"We will undergo four weeks of basic training, followed by 12 weeks of front line tactical praying." That's how one person looking to organize a CHOP group sought to enlist recruits for the ministry of evangelistic prayer.
"Tactical" suggests specific strategy calculated for accomplishment of the goal. That describes well the ministry of CHOP--prayer with a purpose, kingdom prayer, prayer that engages participants in the advancement of Christ's church against the gates of hell, occupying territory of hearts for Jesus Christ.
The language used above for the invitation to the CHOP group carries with it military overtones. That is exactly as our Lord Jesus Christ would have us see the work of His church and see ourselves for that work. As many have pointed out, we need to recapture the concept of the church militant, the church engaged in spiritual war, facing spiritual opposition, employing spiritual tactics, wielding spiritual weapons. It is to our detriment and ineffectiveness and disobedience to maintain a peace-time mentality. There will come a day when the church will be at rest, triumphant in glory, but that day is not now. We need the mentality of sacrifice, of hardship, of danger, of mission given us by the Lord of hosts for the sake of His kingdom.
May the Lord richly bless this CHOP group being formed and multiply groups throughout the land in mobilizing His people in tactical prayer in service to His kingdom.
Imprecatory Prayer
Do you find yourself praying just for yourself (usually those things you want) and maybe for the health of others? How do you address God in your prayers? "Dear God..." "Heavenly Father...." What about all those other ways God introduces Himself and describes Himself in the Bible? Do you every pray, "Sovereign Lord of hosts...." or "Eternal God..." or "Everlasting Father..." or "Lord God Almighty for whom nothing is too hard..."?
Want to enrich your prayer life? Pray the psalms. The psalms teach us and lead us to pray pleasing to God (it's His Word), comprehensively, honestly (the psalmists keep it real), reflectively, with a bigger view of God, addressing subjects we might otherwise neglect, and whatever else makes for a full prayer life.
Think about praying, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." There's a name for God we don't often use--"Shepherd." As we chew on that and see ourselves as needy sheep and see the situations of our lives that prompt want, that takes our prayer in a whole new direction, to another level in response to God.
That works with psalms like Psalm 23. But what about psalms like Psalm 137:9 that declares, "Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock" or Psalm 10:15 that asks God to "break the arm of the wicked." How do we pray these prayers, especially when we they seem so unChristian?
These sentiments are called imprecations. They pronounce malediction instead of benediction. And the psalms are laced with them. Some psalms are so filled with them that they are called "imprecatory psalms." What do we make of them? What place can they find in our prayer lives? Take a look at the article, "Praying the Imprecatory Psalms" under "Resources" in the top bar of the CHOP website and learn what these psalms say about God and His direction to us in prayer.
Want to enrich your prayer life? Pray the psalms. The psalms teach us and lead us to pray pleasing to God (it's His Word), comprehensively, honestly (the psalmists keep it real), reflectively, with a bigger view of God, addressing subjects we might otherwise neglect, and whatever else makes for a full prayer life.
Think about praying, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." There's a name for God we don't often use--"Shepherd." As we chew on that and see ourselves as needy sheep and see the situations of our lives that prompt want, that takes our prayer in a whole new direction, to another level in response to God.
That works with psalms like Psalm 23. But what about psalms like Psalm 137:9 that declares, "Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock" or Psalm 10:15 that asks God to "break the arm of the wicked." How do we pray these prayers, especially when we they seem so unChristian?
These sentiments are called imprecations. They pronounce malediction instead of benediction. And the psalms are laced with them. Some psalms are so filled with them that they are called "imprecatory psalms." What do we make of them? What place can they find in our prayer lives? Take a look at the article, "Praying the Imprecatory Psalms" under "Resources" in the top bar of the CHOP website and learn what these psalms say about God and His direction to us in prayer.
Spreading the News
I missed my regular CHOP blogging time this past Wednesday because I was with a bunch of church planters sharing about prayer and the CHOP ministry. What a blessing! These are men and women in the trenches. It was a blessing to me to hear their stories, to see their passion and to feel the pain of the challenges of church planting--all for the sake of Christ. It thrills me to think that God would use CHOP to help these servants of Christ mobilize their folks to prayer for the sake of the gospel. It seems to me that CHOP finds a place in church planting in that it establishes and grows the fledgling group in the incubator of prayer, building the group by giving them an upward and outward focus from the start, cultivating a mentality of mission, as all eyes are expectant on the Lord Jesus who is the builder of His church.
Importunate Prayer
Jonathan Edwards calls it "importunate" prayer. In commenting on Isaiah 62:7 where the watchmen are told to "give God no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth," Edwards says:
The blame falls in the dereliction of the watchmen and their foremen in the priesthood of all believers and the officers God has raised up over them in His visible church. The church has not been faithful in putting God in remembrance, taking no rest, giving Him no rest until we see His church animated and active for the cause of His kingdom. We have been sinfully silent and negligent in our call to be importunate in prayer--insistent before God, bold, expectant, demanding, audacious until He revives His church and makes it a praise in the earth.
Jesus urged us to importunate prayer in the parables of the persistent friend (Luke 11:5-13) and the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). He calls us to pursue God in prayer as One who invites us to hound Him in the outworking of His sovereign purposes.
Yet at the end of the the parable in Luke 18 Jesus closes with a startling, unexpected statement, seemingly a non sequitur: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (v. 8)
I used to think that a strange statement, almost contradicting His assertion that He will lose none of those sheep given Him by the Father and for whom He died. Yet as I see the church's growing lifelessness, prayerlessness and powerlessness it makes we wonder if faith is not flickering. The watchmen are silent. God is not being brought to remembrance by the importunate prayer of His people. The churches flounder. The plant withers. Darkness spreads.
We can only begin on the foot of repentance and plea to God to bring forth its fruit for being the faithful watchmen He calls us to be. As Daniel prayed on behalf of state of God's visible covenant people:
May God give us no rest in giving Him no rest until His church is renewed, her influence for His kingdom is restored and her faith burns brightly to the glory of God and the gain of the nations.
How loud is this call to the church of God, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to Him for this great mercy! How wonderful the words used, concerning the manner in which such worms of the dust should address the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity!When we review the picture Isaiah paints of God's vision for His church of a church bright with the light of truth and righteousness, shining the way through the darkness with the beacon of the gospel, a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord displaying His glory and kingdom rule, a people over whom God rejoices, we shake our heads to look at the state of the church of our day. Rather than seeing a church energized and exercised in the redemptive realities and responsibilities that are hers as the covenant people of God, we see a church distracted, lethargic, indifferent, ineffective, withered and stagnant.
The blame falls in the dereliction of the watchmen and their foremen in the priesthood of all believers and the officers God has raised up over them in His visible church. The church has not been faithful in putting God in remembrance, taking no rest, giving Him no rest until we see His church animated and active for the cause of His kingdom. We have been sinfully silent and negligent in our call to be importunate in prayer--insistent before God, bold, expectant, demanding, audacious until He revives His church and makes it a praise in the earth.
Jesus urged us to importunate prayer in the parables of the persistent friend (Luke 11:5-13) and the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). He calls us to pursue God in prayer as One who invites us to hound Him in the outworking of His sovereign purposes.
Yet at the end of the the parable in Luke 18 Jesus closes with a startling, unexpected statement, seemingly a non sequitur: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (v. 8)
I used to think that a strange statement, almost contradicting His assertion that He will lose none of those sheep given Him by the Father and for whom He died. Yet as I see the church's growing lifelessness, prayerlessness and powerlessness it makes we wonder if faith is not flickering. The watchmen are silent. God is not being brought to remembrance by the importunate prayer of His people. The churches flounder. The plant withers. Darkness spreads.
We can only begin on the foot of repentance and plea to God to bring forth its fruit for being the faithful watchmen He calls us to be. As Daniel prayed on behalf of state of God's visible covenant people:
O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.
May God give us no rest in giving Him no rest until His church is renewed, her influence for His kingdom is restored and her faith burns brightly to the glory of God and the gain of the nations.
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