After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. Acts 4:31

For the past several weeks we’ve been looking at the importance of prayer.  Today I want to begin looking at the power of a praying church.

There is only one real problem in God’s Church these days, and that is the prayer life of the Church. This problem is pervasive and cuts across all churches, denominations and countries. Oh, we could list a lot of other problems that face God’s people – for example, getting the outsider to attend our services; seeing real spiritual results from our ministries; finding the right leaders for activities in our churches. There’s often the problem of finance, or the problem created by the lack of love and unity that can easily manifest itself. 

But these are all secondary and almost superficial; they only touch the edges of the situation. The real problem is the prayer life of the Church, and if that is solved, solutions to every other problem can also be found. All our difficulties would melt away if that prayer life were to become vital, powerful and, in a nutshell, revived, because prayer is the very life of the Church. It’s the life of the church’s individual members, of the church’s worship, and of the church’s different activities and ministries.

In Acts 4:23-35 we can find seven marks of a praying church that are clearly laid out. And I want us to look at these over the next several weeks.
 

1. In a praying church people recognize of the supreme importance of prayer, and therefore there is a spontaneous desire.

After Peter and John had been in prison and then released, they joined the Christians in Jerusalem and reported on all that had happened (verse 23). When the Christians heard Peter and John’s report, we don’t see them holding a conference or seminar. No, they prayed (verse 24). Why? Because they recognized that prayer was fundamental, not supplemental, and they all felt the same way about it. Listening to a video clip last night at our prayer meeting, Pastor Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Gospel Tabernacle in New York City, very eloquently shared how every Christian movement, beginning in the New Testament and through history, started with prayer.  When there was a problem, they prayed. When there was a need, they prayed, when there was persecution, they prayed.  They understood the supreme importance of prayer. Do we?  And do we have a spontaneous desire to get together in prayer? It’s no wonder that the unbeliever doesn’t believe in a living God who answers prayer, when so many Christians have so little real appreciation of its importance and so little desire for it!  

Let’s not be a part of the unconcerned Christians.  Let’s become a church devoted to prayer.