A Call to Prayer

Jn.15:7 - If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.

Lk.11:10 - For everyone that asks receives, and to him that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened.

I Thess.5:17 - Pray without ceasing.

Hos.10:12 - Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord till He comes and rains righteousness upon you.

There is so much today to be bandied about concerning standing for truth. And further many now have created a new ministry that not only stands for truth, it assumes God’s calling to search out every vestige of impure Biblical teaching. Men make reference to John the Baptist or Elisha or even Paul as their template. Paul rebuked rarely and taught often, even though it was he who was given the revelation of the church by Christ Himself. His humility, in the face of such honor and revelation, was astounding. He claims to be the least among the apostles, the chief of sinners, and he accepted the thorn in the flesh as from God to maintain his humility. He stood for truth, but far from being some type of "warrior" he became known as "our beloved brother Paul" from the pen of the very one he rebuked.

Paul taught about false teachers that were to come, but his ministry was to spread the gospel and edify the church. And the question must arise, to what proportion do we spread the gospel compared to studying, reading, hearing, speaking about, and rebuking others? The so called "watchman" moniker seems to be a ministry dedicated to rebuking, but I see no such calling in the New Testament.

Anyone can take the imagery of the Old Testament and create some "Knights of the Round Table" persona and go riding through the kingdom cutting and slashing the evil dragon, but the New Testament describes no such calling or anointing. And amidst all the gladiator ambiance where is the gladiator that forcefully and violently exhibits Christ in His humility? Where does he endure in silence the wrongs of his friends without drawing his ear slicing sword immediately? Where does this gladiator rust his armor with tears of pain and love over the church in our confusion and wayward folly?

We are not given license to pick the attributes we desire to emulate, while letting others display the ones which are not suited to the caricature we live inside. And contrary to our personal perspectives, we all are guilty. How can we know that we are all caught within the confines of our own limited spiritual cubicle? Why is it obvious that we represent our own interests and not God’s heart? And what clues do we have that our pursuits are disproportionately mingled with our own competitive spirit and not the absolute glory of God? And finally, with what test can we be certain that we are relying upon our own flesh and intellect and not the demonstration of the Spirit and of power?

With one pointed glance we should be able to, if we are honest, discern where we have been found out. Our prayer lives strip us of our self righteous robes of protestation concerning the falling away of the church, our Lord’s very body. And when God’s light of truth, the same truth we so carelessly claim we defend, shines upon the dust of our prayer closets we are left with no hiding place. We quote Wesley and Calvin and Tozer and Edwards and others as if they were our cognizant collaborators, and yet their words sprung from a much more formidable stream that ran down the mountain of their prayer lives. And we now bend down, collecting their words in broken cisterns, and pretend the same power from which they were born is still ours. Throwing ink back and forth does little more than dirty the landscape of communication, but where oh where is the power that once shook nations?

Are we still so blind that we cannot see that if we are in earnest in our desire to see the Lord’s eternal truth crowned again on the brow of His bride, that are words, our metaphors, our rebukes, and even our scholarly hermeneutics are not sufficient for speaking His glorious truths much less stemming any tide of departure from the same? But who is sufficient for these things, asks the great apostle Paul. But our sufficiency is of God, he answers himself. Like the rescue efforts at the coal mine of Utah, until we are resolute to pray until heaven comes down we will remain imprisoned within the walls of our own well intentioned thoughts and ideas, but certainly not the demonstrative power of the Creator of the Universe.

The anemic commitment to prayer is the one tie that binds all the different movements that swirl around in God’s church like dry, lifeless tumbleweeds being blown here and there. Oh sure some have energy and newness, some reflect the Scriptures in orthodox plummage, and some disply enticing words of men's wisdom, but where is the undeniable power that made the early communities exclaim, "We have never seen it like this!". Do people still come to Christ, yes, and do some lives still get changed by God, yes, but God’s grace cannot and should not be used as a protective curtain for our self reliant prayerlessness. Some camps tether their theological wagon to the preachers of old quoting and copying their words as proof of the church’s departure and of their own solid orthodoxy. Others reject the old and are addicted to the new as proof of their creative ability to reach out and identify with the culture. One studies and studies to be approved while the other molds and creates to reach others. One looks down and rebukes on the basis of departure while the other looks up and rebukes on the basis on intransigence. And all the while it has become apparent that neither has much power, only words and positions.

Books and books and more books, cd’s and mp3’s and the internet are the conduits for the overload of Biblical perspectives and thoughts. And those who are on television or who write books soon get iconic status and many believe most everything they say. And it may change some beliefs and even the fellowship they now associate with, but has it drastically changed the seen and unseen power of God’s people that can only be found in prayer? Who stays up late to pray? Who rises early to seek His face. A man who reads the daily bread and says a little prayer for ten minutes is comparatively on fire in this fast paced post modern society. Where are the church’s that sometimes get so thirsty for God, or so burdened for the church, or so moved with compassion for the lost, that they open their doors for prayer for an entire week, day and night? And still we are satisfied with our insignificant chatter?

There is more chit chat on Sunday mornings than intercessory prayer, and we claim to seek God. We are much more worried about what visitors might think than we are what the Spirit desires. People parking their car on Sunday morning ready for church who haven’t spent one minute in prayer to the Heavenly Father and His Son. That isn’t church, that is a religious meeting that has such little power that the afterglow is more chit chat and a bite to eat which ends in time so as not to miss the football game. And we arrogantly claim to have met with the Creator God. And the traditional question, how was the message, reveals our focus and our hearts. Who asks, “Did the Spirit of God move in the meeting and what did God do in your life?”. And if the authentic Spirit of the Living God moved in our churches would we consider it an inconvenience or emotionalism or even fanaticism?

So these are not Swords we are wielding, they are shameful and dull butter knives that cut with little more power than it took to punch the keyboard, including these I write. But I am convinced that God’s Spirit is speaking to some, maybe many, and opening our eyes to what is and has happened to God’s glorious church. So if you think the main problem is the emergent movement you are deceived. If you believe the main problem is the seeker services you are still deceived. If you assume the problem is the fundamentalists or the orthodox crowd you remain deceived. If you embrace the notion that either the watchman or their targets are what is wrong with the church you are again under a false impression.

The problem with the church is you and me together and yet individually. It is the church collectively and yet each believer alone. I am the main problem. You are the main problem. And just as Luther nailed the 95 thesis to the door of Castle Church in Whittenburg, Germany, so must the handwriting of God’s Spirit be nailed to the door of our own hearts. Until repentance starts with us our words are as wind, and until our hearts are broken over the day-timer prayer lives we lead we will remain comforted by the words of the men we admire but cold to the Spirit’s call. The prayer closets remain antiseptic and dry, and the church houses only keep us from the rain, both the earth‘s and heaven‘s. Where is the Lord God of Elijah?

You may have your praise music, you may have your Bible study, you may have your conferences, you may have your fellowships, you may have your etymologies, you may have your building programs, you may have your children’s ministries, you may have your teen ministries, you may have your drama presentations, you may have all of that and much, much more. But without prayer, elongated and sacrificial prayer whose focus and intensity eclipses all those other activities combined, you and I will still have a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof.

And we thought God was speaking about some others.
I know…we always do.