If you can’t get excited while reading the second chapter of Acts you might want to check your pulse. After the Holy Spirit came on the group of disciples, Peter gave a rip-roaring sermon and 3,000 people came to salvation on the spot (Acts 2:31). By chapter five the enraged high priest accused, “You have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine (vs. 28)!”

And all God’s people said, “Amen!” Let it be so!

What a thought that our communities could be filled with the Gospel! Want to know how to do it? The answer is in Acts chapter 1. After Jesus had ascended to Heaven, his disciples went back to Jerusalem, as instructed, and waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit. But they didn’t just wait, they prayed. “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brother (vs. 14).” They didn’t just pray for a few minutes here and again, they PRAYED! If we want to see the Holy Spirit move in our world, prayer is the secret.

Did you know that before the Great Awakening in North America, there was a 20-year period of active and fervent prayer? The Second Great Awakening in the 1800’s was also predicated on prayer meetings thought so vital by everyday Americans that shop owners would close their businesses in the middle of the day, every single day, to gather together and pray for the souls of their nation. Great efforts of prayer happened before and during the Civil War, where it is estimated that 150,000 soldiers were converted during the course of the war, and before and during WWII.

None of this is coincidental, and it should be inspirational. Are we about to have another Great Awakening? Only time will tell, but we are having more opportunities to join in corporate prayer than at any other time in recent history. The National Day of Prayer, See You at the Pole, and Franklin Graham’s Decision America tour are all examples of this movement. Will we be a part of it? Will be go past the events and pray with our family’s in our own homes? Will be coordinate church-wide prayer ministries in our own churches? Will we prayer walk around our own neighborhoods? Because if we want the Holy Spirit to show up big, inviting Him to do so in prayer is the only way. Let’s get on our knees today.

(For those who have missed any of the previous lessons, you can go to https://comethirstyministry.com/blog/ and view all previous postings.)

Week Forty-One

Day 1: Acts 1:1-14 (Mary and other women pray)
Day 2: Acts 2:1-47 (The Holy Spirit comes!)
Day 3: Acts 5:1-11 (Sapphira)
Day 4: Acts 8:1-8 (Saul persecutes men and women)
Day 5: Acts 8:26-40 (Queen Candace)