40 Days of Prayer | Week 1

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40 Days of Prayer | Week 1 Written by Pastor Eric Stiller

Day 1 Scripture 1 The LORD said to Moses, "Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your offspring I will give it.' 2I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." 4When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. Exodus 33:1-4 Devotional Revival, whether personal or corporate, begins in repentance. It did not matter how many signs and wonders the Israelites had seen: Moses had not been gone very long before they started to drift away from God and pursue idols. And yet are we any different? Octavius Winslow wrote in 1841 that there is a tendency in all of us “to secret, perpetual, and alarming departure from God. We often think of faith and love as though they were essentially omnipotent; forgetting that though they undoubtedly are divine in their origin, they yet are sustained by no self-supporting power, but by constant communications of life and nourishment from Jesus; that, the moment of their being left to their inherent strength, is the moment of their certain declension and decay.” Are we finding our nourishment in the word and presence of Christ, or is there a Golden Calf in our heart? (Ex. 32) Do we look at our past achievements, our present obedience, our many years of church attendance, or even our service and say: “All is well with my soul”? If we would see revival in our church and our city, we must start with ourselves, and our own hearts, and plead for God to help us see where we are relying on our inherent strength rather than the life and nourishment of Jesus. Prayer O Lord, help us to take off the ornaments of external religiosity and mourn for the spiritual decline in our hearts and lives. As a flower may live and yet be in a state of decay, so we live in you, and yet we are constantly in danger of drifting away. We come to you now and ask: Be at work in our hearts! Show us where we have grown sleepy. Convert our hearts and not just our minds. Help us to cry out with the prophet: “Revive your work in our midst!” (Hab. 3:1) Grant us an ever deeper conviction of our sin, and lead us by your kindness and grace into a soul-transforming repentance that will bear fruit in our lives, and so in the world around us.

Day 2

Scripture 7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. 10And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Exodus 33:7-11 Devotional If revival begins first with repentance, it moves next to prayer. It is a movement of the soul that turns to God “outside the camp”: outside the ordinary routines and rituals of spiritual activity; beyond the normal times of prayer in church or in private devotion to those which take us out of our way, out of our comfort, out of our monotony. Repentance leads to prayer outside the camp: extraordinary prayer. It recognizes that the relationship has been damaged, and that if healing is to take place, it will require extraordinary measures. We have grown comfortable in the routine, and so the routine must be disturbed and upended. A repentant soul is a soul that has begun to yearn for God again, “outside the camp.” Prayer Heavenly Father, we have grown dull and lethargic in our routines and rituals. We yearn for more, but know not where to turn, and so we keep looking for water in the same dried-up wells that never had the power to satisfy us in the first place. And so we set our souls on pilgrimage, turning to you in prayer and asking you to help us seek you outside the routine, the ordinary, the complacent. We know that our healing requires extraordinary measures, and we thank you for Jesus, who was crucified outside the camp so that we could be welcomed back into your presence. (Heb. 13:12-13) Give us a burden to seek you in prayer, and create in us a holy hunger for your face, your intimacy, and your presence.

Day 3

Scripture 12 Moses said to the LORD, "See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' 13Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." 14And he said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." 15And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?" 17And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name." 18Moses said, "Please show me your glory." Exodus 33:12-18 Devotional God had promised the Israelites that, despite their apostasy, he would still give them material, economic, and military success (Ex. 33:2-3), but Moses looked at all that and said, “Not good enough!” There was nothing this world had to offer Moses that could be of any comfort to him if he had not the presence of God. He said, “Please show me your glory.” The repentant soul turns to God in extraordinary prayer, but it no longer asks for success, or favor, or victory, or any other kind of worldly fulfillment. It knows that the only thing that will satisfy is God, and it is Him for which the soul now pleads. Martin Lloyd-Jones once said, “The inevitable and constant preliminary to revival has always been a thirst for God, a thirst, a living thirst for a knowledge of the living God, and a longing and a burning desire to see him acting, manifesting himself and his power, rising, and scattering his enemies.” A revived soul has ceased looking at itself. It is looking beyond the revival to the Reviver Himself. Prayer O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. O God, my God, show me your glory! Let your light shine in my heart to give me the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (Ps. 63:1-1-4, 27:4, 2 Cor. 4:6)

Day 4 Scripture 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:31 Devotional Revival is a work of the Holy Spirit, an outpouring of His power upon His people. Our part is to pray, and to sweep away the chaff. The crisis of repentance leads us to extraordinary prayer, prayer for the very face of God. The world may be shaking us, but God uses this to keep us from trusting in false foundations in order to trust in Him, the truly unshakable foundation. The disciples were shaken by the rulers and powers of the world, but they prayed not for security, nor protection, nor deliverance. They prayed that they might continue “to speak the word of God with boldness.” More than anything else, the Spirit’s work is to speak of Jesus, and when His power comes upon us, it is for the same work. We can plan, we can act, we can pray, and God calls us to do all of these. But the power and its manifestation belong to God through His Holy Spirit. Prayer O Lord, Thine and Thine alone is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. You created the heavens and the earth by the word of your mouth, even the whisper of your lips. But now, Mighty God, we ask that you will roar, and that you will fill us, your servants, with the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may proclaim your gospel with all boldness, in both word and deed. Pour your Spirit upon us, O God, revive us and make us new. We beg that you will do a mighty work of your Spirit in our midst, that we may see your hand at work in our hearts, in our church, and in our city, all to the praise of your glory and your name. Shake the world by your Spirit, O God, by the very power of your gospel.