Inter-Fellowship Prayer Meetings

The Inter Fellowship Prayer Meetings on Sunday nights this past semester have been awesome. I must say these meetings have been a great highlight and blessing to me every week. I hope that it was the same for many others.

You can check out some of the pictures here in my friend Edgar’s album. He’s been faithfully taking pictures of our meetings and putting them up on this album:

https://picasaweb.google.com/edgarlei/InterfellowshipRevivalPrayerMeetingsSpring2011#

It was pretty cool to know that they started from praying together with brothers and sisters from other fellowships at a conference and developing into what it was at the end of the semester. It started from a desire to pray for revival on this campus which brought together more and more people from our different Christian ministries. We have spent amazing time together to pray for the different ministries, the campus, for believers and non believers on campus.

There’s really three things that we should be constantly praying for in our prayer meetings.Though sometimes our meeting structures have been a bit different, sometimes we have focused solely on sharing and praying, sometimes strictly for each other, sometimes coming together for communion. It was really an amazing grassroots movement that came to bless myself and hopefully many others this semester.

1) Seeking and Praising God

One of the first things that we need to be doing in our times of prayer together is seeking God. We need to be constantly reminding ourselves and giving Him praise for who He is. Reminding ourselves constantly that He is the Lord and Sovereign God of our lives. We need to pray to return to His presence as God commands it. We must never forget who we are in relation to who God is.

I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me.
“Come, let us return to the LORD;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
(Hosea 5:15-6:3 ESV)

We must always be pressing on to know the Lord in a personal and intimate way. We must know Him in order for His will to be our will. We must continue to read His word and seek Him out in prayer and ask that He shower Himself upon us and our lives. Nothing starts anywhere unless you have that intimate relationship with the Lord.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for the LORD your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber.
Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep
and say, “Spare your people, O LORD,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
(Joel 2:12-17 ESV)

We must wake up daily and die daily as we wake up to our old selves. We must remind ourselves that Jesus is our master and that He has bought us with His blood. We are His slaves, slaves to righteousness. We need to rend our hearts to God and return to Him. God is calling everyone to leave their lives and return to Him. There is no excuse. We need to be seeking the Lord, that He would be shown in our lives as strength in our weakness. We must live and pray in a way that people will look upon us and our life and say, “His God is with him.”

2) Praying for the Campus

We must also be praying for the city that we live in. If the city flourishes, so shall we who live in it. We must bless the land that God has places us in. This following Psalm is about Zion, the city of God. When you read it, replace the word Zion with the word Cornell or where you are at right now. He is not only the God of Zion, but all cities on this Earth. The Earth is His and it cries out His name in glory and praise.

[Zion, the City of Our God]
[A SONG. A PSALM OF THE SONS OF KORAH.]
Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God!
His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth,
Mount Zion, in the far north,
the city of the great King.
Within her citadels God
has made himself known as a fortress.
For behold, the kings assembled;
they came on together.
As soon as they saw it, they were astounded;
they were in panic; they took to flight.
Trembling took hold of them there,
anguish as of a woman in labor.
By the east wind you shattered
the ships of Tarshish.
As we have heard, so have we seen
in the city of the LORD of hosts,
in the city of our God,
which God will establish forever. Selah
We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,
in the midst of your temple.
As your name, O God,
so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
Let Mount Zion be glad!
Let the daughters of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments!
Walk about Zion, go around her,
number her towers,
consider well her ramparts,
go through her citadels,
that you may tell the next generation
that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
He will guide us forever.
(Psalm 48:0-14 ESV)

I pray that we would pray that God would be the God and Lord over our school and our lives. I pray that He would reign in our hearts in a way that would bring glory to Himself in our school. Pray that He would reside with us on our campus. Pray that He would protect us and our campus from any and all attacks from the enemy. We must remember that we’re also in the middle of a spiritual battle. Pray that His presence on our campus and within the Body of Christ would bring joy to all people. Pray especially that as people walk upon our campus, as they see the body of Christ, that we would be able to tell the next generation of students that our God resides here, He is here forever and He guides us in all of our life.

3) Praying for each other 

Finally, I ask and encourage you all to be constantly intentionally reaching out to your brothers and sisters. See how they’re doing. Love on them in the way Christ loved us and sought and cared for us and all our cares. But don’t just be there for people in their times of sorrow but rejoice with them in all of life, especially when the Lord is blessing them and working mighty works in their life.

Love God, Love People, Make Disciples.