Martyn Lloyd Jones; 20th century pastor in Britain: Following are his suggestions for specific prayers for renewal in the church.
1) Ask for the certain assurance of His presence. Moses, in Exodus 33:12-17, knew that he was in God’s care, but he desired more. He wanted to see God Himself. He wanted to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God was with him as he led the Israelites to the Promised Land. Those who really love the Lord are not content with knowing Him in a distant way.
2) Ask for renewed spiritual power (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). The church seems to suffer with a lack of energy. Much of this can be attributed to the many secular activities with which our energy is dissipated. But there is a lack of spiritual zeal, or fervor, or power. See how church attendance swings so wildly. Note the continual drop in active members. Look at the general complacency of even Bible believing Christians. Believers need to ask God to invigorate them with new power to carry forth the Gospel. Our strength, as the Apostle Paul says, is in God, and not in ourselves.
3) Ask for God to move to show that the Church is really His people (Exodus 33:16). How does the world really know that the church is God’s chosen people today? “What is needed is something that is so striking…that it will arrest the attention of the whole world. That is revival. Revival always does that.” (Lloyd-Jones, Revival, page 183).
People noticed the church in the book of Acts, during the Reformation, during the Methodist revival of the 1700s, the 1857 revival, and the 1904-05 Welsh revival. It was obvious that those events were not the works of men, but instead they were the works of God in men.
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