“And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant — these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” — Isaiah 56:6-8
I don’t believe we can ever talk too much about prayer and some of the wonderful promises God has made to us in regard to our petitions to Him. God promises to heal our land, if we as a people would humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways, and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14). Oh, how I believe this applies to America today as never before. How does God want us to pray? By looking to Him for what we need rather than the world and continue to ask Him until He provides the answer.
Like most of you, I’ll never forget what happened to our country on September 11, 2001. We refer to it today simply as 9/11— and everyone knows what you mean. Besides the horror of those graphic images of planes flying into the twin towers, what I also remember as a pastor is the filling up of our church during the days that followed with people wanting to pray. We experienced several weeks of prayer meetings until most of us returned to our normal activities. Oh, how I wish that would become a normal activity for the body of Christ again — not caused by a catastrophic event — but by a desire to join together with the body of Christ and pray about everything.
In this scripture for today from Isaiah, God makes His desire known to the nation of Israel in regard to His Temple in Jerusalem. It was to be known as a “house of prayer” and everybody was welcome. It would be easy to dismiss this as Old Testament, had not Jesus said the very same thing as recorded in Mark 11:17: And as he taught them (in the Temple), he said, “Is it not written: `My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’” ?
Jesus had just cleared out the Temple vendors with a great deal of zeal, and loudly proclaimed the purpose of God’s House — for all to hear — was to be a place of prayer. Are we listening? I hope it doesn’t take another tragedy in America or elsewhere to cause God’s people to want to get together and be devoted to prayer. Yes, we can pray on our own and I hope we all do — fervently and consistently but there is something powerful that happens when people come together in one setting to bombard the halls of heaven as intercessors, “Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand” (Leviticus 26:8).
So my friends, join a prayer group or start one. Remember that we are encouraged to “Pray without ceasing” because God is always listening. Maranatha!
Pastor Don
