P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
Today we hear Isaiah’s historic cry for revival and look for it in our own hearts.
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
Heavenly Father, you promise that when I seek you with all my heart, I will find you. I offer my soul to you this morning. Would you teach me more of what it looks like to seek you this way, so that I might find you in my every place of need. (Jeremiah 29:13)
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people in Psalm 85:
Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away your indignation toward us!
Psalm 85:4
Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
Psalm 85:6-7
Today we are reflecting on the words of Scripture in Isaiah, where we read:
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.
Isaiah 64:1-5(a)
As we learned yesterday, revival is a special season of divine visitation in which God the Holy Spirit awakens his slumbering church. It’s like he bends down from heaven to the dying embers of the fire in our hearts that is just about to go out, and blows on them until they burst into flame again. Isaiah foresees the need for just such an occasion as he looks prophetically into the future of his people! He sees a people who were called to be a witness to the nations, being taken captive by a nation. He sees a people who were called to be a culturally-transforming influence to the nations, being culturally transformed by another nation! In other words, he sees that, spiritually-speaking, God’s people are asleep and that the embers of their love for God, and passion for God, and joy in God, and faith in God, had all but died. And from the depths of his soul, he prays a prayer that has since been uttered by God’s people every time they find His church in this condition: “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!” For, only God can move the immovable (mountains) and only he can make the “water” of our hearts boil with a passionate and purifying flame. And when that happens, here’s what else happens: God’s name is made known to his adversaries (who, through faith in Jesus, become part of his family) and the nations tremble at his presence (though, not in fear, but in joy), as they find hope in the gospel and God goes from being a concept to them to a reality for them
Lord, when you awaken your people, you go from being a concept to a reality for each of us. That is to say, from someone that we accept into our lives, but only to the degree that you fit into our existing patterns, habits, passions, plans, goals, agendas and missions for our lives, to someone to whom we joyously surrender all such endeavors and pursuits. God, rend the heavens and come down to awaken your people, beginning with me!
1)Is God just a concept for you? Or is he a reality? Or, perhaps, a little of both?
2)What patterns, habits, passions, plans, goals, agendas and missions for your life have you been asking God to surrender to?
3)What would it require of you to surrender that to the Lord today?
4)What holds you back? Why is that more valuable to you than God and his mission for you?
5)Rate the temperature of the embers of your heart right now and ask God to set them ablaze!
Dear Lord, our world is so broken. So many are hurting and in despair and darkness. Break our hearts for it so that we do not cease crying out fervently to you for mercy. We don’t have answers or solutions, we can’t fix what is broken. In humility, we come to you in our need. You are our hope! A word from you can change everything. Come and grant us grace, awaken your slumbering church, we pray and be glorified again here on the earth!
As I read the passage again slowly, I listen for anything that You would say to me in it. Help me see how to position my life in order to yield to your word.
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.
Isaiah 64:1-5(a)
Yielding Prayer
Lord, we read about many awesome things you have done that everyone could see and know as Your work! Lord, help me believe that You can still do those things today! That You would graciously come to us in answer to our cry! Open my eyes to believe in the greatness of Your power for us today and position me to wait expectantly and prayerfully for what You will do!
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in Romans 15:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13
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.
*The P.R.A.Y. acronym has been adapted from the Lectio 365 app.