United In Prayer, Two

Daily Reading: Psalm 12; Acts 4

When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God…After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:24a, 31

Four times in Acts we find the word “together” combined with the word “prayer.” The translation I am using says, “together in prayer,” but the best way to translate these words from the greek would be to say, “in one accord they prayed.” That may not seem like anything substantial but every time we hear “in one accord they prayed” God comes and does something big. In three of the four circumstances this “in one accord they prayed” is followed by a new filling of the Holy Spirit.

I was taught that when you see something repeated in Scripture it means you should take notice and if it is repeated three times it is really important. So there must be something to this “praying in one accord” that we find in Acts. Several years ago I saw an interviewer ask Billy Graham why his evangelistic crusades seemed to have such an impact. Was it because of the way he preached, or was it because of the unbelievable support structure of the Billy Graham Association? Graham was very quick to downplay anything other than united prayer. He expressed that from the very beginning of the Billy Graham Association every crusade that ever took place was preceded by a multitude of people joining together in united prayer, not just for days or weeks, but for months and sometimes years before the crusade took place. 

Do we want to see God do big things today? If we do, than the natural question is, are we ready to unite ourselves in prayer? Not just the typical prayers for Aunt Jenny’s persistent back spasms or my friend Jeff’s conflict at work. Are we ready to join together in communal prayer petitioning God on behalf of our community? Are we ready to pray for the lost, the least, and the hurting in our neighborhoods? Are we ready to pray for boldness in our proclamation of Christ to our friends? 

I believe God is waiting to do something beyond what any of us could ever imagine, right here in The Villages. It will not happen, though, because we come up with some great advertising campaign or even get a new building. It will happen when we join together to begin the hard task of united prayer!

Lord, unite us in prayer for our community and world. Amen.