Repentance and Prayer

Today millions of people gathered around flag poles to pray. Though many get excited about this it does not excite me as much as those students and adults who linger in intercession the rest of the year. I am inspired by those who keep praying. Who keep interceding. Who keep pleading with God to change their schools and their communities.

Prayer is hard work and the church would rather sing, hear preaching, teaching, and do just about anything else than to pray. Do we think that just because people show up one day out of the year to pray that God is obligated to come and heal our land.

God's own people do not even live like they are redeemed. Holiness of life should accompany words from our mouth offered in prayer. Repentance is the need of the hour. The people of God need to turn from wicked ways.

Yes we need to pray. We need to pray more than one time a year. We need to stand in the gap for our communities all through the year and for decades if need be until God heals this broken, rebellious, and lost land. I have often thought about SYATP. With millions of people praying where is the revival? Where is the great move of God to come and heal our land? If so many are praying where are the results?

Could it be that God sees the hypocrisy around the flag pole? Could it be that God sees through the insincerity in the prayers offered? Could it be that God sees the apathy of His people? Could it be that God knows how fast some will leave the flag pole and make a dead sprint toward sin again.

God still has a remnant who still pray. In Seminole, TX a small remnant of women still gather early in the mornings to pray. The last I heard they are down to two. There was a time when more came. Those women inspire and ignite fire in my heart more than the millions gathered at the flag pole this morning. They travail in soul agonizing prayer for their community and for revival to come. They have been doing this for three straight years.

I get excited about a group of senior adult ladies at FBC Paradise who have been gathering to pray for over a decade on Wednesday mornings.

We need God to heal this wicked land. We are a nation on a direct collision course with judgment from a righteous God. Who will stand in the gap the other days of the year? Who yearns for revival with their deepest longing? Are we satisfied as Satan rapes and pillages this nation? Are we content to sit in our comfortable holy huddles and pews as the nation drifts further and further away from God.

People of God it is time to pray, to seek the face of God in humility and to turn from our wickedness. It is time to get serious about the things of God pleading for a nation wide revival. It is time to give ourselves to that pursuit.