P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
We begin a new 3 week series entitled “The Cry for Revival: Praying for God’s Presence.” Our hope is for Rio to become a House of Prayer, and we want this series to help us towards that end.
Together we will pray (P.R.A.Y.) each day – ‘P’: Pausing to be still as we come into the presence of the Lord. ‘R’: Rejoicing as we remember who our God is and what He has done, and Reflecting on His word. ‘A’: Asking God to help us and others. And ‘Y’: yielding to His will in accordance with His word.
As I come before you to pray, I still my thoughts and quiet my mind. I seek to make you the center of my focus.
Prayer of Approach
O Lord, as I approach you today, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. Meet with me, I ask.
Adapted from Psalm 131
I choose to rejoice, with all God’s people, in the powerful promise that God gives us in Psalm 145…
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.
The Lord preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
Psalm 145:18-20
As you read the passages below, ask the Lord to cause a word or phrase to stand out to you.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
Isaiah 64:1-7
As I reread the passage, I reflect on the questions, “How is my life touched by this word?” and “How does this passage connect with my life?”
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
Isaiah 64:1-7
We begin the week and the series in Psalm 64. It is a picture of a man crying out for revival. What does revival look like based on this passage? It looks like God coming down. The Psalmist gives us the key by telling us three times that all of the actions that are happening on the earth are because of God’s presence. You can sense the desire and the longing in the Psalmist to experience God’s presence afresh in his life and in the people of God’s lives. With his focus on the presence of God, he is reminded of how far short he has come. He is reminded how his iniquities take him away like the wind. His cry and his appeal to God are for a revival that only God can bring.
Lord, I ask that you give me a desire to pray like this. Give me a desire to see your presence manifest in my world.
Lord, I cry out to you today and desire to see your presence made manifest on this earth. Would you do what only you can do, and would you rend the heavens and come down? Would you meet with your people in their iniquities again? Fill me with your Holy Spirit and let me continue you to cry out until you move.
As I read the passage for the final time, I listen for how the Lord is inviting me to respond to him. Where in my life do I need to yield in obedience to what he has for me?
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
Isaiah 64:1-7
Yielding Prayer
Lord, you call your people to cry out to you with whatever is on their hearts. Forgive me for my lack of persistence when it comes to the topic of revival. I do it every now and again, but without the fervor that I just read in Isaiah 64. In obedience, I come to you over and over again to ask for what you alone can accomplish. I pray to see it in my lifetime.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in 1 John 5…
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
1 John 5:14-15
Closing Prayer
Lord, enable me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to serve you today, by loving and caring for others as I do my own self; and, to exalt you today, by telling the people in my world about the abundant and eternal life found only through faith in Jesus.