Continuing on with prayers based on Jesus' words to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3...
O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The promised land was abundant in fruit and flowing with milk and honey...twelve spies went in, yet only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, exhorted and insisted Israel go in and take possession of the land. And when they did the congregation rose up to stone them. O Lord God, these two men saw You had so much more for them and were not content unless they had claimed all the inheritance You had for them...
21 So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness...23 And they came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster that the people of Israel cut down from there.
25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.
26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.
30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.
O God, rescue us. We have been bound up. We have been blinded. Give us a renewed vision and desire for You and only You and all You have for us. Let us not rest and remain content in our lukewarm, powerless and fruitless Christianity.
We confess how much we are like the other ten spies today. We've been happy to sit in the wilderness and wander and not enjoy the possession You want to give us – no, the possession You have already given us. The problem is that we have wandered around in the wilderness, settling for less than Your best for us. We have not claimed it the inheritance You want to give us. We have become lukewarm like the Laodicean chuch in Revelation 3:
We confess we are lukewarm. We got saved and then coasted. We are not desiring all You have for us. We are content to sit back and go through the motions, week in and week out. We are not on fire for you. We have abandoned You, our first Love. We have lost sight of the promised land, of the glorious possibilities You have for us. So many of us don't have eyes to see the land of fruit, milk and honey. We think these are not for us. We think these are only for certain Christians or only for Bible times. We think they are a dream. They are not a dream. They are a promise for us as children of God. You have called us out to bear fruit for You, abundant fruit. To shine as lights in dark places. To burn with passion. To pant after You, O Lord. Whom have we in heaven but You? Yet we have sat contented here, fat, dumb and happy, lukewarm, despicable in Your eyes. We have wandered in the wilderness and not tasted and seen that You are good. O, no more of this lukewarmness! If we claim to know You, if we claim to serve You, let us serve You with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind. You have given all for us. You expect all from us. No more lukewarmness. O, ignite us, Holy Spirit. You must rend the heavens and come down into our dry and dead bones and breathe life and fire there. Too long we have had an appearance of life but are really dead. We are lukewarm. O, rescue us from ourselves. Give us a vision of the life You have for us. Joshua and Caleb had that spirit, the spirit that followed You fully. That is the spirit of Jesus Christ. Let us see Jesus and how He lived before you. Never lukewarm. Always on fire. Always passionate for Your glory. Not expecting to be served but looking to serve. Obedient unto death. Not seeking His own will but Yours. We have His Spirit in us. How can we remain lukewarm? How can we remain unconcerned about Your glory? How can we remain ashamed of Your Gospel? If we are Yours, if we have been born of Your Spirit, we cannot remain lukewarm. Make us on fire for You. Bring us out of our apathy and disinterest. Make us wholehearted for You once again. We cannot toe the line here; it's You or mammon. It's Your Kingdom or ours...There's no other way.
O, we see ourselves as rich... We may be rich in the world's eyes but are we rich in Your eyes? We may be building bigger church buildings, making our budgets bigger and expanding the scope of our programming, but are we concerned about building up the Body, making disciples and expanding the scope of Your Kingdom?
Can we be truly happy wandering in the wilderness? No, never. Let us not remain content here, O Lord. We are truly wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked as we settle for the wilderness wanderings. Do You not want us to enter the promised land? Do You not have a land of fruitfulness, a land flowing with milk and honey? Do You not have for us joy and peace in believing? Do You not want us to rejoice in You and to enjoy You and Your love for us and obey with gladness of heart rather than making Christianity a tedious religion of duty and obligation? How long we have been like the older son who never enjoyed the feast, never entered into that promised land. Do You not want us to live as Your Son did, always seeking first You and Your Kingdom, always seeking to do Your will and not His, always obedient, never shrinking back from all You had for Him. O, let us enjoy our sonship. Make us like Your Son. That is to Your glory. That is why You bought us and purchased us with His precious blood, so we might become like Him. Let us enjoy all You have for us as children of God. We cannot be happy in the wilderness. Take us to the promised land. We want to be happy in Jesus, we can only be happy in the promised land. You have so much more for us, O Father.
O, blessed Holy Spirit, show us our wretchedness, our pitiableness, our poverty, our blindness, our nakedness. We cannot see ourselves for who we are apart from Your kindness and mercy to us. Shine Your light into the thoughts and intents of our hearts. Let us not continue to live as we have been. We cannot go on like this. We need to get out of this wilderness. We no longer want to wander here. We want to get into the promised land.We need Your fire to ignite us and shine and burn in us. Have mercy on us, O Lord, we are pitiable. We are not bright, we are not fiery. The Church is lukewarm. How can we impact a dark and cold world if Christ does not shine and burn in our hearts.
Give us ears to hear, so we might heed and obey our Lord's words to us, so we might not seek earthly riches, award and acclaim but to seek You. We keep listening to the world's teachings rather than sitting at Your feet. We scurry about like Marthas. We look for the newest program. Let us go back to You and Your Word. You alone have the words of life. Let us sit at Your feet like Mary and listen...listen...listen and then listen again...may we have ears to hear what Your Spirit has to say to the churches, to each one of us, so we might hear what You have to say to each one of us and to repent...
How pitied we are to exchange earthly things for heavenly ones, to seek to build up our earthly kingdoms rather than seeking first You and Your Kingdom. How pitied we are that we are happy to wander in the wilderness when we've seen the fruit You have for us in the promised land.
How poor we are when we rely on our own devices and strength rather than relying on Your Holy Spirit wisdom and power.
How blind we are when we close our eyes to glorious possibilities of the Christian life, when we make Christianity a religion rather than a relationship with You, the living God. We are Your children, come into Your house to celebrate and to no longer fear. We are Your children. You have come to dwell in us and bear fruit, so we might flow with milk and honey. So we might bring glory to You and be a praise in the earth. How much we have made our relationship with You a stale, dry and dull religion. We continue to wander in the wilderness. Forgive us, Lord Jesus, for making Your life into anything but a life. You have come to bring us life and life abundantly, to have intimate fellowship with our Father in heaven. We have made it a dull, cold, lifeless religion, just a belief system. You have come to dwell in our souls, but we have so quenched You. We have not allowed You to work in us, to fill us. Forgive us, O Lord, for quenching, grieving and limiting You.
How naked we are. We keep trying to put on our own good works to please You rather than accepting the gift of Christ's righteousness by faith. We keep trying to bear fruit apart from abiding in the vine. We keep resorting to self-help programs rather than relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to transform and change hearts and minds from within. Outer fixes will never reform the heart and renew the mind. We need Your gold. We need You to open our eyes to see these things. We keep trying to fix things in our own power but we will continue to be poor and naked.
Give us hearts to repent, so we might heed and obey our Lord's words to us, so we might not seek earthly riches, award and acclaim but to seek You.
Give us a ears to hear Your voice and a will to open the door to You:
O, You long to eat with us again. Too long we have settled for eating in the wilderness. Let us go in and eat of You. To eat of Your living bread and drink of Your living water. To eat and drink of You. We are lukewarm, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked because we have neglected to eat with You and let You eat with us.
O, You desire that we be conquerors, that we live no longer according to our ways or the world's ways, but according to Your ways.
Give us ears to hear that we might hear what Your Spirit has to say to each of us today.
Be gracious to us, O God, we are Yours. We want to enter the promised land. We don't want to continue to wander in the wilderness.
May we no longer be lukewarm but ask You to baptize us afresh and anew with Your Spirit.
May we no longer be wretched but confess our sins, confess our lukewarmness and receive Your forgiveness and cleansing.
May we no longer be pitiable but seek to receive all You have for us as children of God
May we no longer be poor but open the door to eat with You and partake of all the riches You died to give us.
May we no longer be blind but clearly see our current state and the life You have given us in Jesus Christ.
May we no longer be naked but put on Your power to live the life You have intended for us.
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