Tag Archives: Prayer

Only A Prayer Meeting

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My heart is overjoyed!

This Sunday we are starting a month prayer meeting at the Church, a time to come together on Sunday evening to meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ and bring our supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving before our God who cares for us. This regular meeting has been a long-standing prayer and desire of mine for the Church, and I am confident that this is the beginning of a new day for our congregation.

Where the church as been easily divided and unity of being in one accord is threatened, where we have lost sight of our great commission, where we have been weak and ineffective – it is because we have neglected this essential means of grace. Spending time together, praying boldly, asking humbly, expressing faithfully our desire for God’s glory in and through His Church, though not a quick fix, will strengthen the Church and enable us to weather the coming storms.

As we embark on this ministry of prayer, I thought I’d share with you a brief portion of an address given by Charles Spurgeon at one of his prayer meetings. Spurgeon, the “Prince of Preachers,” helped to organize what became a weekly prayer meeting at his church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle (London), which had hundreds of members gathered each week in prayer. He famously called these prayer meetings the “Boiler Room” of the church, Spurgeon saw the prayers of his people seeking the grace and favor of God’s Holy Spirit as the spiritual power behind his preaching and ministry. Here is a portion of Spurgeon’s address: Only a Prayer Meeting!

What a company we have here tonight! It fills my heart with gladness, and my eyes with tears of joy, to see so many hundreds of persons gathered together at what is sometimes called ‘only a prayer meeting.’ It is good for us to draw nigh to God in prayer, and specially good to make up a great congregation for such a purpose. We have attended little prayer meetings of four or five, and we have been glad to be there, for we had the promise of our Lord’s presence; but our minds are grieved to see so little attention given to united prayer by many of our churches. We have longed to see great numbers of God’s people coming up to pray, and we now enjoy this sight. Let us praise God that it is so. How could we expect a blessing if we were too idle to ask for it? How could we look for a Pentecost if we never met with one accord, in one place, to wait upon the Lord? Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians. To mix it up with the weeknight lecture, and really make an end of it, is a sad sign of declension. I wonder some two or three earnest souls in such churches do not band themselves together to restore the meeting for prayer, and bind themselves with a pledge to keep it up whether the minister will come to it or not.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Only A Prayer Meeting (London, 2022; Christian Focus Publications) Page 9.

Brothers and Sisters, let us pledge to join with one another as the body of Christ for prayer. May we pray boldly, humbly seeking God’s grace and favor for His Church, interceding for the lost, making supplication for the needy, and in all things giving thanks to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!

SDG

Evening Renewal

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It’s late for my regular midweek posting, so I thought I’d end the day with a prayer from The Valley of Vision, called, “Evening Renewal.”

My Father,
If thy mercy had bounds, where would be
my refuge from just wrath?
But thy love in Christ is without measure.
Thus, I present myself to thee
With sins of commission and omission,
against thee, my Father,
against thee, adorable Redeemer,
against thee, and thy striving, O Holy Spirit,
against the dictates of my conscience,
against the precepts of thy Word,
against my neighbors and myself.
Enter not into judgment with me,
For I plead no righteousness of my own,
and have no cloak for iniquity.
Pardon my day dark with evil.
This night I renew my penitence.
Every morning I vow to love thee more fervently,
to serve thee more sincerely,
to be more devoted in my life,
to be wholly thine;
Yet soon I stumble, backslide,
and have to confess my weakness, misery, and sin.
But I bless thee that the finished work of Jesus
needs no addition from my doings,
that his oblation is sufficient satisfaction for my sins.
If future days be mine, help me to amend my life,
to hate and abhor evil,
to flee the sins I confess.
Make me more resolute, more watchful, more prayerful.
Let no evil fruit spring form evil seeds my hands have sown;
Let no neighbor be hardened in vanity and folly
by my want of circumspection.
If this day I have been ashamed of Christ and his Word,
or have shown unkindness, malice, envy,
lack of love, unadvisedly speech, hasty temper,
let it be not stumbling block to others, or dishonor to thy Name.
O help me to set an upright example that will ever
rebuke vice,
allure to goodness,
and evidence that lovely are the ways of Christ.

From: The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions. (The Banner of Truth Trust)