I long for us, corporately, as the Crosspoint family, to grow in being prayerful.  I long for your households to grow to be more prayerful.  If you’re married, that your marriage would be more prayerful.  That your workplace would be more prayerful.  That you students, would grow in prayerfulness in your schools.

In some ways, I could sum up my heart for the coming year, being teach us to pray Lord.  Lead us to be more prayerful in our lives.  Not out of guilt, but out of joyful obedience and in response to the great love of our Father in Heaven.

Lead us to wait and watch expectantly.  Lead our hearts to reflect that of David’s who wrote Psalm 5:1-3.

Psalm 5:1-3:  ¹ Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament.  ² Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. ³ In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.

The point of the waiting and watching in prayer is that it would lead us to a complete dependence upon Him.  An active dependence on God that patiently awaits His timing with confident expectation.

As we move into another calendar year of ministry, what are the requests we are laying before the Lord as a church?  There are 6.  Wake Us.  Humble Us.  Change Us.  Anchor Us.  Unite Us.  Send Us.

Here is the first…Wake Us

Wake us up from our sleep Lord.  Wake us from our slumber.  Wake us from our apathy.  Wake us from our complacency.  Wake us from our indifference.

I believe there are far too many of us just going through the motions of the Christian life.  We’re showing up, we’re giving to this or that, we’re serving here and there, we’re praying before meals…but if we were honest there is not a lot of joy, life or vitality in our walk with the Lord.  We are just kind of sleeping our way through this life, and hitting the proverbial snooze bar when it comes to spiritual things.

The Spirit convicts us of something, exposes something in us that we need to repent from, some area of our hearts that we resist His Lordship, and the Spirit prompts as if He is the alarm clock going off, and we in turn hit the snooze bar.

But just like an alarm on our phones or a clock, the Spirit is relentless.  Why?  Because He loves us.  Because He is for us.  Because He is out for His glory and our joy.  Because He is going to finish the work that He has begun in us, and He will not allow our sleepiness or our apathy to get in the way.  He will break through, and He will continue to call us to wake up.

Wake up to His presence.  Wake up to His truth.  Wake up to His power.  Wake up to His unfailing love.  Wake up to His leading.

You might remember the story of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In Matthew 26, you read this story.  Jesus’ arrest is right around the corner.

Verse 36 says, ³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” Jesus then begins to pray, and then in verse 40-41 it says…⁴⁰ Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. ⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

He then proceeds to go away a second time to pray, comes back, and they are sleeping again.  Jesus goes away a third time, comes back…and they are sleeping yet again.  It is like the disciples keep hitting snooze.

We can dog on the disciples and say what is wrong with you guys?  And yet our lives identify with theirs probably more than we’d care to admit?  Christians are notoriously sleepy.  This is why we are called to be watchful.  To be aware of His work, to be aware that His Spirit is alive and active.

Christian, where is the Spirit at work in your life, calling you to wake up, and you keep hitting snooze?  You keep falling back asleep?  He is asking you to lead this or serve here, or share your faith with so and so, or trust Him in the area of money, or to start delighting in the reading of His Word, or go public in baptism, or maybe something else, and yet you are hitting snooze?

Maybe you have allowed the devil a foothold in your life through temptation and you’ve stopped being on guard.  Through your slumber, the enemy of your soul has made you think that this ongoing sin is something just to live with, rather than be put to death?

Lord, wake us.   Wake us from our apathy, wake us to the glorious joy that it is in trusting in, following, and daily worshipping a God who is truly awe-some.  Lord, wake us to the reality of who you truly are!  I pray the Lord might wake us and stir up our affections for Him and His work in the Kingdom.

Lord, wake us.