is prayer for another Welsh Revival...
When Jesus
taught His disciples what is known today as "The Lord's Prayer", He
instructed them in what is probably the
most complete prayer for revival that exists. The first phrase, "Our
Father who art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name..." establishes both position and posture.
It declares who He is, who we are, and our privileged and joyful duty
to proclaim His name as holy, His stature as our Lord and Savior.
Then this amazing prayer gets right down to business in this all-encompassing petition, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." It seems to me that everything that follows exemplifies the fruit of His Kingdom on earth, among a myriad of other unnamed benefits. Along with prayers for healing, personal needs, protection and salvation of loved ones, and peace in our world, nothing would be left out in His prayer.
When
we pray for healing for someone, aren't we really praying that God's
kingdom will come into this person's body and manifest wholeness? When
we pray for peace, aren't we really praying that the fear of the Lord
would open people's eyes to see how sinful and just plain stupid
physical war actually is?
Almost anything we could pray for specifically would be one of the fruits of God's kingdom being manifested on earth. And that sure sounds like revival to us!
When we pray for revival in our day, it means we are praying
to see
things in the here and now that were commonplace in the time of Jesus
and the book of Acts. And so like in those times, we pray to see
individual lives, whole
families and communities coming to the saving
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as Redeemer. We are, in
essence, praying the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples.
One thing that has always struck me about the Lord's prayer is this. Immediately before Jesus teaches it to the disciples, He says in Matthew 6:7, "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words." In spite of such a clear warning, as a child I learned to rattle it off by rote without paying attention to the content or even having a clue to what it really meant. And I'm quite sure I am not alone in this.
So when we do pray, let's remember that prayer is not performing something, it is talking with God. And so we should talk to Him the same way we were taught to love Him, " You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."
Let's pray the Lord's Prayer for Revival for this needy world we live in!
As for the saints who are on the earth, "They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight." Psalms 16:2-3