The Bible on Church, Acts 12

It's been a few days, I didn't plan on these posts being this far apart when I started. Yesterday I started a project that has been on my heart and mind for over a year now. One of my biggest desires is to do men's ministry in some capacity. I feel that this is one of the greatest needs today and it's something that has been on my heart a lot recently. And yesterday my ministry took on a new aspect. I've started another blog focused solely on ministering to men. I'm have been working on getting that set up and so didn't get around to posting on here.

This blog will still be active and I'll still be posting regularly. This one is more general, whatever hits me in something I read, see, or hear, as I'm trying to help build the Kingdom and make others more like Christ. The new blog "Man of God..." is much more specific, focused on men and what God says a man is, and helping all of us become Men of God. That's an update, now back to the Church.

"So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God." Acts 12.5

This one shouldn't come as a shock, but the Church is to be a place of fervent prayer. But do you want to know something sad, I have met more resistance to prayer in the Church than to anything else (I'm not kidding). I'm not a fan of Sunday night church when it is identical to Sunday morning. Today most Sunday night services are identical in format to the morning, but have about a fifth of the people (if they are lucky), and they are all people who were there Sunday morning. I'm all for it if it's reaching new people, but it's not. Instead it's done because it's always been done.

Such was the case in the last church I pastored. Sunday night church was what happened every Sunday night, three songs were sung, an offering was taken, and then a sermon was preached. During the initial interview I told the Church board that I would want to change that, and they said they would be in agreement. I know that change needs to take place slowly, and so I didn't try to change it completely the first month. The first night I said that I wanted to be more prayer focused, and so instead of a sermon there was a short study leaving plenty of time to pray. People didn't like it.

About a year later there were issues at church. The District Superintendents came in and one of the things they suggested was devoting Sunday nights to prayer for the next month. Because it was someone older the church was all for it, and so the month of May was devoted to prayer. Nothing really happened, and so I decided that Sunday night was going to be a continued time of prayer. The first Sunday in June the half dozen people came and when I said we were praying the response was "I thought we were done with that?!" Yeah that was said about prayer in church, and we wonder why the Church in America is dying.

Acts 12.5 says that the Church was in fervent prayer to God for Peter's release. Did you know that fervent means, "1. having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, feeling, enthusiasm 2. hot; burning; glowing." It's one of those words I've heard a ton but never knew what it meant. Prayer is not supposed to be a simple transitional gap filler so the music leader can get back on stage to lead a closing chorus. It isn't supposed to be a simple repeated phrase before meals. It isn't supposed to be a repeated rhyme before bed. Prayer is to be real. It is to have feeling behind it. It is to be intense, and hot like a fire. Prayer is to be consuming.

I'm not saying that a short simple prayer to God for help isn't genuine. Nor am I saying that a simple thank you before a meal is not heart felt gratitude. But what I am saying is that we don't pray like the early Church, and thus we don't see the hand of God like they did. Acts 12 tells the story of Peter's miraculous escape from prison, why? Because the Church prayed.

If the Church wants to see God move like He did in the Bible, we must pray like the believers in the Bible prayed. Their prayers were intense because they expected to see God move. They prayed not simply hoping God would answer them, but believing that He would. Go to 1 Kings 18 and read Elijah's prayer on top of Mt. Carmel, does it sound like any prayer you've heard before? What would happen if we prayed like that?

If we did, we would see the hand of God move in ways we never thought possible. Lives would be transformed, life would fill the dead spirits of many. Love would abound in people's hearts. We would see the Kingdom come on earth as it already is in Heaven. If the Church prayed fervently, God's will would be done, and the world would be turned upside down. It begins with prayer. I've heard the statement, "God only acts in answer to prayer" and honestly I believe it. The places where nothing is happening, are the places where no one is praying.

"I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread."

To God alone be the Glory!

Peace be with you