Exhortation for the New Year
Share This With the World!
The following was used by permission and originally posted on Billy Burns Blog, Monday, December 31, 2007. May it challenge you in your ministry and vision!
I recently came across this prayer which concluded the sermon The Pentecostal Wind and Fire preached by the preacher’s preacher, Charles Spurgeon, on September 18, 1881. This prayer summarizes my passion and desire for 2008.
"May God send us a season of glorious disorder! Oh for a sweep of wind that will set the seas in motion and make our ironclad brethren now lying so quietly at anchor to roll from stem to stern! As for us, who are as the little ships, we will fly before the gale if it will but speed us to our desired haven! Oh for fire to fall again-fire which shall affect the most stolid! This is a sure remedy for indifference. When a flake of fire falls into a man’s bosom, he knows it. And when the Word of God comes home to a man’s soul, he knows it, too. Oh that such fire might first sit upon the disciples and then fall on all around!
And, to close, there was then a daily increase of the Church-"The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." Conversion was going on perpetually! Additions to the Church were not events which happened once a year, but they were everyday matters, "so mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed." O Spirit of God, You are ready to work with us, today, even as You did then! Delay not, we beseech You, but work at once! Break down every barrier that hinders the incomings of Your might! Overturn, overturn, O sacred wind! Consume all obstacles, O heavenly fire, and give us now both hearts of flame and tongues of fire to preach Your reconciling Word for Jesus’ sake. Amen."
I can’t add to this cry of desperation. Lord, grant our prayer. Selah!
Billy Burns, www.billyburnsministries.com
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