“Whatever is natural in you will come out of you in a crisis…and crisis will reveal the true state of your heart.”

I came across this teaching from Allen Hood, Associate Director of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO, as I was considering what will happen on November 7^th in America. Right now, Christians are in crisis mode – praying earnestly that God will save our nation from total destruction; yet, many have focused their attention on which person will be in the White House rather than placing their hope in God alone. It is the people in God’s house who hold the future of America…not governmental leaders. We are called to pray for those in authority…but not to depend upon them for the healing of our nation.

God has been filled with grace and mercy towards a nation characterized by a lack of biblical truth. Believers know the truth, but it does no good if that truth doesn’t live fully within them and if it is not expressed in their everyday lives through words and actions. If, on the day following the election, or whenever the result is finalized, God’s people ease back from the earnestness of our prayers, whether due to relief or resignation, the Father will see the true condition of our hearts.

Crisis in our nation will not be averted or brought to bear through an election, but because the people called by His name have humbled themselves and prayed, sought His face and turned from their wicked ways (see 2 Chronicles 7:14). If our dependence on God is true, then we will continue to seek Him on behalf of our nation after the election is over. The Church has been impotent and silent before heaven, as well as within our culture. We have been relegated to the position of irrelevance…and therefore, so has our God. His people have not represented Him in the fight for biblical truth in America…and we are now reaping what we have sown. But God! IF we, His people, called by His name, will truly humble ourselves and pray and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways…then He will hear from heaven, forgive our sins and heal our land. What an incredible promise to us that has been left unclaimed in this generation!

It’s time to blow the trumpet and sound the alarm! (Joel 2) Believers must not stop seeking the face of God until revival is poured out upon a repentant people and His kingdom is unmistakably established within our nation once again!

I believe the future of America is teetering on a precipice…and our response to this perilous moment in history will reveal the true condition of our hearts. May our God find us faithfully about the work of earnest and focused intercession so that He will hear the prayers from His humble, broken people…pour out His merciful forgiveness…and heal our land!

Seeking ways to become more deeply attached to God should be  a lifelong pursuit for all believers. Prayer provides the most profound attachment we can form with our Father, and rectnly this quote by Frank Bianco came my way: “If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.”  It adds fuel to my own prayer that we will all see how the fulfillment of 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray continually,” is accomplished through prayer becoming a lifestyle. It is an increased awareness of being in the presence of God moment by moment.

Paul lays the groundwork for us in Romans 12:1-2 in the Message:
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” 

How can this kind of attachment to the continual presence of God be done in a practical way, you may be asking? Here are some steps to ponder and pray  through this Scripture in order to walk it out day by day and moment by moment: 

1.    Prayerfully place your everyday, ordinary life before God as an offering. One way to pray this is, “Father, take all that I am and all that I do today. I lay it before you. Please take it and turn my ordinary into Your extraordinary!

2.    Embrace what God does for you. Live out your gratefulness with continual prayers of gratitude, even for the smallest things. Being thankful will help you to recognize and embrace His nearness continually.  Take time to notice things you don’t normally think about and thank God for them regularly. As you cultivate a heart of appreciation for all that has been created around you and for all of the blessings you have been given, you will become more intimately connected with the Presence of God the Father.

3.    Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Our culture is separating us from spending time with God, much less being continually aware of His presence. The distractions are compelling and tempting unless we are able to see and sense Him moving and working all around us. Leaning into His purposes will keep us from the purposes of the enemy of our souls.

4.    Fix your attention on God. Whenever possible, give Him your full consideration and attentiveness. Spend much time reading and meditating upon His word. Listen for His voice. Tell Him that in these moments all you want is to know Him more deeply.  A. W. Tozer speaks about believers who have cultivated the practice of “gazing upon God.”  He describes them as those who, “without giving much thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again.” He speaks of the importance of spiritual habits and rhythms in our lives and continues:  “But at the bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are seeing the scenes of this passing world.”  Tozer says this is not only for the super saints, but for each one of us who deeply desires to fix our attention upon God. Spend time in prayer asking the Father to develop this new set of eyes within you.

5.    Readily recognize what He wants from you. Quickly respond to it. It is important that we are always prepared to become the answer to the prayers we pray. Often, when God burdens our hearts, He is preparing us to respond to our own prayers. James says, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2: 15-17). Ask God to keep you aware and available and He will use you for His kingdom purposes.

Paul shares two promises from God if we will focus on the things above. First, we will be changed from the inside out. Secondly, God will bring the best out of us and develop well-formed maturity in us.  What believer doesn’t want this kind of transformation?

“If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.”  – Frank Bianco

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44).

This verse became very personal for me one winter, shortly after I had given my life to Jesus. Clara, an older woman in my church, revealed that she had been praying for me daily for more than two years. She did not really know me, but she knew that I needed to give my heart to Christ. The significance of that moment did not hit me until I came face to face with John 6:44. Had God been drawing me while I was too busy to hear or pay attention? I could truthfully say that I had never known any other person who was interceding on my behalf. It made me ask, “What if she had not been praying for me?”

I believe that Clara’s prayers allowed my heart to be open to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Because she cried out to God for my soul, I now have everlasting life. God was patiently wooing me, but in my ignorance and pride, I already believed I was going to heaven because I was a “good person.” Clara prayed that I would bow my knee before the King of kings. As she did battle on my behalf, I began to soften my will before God, responding to His call to make His Son my Lord and Savior.

As you interact with the people in your own family, your friends, coworkers, fellow students, business associates, customers, or even the strangers you pass every day, have you ever considered whether or not anyone is praying for them?  What if your prayers could make the difference in someone’s eternity? Would this give new significance and urgency to your prayers? Begin to look at your relationships differently. Ask God to draw people to Himself so that they will be able to respond to His plans and purposes for their lives. Can you imagine some new possibilities for prayer in the moments of your every day, ordinary life that will make an extraordinary impact upon each person you come into contact with? Begin today to pray for the Father to draw the people you love, interact with or just pass by each day to Himself. We may never know until heaven how many lives have been opened to receive Christ because of our prayers.

(c) Harvest Prayer Ministries

“What can you ask God that will help you be more complete?” This was the question posed to me in a friend’s blog recently. As I considered my everyday life, it occurred to me that I already have everything I need in Jesus for a complete life…and, on a theological level that is true. However, in reality, there is still much that is incomplete in me. I have unmet goals and aspirations. I have things that go undone each day. There are relationships that go unattended and projects that have to stay on the back-burner.

The aforementioned blog lovingly revealed to me that perhaps the reason so much of who I am and what I do is incomplete, is because I am not living a “rhythmed life.” A rhythmed life is one that brings spiritual disciplines into our daily activities in such a way that God is noticeably present in all of our moments. It is life that is embedded continually in the Presence of the Living God…the One who brings completion to the life of every believer. The completeness we seek cannot be found in one compartmentalized moment of our day when we focus on God and then go about the other activities of life unaware that He is active around, in and through us. Relegating the Lord of the Universe to one corner of our daily journey can be equated to living out of balance…and therefore, in a state of incompleteness.

If we engage the original question at an even deeper level, perhaps it changes a bit. It isn’t just that I need God to help me become more complete in my life…the real question should focus on how I can obediently live in such a way that I become more complete in Jesus. I believe King David recognized the need for completeness in God at the very core of his being. He shared the heartcry of his life with us in Psalm 27:4:

One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.

This prayer is not a request to make of God without a great deal of thought and intentionality. ONE THING! It seems I have so many things to ask God. Is this truly the “one thing” that I seek the most from Him? Is this lip service to what should be, or is this really the cry of my heart to become more complete in Him for the sake of His kingdom rather than my own? Am I ready to make the commitment that this prayer implies? What does it mean to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life? How, when I am so busy can I make space in my life and in my heart to simply gaze upon His beauty? His temple is…me! How do I seek Him within myself persistently?  This is what prayer as everyday life is! It is a continual awareness of the Christ, living within me. The answer to the question is deeper than many of us may wish to go…but to be whole in Christ Jesus is to seek after the one thing in order to become all He has designed us to be – fully complete – nothing missing.

Here is my prayer…the question I most wish to ask God so that He will complete the good work He has begun in me: Father, as Your heart beats within me, may I dwell in Your house all the days of my life, gaze upon Your beauty and seek You continually within the moments of my everyday life?

This is a journey with the Holy Spirit that will be different for each of us. Perhaps your question is different; however, Psalm 27:4 has become the major question I have begun to ask of God in order to live a life of completeness in Him.

(c) Harvest Prayer Ministries