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.
"When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream." Psalm 126:1.
It is now Monday and the conference is behind us. I am in the process of uploading the conferences messages one by one so I will be sure to send the link when it is all done. However, the first two early morning prayer meetings are uploaded here and here.
Taking a walk this beautiful morning, I was thinking about the conference and the gathering last week and I couldn't get away from Psalm 126—we were like them that dream. I remember sitting there at the dinner Friday evening watching the speakers engage in hearty conversation, laughing, and even praying together. I felt so privileged to just sit and observe what Christian unity actually looks like among brethren that are different in some ways, but ultimately are all in hot pursuit of God. They are like climbers all pressing toward the summit of the same mountain but from different sides. The closer we get to Christ, the closer we get to each other. And that's the point of Christian unity isn't it? We aren't uniting for the sake of uniting. We are all pursuing the same goal and therefore Christian unity will be the most natural outflow. When these men had opportunity to hear each other's heart and soul in the preaching sessions, inevitably they will be drawn to one another as they are drawn to Christ. Christian unity must always be centered around Jesus Christ and our pursuit of Him or it will be a false unity and will never survive the test of real love.
What could be said of the speakers most certainly could be said of the rest of us. I spoke with dozens of folks that have attested to the same thing.
God has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. We had the joy of having some of the remaining Grand Rapids youth (and Ming from Colorado and Gavin from Canada) with us over the Sunday. And it's hard to remember a time when we had so much fun. Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Anything less is a captivity-like experience.
What does the future hold? One of the speakers asked me, "Where do we go from here?" That's a good question. I think the closing verses of this Psalm holds a clue. The Psalmist just spent the first part of the Psalm rejoicing in how the Lord filled their mouth with laughter and made them glad. But we see in verse 4 a prayer that the Lord would, "Turn again our captivity." No matter how much we have enjoyed of God's blessing today, we cannot live on yesterday's victories. We need to be turned again for today, and tomorrow. Give us THIS DAY our daily bread. We will never reach a point when we can stop praying for God's Spirit to be poured out upon us. Furthermore, verses 5 and 6 speak of the sowing of the seed of the Word and the promise of abundant harvest. We may have enjoyed a season of laughter and joy, but there are souls that still need to be saved and there is a fruitfulness and spreading and advancing that we have yet to see fully demonstrated in God's kingdom.
This is just the beginning.
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:
