Introduction
I am praying for a Next Great Awakening to fall upon our churches.
Will you join me?
Dear Church,
On April 8, 1966, the cover of Time magazine had the words, in red, against a solid black background, “Is God Dead?” Five years later, on June 21, 1971, the cover of Time was red, with a drawing of the face of Jesus, and the words “The Jesus Revolution.” In the spring of 1970 I was saved, caught up in this movement that was moving across our nation.
So much for the death of God, in America! I joined a campus ministry. The leaders placed a book in my hands, written by a man with an optimistic name, Bill Bright. The book was called Revolution Now. Pause with me here, for a moment.
I was twenty-one. I was emerging from alcohol abuse and drug use. Mine was a life of poor choices and many failures. I had flunked out of college and joined the Army National Guard. My life was devoid of meaning and purpose. And then… … it all changed. I was part of a great Revolution.
I saw many of my friends give their lives to Jesus. I became a Bible reader. And I began to pray.
During that season of life, my prayers tended towards bigness. They transcended my previous secular, reductive mentality. I had come to believe in a great big God, the kind who merely speaks and launches universes into existence. This God knew everything that can be known (omniscience) and was able to do anything that can be done (omnipotence).
This was not theoretical for me. I saw God in action. I witnessed many miraculous answers to my prayers. I was discovering that, where prayer focuses, power falls. Fifty-three years later, this has not changed.
Today, in this strange world we live in, I am praying for the same God that raised Jesus from the dead to do great things in my church, and in churches across our land. I have hope and expectation, because I have seen this happen before. Out of a dark spiritual malaise (the cultural “death” of God), came the bright light of the Jesus Movement. You had to be in it to understand it.
When I pray out of my experience in that Movement, I ask God things like this. God, raise my experience to the level of your kingdom realities. Show me your glory. Enable me to see the things of earth, through the lens of heaven. Let your manifest presence fill this temple that is your Church. Move among us in mighty ways that transcend human abilities. Awaken your people. Awaken me.
I also find myself praying such things, in reverse. God, protect me from reducing you to the level of my finite experience. Anoint me with a holy dissatisfaction in mere human accomplishments. Transform my doubt into belief, my fears into faith, my pessimism into optimism, my cynicism into hope, my hypocrisy into authenticity, my secularism into supernaturalism, my low self-worth into confidence, my doubt into assurance, my tentativeness into boldness, my sin into holiness, and my laziness into discipline.
God, give us another Great Awakening, another Welsh Revival, another Azusa Street, another Jesus Movement!
I am praying for God to do something great, in our churches, across our country. How will this happen? The answer is: by prayer. In history, moves of God are always preceded, and undergirded, by praying people.
As I dream big, I remember to think small. Most, if not all, revivals in history began with a handful of people who were praying. They rarely, if ever, happened in mega situations.
Acts chapter two gives us the prototype. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. How many were “they all?” If all the believers at the time were in the Upper Room, that would be a hundred and twenty. (Acts 1:15) This is not a megachurch. It is a gathering of praying people, situated in a small outpost on the edge of the Roman empire, who believe in our mega-God.
That’s what this devotional book is about.
That’s where you come in.
I am calling you to a prayer movement.
There’s no need to wait for others to join.
Remember the quote from William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army? He said, “I’m not waiting for a move of God; I AM a move of God.”
Consider this 31-day devotional a refueling station. You, a Move of God, are stopping to gas up. So you can stay ignited. So you would be encouraged, and on fire, in your praying life.
I present to you thirty-one entries on thirty-one aspects of a praying life. This comes out of my fifty-three years of praying experience. So much more could be said. You and me – we form a great, praying Move of God. That will not be contained.
John Piippo
(From my book 31 Letters to the Church on Praying)
