O, LORD, we ask You might arise and have mercy upon Your Church for the sake of Your name – and yet we bow to You and the set time You have appointed in which to favor us.

In the same way that Abraham and Sarah had to wait years for that set time, that appointed time for the child of promise to come to them:

In the same way, Your people awaited their redemption through the coming of the Messiah, Your only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world:

And now, in these days, You are awakening a people, a remnant in Your Church, who are turning to You and seeking You and awaiting the Church's reformation and revival through Your coming again at the set time, Your appointed time.

We bow to Your perfect will and ways and wisdom. We know that You, O Lord God, wait to be gracious, very gracious to us, so You might be more highly exalted. We know that You always lead Your people to make for Yourself a glorious and everlasting name.

We bow to Your sovereign timing, O Lord God, and yet we desire to remain importunate at Your throne because You are seeking such faith upon the earth. Help us not to grow weary in well doing. Keep us persevering in prayer. Impart to us the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, and sustain us by the One who ever lives to intercede for us at Your right hand. As You did with Abraham, guard us and keep us from wavering at Your promise through unbelief. Strengthen us in faith so we might give glory to You, O God. May we be fully convinced that what You have promised You are also able to perform.

May we cry out day and night for You to return to us. Pour water upon us for we are thirsty. Flood the dry lands for we are dry. We confess to You that we have hewn and drunk from broken cisterns. We confess we have put confidence in our own flesh, we have returned to slavery, we have turned to Hagar, the bondwoman, rather than relying upon You and living by Your Holy Spirit's freedom and trusting by faith in Your promises. And now, in Your merciful kindnesses to us, You are bringing us to our senses so we might turn back to You and seek Your face once again and cast out the bondwoman and her son. We are not children of the bondwoman Hagar but of the free Sarah. We are children of promise as Isaac was. O, LORD, be gracious to us and have mercy upon us and forgive us our sins and purify us from our iniquities for Jesus' sake, even as we seek to purify ourselves by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Living Water, pour out Your Spirit upon us and our offspring that we might spring up and sing Your new song and praise throughout the earth. Like Abraham and Sarah, we have no life or fruit apart from You. In wrath, remember mercy, for You are the Lord our God, we are Yours. You are our Father. You are our Redeemer from Everlasting. O, hear us and answer us for the sake of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, for the sake of Your name and for the sake of the nations. Awake, arise and put on strength and be zealous, have mercy on Zion. O, be gracious to us. May the time to favor us, the set time, Your appointed time, come quickly!

Mark 11:15  And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16  And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17  And he was teaching them and saying to them, “IS IT NOT WRITTEN, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Most of us are familiar with this account of Jesus' grief over and rebuke of the state of temple worship. It's also repeated in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but I really like the phrasing here:

Do you see where Israel had gone wrong?

They had not taken heed to what was written.

Is this not the Godhead's very same loving plea to His Church, His people, today:

This has been our God's merciful and gracious call to His people at all times, including those times when the Church has been in decline and is in sore need of reformation. Is it not His call to His people today as in so many places we have lost our way for we have discounted, marginalized and minimized the word of God, we have not guarded the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have not been vigilant and we have allowed error and heresies and evil men and impostors to creep in and grow and deceive and overthrow the faith of some. We have neglected to take heed to what has been written – God's very own words breathed out to us through His Holy Spirit. His words have been preserved for us for our daily sustenance as we live the Christian life in a fallen world and as we are sent out on mission to take the Gospel of repentance and remission of sins to lost souls in all the nations to the end of the earth.

Church of God, may our God have mercy on us and open our ears to ear what the Spirit is saying to us:

As we have played God and usurped God's rightful place in our attempts to try to grow and restore and renew the Church by relying on our own abilities and resources, as we have gone in seek of help to any and all places but to God Himself and His word, may our God be kind to us and lead us to repentance and turn us away from ourselves and our ways and turn us once again to Him and His word.

We have relied on the schemes and wisdom and power and strength of men. We have often gone so far astray from the Biblical mandates, from the basic and effectual and vital means God has given us for restoration and revival in the Church, which we find very early on, as the apostles proclaimed:

So many have looked at the Church and have seen a great lack, but they've not gone to seek the face of God in the word of God and His means to revive and renew the Church.

Of course, this is nothing new, we've seen this happen in Biblical history and in Church history since that time.

Isn't this where we go all wrong in our desire for reformation and revival in the Church? Instead of looking to our God, instead of looking back to what God has already revealed to us in His infallible and unchanging and living word, we look around anywhere and everywhere else.

Prayer and ministry of the word place us wholly dependent on the sovereign God and His mercies. Our flesh balks at being wholly dependent, but that is and has always been God's intent for His people, so He alone would get all the praise, honor and glory. We cannot control how and when and where He might choose to pour His Spirit and revive us. But as we use the means He provides – prayer and ministry of the word – and as we work in the power He provides, we can trust God will bring the increase in His time.

If you have a burden for Biblical revival in the Church or have further questions, please comment below, message me and/or see my posts here:

Also these posts on my other blog, naphtali_deer:

Yours in Christ for the reviving of God's Church to His praise, honor and glory,
Karen

Pray to get your closed lips open in intercession;

embrace the whole world, and carry it within the veil...

Pray for the dead parishes around you.

–Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Hebrews 7:25

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him,
since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Isaiah 62

6 On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the LORD in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.

Please add your PRAYERS as His Holy Spirit leads you.