Pray For the World and the Global Church Psalm 102:15

Pray for Awakening Week 4 March 2018 (Ligonier)

THE WORLD AND THE GLOBAL CHURCH

Pray that the nations and their leaders would fear the name of the Lord and seek His glory, not their own.

Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. — Ps. 102:15

Prayer by highplainsparson

O Lord, you sent your Spirit to produce a great harvest of souls in America and Britain during the 18th century. Men of you preached the glorious message of reconciliation far and wide, including such names as Whitefield, Edwards, Howell Harris, and the Tennents. Many souls were converted to Christ, and as result of their changed lives, people prayed for a great harvest of souls overseas. You raised up men and women to answer the missionary call like Adoniram Judson, William Carey, and Asa Thurston to far-flung places: India, Myanmar, Hawaii, and to the ends of the earth. The gospel of your Son Jesus Christ spread far and wide across the globe as the movement of your Spirit brought more laborers to the harvest. We pray for the churches that you have planted in all of these nations around the globe, that you would strengthen them in your word by your Spirit, and add new converts to their number. Empower and enable their witness for you, and protect them from persecution by their enemies, and yours. Smite their enemies to heal them by the balm of Gilead, or take them out of the way so that they do not hinder the spread of the gospel anymore. Let your love and transforming Grace be known where it is not yet known. Let every nation bow the knee to you and acknowledge you as Lord, as individuals, communities, and even nations submit to the loving rule of your Son Jesus Christ, kissing the Son. Let individual lives and families be transformed. Let new churches be planted. Let the morals and governments of communities and societies be reformed according to your word. Let the papacy, Islam, and every anti-Christian religion be discredited and shunned. Subvert irreligion and atheism, especially in the Western world. Let nations which have known you in the past repent and turn back from their wicked ways. Embolden your church to proclaim the Royal Dominion of Christ over the modern world. Let your glory fill the earth, expecting until that day when your son Jesus Christ will come to consummate his kingdom. Even so Lord, come. Amen.

Pray for Awakening Third week of March 2018

Pray for Awakening

Third week of March 2018, Ligonier ministries

YOUR CITY AND NATION

Pray that God would send renewal to your nation and turn the hearts of many to Christ.

That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. — Acts 3:20

Prayer by highplainsparson

O Lord of Hosts, you poured out your Spirit in power upon our forefathers in the faith in great awakenings and revivals that changed the character, course, and career of this land, the United States of America. You awakened and converted many dead sinners, and led your people by your Spirit, leading them to soak in the word deeply, inculcating in them the doctrines of grace, as our own general assembly testified, to amend their lives, and to make great impact in their communities and society. If it had not been for these great awakenings in history, America would be a much worse place. We have backslidden against you and squandered the blessings of your word that you have lavished upon our land more than almost any other. Revive and awaken your people. Let true churches of Jesus Christ be filled with weeping and repentant sinners, while people are trying to get in the door but finding there’s not enough room because the buildings are full. Let revival begin with us. Warm our cold hearts. Give us repentance, and let us take vengeance upon our pet sins that offend you greatly with a holy vengeance. May we cast them aside and seek your face. Send us to reach our neighbors and bring them in where they may be touched by you and changed forever. Do this work in and through us and have all the glory Lord, for it is yours now and forever. Let there be a great harvest of souls across our union. Let there be a great harvest in our land before that time that only you know, when you renew the earth when the Lord Jesus returns physically, to rule it in majesty. Amen.

Pray For Yourself and your Family, March 2018 Week 1, Pray For Awakening

Pray For Awakening (Ligonier)

March WEEK 1

YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY

Pray that you and your family would know the love of Christ and respond in love and obedience to Him.

To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. — Eph. 3:19

Prayer by highplainsparson

O Lord, you have loved me and my wife and children and beyond our comprehension. You sacrificed your own dear Son for us. He gave his life for us and endured much affliction. No greater love has a man than to give his life for his friends. This is the love that you’ve given to us. There’s nothing that we can ever do to repay you. But let the love that you’ve given us be reflected in our words and actions, especially to one another. We ask your forgiveness for unkind words and actions. We ask for forgiveness for omitting duties of love that we owed to one another various times. Teach us to love one another as we ought to, by your Spirit working through your word preached and read as we are blessed that you have not left us to wonder what shape and form of our love is supposed to take in response to your love, but you have given a specific instructions in your word on how to die to self, to love you most of all, and others as ourselves. We tend to love ourselves only too much, but you’ve demonstrated your love toward us in sacrificing your Son Jesus Christ for us. Let us likewise put others before ourselves especially our family members. And may this love be reflected and exercised in your church toward others that you have loved with your eternal saving love, so the world may say, “See how they love one another,” and be drawn to you by your love working in us. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Pray for the nations

Ligonier awakening prayer guide February 2018

WEEK 4

THE WORLD AND THE GLOBAL CHURCH

Pray that people in many nations would join themselves to the Lord by faith in Christ alone.

Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. — Zech. 2:11

Prayer by Riley Fraas

O, Lord, we live in a glorious time when the prophecies that you spoke of through the prophets of old, of many nations coming to Christ are being fulfilled before our eyes. Hasten and spread the knowledge of the gospel far and wide to places in the world where it is not yet much known. Bless the endeavors of your people to proclaim Christ to the nations. Take away the fear that your people have even in persecuted areas of reaching those around them. Let them boldly proclaim you. Let them be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves in their situations knowing how to provide for their own yet also give good news to a dying generation. You have made a people out of every nation. You’ve made people for yourself in Jesus Christ to worship and glorify you joyfully forever. This people is made up of every tribe, tongue, and nation. Millions have come to know you in Africa, Asia, South America, and in the Middle East. We praise you for these mighty works look up on them joyfully. Thank you for the blessed occasions that we have to enjoy fellowship and communion with your people in multiple nations as you grant opportunity. Bring down the forces of secularism and anti-Christian political thought that stand against your word and impede missionary endeavor. Open the doors so that your good news may go what has not gone before, and many more people will be reconciled to you their creator through Christ Redeemer of his election every nation, by the Holy Spirit bring them from death to life in Christ, so many millions of our experience. Send the gospel forth with power in nations which have known you in the past, but have grown increasingly secular, such as Europe, Australia, and Canada, and the United States of America. Please send more godly Christian missionaries to those regions. Let the world be ours in Christ, amen.

Pray for your church, coworkers, and neighbors. Ligonier ministries awakening prayer guide week 2 February 2018

Ligonier awakening prayer guide week 2 February 2018

Pray for your church, coworkers, and neighbors.

Jude 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write on to you of the common salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Prayer by highplainsparson:

O Lord our Father we are a people that you have made and we live here in the city of Babylon in a foreign and strange place which does not know you. We bear the reproach and shame that the world puts upon us for being your people, but let us glorify your name in everything that we do, in conversation with others that don’t know you to lead them to the way. Let our local church hold fast to the confession that was once delivered to the Saints and was handed down through our forefathers in the faith. Let us be like the early church that did not waver in her faith or morals but proclaimed them to the world. Let us be thankful Lord for your law and your gospel and proclaim both without equivocation or trying to soften it up, but let us soften up our demeanor in order to bring people to the truth of you. Strengthen our hearts for we are so weak and frail and afraid. Let us go boldly in our community and tell others the reason for the hope that we have within us that many souls may be converted to you where we work, where we live, and gathered to your church where we worship. Add to the number of your local church where we gather and stir up your people to seek the lost in the world. The contrast between the world and the church is real. Let us never be ashamed of it but to unashamedly stand firm. Let us show them that your love is better than any love the world can offer and that we have a better way, and let this firmness of confession be ours by your Spirit and your grace working in us. Use it effectively to build the local church where we are. We pray this in Jesus name.

Awakening Prayer: week 1 February 2018

From the Ligonier Awakening prayer guide. Week one February 2018: yourself and family

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. — Rom. 12:2

Prayer by highplainsparson

O Lord, the world around us is increasingly wicked and hardened in rebellion against you. Protect myself, my wife, and my children from the allurements, Temptations, and vanities of the world, that look good and taste sweet at first, but are bitter in the belly, leading to destruction. Awaken and revive us. Continue the work of grace that you have begun in our hearts. Give the new birth to my children if they do not have it yet. And continue the work of grace that you have begun in me, in my wife, and in my oldest child. Let us be witnesses of your grace in the darkness, and confirm us in your word. Transform our minds from the sinful ways of thinking that we have, by your Holy Spirit working through your word to change our thinking and make it like the thinking of Jesus Christ. Teach us to love you and one other. Let us cease fighting, argumentation, insults, and Unkind words toward one another, and instead compete in acts of love for the distinction of being the most loving to each other. Instruct us from your word on how to love; because of sin we do not know how to love each other as we should, So we need your law to teach us how to love. Write it on our hearts and minds and transform us by it so that we may be more like you.

Churches unite in prayer for genuine Revival

 

 

Several churches in the Presbytery of The Dakotas and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have decided to unite in prayer for Revival at specific times. How to join in prayer:

Please share, and pray.  Details: http://pray4revival.info

Anyone paying attention in recent days can see the dire spiritual condition of the United States of America.  Men cannot help us, God is our only hope.  The great 18th century Presbyterian preacher: Samuel Davies said, “an extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit is the only remedy for a ruined country.”  Several churches in our region have decided to unite together in prayer for a genuine, Spirit-wrought revival.  Would you please join us in prayer, in churches and other groups, and share the above link with others?

A Desperate and Manly Cry for Help Brings Deliverance–Psalm 119 devotional (Qoph)

ק Qoph

145 I cry out with my whole heart;
Hear me, O Lord!
I will keep Your statutes.
146 I cry out to You;
Save me, and I will keep Your testimonies.
147 I rise before the dawning of the morning,
And cry for help;
I hope in Your word.
148 My eyes are awake through the night watches,
That I may meditate on Your word.
149 Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness;
O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.
150 They draw near who follow after wickedness;
They are far from Your law.
151 You are near, O Lord,
And all Your commandments are truth.
152 Concerning Your testimonies,
I have known of old that You have founded them forever. Psalm 119 nkj

The Christian life is one of a struggle against the sinful flesh.  Even as redeemed children of God, trusting in His Son Jesus Christ for salvation, we commit sins daily, and these sins bring consequences.  God acts as a loving father to discipline his wayward children, and often it’s the cruel mercies of the wicked that come against us when we have failed to walk in obedience.  But the psalmist’s manly and desperate cry for help to God is our expression hope in Him for deliverance in these trials in life.  We cannot hope for deliverance from the cruelties of this world, or for victory over the sin that reigns in our bodies, unless we genuinely cry out to God for it.  Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6

Be like the psalmist, and cry out for help against sin reigning in your life today and everyday.  And go in faith that God will answer your desperate prayer.

Can You Pray This Prayer?: Neither poverty nor riches

Give me neither poverty nor riches—

Feed me with the food allotted to me;
Lest I be full and deny You,
And say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:8b-9 nkjv

A Famine of God’s Word

^{As I look out the window of the parsonage, I can’t help but notice a dense, thick blanket of fluffy white snow layering over the lawns, cars, and buildings on this side of Burlington. And this big snow is come as an answer to prayer, about which there cannot be any doubt. In our numerous prayers offered during Sunday morning worship and during our monthly prayer meetings, we have asked the Lord to provide the moisture that this dry and thirsty land so badly needs, and we ought to be thankful for this small answer to prayer, in the snowstorm that came through. But as we consider the blessing of moisture to alleviate a period of drought, there is something even more important to consider. It is the blessing of the Word of God.}

^{God has provided that His word is proclaimed to us week after week, as fresh manna falling from heaven. But how many are there who take it for granted? There may even be some folks reading this who have not attended church in the last few weeks, or more. But public worship in the church of God is vital to sustain the spiritual life of the Christian, especially the preaching of the word. In the Book of Amos, chapter 8, we read about the most terrible judgment of God which can come against a people. It is a famine, not of food, and not a drought of water, but a famine of God’s word. For in the Word of God proclaimed by his chosen mouthpieces, the precious promises of grace and the forgiveness of sins are offered. In the Word of God, His people get to know Him, to appreciate Him for who He is and what He has done. Can there be any judgment from the Lord, in this world, more fearsome than a withholding of that precious Word?}

^{In the eighth chapter of Amos, that terrible judgment from God is spoken on His people. They had been unfaithful to Him, and instead of paying careful attention to those ordinances that He had commanded, they had set up other activities instead: particularly the worship at a shrine in Dan, toward the north of the land, and at the place in Beersheba where Abraham had worshipped God. This was directly contrary to God’s commandment to seek Him at Jerusalem. In punishment for the disobedience of His people, God declares that He will send upon them a famine of His word, when He would no longer speak to them.}

^{Amos 8:11} Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: ¹² And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. ¹³ In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. ¹⁴ They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

In this passage we learn, that when the Word fo the Lord is despised, neglected, and disregarded, He will sometimes take it away entirely as a judgment against those people. This means they will no longer hear of God’s mercy and grace, His covenant of salvation, His precious promises to be a God to them forever. When a people disregards God’s Word, it is only just that He take it away from them as a testimony and a judgment against their disobedience. And there is no judgment more terrible, for this withholding of God’s Word takes away from them His gracious promises of mercy and a means of salvation.

In history this same thing happened many times, for example with the Christian churches in North Africa, who lost their lamp posts, lost the opportunity to hear the Word of God, when the Islamic Arabs invaded in the 7^th and 8^th centuries, after a long period of decline and a gradual increase of worldliness in those churches. And I fear that the same withdrawal of God’s word is experienced in far too many American churches, where a desire for seeker-sensitivity, self-help, popularity, and pop psychology has replaced the serious proclamation of God’s Word in the ministry of the churches. This too is a famine of God’s Word.

Seeing this example from Scripture, and what has happened to other churches throughout history and in our own day, let us, therefore, as the body of Jesus Christ, be diligent to hear the Word when occasion permits. Let us give thanks to God for it, relish it, receive it with gladness and faith, and obey it. For His Word is light and life, it is nourishment for the hungry, and water for the thirsty. For if we continue to receive His Word with gladness, it will never depart from us. Let us also pray that God would not take away the blessing of His Word from the other churches in the community, in the region, and in this nation.