Thursday, November 18, 2010

Revival Praying - 3

More amazing truths...
In heaven there will be no praying. All the faith we exercise must be exercised here. All the praying must be done here, for heaven will not be a place to make up a pitiable backlog of unfinished praying.

"Rend your hearts" (Joel 2:13). We rend our hearts by godly consideration and self-examination; by the conviction of the Holy Spirit; by recognition of our failure to pray; by confessing that we have more appetite for material food than for spiritual; by acknowledging that we like the company of men more than the company of God; by abhorring ourselves because we love to play more than pray.

Men who prayed most accomplished the most. Lasting prayers bring lasting revivals. Prayer does not condition God; prayer conditions us. Prayer does not win God to our view; it reveals God's view to us. Prayer is not merit, so that by withdrawing from the world we of necessity gain special favors of God. Prayer is not purchasing things from God.

Prayer is another way to telling God that we have all confidence in Him but no confidence in our own native powers.

No man is greater than his prayer life.


~ Excerpted from Leonard Ravenhill's Revival Praying

If you have read all 3 posts of excerpts from Ravehill's book, I would strongly suggest re-reading them. It sounds beautiful at first (if you understood anything at all), and then you will wonder what was so wonderful and forget it all. READ IT AGAIN! And most importantly, PRAY!

Revival Praying - 2

Here are more spirit-stirring excerpts from Leonard Ravenhill's Revival Praying. May these words stir you to be on your knees...
Prayer is taxing. Prayer is exacting. Prayer means enduring. prayer means denying self, a daily dying by choice. But someone says, "There's nothing wrong in going fishing for a couple of hours." Maybe not if you are prayed up. Yet there is something wrong when we go fishing or do some other thing without the Spirit's leading. It is wrong when instead of praying we do things just to please others. There cannot be two operators of the Christian's life. We are either Spirit led in everything or self led.

We will have to sacrifice precious things in our lives if we are going learn the great art of intercession... Affection can play havoc with devotional life. I believe it is but simple logic to say that a Christian is backslidden if he spends more time with a member of the opposite sex than he does in prayer and in the Word.

No one is a firmer believer in the power of prayer than the devil; not that he practices it, but he suffers from it. (Guy H. King)

Once again I say that at God's judgment bar we believers are going to be embarrassed, for as Dr. A.W. Tozer mentioned recently, "We are not only going to be judged for what we have done; we are going to be judged for what we could have done." That hurts. Oh what we could have done! Oh the sacrifice we could have made, the prayers we could have offered, the tears for the lost we could have shed, the souls we could have won to Christ! There are resources in God that we believers have never touched; there is wealth, spiritual wealth in God that we have never discovered; there is power in God that we have left untapped - all because we have been faithless and unbelieving.