Loving Heavenly Father, I come before You in this time of prayer to open my heart to You about the brokenness and need I see about me. I see great needs in my own heart, in my family, among my fellow believers and in my culture, community and world. Teach me to care, and to pray about those needs as Your servant Nehemiah learned to pray. I long to honor You as the "God of heaven, the great and awesome God," whose greatness is sufficient to meet the urgent needs of this day. I long to love and worship You, Heavenly Father, as You are worthy to be worshiped. I do love You; not as perfectly as I one day will, but I do love You and worship You now. Teach me to know You. Even as I worship You this moment, grant me new insights into Your greatness and sufficiency. As I speak to You, please speak to me.
Thank You, Heavenly Father, that You are omnipotent, almighty and sovereign. I praise You that it was no threat to Your sovereign omnipotence to create Satan and all of the angels who fell, even though You foreknew they would rebel against You. Thank You also, that it was no threat to Your sovereign omnipotence to create man in Your own likeness and image, even though You knew man would fail the test and would sin. I sense comfort and assurance from such a great and awesome God who could keep it all within His sovereign oversight and controlled limits. I rejoice that even the great needs of this day are no threat to Your omnipotent power and sovereign design.
I pray for a revolutionary revival to come from Your sovereign hand and I affirm that Your omnipotence is sufficiently strong to bring it to pass. I affirm that Your omnipotent power is sufficient to humble the most hostile arrogance of man in a moment of time. I affirm that Your omnipotence is able to bring to nothing the most careful strategy and plan of Satan and his kingdom.
By faith I hold Your omniscient knowledge and Your total awareness in perspective as I pray. Thank You that there is no wickedness or sin that escapes Your knowledge. Thank You that the cross and redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient to enable You to forgive the wickedness of man. I praise You that in Your ominiscience You were able to apply His atoning blood to cleanse away the guilt of all my sins; none were missed. I hold Your omniscient understanding over the tragic conditions of the wicked rebellion of our ageand ask You to humble us and bring us to repentance before You.
I worship You in the wonder of Your omnipresence. With the psalmist I acknowledge: "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there." Thank You that You are present wherever the dawn rises. In all of the extremities of space and in all of Your creation, You are there. Thank You that You inhabit eternity itself.
I rejoice that Your presence is as much with us in our day as it was there in the revival awakenings of history. I ask You to unveil Your presence among us. I invite You to draw near to us that we might experience the brokenness and the awareness of our sinful need that Your presence brings. I affirm that revival comes as people become broadly aware of the near presence of our Holy God. I hold Your mercy and Your grace before You as providing sufficient ground for the fulfillment of the cry of my heart.
I exalt Your unchanging perfection in all that You are; that You are the same yesterday, today and forever. Thank You that Your promises are trustworthy. I believe that if Your people unite with You in the wonder of Your person and will seek Your face in humble prayer, You will hear. I affirm my desire to turn from all my wicked ways and I cry out to You to hear from heaven, to forgive our sins and to heal our land. In Your immutable, sovereign plan, I look to You to effect all that is necessary to bring us to revival.
I exalt Your justice, Heavenly Father. I rejoice that You will one day banish all evil forever from Your presence in Your perfect plan of holy wrath. I also rejoice to see Your justice and truth displayed in loving mercy at Calvary. I acknowledge that Your holy wrath was requited by the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You for being willing to place upon Your own Son the judgment that we, who have received Your grace instead, deserved. The wonder o f that escapes my full capacity to understand. Yet, I know that Your justice, shown in such mercy and grace, remains at the very core of my prayer for revival. I ask for Your justice to draw near to us. I acknowledge that our culture deserves what came to Sodom, and to the earth in Noah's day. I plead rather for the justice that came at Pentecost.
Thank You that many of those same people who cried out for Christ to be crucified, cried out at Pentecost in broken repentance, "What shall we do? What shall we do?" Do it again, oh God. Judge us not with wrath as You did Sodom , but judge us with terrible conviction of sin until repentance flows down before You in rivers of tears.
You are wise and truthful, and faithful to Your Word of truth. I marvel and wonder after Your patient endurance with us. I acknowledge that I ask of You a hard thing. Thank You that You remain transcendent above all of the chaos upon this earth. I rejoice that, in the infinite greatness of Your highness and loftiness, You abide in the divine stillness of Your perfection.
I hunger and thirst for Your righteousness. I know it will necessitate a revolutionary revival for such righteousness to touch our culture in large degree, but in Your greatness, You can bring it to pass. As I worship You in Your greatness, I claim the Word of Your promise: "For this is what the high and lofty one says -- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite' "(Isaiah 57:15). I ask that You would bring the truth of that loving promise to reality in my life and my culture. I affirm that there is sufficient merit in the name and finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish even more than I ask. It's in his name I pray. Amen.
These prayers may be reproduced for free distribution when the following credit is attached:
Mark I. Bubeck, copied from: The Rise of Fallen Angels
(Chicago, IL. Moody Press, 1995)
Sincerely,
Mark I. Bubeck
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