Prayer

I don't know how many times I must have read these lines, but it pricks me every time. It makes my eyes go moist and makes me look for a place to pray. When in office it makes me long for the prayer closet. I wish it does the same thing for you.

Excerpts from the book 'Why Revival Tarries' by Leonard Ravenhill...

The Cinderella of the church of today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamourous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel! No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shopwindow to display one's talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off. When a man who has crept along for years in conventional Christianity suddenly zooms into spiritual alertness, becomes aggressive int he battle of the Lord, and has a quenchless zeal for the lost, there is a reason for it. (But we are so subnormal these days that the normal New Testament experience seems abnormal.) The secret of this "jet-propelled fellow" we have just mentioned is that somewhere he has had Jacob-like wrestling with God and has come out stripped, but also "strengthened by the Holy Ghost!"

The secret of praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying, and a praying man will stop sinning. We are beggared and bankrupt, but not broken, nor even bent.

Prayer is profoundly simple and simply profound. 'Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try', and yet so sublime that it outranges all speech and exhausts mans vocabulary. A Niagara of burning words does not mean that God is either impressed or moved. One of the most profound of Old Testament intercessors had no language - 'Her lips moved, BUT HER VOICE WAS NOT HEARD. No linguist here ! There are groanings that cannot be uttered.

Are we so substandard in New Testament Christianity that we know not the historical faith of our fathers (with its implications and operations), but only the hysterical faith of our fellows ?

Prayer is to the believer what capital is to the business man.

Can any deny that in the modern church setup the main cause of anxiety is money? Yet that which tries the modern churches the most, troubled the New Testament Church the least. Our accent is on paying, theirs was on praying. When we have paid, the place is taken; when they had prayed, the place was shaken !

In the matter of New Testament, Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, world-breaking prayer, never has so much been left by so many to so few.

For this kind of prayer there is no substitute. We do it - or die !

For God's Sake Let's Grow Up!!

We need to grow up out of our crib. We need to upgrade to solid food. We cannot be spoonfed all along. At some stage we need to leave the crib and crawl. Most preachers today don't kindle the nest. And the church is fat and obese in the nest with wings that have never been execised. We have been saved (though most are superficial). Our calling, when we become christians is to be Holy (ICor1:2). We don't realize that since we are still dazed in our superficial, often emotionally manipulated salvation. We don't pray in the spirit. That's one reason why we keep sinning. Because a praying christian will stop sinning. And a sinning christian will stop praying. Once we establish a connection with God through prayer, then we'll be nudged by the Holy Spirit if any sin hinders that connection. In this way we keep the connection going. In this way we'll stop sinning. I guess we'll have to grow out of the 'worship song' crib that we are accustomed to in our churches. Today the church is content in getting to sing a good worship song and go high emotionally on sundays and then go back to their sinning ways. Pathetic piety. You ask an youngster why he/she goes to that particular church you'd hear them answer "the worship is good". This sums up the state our churches are in today. First lets learn to get out of the crib and then we'll learn what's 'worship'.

Revival or Funeral

I have been hearing Leonard Ravenhill for the past week from sermonindex.net and am greatly blessed. What a burning soul had he. The church in South India is dead. Either its getting an extra dosage of the materialistic prosperity or it is sunk in traditions and ceremonies. The pulpit is ice cold with icicles at the edges. After hearing Ravenhill the trip to local chruch is even more painful. It is ridiculous that the majority have jumped on the humanism bandwagon. We either need a revival or a funeral. People are content with the way the worship leader takes them to an emotional realm with the slow music and antics.... The mainline preachers are making the pew comfortable and hence are bringing judgement on themselves. Its time we had a prophet of God among us. Lord send us a John the Baptist. We are undone....