Joshua Hawk

“What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.” – Robert Murray M’Cheyne

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” Isaiah 29:13 NIV

It would have been easy to brush it off and make a claim that it didn’t apply to me. After all, I was one of the very few individuals who attended weekly prayer meeting and certainly the youngest at the age of 30. But when God spoke this verse to me one Saturday evening in September 2017, while I was praying alone in the church youth room, I broke down and wept on the floor. This was not only an indictment to the people of Israel, it was indictment to my weak prayer life and to the church as a whole.

A few months ago, my pastor brought up in one of his sermons a prophesy that came out of the Asuza Street Revival in 1910. I was familiar with the Asuza Street Revival because I read about it in Assemblies of God History offered through Global University; however, this was the first time I heard about this prophesy. Considering the prophesy is at least 100 years old and most of it, if not all of it, is being fulfilled today, it caught my attention and has weighed heavily on my mind since. The prophesy stated that in the last days, three things will befall the Great Pentecostal Movement. Those three things are:

1. An overemphasis on power rather than righteousness.
2. An overemphasis on praise to a God they no longer pray to.
3. An overemphasis on the gifts of the Spirit, rather than the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

As a man blessed with musical ability by God, the second prophetic statement really jumped out at me. Like most American Christians, I enjoy good worship music but sadly the love for worship by many believers has turned into an idolatrous form of worship – the worship of worship. Many regular church attendees will go out of their way to attend a well-known worship conference or concert, often traveling hundreds even thousands of miles to worship in a sold out coliseum, but these same people will pass on prayer meeting at a local church ten minutes away because they’re “too tired” or “too busy.” Countless times, I have seen teenagers and young adults respond to altar calls by standing at the front of the altar and singing along with the worship team instead of kneeling or praying. We are no doubt seeing an influx of young people in the church who value worship more than prayer.

The greater emphasis on praise is also evident in many of the songs we sing in church. A popular song being sung in a lot of churches today express how “praise and thanksgiving” are the weapons of our warfare. Another worship song that I recently heard on YouTube also likens “a melody” to a weapon; however, scripture teaches us that prayer is our most powerful weapon and should not be neglected (2 Corinthians 10:3-4, 1 Thessalonians 5:17). Consider the Asuza Street Revival led by William J. Seymour. Before this revival took place, Seymour and a group of believers met for five straight weeks to pray and seek the face of the Lord. On April 9th, 1906, the Lord responded to their prayers. From 1906 to 1915, the flood gates of heaven were open and what took place is regarded as one of the greatest outpourings of the Holy Spirit in North America. Many healing miracles and spirit baptisms took place in this nine year span. But the reason this was possible is because people prayed with unrelenting fervor that moved the heart of God.

“Surely revival delays because prayer decays!” – Leonard Ravenhill

In Colossians 4:2, Paul exhorts the church in Colossae to devote themselves to a life of prayer. We are to do the same as believers of today! Prayer isn’t reserved for the few; it is the duty of every believer. Prayer is how we communicate with God. Leonard Ravenhill once said, “Tell me how much time you spend alone with God and I will tell you how spiritual you are.” When our prayer lives are strong, our relationship with God is strong. Moreover, when our prayer lives are weak, our relationship with God is weak. A weak prayer life is evidence that a person is not in right relationship with God. An evangelist and friend of mine by the name of Glenn Meldrum once said, “A prayerless life is an idolatrous life because everything else is more important than Jesus.” “Everything else” can include things like the television, Netflix, the smartphone, social media, watching sports, playing video games, fishing, hanging out with friends, the boyfriend or girlfriend, the spouse, the kids extracurricular activities, etc. To be prayerless essentially means a lacking desire to fellowship with God.

Several years ago I was dating a girl who eventually lost interest in me and fizzled the relationship. I feel foolish thinking about it now because I liked this girl a lot and stuck around a lot longer than I should have. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to fix what went wrong and to get back to the place where we were texting nonstop and going on dates again; however, my attempts to salvage the relationship were unfruitful. Any attempt to spend time with her was met with aloofness and two words that to this day I detest to hear from any person – “I’m busy.” It truly hurts when feelings are unrequited but how many of us Christians treat God like this? God’s desire to have fellowship with us is greater than any of our desires to be with our crush or our friends, but sadly many of us just aren’t that interested. When the only time we pray is right before meal time or before going to sleep, we are essentially saying to God, “I’m too busy for you.” It hurts God when we reject Him and make no time for Him. I have been guilty of this many times but I am thankful God didn’t give up on me!

Every year, my church has a tradition of starting off the new year with a week of prayer. Each night, we get together to pray against demonic strongholds, to pray for God’s favor, and to pray for a fresh anointing for the new year. The week of prayer is usually our largest turn out for organized prayer meetings but sadly when the week of prayer ends, regular prayer meeting attendance will drop back down to the faithful few. As heartbreaking as this is, the thing that frustrates me the most is the indifference many believers have towards prayer. This became evident the first Wednesday night of the year when prayer meeting was held in the sanctuary at our church. Despite the unusually large number of people in attendance at prayer that Wednesday night, I left the church grieved. While prayer was in session, I was hindered by the restlessness and chatter from some of the people there in attendance. I looked up at one point and noticed most people chose to sit in their pews and scroll through their phones. Some sat in the back of the sanctuary visiting with each other and some even loitered out in the foyer and coffee shop without any inclination to join in for prayer! Most would rather loiter on His property than linger in His presence. How sad it is to be in a place where we no longer desire to talk with Jesus!

“Sunday morning shows how popular the church is; Sunday night shows how popular the preacher is; prayer meeting shows how popular God is.” – Leonard Ravenhill

James 4:8 in the NKJV reads, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” This verse is a promise that if we seek God, He will reciprocate! God never forces Himself on us. The key however to having nearness with God is submission to Him as James states in the previous verse (James 4:7). Secondly, we must be righteous otherwise our prayers will not get past the ceiling. Proverbs 15:29 in the NIV states, “The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” This is why James instructs us to wash our hands and to purify our hearts. Righteousness is required for God to draw near to us.

Brothers and sisters, please do not take what I have said thus far as me being judgmental. My desire is for the Holy Spirit to reveal any insufficiencies in our lives that might be separating us from God. As we take a moment now to reflect on our prayer lives, I leave everyone with one question: what is your prayer life like – is it vibrant and persistent or is it dry and nonexistent? If we are honest, I think most of us will say the latter. For those of us who answered truthfully, I encourage us all to find a time to seek God alone today and each day after that going forward. God is calling His people to come back to Him. If we seek Him, we will find Him and if we listen, He will respond to us.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 NIV