Charles Finney- How to Pray for Revival
As we look around it is clear we need revival, but how do we pray successfully and see revival. Many people in the Body of Christ want to feel they are playing a critical role in these last of the Last Days, but how? They are not called to the fivefold so it is hard to see how God could use you at this time. We look a Charles G Finney, who saw many great revivals during his ministry but what we fail to see is the large number of intercessors behind the scenes. Finney would have countless intercessors praying before, during, and after the revival service.
All revivals must be born through prayer, and we are all called to pray. How many will stand before the Lord at the Bema Judgment seat, receiving a reward for being a critical prayer partner.
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Mark 11: 24
If we are to pray and see results, then we must look to the manual from Heaven. Charles Finney explained:
“There are general promises and principles laid down in the Bible that Christians would have the opportunity to use, if they would only think. Whenever you are in circumstances to which the promises apply, you are to use them.”
So, if we turn to the Word and as we spend time in prayer listening to Him in the Secret Place, He will make know His desires and call us to pray those things into being. Finney said:
“Where there is any prophetic declaration that something prayed for is agreeable to the will of God, when it is plain from prophecy that the event is certainly to come, you are bound to believe it and make it the basis of your special faith in prayer.”
We can see in the Word, that the Lord longs to move in revival, but He calls us to meet the conditions necessary for revival. Revival doesn’t come on our terms but His, and as such He demands that we walk a life submitted to Him. In the Secret Place, we must develop ears to hear the voice and leading of the Holy Spirit. Finney explained:
“When the Spirit of God is upon You and excites strong desires for any blessing, you are bound to pray for it in faith. You are bound to infer, from the fact that you find yourself drawn to desire such a thing while experiencing the joy and holiness the Spirit of God produces, that these desires are the work of the Spirit.”
The Word calls us co-laborers with Him and in the Secret Place, we find this wonderful place in which we become united and one with Him, desiring what He desires and allowing Him to move on us and prayer through us.
“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
Romans 8: 26
One key that they understood in times past that we have lost is, perseverance. We live in a society of constant stimulation in which we need second by second entertainment, or our attention is lost. Finney explained:
“You must preserve. You are not to pray for a thing once, then cease, and call that the prayer of faith. Look at Daniel. He prayed for twenty-one days and did not stop until he obtained the blessing. He set his heart and face toward the Lord to seek His answer by prayer and supplication. He held on for three weeks, and then the answer came. And why did it not come before? God sent an archangel with the message, but the Devil hindered him. See what Christ said in the parable of the unjust judge and the parable of the loaves. What did He teach us by them? He taught that God will grant answers to prayer when prayer is persistent. ‘Shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him?”
If we consider the souls of the lost and backslidden precious and love the brethren, then we would give Heaven no rest. We are simply not earnest enough. We need to understand we must storm Heaven, as Finney explained:
“And I have known him to pray as if he would do violence to Heaven, and then I have seen the blessing coming as plainly in answer to his prayer as if it were revealed.”
Finney also explained:
“When you have evidence- from providences, promises, prophecies, or the leadings of the Spirit- that God will do the things for which you pray.”
We must have a confidence built upon the knowing as we abide in the Word in the Secret Place. But those who do not know the Secret Place and simply walk in a knowledge about the Word, Finney said:
“But there are those who know what the prayer of faith is, just as there are those who know what spiritual experience is, though such prayer may be a stumbling block to coldhearted believers who do not know it”
Some of us see are faults and imperfections and as such disqualify ourselves. Finney said:
“Let them examine themselves. It is likely that they understand prayer as little as Nicodemus understood the new birth. They have not walked with God. You cannot accurately describe the walk to them any more than you can describe a beautiful painting to a blind man.”
We must diligently develop our Secret Place life and as we discern the signs of the times, the desires of the Father’s heart, and begin to pray in faith to see them birthed.
