Revival Praying

I am currently reading an amazing book entitled Revival Praying, by Leonard Ravenhill, and I want to share with you some of what I've read with prayerful desire that these blazing truths will set your own hearts on fire to seek God in prayer:

The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it... Every church without a prayer meeting condemns us; every Bible daily unopened condemns us; every promise of God unused condemns us; every lost neighbor condemns us; every lost heathen condemns us; every dry eye among us condemns us; every unclaimed opportunity for God condemns us. Next year is not ours. Tomorrow may be too late. Unless we repent now, unless we return and fire the prayer altars now,unless we fast and weep now, woe unto us at the judgment!

Often we hear the prayer, "Lord, Thou art able to do this." That prayer is very good and may build up confidence in the pray-er [that is to say, the one who is offering up the prayer]. But - and this is important - to say "God is able" is not faith... But - and here is where I fail - I do not have the faith to believe that God will [do what I believe He is able to do]. My theology says that God can do it, but on the faith end I fail. I have said before that one of these days someone will read the Bible for the first time, believe it, and act on it with a daring, simple faith. Then we long-time believers will bow in shame, crying, "Lord, help our unbelief."

Here is a great illustration from Ravenhill's father's own personal experience:

One day in the course of his [Ravenhill's father] hospital visitation, a sick man listened to my father's testimony, then jabbed back at him feelingly with, "I have prayed to God and He did not hear me. Why?"

Dad answered the man this way: "Suppose the king of our country [Great Britain] came into this room right now, and I asked him for five pounds (equal to twenty dollars then), would the king give it to me? After all, I am a loyal subject to the crown."

The man thought for a moment and then replied, "I don't suppose that he would give it."

"Well then," Father said, "suppose that after I had asked the king and had been refused, the Prince of Wales had come into the room. Would he [the Prince] get the money he asked for?"

"Oh yes," answered the man, "but then, he's the king's son."

"Exactly right!" Father said. "Relationship makes all the difference."

Here is another spirit-provoking words:

...There is an article by Bakht Singh. This dear Christian leader in India says, "The indigenous churches in India have a great burden for American just now... and are praying that God will visit your country with revival... You feel sorry for us in India because of our poverty in material things. We who know the Lord in India feel sorry for you in America because of your spiritual poverty. We pray that God may give you gold tried in the fire which He had promised to those who know the power of His resurrection... In our churches we spend four or five or six hours in prayer and worship, and frequently our people wait on the Lord in prayer all night; but in America after you have been in church for one hour, you begin to look at your watches. We pray that god may open your eyes to the true meaning of worship... To attract people to meetings, you have a great dependence on posters, on advertising, on promotion, and on the build-up of a human being; in India we have nothing more than the Lord Himself and we find that He is sufficient. Before a Christian meeting in India we never announce who the speaker will be. When the people come, they come to seek the Lord and not a human being or to hear some special favorite speaking to them. We have had as many as 12,000 people come together just to worship the Lord and to have fellowship together. We are praying that the people in America might also come to church with a hunger for God and not merely a hunger to see some form of amusement or hear choirs or the voice of any man."

Convicting, isn't it?

FOCUS

This is actually the introductory letter from Pastor Carter on his newsletter. God's been giving us this message for a while now.

Dear Friend,

Are you one of the many people today who harbor grave concerns about the future? Whether it’s on a global, national or personal level, the storms of our time seem to be taking on an intensity we have not known before.

In these times, the lessons of Scripture can become our greatest comfort. I am reminded of another day and another storm which believers in Jesus Christ had to face (Mark 4:35–41). Self-concern so gripped these early believers that they lost focus—and then they lost faith. Two things are worth noting in the Scripture. Firstly, we see that they were indeed going to the other side and that Jesus was with them in the journey. Secondly, there were “other little ships” alongside them (v. 36), trying to make the same journey without the relationship with the Savior which they enjoyed. I believe the disciples lost faith in the midst of the storm because they lost focus. When they feared for themselves, they lost sight of God and those around them.

God wants to give you His heart for other people. Ask Him for the capacity to care, as He does, about where those in our generation will spend eternity. I have personally found that fear gives way to faith as I allow God to perfect His love for others within me.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Carter Conlon
Senior Pastor

I encourage you all to read the full Newsletter.

the Cost

This is an excerpt from A.W Tozer's Success and the Christian: The Cost of Spiritual Maturity. I encourage you all to meditate on these truths:

I want to tell you that it costs to know Jesus Christ... It costs, and most people won't pay the price for it at all. That's why most Christians are common. They won't go on because for Christ's sake, they have surrendered evil things - that is, things that are injurious and things that are unclean and grossly sinful; but they are unwilling to surrender "good things."

There are certain things we won't do and for Christ's sake we have surrendered those evil things. But this is the mark of a common Christian and the man who's never gone beyond that is a mediocre Christian...

As a little child will take his teddy bear to bed with him, so we grownups have our "teddy bears" too. We have what to God must look like teddy bears and dolls. We hang on to them. A baby, of course, has a right to that... But the point I'm making is that we oldsters, we mature people, people even in their teens, when we still insist upon hanging on to things, we will worship them. Whatever you hang on to, you worship because it gets between you and God, whether it be property or family or reputation or security or your life itself. Jesus taught that we couldn't even hang on to our life itself...

Any external treasure that touches your heart is a curse. [Apostle] Paul said, "I give that up so I might go on to deeply enriched and increasing intimacy and vast expanses of knowledge of the One who is intimate and illimitable in His beauty and I go on to know Him. And that I might know Him, I give all this up." He never allowed anything to touch his heart. (pp.19-21, emphasis mine)

Miracles of Intercession

I really encourage all to listen with full attention to Pastor Claude Houde's sermon (also posted on Times Square Church website) entitled The Miracle of Intercession (July 25). If you can, watch the video, not only the audio. I would memorize this message if I could! Don't miss a word he says! A word from the very heart of the Father...

"True Intercession: it always goes from Inspiration to Intercession... Will you stand between the living and the dead? ...Are you a Complainer? A Consumer? or a Combatant ...I am a Worshiper, but I am also called to be a Warrior."

Pay special attention to his powerful and clear message about having "one hand on God's shoulder, and another on man... One hand on God leads to Blindness, one hand on Man leads to Burnout. But one hand on God, another on man leads to Breakthrough!"

This message is a MUST for every child of God to understand and live in the miracle of Intercession.

Totally awesome. Totally convicting. Don't miss it.

I want to pray NOW!

The Habit of Bible Reading

I read this from Halley's Bible Handbook and it really goes well with what we learned in Bible Study yesterday.
It's a bit long but it's worth reading.
I hope this encourages us to read His Word. =)
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Everyone should love the Bible. Everybody should read the Bible.

Everybody.

It is God’s Word. It holds the solution of life. It tells about the best Friend humanity ever had, the noblest, kindest, truest Man who ever walked on this earth.

It is the most beautiful story ever told. It is the best guide to human conduct ever known. It gives a meaning, a glow, a joy, a victory, a destiny, and a glory to life elsewhere unknown.

There is nothing in history, or in literature, that in any way compares with the simple record of the Man of Galilee, who spent His days and nights ministering to the suffering, teaching human kindness, dying for human sin, rising to life that shall never end, and promising eternal security and eternal happiness to all who will come to Him.

Most people, in their serious mood, must have some question in their minds as to how things are going to stack up when the end comes. Laugh it off and toss it aside as we may, that day will come. And then what?

Well, it is the Bible that has the answer. And an unmistakable answer it is. There is a God. There is a heaven. There is a hell. There is a Savior. There will be a day of judgment. Happy is the person who in this life makes his or her peace with the Christ of the Bible and gets ready for the final takeoff.

How can any thoughtful person keep his or her heart from warming up to Christ and to the book that tells about Him? Everybody ought to love the Bible. Everybody. Everybody.

Yet the widespread of neglect of the Bible by churches and by the church people is simply appalling. Oh, we talk about the Bible, and defend the Bible, and praise the Bible, and exalt the Bible. Yes indeed! But many church members seldom ever even look into a Bible – indeed, would be ashamed to be seen reading the Bible. And an alarming percentage of church leadership generally seems to be making no serious effort to get people to be Bible readers.

We are intelligent about everything else in the world. Why not be intelligent about our religion? We read newspapers, magazines, novels, and all kinds of books, and listen to the radio and watch television by the hour. Yet most of us do not even know the names of the Bible books. Shame on us! Worse still, the pulpit, which could easily remedy the situation, seems often not to care and generally does not emphasize personal Bible reading.

Individual, direct contact with God’s Word is the principal means of Christian growth. All the leaders in Christian history who displayed any kind of spiritual power have been devoted readers of the Bible.

The Bible is the book we live by. Bible reading is the means by which we learn, and keep fresh in our minds, the ideas that mold our lives. Our lives are the product of our thoughts. To live right, we need to think right. We must read the Bible frequently and regularly so that God’s thoughts may be frequently and regularly in our minds; so that His thoughts may become our thoughts; so that our ideas may become conformed to God’s ideas; so that we may be transformed into God’s own image and be made fit for eternal companionship with our Creator.

We may, indeed, absorb Christian truth, in some measure, by attending religious services, listening to sermons, Bible lessons, and testimonies, and by reading Christian literature.

But however good and helpful these things may be, they give us God’s truth secondhand, diluted through human channels and, to quite an extent, obscured by human ideas and traditions.

Such things cannot possibly take the place of reading for ourselves the Bible itself, and grounding our faith and hope and life directly in God’s Word.

God’s Word is the weapon of the Spirit of God for the redemption and perfection of the human soul. It is not enough to listen to others talk and teach and preach about the Bible. We need to keep ourselves, every one of us, in direct touch with God’s Word. It is the power of God in our hearts.



Bible reading is a basic Christian habit.

We do not mean that we should worship the Bible as a fetish. But we do worship the God and the Savior the Bible tells us about. And because we love our God and our Savior, we love dearly and devotedly the book that is from Him and about Him.

Nor do we mean that the habit of bible reading is in itself a virtue, for it is possible to read the Bible without applying its teachings to one’s own life. And there are those who read the Bible and yet are mean and crooked and un-Christian. But they are the exception.

As a rule, Bible reading, if done in the right spirit, is a habit out of which all Christian virtues grow – the most effective character – forming power known to mankind.



Bible reading is an act of religious devotion. Our attitude toward the Bible is a pretty sure indication of our attitude toward Christ. If we love a person, we love to read about him or her, do we not? If we could only bring ourselves to think of our Bible reading as an act of devotion to Christ, we might be inclined to treat the matter less lightly.

It is a glorious thing to be a Christian. The most exalted privilege any mortal can have is to walk through life hand in hand with Christ as Savior and Guide. Or, to put it more correctly, to toddle along at His side and, though always stumbling, never letting go of His hand.

This personal relationship of each of us with Christ is one of the intimate things of life, and we do not talk much about it, probably because we often believe that we are pitifully unworthy to wear His name. Why would the Creator of all things care about me? But deep down in our hearts, in our serious moods, we know that because of our weakness, our worldliness, our frivolity, our selfishness, and our sins, we need Him more than we love anything else in this world. He is our Father. And in our saner moments we know that we should not willingly offend or hurt Him for anything. Why would we intentionally hurt the One who loves us and whom we love? We are thoughtless.

The Bible is the book that tells about Christ and His immeasurable love for us. Is it possibly to love Christ and at the same time be complacently indifferent to His Word? It is possible? Each one of us has to make daily choices – to serve Him and not the world. The Bible teaches us how!

The Bible is also the best devotional book. Booklets and books of daily devotions, now published in such abundance, may have their place. But they are no substitute for the Bible. The Bible is God’s own word, and no other book can take its place. Every Christian, young and old, should be a faithful reader of the Bible.