prayer coach

• Abiding faith attracts the promises of God.
• Any area that doesn’t have an expectation of good is under the influence of a lie.
• Any revelation that does not bring us into greater encounter only trains us to be more religious.
• Anything you think you know about about God, that you can’t find in the person of Jesus, you have reason to question.
• Arrogance isn’t thinking too much of ourselves but thinking too little of others.
• Don’t grade yourself differently than God does.
• Don’t let the “how to’s” of worship distract you from the “Who to.”
• Don’t let what you didn’t get in your childhood keep you from what God provides for His children – a perfectly faithful Father.
• Evangelism is the overflow of worship.
• Every season of growth is rewarded with pruning.
• Everything we do for people is just to get them to experience the Father. Striving for a Christian only exists in the absence of realizing the Father’s love.
• Faith doesn’t deny a problems existence. It denies it a place of influence.
• Faith is generated in the atmosphere of experiencing truth.
• Faith is not the absence of doubt, it is the presence of belief.
• Faith is the offspring of grace.
• Faith moves Heaven, so that Heaven will move earth.
• Faith offends the stationary.
• Faith provides eyes to the heart. Faith sees.
• Fear often looks like wisdom to those in unbelief.
• For the believer most closed heavens are between the ears.
• Gifts are free, but their development is really costly.

image courtesy of Leonard Ravenhill interview

After I posted the prayer quotes by Leonard Ravenhill earlier this week, I got interested in more about this man. I found a two-hour interview of him where he shared about past revivals and his view of Church today.Here are some takeaways I had from the interview.

1. Prayer was important to these revivals.

This may sound obvious, but when I listened to the interview I was overwhelmed at the intensity he held for prayer. He prayed with his elders for 45 minutes to an hour before any service. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, prayed with his team from the end of one day’s service for four hours for the next day’s service. Evan Roberts of the Welsh revival started meetings with 3 hours of prayer, spoke for 15 minutes, then prayed all night for the next day’s service. Their commitment to prayer was not idle words, but backed with a depth of experience. One statement of Ravenhill stood out to me, there were often more people packing the altar before a meeting than there was afterwards.

2. Holy living was an overflow of these revivals.

When William Booth or W.P. Nicholson preached, people will get so convicted of the Holy Spirit that pages of hymnals would be commonly shredded in the pews from people fidgeting as light came into their souls. When they converted, they gave all to God. Missionaries going to the far reaches of the world – not for a few years of sight-seeing, but giving their lives away. C.T. Studd immediately gave up his professional athletic career to follow Hudson Taylor to China. Studd’s words summarize the heart of many during that time:

Be sure to check out my guest post over at Revival Lifestyle blog on the 4 Steps to Supernatural Breakthrough in Prayer.

• …a man who kneels before God will stand before men.
• A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.
• At the judgement seat the most embarrassing thing the believer will face will be the smallness of his praying.
• Even so, to our knees, O Christians! Desist the folly of sprinkling today’s individual and international iniquity with theological rose water! Turn loose against this putrefaction those mighty rivers of weeping, of prayer, and of unctionized preaching until all be cleansed.
• Let the fires go out in the boiler room of the church and the place will still look smart and clean, but it will be cold. The Prayer Room is the boiler room for its spiritual life.
• Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen – degrees or no degrees.
• No man – I don’t care how colossal his intellect – No man is greater than his prayer life.
• Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great detergent.
• People are making salvation a mental decision instead of a heart decision. This is a shame.
• Prayer in its highest form is agonizing soul sweat.
• Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!
• Prayer is the most unexplored area of the Christian life.
• Prayerlessness is disobedience, for God’s command is that men ought always to pray and not faint. To be prayerless is to fail God, for He says, Ask of me.

source unknown

As Christians one day we will spend eternity with God. We will experience fully everything our hearts hunger for… everything we have been created for. Joy will fill our hearts and never depart from us again. When we are with God, we are in heaven for heaven is where ever God is.

Heaven is God’s kingdom. It is where His rules, principles, and ways are observed. This happens in God’s presence. Therefore when God invades earth, heaven comes with Him.

As we read the Gospels, we see the Son of God restoring heaven to earth. He disarms the power of sin, removes its sentence of death, restores people to God, and offers new life to all.

As Christians we have the potential to live Emmanuel lives – God with us. We are taught to pray for God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). We are to be continually filled with God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). We are to be temples of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:19). As we bring the presence of God to our world, we bring heaven with Him. Where heaven is, the benefits of heaven reside. Let’s bring the life-giving benefits that only God can give to the people around us.

“He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”
- Mark 6:5-6

My wife and I have supported and followed the Jesus Film for many years. The Jesus Film made a film of the gospel of Luke, translated it to over 1,000 languages, and shown it to billions of people all over the world. We would love reading their newsletters of stories from the field. They would tell accounts of the blind seeing, the lame walking, angels appearing, and Jesus revealing Himself to people (selected stories below). Each story would increase our faith and excite us for the power of God.

But, at the same time, we struggled with why we were not seeing God work the same way in America. Why was God so willing to work in the remote areas of the world, but not in a place where so many Christians lived?

I remember hearing weak excuses like God needed to reveal His power to make His gospel more plain there. They did not have the Bible, so God needed to show His hand more. It was as if that God only healed people so that they would be saved. That is kind of unfortunate for those of us who already believe in Him.

But still the miracles seemed to be more evident to the lost. Why?

It is interesting to note that Jesus had trouble performing miracles in his hometown (Mark 6:1-6). The passage shows that people were amazed as Jesus taught until they remembered he was from there, that he was a carpenter, that his family lived there. Then they took offense, and Jesus could do no miracles there. They were too familiar with Jesus to expect supernatural from Him.

In 1996 Dr. Bill Bright started yearly 40-day fasts for revival in our nation. His commitment to this discipline helped many like myself to consider partaking in this valuable gift of the faith. As I have mentioned before, I have completely bought into the benefits of the 40-day fast. I have not always done them with the commitment of national revival, but it always has the element of my own personal revival. This past Sunday I became aware of Chuck Colson and Jim Garlow’s call to fast and pray for our nation. It reawakened the desires that Dr. Bright embedded in me and reminded me of the similar call issued in 200. After a brief discussion with my wife, we agreed that it would be good for me to enter in.

I am under a personal belief that God has more for me. I have been extremely blessed with a loving, supportive, incredible wife, two amazing kids, a stimulating job, and a wonderful vision for my life. I could have never dreamed all this was possible, but it is here. At the same time, I don’t think God is through yet – with me or this nation. Fasting is a tool that has been given to us to ask, seek, and know for the more that God desires to give.

This fast has been called for September 20th – October 30th, 2010 in order to press God over the issues of the sanctity of human life, the sacredness of marriage and the preservation of religious liberty. I believe this nation is ready for the next great awakening and spiritual revival. The fast is a call to ask for it. Here is some of the wording on the prayandact.org website:

image courtesy of the The Call

This coming weekend thousands are joining in California’s capitol to pray for our nation. For the last 10 years The Call has been gathering people to pray and fast for our nation. Go to their site at thecall.com and see how you can join with other in prayer. Below are two videos encouraging you to participate: one from the co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Mrs. Vonette Bright; the other is the Call’s promotional video. Whether you decide to join or not, please continue to pray for God’s blessings on this nation.

• God answers our prayers not because we are good, but because He is good.
• [In our fast-paced life] we have no time for contemplation. We have no time to answer God when He calls.
• To be effective the preacher’s message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God’s present voice to a particular people.
• Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightest word in any language is its word for God.
• Distractions must be conquered or they will conquer us. So let us cultivate simplicity.
• I think that some of the greatest prayer is prayer where you don’t say one single word or ask for anything.
• What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
  want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice.
• True prayer cannot be imitated nor can it be learned from someone else
• We can afford to follow Him to failure. Faith dares to fail. The resurrection and the judgment will demonstrate before all worlds who won and who lost. We can wait.
• Keep our hearts open to the inflowing Spirit and we will not become exhausted by the outflow.
• Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our accepting and willing are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.
• Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God [where] miracles seem tame … by comparison.