicated for conviction and forgiveness.

Some of the reoccurring themes revealed in the surveys were,

·         Unity of the body

·         Praying for the lost

·         Praying for the harvest

·         Needing God’s power

·         Thankfulness for conviction and forgiveness

·         Increased desire for connection with God

·         Witnessing, time with God, coming to God

·         Making time for prayer

·         Trusting God—He is faithful

·         Being purposeful in prayer

·         Praying continually

The one theme I want to share with you today is the “harvest.” Many people mentioned that God somehow impressed them with concern for the harvest during their prayer time.

This fascinates me. Do you remember what Jesus shared about the harvest in Matthew nine? 

Matthew 9:35-38 (ESV)
³⁵ And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.
³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
³⁸ therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

They fact that Jesus did not send His disciples running to go meet the needs of the multitudes in this passage can cause us to wonder. Jesus directs His followers to pray for the Father to raise up more workers. Let’s do this! Let us be the workers. Let us pray for more workers—yes to all.

Concerning the harvest and working in the harvest, I have two more points to share. First of all, prayer is critical and essential to mission work. I think we somehow believe that as long as we give money to some mission work, we’re good. As if money alone was all we need. No, this is not true. We must pray. How else will the domain of darkness be penetrated by God’s kingdom of light if not through prayer? E. M. Bounds says it well in his book The Essentials of Prayer, the chapter on Prayer and Missions,

“The key to all missionary success is prayer. The key is in the hands of the home churches. The trophies won by our Lord in heathen lands will be won by praying missionaries, not professional workers in foreign lands. More especially will this success be won by saintly praying in the churches at home. The home church on her knees fasting and praying, is the great base of spiritual conflict. Financial resources are not the real sinews of war in this fight. Machinery in itself carries no power to break down heathen walls, open effectual doors and win heathen hearts to Christ. Prayer alone can do the deed.

Aaron and Hur did not more surely give victory to Israel through Moses, than a praying church through Jesus Christ will give the victory on every battlefield in heathen lands. It is as true in foreign fields as it is in home lands. The praying church wins the contest. The home church has done but a paltry thing when she has furnished the money to establish missions and support her missionaries. Money is important, but money without prayer is powerless in the face of darkness, the wretchedness and the sin in unchristianized lands. Prayerless giving breeds barrenness and death. Poor praying at home is the solution of poor results in the foreign field. Prayerless giving is the secret of all crises in the missionary movements of the day, and is the occasion of the accumulation of debts in missionary boards.”

So, first then, prayer is essential to missions. My second point is that our work cannot be done in our power. We must be empowered by God’s Holy Spirit or our work is useless and in vain. As I see it, King Saul was a good example of working in the flesh, especially as he focused on circumstances in fear and determined to offer a sacrifice himself instead of waiting for Samuel. Our mission is an impossible one—to share the gospel to the world and make Disciples of Christ. This is impossible in the flesh—we should not even attempt this in our strength. God does not desire this. God designed His work to be done in His strength, for His glory, and to His kingdom’s benefit. Please read Andrew Murray on the Holy Spirit, from Absolute surrender, chapter seven, Having Begun in the Spirit,

“Do not let us think, because the blessed reformation restored the great doctrine of justification by faith, that the power of the Holy Spirit was then fully restored. If it is our faith that God is going to have mercy on His church in these last ages, it will be because the doctrine and the truth about the Holy Spirit will not by studied, but sought after with a whole heart; and not only because that truth will be sought after, but because ministers and congregations will be found bowing before God in deep abasement with one cry: “We have grieved God’s Spirit; we have tried to be Christian churches with as little as possible of God’s Spirit; we have not sought to be churches filled with the Holy Spirit.”

To sum up, yes, prayer is God’s plan to reach His harvest, locally and globally. We demonstrate our humble dependence on the Father and His Spirit when we pray. May it be said of us that we love Jesus—we are people of prayer.

A Call to Prayer--Part Two

Saints,                                                                                                             4 Jun 2011

Let’s review what we covered last week. We looked at the critical mission of the church—God’s chosen vessel to spread the gospel all over the globe. We saw how that mission is accomplished in and through prayer. We talked about the very real spiritual battle which the enemy would rather have us unaware of. We looked at our tendency to be lulled into a comfort zone by the enemy—in order to keep us out of the battle for souls.

Please re-read the following paragraph from last week’s devotional:

“If you think you are not in a war—you’re duped. If you think prayer is not a necessity—that it is okay not to pray as a Christ follower—you’re duped. Jesus called the church at Sardis to “Wake Up” twice in the letter to this church in Revelation 3:1-3. Yes, this same message is for us today. Christian, “Wake up.” There is a battle. We are commissioned officers in this battle. We have weapons. We must use them. Remember the first thing Paul instructs us to do after putting on the spiritual armor is pray. We are called to witness. We are called to make disciples. We must pray.”

Today, I want to share some of my heart. My prayer is that in some way you will be drawn to more intimacy with Christ as a result of these words. I hope the Holy Spirit comes upon us mightily and draws us to deeper intercessory prayer. May God fill us with His heart for people. Without His love we will drift to a complacent, apathetic, self-absorbed existence. This is not God’s desire.

Saints, I am stuck between two driving passions. One passion is for more intimacy with God Himself. I want to know His presence. I want to see His face. I want more of Him—as I am sure you do as well. As Christ-followers we all have this desire—we want to know God. As we have discussed before, this is not merely a desire to know more about God. The demons know about God—they probably know more about God than you and me (James 2:19). No, knowledge is not enough. We want to know God as Jesus defines eternal life in John 17:3,

John 17:3 (ESV)
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
We desire to know His heart, His desires, His voice, His truth, His presence, His leading. This reminds me of the Navigators motto: “To know Christ and make Him known.” Yes, saints my first passion like yours is to know Christ more.

My second consuming passion is to see God do such a work in His church that she walks in the Spirit. She glorifies His name. She obeys Him. She loves God above all else. She treasures Him more than anything else.

As I understand it, the most impacting and strategic way to move further in the direction of these two passions is prayer--prayer led by the Holy Spirit, guided by God’s Word, directed toward God’s kingdom, and prayed by the character, desires, purposes, love and name of Jesus Christ. In other words—real prayer.

So, with these two passions, there is the struggle. I am sure many of you share this same struggle. We can become distraught to see more change. It kills me to see what looks like the enemy being successful. I can’t stand to see God’s called-out leaders, stumble or fall. I can’t stand to see saints living marginalized lives where Jesus is only one small percentage of their life. As if to say, “I will add a little of the God’s Word and a little Jesus to my life so that I can live a better, more productive, more joyful, more successful life. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the purpose of our life on earth as being centered on us. Jesus is not merely here for us—we are here for Him. Remember David’s words about a whole heart devoted to God in Psalm 86:11-12,

11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.
To make the way through this struggle clear, let me share Peter Lord’s words as he is quoted in Daniel Henderson’s latest book, Transforming Prayer. As Peter addressed aspiring ministry students,

“If God promised you two things: (1) You would go to heaven when you die, and (2) He will never use you in the ministry again—would you still pray?” p. 156

This question pierced my heart. It revealed how results driven I am. I wrestled with this. I am not sure that I am finished wrestling with it yet. Even so, shouldn’t we be very quick to answer yes to Peter Lord’s question? Aren’t we going to be blessed to be in the presence of God for all eternity? Shouldn’t Christ-followers be passionate about connecting with the Father more than merely desiring what He can give—His gifts, His stuff? These are not easy questions, I know. Even so, let’s ask ourselves these questions.

As to the best motive to pray—the most enduring motive to pray, Daniel Henderson describes so well, “The only enduring motive for prayer is that God is worthy to be sought.” I love this statement. It rings true. Even though I believe this, I do not really live it all the time. Oh, how we should give ourselves to seek after God, just like David did. David sought God’s heart. May we be compelled to seek after God this way!

We do tend to seek. But we tend not to seek God’s heart—we seek other things instead, like success at work, decent education for our kids, a nice income level, nice cars and homes, physical fitness, and even nice food or clothes.

To sum up, Saints, even though you may have a God-given “holy-discontent” or a God-given “passion,” don’t let that passion take the place of God in your heart. He is worthy to be sought. He alone is worthy of all our love, adoration and worship—our allegiance.

Oh God, please change our hearts!

May God grant us a compelling passion to know Him more—to go deeper with God in prayer.

Compelled to pray and desperate for God, Steve