Continuing on with prayers based on Jesus' words to the seven churches in Revelation. May we have ears to hear what His Spirit has to say to us...

Revelation 3:7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Father, Son and Spirit,

The Church today is all but dead. We can do nothing about it except by Your mighty power at work in and through us.

You continue to choose the weak things of this world to confound the strong and mighty, all so You alone will receive all the praise, honor and glory for the work You accomplish in and through us.

We freely acknowledge we have but little power, little strength. No, let us say it: we have no power, we have no strength. We have seen what has happened when we have relied on our own power and not Yours. The Church is a shadow of what You have intended. We are a mere shell. We are that pile of dry and dead bones Ezekiel saw.

But You, O Lord, You are God almighty. The maker of heaven and earth, the creator and sustainer of all things. You uphold all things with the word of Your power. Who can compare? Who is a god like unto You, O God! You have all power and You wish to give us power. You have promised to do so. You have already given us Your Spirit and You long to continue to baptize us afresh once more.

We confess how often we live as misers. We already have the same resurrection power dwelling in us which raised Christ from the dead. But how seldom do we avail ourselves of Your power. How little do we know of our rich inheritance in Christ. We keep trying to work in our own power. We also confess that we often forget to ask for that power. Forgive us, O Lord, You so want to equip us and strengthen us, yet we continue to try to work in our own power which will avail nothing in battle against powers and principalities.

For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.

Almighty God, show us the resurrection power we have already been given and help us to continue to ask for Your Holy Spirit. Let us not doubt. Let us not quench or grieve Your Holy Spirit. Let us not limit the work You want to do by our unbelief. Baptize us afresh. Shake us, fill us, revive us so we might speak Your word with boldness. You have promised to give us Your Spirit not so we might have a warm, fun and fuzzy experience but so we might take Your message of salvation through Jesus Christ with boldness and confidence to the ends of the earth. O Father, there is a battle going on for souls in this world. We cannot fulfill the commission You have given us apart from Your power. We come to You and ask for the gift You have promised to give us: Your Holy Spirit. How can the Church be revived apart from Him and His power at work in us? We ask these things not so we might become great (O, keep us humble, Lord), but rather so Your Name might become great and Your Gospel might be published to the ends of the earth. There are so many who have not heard. So many even in our own churches who have not really heard. Wherever there are souls who have not heard, send us out, fill us with Your Spirit, so we might speak forth Your Gospel message to a dead world, to a dead church. We know Your Gospel is the only power to save. The only power that can bring dead souls to life.

O, we so long for the day that Your Church might truly be the city on a hill, bright and shining there, bringing glory to You. May Your message might be sprinkled out as salt to the world, so the world might thirst for the fountain of life. May peoples of all nations, every tongue, every tribe, every people come streaming to You to worship Jesus Christ as Lord so You might receive all the praise, honor and glory You alone deserve. O, that the lost might come to Jesus Christ and find rest for their souls, eat of the bread from heaven which will satisfy and drink of the living water and never thirst again. How can we keep the wonder of Your love to ourselves? How can we eat and drink and not want to share this heavenly feast with the lost? May You bring many into Your Kingdom to come alongside us and sing the song of the Redeemed and praise to our God. Do You not long to rejoice with them in heaven? We are looking to the harvest and we know we are powerless apart from Your Spirit. Send the fire, Lord! Burn in our hearts once again.

O, fill lost souls with Your love, by Your mercy and grace grant them repentance and remission of sins through Jesus Christ and eternal life, that they might know You and they would be filled with all Your fullness and joy unspeakable and full of glory! O how wonderful it is when we all gather around Your throne and sing praises to the Lamb who was slain: by His wounds and His blood we are saved. How our joy is multiplied when more and more of the flock join us in praise to You, O God, our Redeemer! How Your joy is multiplied!

O, we long for Jesus Christ to have His place restored in the Church. O, God, grant us boldness, send Your Spirit down upon us and into us, so we can work the works You have ordained for us and bring You glory. We are in this world so we might be sent out to proclaim Your Gospel and shine the light in dark places. May You use us to open blind eyes and turn them from darkness to light. O Lord, we know we can do nothing apart from Your indwelling Spirit giving us boldness and wisdom and power as we go. We have little power, we have no power, apart from You. Restore us. Revive us. Send Your fire upon us and into us. We can do nothing apart from You. We love You, Lord God. We so want to see Your glory restored to the Church. We confess we have become a laughingstock and a reproach. Forgive us for making a vital love relationship with You, the living God, into a cold, dry orthodoxy, a mere intellectual assent to doctrine.

O, build us up and send us out, so we might rebuild the ruins. Too long, too long this has gone on. How abominable. How despicably we have acted. Forgive us, O Lord. Thank You for opening our eyes now. We could not see but now we see we had but a form of life but were really dead. A form of godliness but denied the power. O, now You have begun to revive us, let us never be content until Your glory goes through the whole earth. Let us continue to come back again and again to You like the importunate widow did to the judge. Will You not hear us? Do You not love us? Do You not long for Your Church to be revived and the Gospel to go out clearly and with power and bold assurance throughout the earth? Is it not to Your glory to rend the heavens and come down? O, Lord God, we have tasted of Your pleasures forevermore and we want nothing more than others to taste of You and to see that You are good. That they may know You are Abba, Father, that You are filled with love for us. You are a God who gave all so we might have everlasting life forever with You. You gave Your Son Jesus Christ to be sin for us, so we might be reconciled to You. You did it all so we might know You and love You and have fellowship with You! That is how much You loved us. O, that the world might know Your love!

For Your Glory, O Lord, please return again to us. We long to see Your glory again. We cannot travel on apart from Your presence. We are being bold here like Moses was. We know that apart from You we have no hope. Come to us. Dwell in us and with us. Awaken us. Revive us. Breathe life into these dead bones. May Your Kingdom come into us afresh and anew and may we take Your Gospel to the rest of the Church and to the world. All the praise, honor, glory goes to You alone. You have done great things. O, may we see You do greater things, O Lord God. For Your Name's sake we ask these things. Amen.

Here at tent of meeting we have been praying through the Lord's Prayer together and have most recently been focusing on "Give us this day our daily bread." Today we've come to Pentecost Sunday. What a wonderful time for us to remember that our daily Bread to nourish and strengthen us for the Christian life comes only through the true Bread who has come down from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As children of God we must continue to tarry in prayer and ask God to endue us with His Spirit from on high. God reminds us in Zechariah 4:6: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord of hosts. If we are His children, we have already been given His Spirit, but as His children, we are told to keep asking for His Spirit and that his Spirit is a good gift our heavenly Father wishes to give His children (Luke 11:1-13). Yes, we should ask for daily bread for our physical bodies, but let us never neglect to ask for the Father's blessed provision of daily bread for our souls, the Holy Spirit!

As individuals, each of us continues to be impotent so long as we rely on our own resources.
The Church continues to be impotent so long as we rely on our own resources.

We must constantly ask God to fill us with His Holy Spirit so we might have power to be His witnesses and to live a holy life. Only as we eat of our heavenly Father's provision for us, only as we live by His Spirit, can we expect to walk in the good works He has ordained for us. Apart from the Spirit's life, we have no life. We can expect neither personal nor corporate revival apart from the Fire from above.

As I was reading "George Whitefield's Journals" I came across the hymn "On the Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost" and thought it was a wonderful prayer not only for this day, Pentecost Sunday, but for every day!

Would you please pray this hymn for yourself and Christ's Church? Will you come to the Father and ask Him for our daily bread? Will you continue to ask, seek and knock along with me for His Holy Spirit to descend on us?

ON THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST AT PENTECOST.

From: Hymns and Sacred Poems 1739 - John and Charles Wesley
Altered from Dr. H. More, most likely translated by John Wesley.

I
When Christ had left His flock below,
The loss His faithful flock deplored:
Him in the flesh no more they know,
And languish for their absent Lord.

II
Not long—for He, gone up on high
Gifts to receive, and claim His crown,
Beheld them sorrowing from His sky,
And poured the mighty blessing down.

III
He, for the presence of His flesh,
The Spirit's seven-fold gifts imparts;
And living streams their souls refresh,
And joy Divine o'erflows their hearts.
 
IV
While all, in sweet devotion joined,
Humbly to wait for God, retire,
The promised grace in rushing wind
Descends, and cloven tongues of fire.

V
God's mighty Spirit fills the dome,
The feeble dome beneath Him shook,
Trembled the crowd to feel Him come,
Soon as the Sons of Thunder spoke.

VI
 Father! if justly still we claim
To us, and ours, the promise made,
To us be graciously the same,
And crown with living fire our head.

VII
Our claim admit, and from above
Of holiness the Spirit shower,
Of wise discernment, humble love,
And zeal, and unity, and power.

VIII
The Spirit of convincing speech,
Of power demonstrative impart,
Such as may every conscience reach,
And sound the unbelieving heart:

IX
The Spirit of refining fire,
Searching the inmost of the mind,
To purge all fierce and foul desire,
And kindle life more pure and kind:

X
The Sp’rit of faith, in this Thy day,
To break the power of cancelled sin,
Tread down its strength, o'erturn its sway,
And still the conquest more than win.

XI
The Spirit breathe of inward life,
Which in our hearts Thy laws may write:
Then grief expires, and pain and strife;
'Tis nature all, and all delight.

XII
On all the earth Thy Spirit shower,
The earth in righteousness renew;
Thy kingdom come, and hell's o'erpower,
And to Thy sceptre all subdue.

XIII
Like mighty wind, or torrent fierce,
Let it opposers all o’er-run,
And every law of sin reverse,
That faith and love may make all one.

XIV
Yea, let Thy Spirit in every place
Its richer energy declare,
While lovely tempers, fruits of grace,
The kingdom of Thy Christ prepare.

XV
Grant this, O holy God, and true!
The ancient seers Thou didst inspire:
To us perform the promise due ;
Descend, and crown us now with fire.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread...

Our Father,

As part of our prayer to hallow Your Name, let us remember that when we attempt to work out of our own power, we do not hallow Your Name.

As part of our prayer for Your Kingdom to come, let us remember that we can never expect to do Your Kingdom work apart from Your Kingdom power.

As part of our prayer for Your will to be done, let us remember that we can never expect to do Your will here on earth apart from Your Kingdom power.

Holy God,
Give us this day our daily bread, Your Holy Spirit.
Descend, and crown us now with fire.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Name hallowed.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Kingdom come.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your will done.

As members of Your Body, each of us continues to be impotent so long as we rely on our own resources.
As a Body, the Church continues to be impotent so long as we rely on our own resources.

Holy God,
Give us this day our daily bread, Your Holy Spirit.
Descend, and crown us now with fire.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Name hallowed.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Kingdom come.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your will done.

Our Father, give us an increasing hunger for Your Spirit so we might never cease to ask for what You so want to give us and what we so need, the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Give us such a hunger that we cannot help but ask, seek and knock until You descend and crown us with Fire. And then after You do so, may we continue to ask, seek and knock so You will continue to crown us with Fire.

Holy God,
Give us this day our daily bread, Your Holy Spirit.
Descend, and crown us now with fire.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Name hallowed.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Kingdom come.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your will done.

We can expect neither personal nor corporate revival apart from the Fire from above. Let us never cease to ask You, our Father for what You have promised to us, the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Let us never cease to ask You, our Savior for what You have promised to send us, the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, may we not grieve You by neglecting to ask for You!

Holy God,
Give us this day our daily bread, Your Holy Spirit.
Descend, and crown us now with fire.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Name hallowed.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your Kingdom come.
Only as we live by Your heavenly provision is Your will done.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread...

As the Spirit leads you, please come before His throne and pray for Him to descend and crown us now with Fire.

This morning while out to coffee, I watched as a mother entered the store with her two children. They passed by the bakery counter to the order area. They all stood there and mom asked what the children wanted. The older child said he wanted a cinnamon roll. He was very certain about this. Then he hurried over to watch the bakery clerk pick out his cinnamon roll. Then I heard that child declare quite clearly and with a sense of authority, "I want that one back there with all the frosting." The clerk reached in to take out a cinnamon roll. "No. No," the child pointed to the roll he wanted. He was quite adamant, yet at the same time he was not overbearing or rude as he said, "THAT one!"

And he said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; 7 and he will answer from within, Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:5-13.

O, heavenly Father, give us a thirst for Your Spirit, a thirst to drink of Your heavenly living waters.

O, heavenly Father, let us not be satisfied with drinking earthly stagnant waters.

O, heavenly Father, only as we drink deeply of You and keep drinking of You will rivers of living water bubble up in us and flow out to a dry and dusty world.

O, heavenly Father, only as we drink deeply of You and keep drinking of You will bring life to dead places.

O, heavenly Father, work in us a greater desire for Your Spirit.

O, heavenly Father, keep us coming to You and asking for Your Spirit.

Without Your Holy Spirit we have no life.

Without Your Holy Spirit we can do nothing.

Without Your Holy Spirit we are impotent.

Without Holy Spirit we cannot bear fruit.

Help us to keep asking, for You have said we will receive.

Help us to keep seeking, for You have said we will find.

Help us to keep knocking, for You have said the door will be opened.

O, heavenly Father, if our earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more do You know how to do so!

O, heavenly Father, help us to seek Your face and keep asking for Your Holy Spirit in the same way that boy sought that cinnamon roll.

O, heavenly Father, Your Spirit is part of our birthright as Your children.

O, heavenly Father, keep reminding us that our own riches, wisdom, strength, power, cleverness and ingenuity are worth nothing in Your Kingdom.

O, heavenly Father, apart from Your Spirit, we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.

O, heavenly Father, we come in childlike faith and ask You to pour out Your Spirit on us.

So Your name might be hallowed.

So Your Kingdom might come.

So Your will might be done here on earth, here in Your Church, as it is in heaven.

Amen.

Will you please join with me in prayer for His Holy Spirit to come in fullness to His Church?
Please add your prayers here as His Spirit leads you...

(Please note: if you've not already done so please read "About this blog-why tent of meeting" before adding your prayers here. Thank you.)