You are able

Do you wonder if you are good enough to pray, get a hearing with God, and get an answer? This world's system is one of special access given to special people. If you are rich enough, wear the right clothes, have enough education, or have the right family pedigree, you will be allowed inside life's velvet rope.

Fortunately, God is not like this at all. He says, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." He said, "whosoever," and that means you. Further more, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Ask whatever you will.

We do not have to earn a station in life, or get the proper documentation to get an audience with God. He just wants US. We must be willing, not wealthy.

This should cause us great joy, because not only is God willing to hear us and help us, he is big enough to fulfill us; all of us. We don't have to take a number. He will never leave us not forsake us.

Let us start this day by renewing our desire to be a part of God's plan, His mission, and pray. This would be a great day to start and download the prayer list on the right sidebar. No church is signed up to cover this city with 24 hour prayer. Can you pray one hour?

Adding works to our faith

I heard of this a couple of days ago, and it seems to be going viral: people going into Wal-marts and K-marts and paying off people's layaway purchases for Christmas.



The first time I heard of this, the woman who got her bill paid said she was going to take what she was going to spend and do the same thing for someone else. It was reminiscent of the movie, Pay it Forward.

This holiday season, let's remember that while we are praying, that we should add our works to our faith and do some good while we are at it. But then the real test is making it a part of our lives during the rest of our year.

Today, there is no church covering us with 24 hour prayer. We must take up the slack as individuals!

Christopher Hitchens is now defending his thesis

Today we are being covered with 24 hour prayer by the congregation of Abundant Grace.

Famous atheist Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday. He was the author of "God is Not Great," and he had a huge following. I am not saying this to gloat about his passing, but to remind us that there are many people who have a really big investment in there being no God. While many people are simply ambivalent on their way to Hell, these folk deny its very existence loudly and write books about it. Indeed, he speaks for what appears to be a growing group of noisy anti-theists who mock God if only to get my goat.

For those of us who still believe, we must pray for them to be loosed from this blindness and stubbornness. It is not the argument that will win them over, but a visitation of the Spirit of God.

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 1 Corinthians 1:21

My prayer is that their hearts will be softened and that they will not go the way of their teacher. Ours is a spiritual battle, and we will not win it with words alone. 

The Holy Ghost in the Machine

First, I want to thank Oak Park Baptist for their dedication to praying every Thursday, keeping up a prayer watch of 24 hours. Today, this is your day! They are also being joined by Parkview Baptist because they cover the 15th of every month.

I first heard the expression, "Ghost in the Machine," by a technology writer who was talking about the inexplicable way that computers sometimes act. Now, a couple of years later, I looked it up and discovered that it is a little more philosophical, referring to the primitive parts of our brains where hate, anger, and other destructive forces live.

I was listening to a radio show while driving home one night, and it depressed me. It was a bleak assessment of our American society and culture, and it left me with little hope for this nation. But then I remembered that real change is supernatural. The hopelessly embedded sin that leaves us with cycles of degradation, redemption, and apathy, followed by degradation again, does not get the final victory. There is an eternal life that outlives this cursed planet. And until then, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:2.

In this present time, we are given a new "Ghost" for our machine: the Holy Spirit, "who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:14.

This is why we pray: not just to change our temporal situations, but the eternal situations of our fellow citizens, who will outlive this sin-cursed world if we do not give up!

The Season is not the Reason for Jesus

Every year we get touched by something sentimental about Christmas. Something reminds us that we have what we have by the Grace of God. We renew our sense of meaning and being. And after Christmas, so many of us forget it faster than we will forget our New Year's resolutions.

This is why it is important to be a part of something that is ongoing, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our occupation of Earth as the manifestation of the Kingdom of God is not seasonal, and it's not an event. It's reality!! God has called us to pray for the rest of our lives! And we need one another to do that because the things of this world NEVER stop calling us away from God. And the devil NEVER takes a day off. That is the reason this world, this nation, this city, and many of our own lives are lost and full of strife and hopelessness. The Kingdom of Darkness is the real City that Never Sleeps, and we are waiting to get caught up during the holidays...if we are even doing that.

I challenge you to become a better Heavenly citizen. Embrace your rights in Christ Jesus; exercise His power, and repudiate the "god of this world," Satan. (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Meanwhile, today has no 24 hour prayer sponsor...

Divine Intervention or Dumb Luck?

First, I want to say that no church has had Saturday, Sunday, OR today covered with 24 hour prayer for Operation Rolling Thunder. Second, I did take the weekend off from blogging here because I had other writing and reading obligations to attend to. I only have so much time. But I did pray the list yesterday morning before church!



This video has ORT founder Tim Taylor talking about how 24 hour prayer affected a community up north, and about how we, as one city church, are building a wall of prayer around our city.

This weekend, a woman in our church came to me with a story about a group of Christians in Jacksonville, FL mapped out their city to pray over it street by street, on foot. She said the crime rate had decreased by 12% by the time they had covered 12% of the city.

I have not had a chance to verify this story yet, but if it happened, do we believe it was the prayers of the saints, or was it dumb luck? I guess the question should really be, do we give God the glory, or do we attribute it to some sort of mathematical randomness?

This must lead, once again, to Tim Tebow. He won again yesterday, and it has raised the question in living rooms and bars across America: Is it God, or just luck? Week after week, he steps up and it appears that the Lord bails him out. Is that really what's happening? Does God really care about football? Really?? Or does God care about being glorified? That one is much easier to swallow.

And does this Tebow example matter to those of us who want divine intervention in our city? Yes, and here is why. Tebow is committed to a schedule in which he will be on public display, and millions will be watching to see if it happens again. Tim cannot walk away from the table a winner, and let the team play without him. He will be tested week after week until the season is over. But what about us?

When God answers our prayers, do we quit and go out a winner? NO! We come out and play and pray day after day. We glorify God, and let the critics come and do their worst. And our season does not end until WE do.

I challenge you to stick your neck out; spend time in prayer regularly; glorify God, and give Him the opportunity to win the big one while you are on the field, and not on the bench.

Prayer Ambitions

First, there is no church signed up to pray for 24 hours today. Second, I erroneously reported that there was no one covering yesterday, but Oak Park Baptist recently turned up their commitment to every week, and they are doing it on Thursdays. Thank you, Baptist brothers and sisters for having our backs!

Consider this passage and what it means:

12“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." -Jesus in John 14:12-14

It sounds like Jesus has pretty much given us a blank check. And I have heard arguments that discount this, as well as some exploiting it to a somewhat questionable degree. The disciples seemed to have taken this at face value. They healed the sick, did signs and wonders, and converted thousands at a time. They also had violent opposition and suffered great persecution. Was it because they failed to pray that this would not happen?

Mark 10:29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 “But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

 Ah, yes. Jesus actually promised us persecutions, so they come with the territory. Nonetheless, the check Jesus has signed off on seems to be of a considerable amount. Why are we not spending it? It may be that we are like the servant who was given a talent of silver and told to invest it. When the master returned, he brought it back to him, wrapped up in the cloth in which he had buried it. He was afraid to use it because, "Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine" Matthew 25:24-2.


I am longing to cash Jesus' big check in Gainesville. I want to see miracles, signs, wonders, and revival. I don't want to stand before Him some day, with these shiny verses in my dirty cloth, saying, "See? I remembered these! I was just afraid to use them because I thought I might make a mistake..."

This is why I am seeking after others who will pray. I believe in Jesus more than I believe in my doubts.