365 Prayer

Thu, 12/24/2009 - 8:45am

In 2010, we will be focusing on prayer for the entire year. Power will come. We’ve been two years in the book of Luke, but great power is coming. It begins in this place once designated to be an elite sports bar, but now a hangout for losers who hunger for Jesus. Broken and desperate captives will be set free from the death grip of sin. Adultery, pornography, immorality, atrophy, and apathy will be awkward memories for people who permanently change and bridge the spiritual separation caused by sin. Marriages will heal. Divorce will reverse. Kids will dwell in and relish homes without court-ordered, weekend custody. Our teens and twenty-somethings will lead us in visionary and radical relationships with Jesus. Young men and women will push the envelope of what it SHOULD look like to pray and follow Jesus. A restlessness in older believers will create dreams about embracing and mentoring the spiritual passions of rising generations. Power will start here, but will push outward to the families, schools, and government of Smyrna. Greater Atlanta will be attracted to the light of Jesus emanating from these walls. This is NOT the light of Cumberland, but the brilliance and evidence of Jesus. That same light will carry us further outward to the poor, sick, widowed, and orphaned of Kenya and beyond. Hundreds, if not thousands, will strangely be aware of this power epicenter called Cumberland because something… some power… about this place has changed the very course of their lives. The power is Jesus. HE will be the evidence of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see yet. The power is His incredible Holy Spirit that will teach us how to sacrifice with smiles, give in increasing measures, reconcile our differences, and love when we didn’t think we could. This power will take the trickles of budgetary constraints and turn them into visible streams and fountains of daily faith. Power has already been poured out, but we will deepen our drawing buckets as we pray like never before. Scarred and scared people will be healed. Sicknesses will be forgotten by people who can only offer miraculous explanations to make sense of their grace gift. Others will give verbal testimonies when difficult and unrelenting circumstances create unexplainable weakness… but, all-the-while, God has mysteriously extended a display of His greater strength. Unanswered prayer will not lend itself to ungratefulness, but instead a deeper sense of dependency. Lines of people will wait anxiously to go home wet and saved. A subversive army of dead people will rise up on their knees… showing the character, holiness, wisdom, and life of Jesus. They will live, move, serve, and breathe in the name of Jesus. Prayers will begin to be prayed with verbal and visible authority. Words will be replaced with mere groans as we enter other’s brokenness and attempt to pray. A palpable sense of fear, awe, and holy humility will be topic of our conversations and stories as God stirs this place through desperation, prayer, and power. Greed, self-proclamation, and gossip will rightly sift some from this place as the power of God’s all-consuming fire burns brighter and hotter. Power is coming. Power is here. We’re done with our incredible, two-year trek… now what? Dr. Luke is finished for now, but we’ve really only begun to see the work of a Greater Physician. It’s time for KAVA. It’s time for power. Come now, Lord Jesus.