American Reformation Church Prayer Journal 31
ARC Prayer Meeting
LEONARD RAVENHILL: “No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop window to display one’s talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off. Poverty-stricken as the Church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer.
We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.”
LEONARD RAVENHILL was no joke. He was a committed man of God. His love for the Lord and his devotion to the Gospel was legendary. He was a British Christian Evangelist that moved to America and served the Lord faithfully for many years in our nation. His most notable work is a book called “Why Revival Tarries?”
Through his teaching and books, Ravenhill addressed the disparities he perceived between the New Testament Church and the Church in his time and called for adherence to the principles of biblical revival. His major emphasis was prayer and not just any prayer, but prayer that would lead to Biblical revival as recorded in the book of Acts. Men like Keith Green, Charles Stanley, Paul Washer, David Wilkerson, and A.W. Tozer were all influenced by this dear brother in the Lord.
What can we glean from his quote on prayer? He believed it was a failure of prayer, a poverty of spirit caused by prayerlessness that led to religious show and appearances void of God’s presence and power to advance the Gospel of the Kingdom.
He was challenging the church on making prayer that was associated with passion, tears, and even agonizing prayers a priority in our worship and service to God. He was convinced that no Christian rises above his prayer life. In many ways we can fail the Lord and become poverty stricken, but the place where we are most stricken and in poverty is in the place of prayerlessness as God’s people.
I know in my own personal life of service to God, I need to be reminded and challenged to make prayer more of a Kingdom priority and I pray you see the need for this as well.
