A Praying Church

In Mark 11:17, Jesus says, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it a 'den of thieves.'"

It's obvious that the Church, most particularly in the west, has drifted so far from being a praying Church that we no longer have a grid for what that means. Studies show that pastors and Christian leaders in America spend hardly any time in daily seeking of God and show that the people in the Church spend even less.

The great news is that God spoke clearly through the prophet Isaiah, who Jesus quotes above, and prophesied that His house (composed of both Jews and Gentiles) will be a house of prayer for all nations. In other words, God's people will be characterized by prayer, seeking after Him with a lovesick heart.

Because of the strong prophetic words in Scripture about the end-time Bride and her holy longing for the Bridegroom, we shouldn't find it surprising that the Holy Spirit is raising up a prayer movement that is yet in its infancy and which will grow to such an extent that the whole Church will become a "house of prayer for all nations."

As I watch and listen to many people these days, I'm struck with how determined God is to bring us into our full identity as His Bride, filled with first love for Jesus and a fire that no floods of opposition can extinguish. One way in which I see His relentlessness is that He is letting us taste the fruit of our independent efforts; we see on all sides the crumbling of family and ministry structures within the Church, even dedicated Christian homes and ministries. We are all part of a cultural Christianity that is wreaking havoc on American believers.

I believe that God is watching over us carefully, and from His heart of jealous love, He is opposing our methods and programs and attempts to make things work. He wants to intervene in our desperate affairs (whether that be family issues or ministry issues, etc.), but He can only intervene to the extent that we wait on Him in loving prayer, seriously asking and contending in prayer for His intervention. He will have a praying and devoted Church, and so He waits and waits until our pain becomes such that we will seek Him with all our heart. (Wholehearted seeking of God (Jer. 29:12,13) has implications that are not appealing to our drivenness as a people.)

The Lord says in Isaiah 64:4 that no one has seen a God like our God Who works for those who wait for Him. The weight of working is on God while the weight of waiting is on us. As long as our primary posture is that of working, causing God to have to wait, then we won't experience the joy and breakthrough of His life and power into our hearts and into our circumstances. Our hard work (i.e., striving on our own to make things work) holds God at bay even though He longs to work on our behalf.

God wants us to partner with Him in work, but that must come out of a place of utter dependence on Him, and as fallen and sinful humans, we don't get to that place easily.

I believe the Lord is waiting for His Bride to reach a point of such recognition of the futility of our methods and strategies and systems that we will stop many of the things we are doing to find the time to cry to Him corporately; the financial crises all around us is His kindness towards His people to awaken us to His ways and His wisdom. He will convince us that He is all-wise and chooses the weak ways (prayer and fasting, etc.) to confound the worldly ways of accomplishing His purposes.

The prayer movement arising in the earth is God's strategy for this hour to lead us into our identity as a praying Church, a house of prayer for all the nations. May the Lord breathe upon us and awaken desire for Him above all else.

Lord, I'm very grateful for the fact that You have not given up on Your people and that Your jealousy over us will fight to strip us of all that we have come to hope in that is not You. Come, Holy Spirit of God, don't relent in pursuing Your Bride. Raise up the prayer movement all over the earth and call Your Church into Her full identity as a praying Church for the sake of Jesus! Amen.

God bless you this week - may you experience His affection for you!