10 Pray, Pray, Pray!

Copyright © 2017 Michael A. Brown

'And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests' (Eph. 6:18)

'Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful' (Col. 4:2)

The book of Acts tells us of the tremendous and powerful moves of God's Spirit in the early Church, of radical conversions as people encountered the living God, of miracle-working power that turned people's lives and the world upside-down, and of how the gospel moved out powerfully and unquenchably from Jerusalem and reached Rome itself, with new groups of believers planted in almost every province in less than one generation. And wouldn't we like to see it happening again...

But this book also gives us the spiritual backcloth to these events. The book of Acts is a book about prayer. Its events were permeated by and soaked in prayer. The early church was a praying church. Believers devoted themselves to prayer (2:42). They prayed together continually and constantly (1:14). They prayed as individuals (10:9) and they prayed together corporately (4:24; 12:5,12). They prayed during the day (3:1) and they prayed during the night (12:12, 16:25). They prayed at set times (3:1) and in their spare moments (10:9-10). They prayed in set places (3:1, 16:16) and in places where no-one had ever prayed to the living God before (16:25). They prayed as a daily habit when everything was fine (3:1), and they prayed when they were in danger or being persecuted (4:24; 12:5,12; 16:25). The preachers gave themselves first to prayer and then preached powerfully and taught the believers (6:4). Their ministry came out of and was birthed in prayer. Believers supported one another in prayer in their times of need (12:5,12). They prayed and walls shook (4:31) and an earthquake threw prison doors open (16:25-26). They prayed and angels were released to minister to believers in need (12:5-11). They prayed for people and these were filled with the Holy Spirit (8:15-17, 19:6). They prayed and saw visions (9:11-12, 10:9-10). They prayed and the sick were healed and even the dead were raised (9:40-41, 28:8). Leaders fasted, sought God and prayed together, and the Lord gave them guidance and new vision in his work (13:1-3).

Prayer was the primary spiritual activity of these Spirit-filled and fire-baptized people. It was the power of their prayers that moved heaven and changed earth. The apostles exhorted new groups of believers in fledgling churches to learn to pray in the Spirit on all occasions and to devote themselves to prayer, because they knew its power and they knew that it was intrinsic and essential to the success of their Christian lives, for the devil to be defeated and for the work of the gospel to continue to go forward. They knew that the one thing that believers could never afford to do, was to neglect prayer.

This model of life and ministry being soaked in and permeated by prayer is normative for the Christian church. This is what it is supposed to be like all the time, and this is how God would have it be. So it is a model that we need to seek to come up to the standard of. Prayer is the 'old path' (cf. Jer. 6:16) whose truth and power has been experienced and proven time and time again by believers and leaders down through the centuries. We need to return to it in order to secure the results that others have proven that it can yield. To neglect prayer is to neglect the power of God and to depend on mere human strength to make God's work go forward. But regardless of the age we live in, and regardless of what defines the cultural norms and forms of the present generation in church life, God's ways have not changed. It really is prayer that changes things. It is Spirit-filled believers and leaders who know what praying is and who will give themselves to it, who see a spiritual stirring of still waters, who see breakthrough happen, the devil defeated and people's lives change, and who see the works of God manifested in the land of the living. When God has found a person or a group of people who will give themselves to prayer, then he knows he has found what is needed to bring change and raise up powerful testimony.

We need to return to the 'old path' of prayer and to make much of it. Our pulpits will change when our preachers learn to pray as a matter of first priority. Preachers who pray are fruitful preachers. Our churches will change when believers in them establish prayer meetings and commit themselves to attending these regularly. Churches that pray are churches that have a future. Our towns and cities will change when leaders and believers from the various churches in them commit themselves to getting together to pray and intercede freely together.

We need to pray, pray, pray!