This resolution of Daily United Prayer is based on An Humble Attempt, originally put forward by Jonathan Edwards in 1748. Its design is to encourage God's people in the duty of united extraordinary prayer; setting aside some time every day to pray for the revival of His church and the advancement of Christ's kingdom in our homes, in our churches, in our nation, and in the world.
I've been reading a book, off and on, by A. W. Tozer called The Crucified Life and there's a quote that I'd like to share. He's referring to the episode in Numbers 13 where the spies came back with an "evil report" of the Promised Land. Even though the land was wonderful, all the Israelites could see was walled cities and giants. They forgot that God said, "Go up and I'll give it to you." So they said, "You'll kill our poor women. You'll kill our children."
This is always the unspiritual man's argument: "I've got to think about my family.
I've got a family after all, brother, and God wants us to be wise, and I can't push this too far.
I can't become too spiritual because I've got to think about my family.
I can't subject my wife and children to difficulties.
I can't lay burdens on them."
Always pleasing their wives and family, such a man forgets that the best heritage a husband can leave
his family is the memory that he was a good man.
A spiritual woman also faces stumbling blocks.
Her family may fight her with hot language, scold her with sarcastic speech, oppose her and make her feel like an idiot.
However, a spiritual woman will walk quietly away, sadder but wiser, and will admit that the best heritage
she can leave her family is that she was a good woman.
Had these Israelites only believed, they could have taken all their wives
and families into the Holy Land within a few hours.
They would have had all that land.
Instead, for 40 years, they wandered in the desert.
They had been so afraid that those wives and children were going to be killed if they went into that land that they ended up walking for 40 years,
wandering round and round and round in the desert.
I believe this is the sad reality of a great many Christians. There really is a land of promise before them and yet it remains unrealized because of fear and unbelief. Instead, the vast majority of us end up living in more of a wilderness experience for decades, going in circles, until perhaps we wake up to the poverty of our ways much later in life when it's too late. This is the strategy of the devil. We will not "give ourselves to prayer and to the word" as the early disciples did in Acts 6:4. It costs too much to do so. What if we can't "keep it up?" Oh, may the Lord bring us to such a state of dissatisfaction with the status quo that we'll break out of this loop and take a step of faith toward the Promised Land.
DAILY UNITED PRAYER unitedprayer.net
Mon-Fri @ 12pm EDT // Sat @ 10am EDT
We invite you to join our dedicated and earnest group of praying participants of all ages from around the world that meet every day over Zoom to pray. At the start of each prayer call, a different individual will bring a brief Scriptural meditation. Here's the most recent:
