I’m currently re-reading ‘Jesus Culture’ by Banning Liebscher, a phenomenal book describing the culture that is being expressed and developed within this generation. Revivalists that are marked by their honour for those who have gone before them, their passionate love for Jesus and their dedication to a life of prayer!
To say i am inspired every time i pick this book up is an understatement – it’s fuelling a hunger inside of me to see more people connect with and release their full potential in God’s purposes for their life!
This quote jumped off the page while i was sat dwelling on the amazing mystery of God’s plans for us and the potential for even greater exploits: “Persistent prayer shapes our character, reinforces our tenacity, focusses our trust on the Lord, and increases our capacity to carry the authority and anointing that the Father has given us.”
What an amazing sentence! Unpacked it looks a bit like this:
Persistent prayer – Knowing that prayer is all about communicating with God how can we walk in the fullness of his purpose on our lives without spending time with him? We can so easily make prayer out to be difficult or daunting, a task that is to be perfected and completed before we can declare in public that we can in fact ‘pray’!! Whereas the best way to get to know God is to talk to him. It really is as simple as that!
Jesus prayed persistently, in times of solitude and out amongst the crowds. His day was filled with prayer because he knew how important it was for him to be in CONSTANT COMMUNICATION with His Father! So if Jesus needed to do it, im even more convinced that we need to adopt his lifestyle!
Shaping our Character – This prayer then begins to shape our character! Those who you spend the most time with become your biggest influencers. So for us to become everything God intended us to be, we first need to make sure our greatest influence is in fact God Himself!
Reinforcing our tenacity – A tenacious person is someone who holds firm to what they believe, someone who is persistent in their character! So our constant communication with God forms our tenacious character to be able to hold firm to what God has asked us to do.
Renewed and Focussed Trust – We then gain a renewed, focussed trust in the Lord, because we KNOW Him! So we wake every day with a renewed trust that our God is for us, and that we can do immeasurably more than we could ever ask for or imagine, because we’ve spent time being empowered and strengthened.
Increased Capacity – And if that wasn’t enough we find ourselves capable of being this Kingdom hearted history maker, because God has increased our capacity to do more for him! We exceed even our own expectations because we have a limitless God living inside of us!
WOAH!!!!!!
All of these amazing gifts which will fuel EVERY area of our lives – all because of PERSISTENT PRAYER! No wonder 24-7 Prayer and Worship spaces are taking over the world! God simply needs us to spend time with him in order to release this MASSIVE potential inside of us!
Such an incredible, (yet simple) revelation!
Written by, Sammi
rootesnp 