POWER AND PRAYER

The New Testament church was born in power and prayer. Before the day of Pentecost, the disciples spent their time in an upper room of a house praying. In Acts 1:14 it says that they all joined together constantly in prayer.

Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem to wait for the gift that his Father had promised, namely the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. All together mean together together. You can be all together physically but not necessarily all together in mind and spirit.

In their unity they were visited by the Holy Spirit who filled them and as a result they began to speak in unknown tongues.

As we know, this experience of prayer and the filling of the Holy Spirit produced 3,000 new converts and later the miraculous healing of the sick.

Can I ask you a question? When was the last time you and your church spent a protracted time together praying until you were filled with the Holy Spirit that allowed you to perform miracles?

When I was at Bible College, I did a study of revivals. One common factor was that people were dissatisfied with their walk with the Lord and spent protracted times of prayer together. They usually pleaded with God to visit them on his terms. They were rewarded with a visitation from God that brought revival to the church and society.

I remember in the early 60s I was in a Baptist church that was good by the standards of the day. But the pastor and a few others weren’t satisfied so we met every Tuesday evening to pray and wait on God to see if…well we didn’t know what..

It took about six months but we had a direct word from God one evening which we followed up on and as they say all heaven let loose. We came into an experience of God that we had not known before. Healing became a normal part of the life of the fellowship.

Don’t you think it sad that today, most churches carry on like a two bob watch and at the end of the day, nothing happens. Is that what God had planned for the church? I don’t think so.

The church in the New Testament changed the world. The church in Africa seems to be changing their world. The church in Latin America seems to be changing their world. The church in western society, rather than changing their world seems to be irrelevant to themselves and others.

I say to themselves for as far as I can see, not many believers are being changed from glory to glory. We seem to struggle the same as anyone else instead of living victorious lives powered by the filling of the Holy Spirit. Most churches seem to be running on empty. I guess that should not surprise us as the supplier of power, the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem to get a look-in. If you don’t plug into the power point, the light ain’t going to shine.