Heart Preparation

We cannot escape the fact that living in the 21 century is a time of fast-paced lifestyle and always increasing acceleration. We are no longer just busy and in a hurry, but the acceleration is with top speed. This has consequences for us personally – physically, emotionally, spiritually; repercussions on family relationships and on our congregations as the corporate Body of Christ. One of the first things to suffer in our busy lives is prayer life in God that gives Him full attention and waits before Him. The call to seek God’s face is the call to know Him again in intimate fellowship in the quiet place.

Satan is quick to take advantage of our hectic lifestyles. Satan plots a conspiracy of interruptions to distract us from seeking God’s face. Moreover, the flesh responds and is happy to accommodate.

Periodically we must deal with our distractions and satan’s strategies by consecrating ourselves in order to seek God’s face. One of the ways we do this is giving ourselves to a period of fasting. The word “fast” means to voluntarily deny oneself food, or other daily activities for the purpose of seeking God’s face.

Seeking God’s face is an important component in renewing covenant with God (2 Chronicles 7:14). Our faces represent the essence of who we are. Therefore, seeking God’s face is drawing close to Him personally. Jesus addressed this principle in the Sermon on the Mount when He said “seek and you will find”. Jeremiah 29:13 addresses the same principle: “you will seek Me and find me when you seek Me with all your heart.” Seeking Him with all our heart is an undistracted pursuit, giving Him our full attention.

Seeking God’s face is one of the key principles of 2 Chron. 7:14 of renewing covenant with God. A person’s face is the very essence of who a person is. In seeking God’s face it is a very personal drawing close to God. Jesus addressed this principle on the Sermon on the Mount when He said “seek and you will find”. Jeremiah 29:13 expounds upon the principle: “you will seek Me and find me when you seek Me with all your heart” this is undistracted seeking of God’s face. This is seeking God with our full attention.

God says that when we seek Him with all our heart, i.e., with our full attention, He will be found by us. God has said it and we can count on it. Seek and you will find is the promise of God. God never said “seek Me and it will be in vain.” That is the lie of satan that will come to us when we resolve to seek Him with all of our heart. It will be for nothing! God reassures us that He will be found and we will not be disappointed.

Therefore, we can join the Psalmist in saying: “Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8). 

Day 8 – Seeking God’s Face

Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 29:12-13a)
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The Bible makes a distinction between “prayer” and “calling out” or “crying out” to God. In our impossible circumstances, which we cannot change with our own resources, crying to God is a humbling reminder of our total inability to bring change apart from God’s intervention. God promises that if we will call out to Him, He will listen.

Not only will He listen, He promises to answer us from heaven (Jeremiah 33:3). God’s response from heaven includes revelation: “I will show you great and mighty things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). With supernatural power He will deliver and accomplish His redemptive purpose in our circumstances. The context of this promise is the transformation of the city. He declares, “this city will bring Me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it” (Jeremiah 33:9).

Prayer Points:

• God, in my hopeless situation I call out to you. Deliver me and my loved ones from all our bondage and captivity!

• Lord, would you deliver me from passivity! I cry out in desperation for deliverance! Help my unbelief!

Day 9 - Desperate Hunger

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

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People who are desperate for God’s presence will move beyond convenience and personal comfort. They cannot be satisfied with worldly pleasures or religious routine. For them, Jesus is no longer a religious concept. He has become their reality, their life, and the source of their longing and desire.

An initial hunger and thirst comes with the gift of salvation, but after the spiritual honeymoon is over we must intentionally cultivate our spiritual passion. It’s so easy for our once-fiery hearts to grow cold in our love toward Him. Our first prayer must be to ask Him to increase our spiritual appetite.

The Word of God promises us that if we are hungry and thirsty, we shall be filled! Spiritual hunger is the currency of heaven. Hunger is what causes us to empty ourselves of compromise. It creates a holy dissatisfaction that drives us to our knees and makes us depend on God.

Prayer Points:

• Forgive me for filling myself with worldly pleasures.  Help me to empty myself of the spirit of the world and fill myself with You.
• Jesus, would you take my cold heart and turn it into burning fire? Would you renew in my life a fresh hunger and thirst for You?

Day 10 - Are you Thirsty?

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. (John 7:37-38)
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Anyone! If you are thirsty, you qualify! Every believer’s rightful inheritance is having a heart overflowing with the Living Water of the Holy Spirit. Jesus sets forth this promise in His Word.

Do we have a desperate, aching, unspeakable thirst for Jesus? How thirsty are we? If we are already full of the lesser pleasures of this world, how can we really have an appetite for God?

We must abandon ourselves to the pursuit of God until the nature of Jesus is formed within us and His life flows out of us like a river. We must cry out in desperation for God’s presence to be restored in our lives, our churches, and ultimately in our cities.

We must treasure the manifest presence of God, because as Jesus said in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.” 

Prayer Points:

Jesus, please salt my heart and give me an unquenchable thirst for Your presence!

Forgive me for drinking from broken cisterns.  I want to drink from Your living water!

Forgive me for pursuing the pleasures of the world and give me with a heart that is abandoned to you!

Day 11 - The Heart Cry

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. (Psalm 27:4)
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A desperate cry is growing in the hearts of believers for a real, tangible encounter with God. We want, like Moses, to see Him face to face. We don’t want only to read about Him, talk about Him, and pay homage to Him on Sunday mornings.

What are we longing for? I believe it’s the presence of God in the midst of His people, the manifestation of His nearness, and an awareness of His love that is both real and relevant.

Jesus wants us to desire Him above all else and to encounter Him in tangible life-changing ways! Is there a cry in your heart for a deeper connection to the Lord? Are you longing for more? Are you tired of feeling like you are just going through the motions in your spiritual life?

Prayer Points:

• Forgive me God for having a divided heart. Change my desires and lead me into a place of encounter with You!
• Forgive me for chasing after other “lovers” to satisfy my longings. Take me to the deeper realities of who You are, and change me forever in Your presence.

Day 12 –Our Whole Heart

Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually.
 (1 Chron. 16:11)
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When David became Israel’s king, He gave his heart and attention to bringing back the Ark of the Covenant, i.e., the presence of God. In the midst of rejoicing when the ark returned, David made this passionate plea: “Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually” (1 Chron. 16:11). David knew the principle of seeking the Lord with all his heart.

Often we give the Lord token time and attention, the kind of attention that would be an insult to someone we loved. David understood that to know God, we have to give Him time and attention from our heart, not just token duty or obedience. God wants intimacy with His people. He is overjoyed when His people seek His face with undistracted devotion.

Many our prayers are self-serving and self-centered. We must become so united with God in prayer that it truly is His heart and His purpose that we seek. This kind of prayer takes hold of the promises of God and pulls them into the present in fulfillment!

Prayer Points:

• Forgive me for thinking I can live wrong and pray right!  Forgive me for thinking you will give me what I want no matter how I live!
• Help me set my face before You undistracted in devotion. Challenge my self-centered Christianity!

Day 13 - Prayer for Revival!

The Lord is far from the wicked but He hears the prayers of the righteous. (Proverbs 15:29)
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Prayer for revival is a special kind of prayer. Elijah demonstrated this kind of prayer and James refers to it as “the prayer offered in faith” (Jas 5:15), and “the prayer of a righteous man” (5:16). The earnest man prays this prayer when he asks for rain after a 3 ½ year drought. Prayer for revival is persistent; Elijah prayed again and again until “the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops” (James 5:17-18).

Elijah could pray right because he was right with God and living righteously. No one can live wrong and pray right! David said, “If I regard sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps 66:18).

Isaiah 59:1-2 says it this way: “Surely the arm of the Lord is not short that it cannot save, nor His ear dull that He cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” A righteous person honestly faces his or her sin issues, confesses them openly, and receives the forgiveness and cleansing of Christ.

Prayer Points:

• Jesus cleanse me from my sin so that my prayers are heard in heaven!
• Jesus, would you teach me and prepare me to live as a vessel of revival and healing?
  
  

Day 14 – Covenant Prayer

Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us.
(2 Chron. 29:10)
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Effective prayer is covenant-prayer. Covenant praying is done in covenant relationship with God and takes God’s Word and promises seriously. Many of God’s promises are conditional as in 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If My people will . . . then I will.” The covenant promises of God provide a clear basis for faith and obedience. They provide ground for being persistent in both prayer and faith, so we don’t up easily!

Living in covenant with God has always been the key by which men and women of faith have contended at the throne before God with results happening on the earth.

Covenant praying is selfless praying; this prayer focuses not on what we want but on the glory of God and the welfare of others. It even is a willingness to lay one’s life down for the sake of God’s glory. This kind of prayer says, “Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Your name give glory for Your mercy and for Your truths’ sake” (Psalm 115:1).

Prayer Points:

• Forgive me for breaking covenant with You! Help me to see that Your covenant promises are conditional. 
• Jesus, conform me into Your image that Your will and heart will become mine!

*** Click here to continue to Part 3