THE CHURCH IN PRAYER

Acts 1:14 – These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.

Something happens when you pray together with other Christians; our individual hearts are changed, the church is transformed, the atmosphere is filled with His presence, and the world itself is changed as prayers are answered. We had a culture of early morning prayer at Victory Church from our earliest days. I remembering gathering for 6 a.m. prayer for years with a handful of people. There was a season in the early 1990’s where a hundred people would often show up for morning prayer. Lives were changed, community was formed, and only eternity will reveal the role those prayers played in the move of God in the 1990’s. Here we are now in 2023 and spontaneous corporate prayer, especially on college campuses, is breaking out all over the nation. Prayer is in the air, outpourings of the Spirit is inevitable. Moïse Amyrault has some thoughts about corporate prayer.

“But the affection that they had for one another, and the common expectation that they shared of what had to happen, did not allow them to be separated, nor did their condition and the state of their affairs allow them to be scattered, because they were greatly counting on one another. Thus, they would go up to this room and there they would meditate on all these things. . . . It is necessary to mention here that [God’s] goodness had joined them together. Thus, all of them not only remained in the same dwelling but also spent time together in common affection, with a singular diligence, and with great perseverance in the practice of prayer and praise, asking God to grant the blessings that Jesus had promised them and to deliver them from wicked people and the persecution with which they were threatened by their enemies.”

In prayer we literally open our hearts to the Spirit of the Lord. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and life. All of our hearts long to love and to be loved, amazingly the love of God is received and the love for God is nurtured in the place of prayer. In the same way our love for others is received and grows as we pray with other believers. I believe the Lord is calling His church to prayer through this new outpouring. A unified and powerful church will be the fruit of spending time together in His presence.