Impacting Prayer

I have been discontent. I have been unsatisfiedeven in the midst of miracles. I wasn’t quite surewhy. I started thinking there was something wrong with me. I started praying about a message for Sunday morning and I didn’t feel like I was getting anything. I felt like God was so distant. Saturday night rolled around and I felt like I had a few ideas, but nothing that was burning in my heart.Late Saturday night whenI was reading my Bible just before I went to bed I read the story in 1 Kings 18, where Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to prepare an offering while Elijah prepared an offering. The prophets of Baal prepared their offering and Elijah prepared his and had men soak it with water until the trench around the altar was filled with water that ran down off thealtar. The prophets of Baal prayed and danced and chanted all day long and Baal never answered with fire. Then Elijah after they were done, gathered the people around him and his water soaked altar. He prayed, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that these people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God.” Later in the story, Elijah tells Ahab to go up and eat and drink because there was a sound of a roar of a mighty shower. Elijah went to the top of Carmel and crouched down and put his face between his knees and prayed.

2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Elijah had his servant go and look out toward the sea and tell him what he saw. His servant reported that he saw nothing. Elijah sent him back until the seventh time when his servant reported that he saw a cloud the size of a man’s fist. Elijah told his servant to tell Ahab to prepare his chariot to go to Jezreel so that he did not get stuck in the downpour. There is a burden burning in my heart right now and I am convinced that God has released this burden on many. I feel like there has been a burden for prayer released over the church. The word for thechurch right now is Unity. God wants to bring His church together with a single focus right now. I feel like that focus is prayer. Not just prayer, but prayer that takes responsibility, personal responsibility and regional responsibility. It is a prayer focus that impacts cities, families, business and the church. God is waiting for the church to get out of the "them and us" mentality and move into the mentality that we are all in the same boat. It reminds me of the story in Acts 27 when Paul was on a ship that was stuck in a violent storm. When the men on ship decided to abandon ship and leave in the life boats, Paul tells them, if you leave not only will we die, but you will die also.We are the church. We are called to bring unity and hope in a time of disunity and hopelessness. I felt like God was wanting to hear a cry from his church right now that is focused. God is looking for a church that will get on their face humbled before him with a heart to see the land healed. At my church, Bethel Atlanta, we have launched a 30 day prayer focus. The 30 days consist of five focal points and I am inviting anyone that wants to see their area impacted, to take responsibility and pray into these five points.

1. The first focus is a personal focus. It consists of us taking personal responsibility to become an altarto the Lord. Just as Elijah prepared the altar to the Lord and prayed that God would answer with fire, we are to prepare our lives and pray for God to answer with fire. When God answered Elijah with fire, it was an all consuming fire. It licked up the altar, the offering, the stones, the dust and the water in the trench. The result was all the people around fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, He is God; the Lord He is God.” When the world can see a church that is completely consumed by a God that answers by fire they will fall on their face and know that the Lord is God and He is faithful to answer the prayers of His people.

2. Second prayer focus is a prayer for rain on families. The rain of the Lord speaks of healing, reconciliation and grace. It is time we take responsibility for the families of our area in prayer. It is not a prayer that focuses on demonic strongholds or lack, but a prayer that focuses on the blessing of God that transforms families through the reconciliation.

3. Third is a prayer focus for rain on business and invention. In a time where everyone is saying the word recession, God is looking for his people to cry out for the rains of heaven that brings abundance. God’s heart is giving. The Kingdom of heaven is constantly advancing. When we line our prayers for business up with the heart of God we will see breakthrough of a heavenly standard.

4. The fourth prayer focus is on the schools and universities of our area. A young girl in California told me a dream she had about her college campus. In the dream she was laying in the lawn in the quad ofher campus in the middle of a rain storm. The rain was actually the presence of God. She was being soaked with the presence. She didn't care who was around. Her focus was solely on God. A student walked up to her and asked if they could lay in the lawn with her. She said yes and then went back to soaking. After awhileshe looked up and saw that the whole student body was laid out soaking in the presence of God. God’s heart is burning for campuses. When the student body can witness students who are focused on God unashamed and completely abandoned, then we will see campuses taken for the Kingdom.

5. The fifth prayer focus is for the your area as a whole. God started talking to me about the day of prayer for physical rain in Georgia that Governor Sonny Perdue called the state to. God said the state rallied in prayer for rain because there was a drought and He answered with rain. He then went on to tell me that the physical drought was also a spiritual drought. The physical rain that was released was not the answer, but a sign of what He wanted to do spiritually. He said when Georgia saw rain they stopped praying thinking that the physically rain was the answer. He said it is not time to relent on prayer, but time to press in for spiritual rain. We are on the verge of the greatest outpouring of healing, reconciliation and grace. It is time to press in as one body. The church must rise up with one voice focused on the outpouring of rain.