A Prayer Worth Praying

"And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,  while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”  And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:29-31 ESV).

    When the chief priests wanted to ban Christianity and stop the momentum of the movement, they couldn't because the presence of a healed man. They (and everyone else) knew he was healed for he had been in his previous condition for forty years! Healing caused their mouths to be shut. It can do that today as well. People may try and thwart and destroy Christianity but if we are allowing God's power to go through us for healing they will see the wake of healed men and women and not be able to say much, their mouths too will be shut.

   I believe that for too long, the American church has been content to simply speak about the Gospel, but have lacked the power to live it as well.  This imagery in Acts shows me how far we (The American Church) have strayed from much of what the Church used to be about.  They were about Bold witness, they were about the Word of God being preached and studied and learned.  They were about pushing against cultural norms and being persecuted for doing so.  Yet, they were also about the power of the Spirit of God to live the Gospel as well as to seek the physical, emotional and spiritual healing of themselves and the broken vessels along their path. They prayed for boldness and God to bring healing.  This movement has always been designed to be a movement propelled forward by two things- the Word and Power.

  Bill Johnson in his book: Hosting the Presence describes this well when he discusses the Word as Bread and the Spirit (power) as Wine.  He states: "Each (bread and wine) serves a purpose that the other can't address.  The interesting picture of Gideon trying to get the bread of His Word out of a place where wine is made.  It won't work" (pg. 76).  He would go on to discuss that these two things need to be working in tandem and how God sometimes desires to emphasize one over the other for a season.  In times where the church is straying from the Word of God and His Truth, he may call the Pastor of a particular church to emphasize the bread.  In other times when a church has plateaued  for a long time, he may be trying to serve wine again.

   I have been feeling for sometime that the American Church has plateaued and it is time for her to seek the wine again.  Bold preaching intertwined with the Spirit's power.  Too much bread leaves one dry and too much wine leaves one in a constant stupor.  We as the American Church have been too dry...we've been dry as the dessert sand.  I have been sensing a revival in my bones lately.  I fully believe that Healing will once again be a reality in the Church.  Not just explainable healings either, but the big whoppers that landed in the early church days.  Wild things are coming that will blow our minds and rearrange our faith to see God as a God of Power once again.  I also feel that God is going to use unlikely people and call those thought to be un-callable to move in power.  Bread won't be gone, it will just be complimented once again.

In the verses above, the believers prayed for boldness in preaching plus the gift of healing. I believe that Healing and bold preaching are to go together.  When we as the church pray are we praying for our budgets, agendas and desires?  Or are we praying for God to show up, and fill us with both bread and wine?  I don't think we can be content much longer for wine-less church.  God is doing something new.  It's as Mr. Beaver said in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe "Aslan is on the move!  Winter is dispersing and Spring is coming!"  I believe Spring is coming to the Church again because God is on the move!

Let us join the early church and pray a prayer worth praying, a prayer that asks God to bring healing and give us boldness!