Somebody Get Your Praise On!

Tonight I skipped church at Syndal (is that bad?) to be a part of CityLife’s corporate prayer meeting. It’s always pretty amazing. Seeing hundreds of people actually choosing to come to a prayer meeting, and getting passionately involved gets me excited. After a time of worship, we spent a little time asking God to fill us up – each person coming with some kind of burden or distraction, yet we want to focus on God fully and hear what he has to say to us.

Mark gave a short word and I just love the picture he gave – once in the past God gave him a vision of four walls creeping in against him in an attempt to hinder his ministry and effectiveness. Each wall had a label: FEAR, DISCOURAGEMENT, UNBELIEF and APATHY. It hit me, because I really feel like those four issues are often what holds me back and prevents me from really taking on all that God wants to do. As Mark said, I need to really push out and be on the offensive against these enemies – not let fear dominate my walk, but build myself up in confidence, by trusting and truly believing that what God has promised he will do – even when I don’t see it in the natural. I want to enlarge my borders, not be hemmed in.

We prayed for our unsaved friends, for the addition of leaders and volunteers to the church, for the release of mission workers (plus those already on the field), and for Jesus to wildly impact the nations where missions are targeted: mainly throughout Asia, the Middle-East, Europe and Africa.

Just some of the other words which I really found insightful or impacting during the meeting:

• You don’t find giants in the wilderness – only when you’re about to enter the promised land
• We’re not wrestling against flesh and blood (people!) but against the enemies of the unseen world
• Sometimes we wait for others to come and be the salvation our churches or movements need, but WE could be the ones! Perhaps our generation is the one to rise up and really make the difference and change the tide
• God is taunting the enemy with his people when they rise up in unified prayer and praise
• Don’t look at the NOW, look at what CAN BE
• PRAYER + PERSISTANCE
• Some of us need to work at getting Christians to smile – some are so weighed down and living with hurt. Perhaps we can bring encouragement and minister to each other to lift the chains from our brothers and sisters.
• Leaders should not be greedy, but eager to serve – the prayer is that their love would be increased, and it would overflow into the flock
• Some of our greatest warfare is through our praise! PRAISE HIM!
• When prayer wasn’t happening Jesus wasn’t happy. It should be a house of prayer for all nations!!

And before I knew it, it was 8 o’clock – two hours felt like about 45 minutes.