“Cultivating a responsive heart of extravagant devotion to Jesus takes time and deliberate effort. Love does not grow automatically but rather it automatically diminishes unless intentionally cultivated. A responsive heart to God, renewed in freshness and tenderness, is precious and rare, to be guarded with great care and renewed day by day. Satan’s first priority against the Church is to lead us astray from cultivating the ability to be responsive to God with wholehearted love and extravagant devotion. If Satan leads us astray from the purity of devotion to Jesus then our service and love for others will eventually fail.” Dana Candler
As we build the House of Prayer in our cities, we must realize that it’s all about God coming and taking His place in our hearts. It’s about loving God and preparing the earth for the reign of Jesus, the King. It’s about obeying the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, and with ALL your mind” (Matthew 22:37-38). The fire of loving God will ignite our faith to live a life of prayer and devotion. He wants us to turn to Him with all our heart (Joel 2:12). Then He will pour out His Spirit in our nations.
God wants to transform our hearts in the prayer room. There is no better way to experience a changed heart as in the prayer room. He wants to impact our hearts so that we impact our cities and the nations. If we love God, we will love others better and with a much greater consistency. Let’s remember that the Church of Ephesus had left their first love (Revelation 2:1-5). Their once fiery love and passion for Jesus had grown cold. Their minds had been led astray from the simplicity of pure devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3). Loving God and living a holy life must be our primary focus.
Houses of Prayer help us to encounter God on a deep level. Growing in an intimate relationship with God should be our ambition, our highest calling. This means that we know and are deeply known by God. We have a relational knowledge of God and not just a factual understanding. God is a person to be known, and our knowledge of Him produces affection. We position our hearts in the prayer room to receive the love He desires to manifest to us. He wants to partner with us, and He releases blessing to those who are in unity with His heart. Loving God was Jesus’ last public invitation and declaration before He went to the cross (Matthew 22:37-38). It is the great commandment and first priority to God. We impact His heart when we love Him. This should be our life focus (Song of Solomon 8:6-7).
As a child I would try to catch butterflies in a small net. In those days there were several country roads where they loved to freely fly, and monarch butterflies were plentiful. In many of my travels to other nations I have seen outstanding displays of God’s creative and rather remarkable handiwork in butterflies and moths. The colors, designs, and sizes are beyond imagination with reds, yellows, and oranges etched into a perfect design.
We can learn a lot from these colorful insects, and I am sure we can all testify to the transformation (metamorphosis) that takes place as we watch the miracle of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. A crawling ugly and repulsive caterpillar crawls up into a ball and seems to have died with no appearance of life as it lays imprisoned in a tomblike cocoon. Suddenly after a long time delay - it struggles - it pushes - it endures - it works hard to break out of that cocoon and comes forth as a beautiful and graceful butterfly! And did you know that the whole purpose of the butterfly is to reproduce itself, and it spends all its life seeking to do this? It’s amazing! But there is a great problem when this struggle doesn’t occur.
A man found the cocoon of a butterfly. One day when a small opening appeared, he sat and watched it trying to struggle its body through the small hole but without making much progress. It seemed to actually stop and go no further. He thought, “I’ll help free this butterfly”. So he took scissors and snipped off the cocoon. The butterfly easily emerged but had a small body and shriveled wings. He thought the wings would expand, and the butterfly would fly. It didn’t happen. The butterfly could never fly but could only crawl in it’s swollen body and shriveled wings.
No beautiful transformation took place.
That man didn’t realize that it was necessary for the butterfly to struggle in the cocoon to get through that tiny opening. Fluid would force its way from the body of the butterfly to its wings, making it ready for flight once it achieved freedom from the cocoon. God wants to bring transformation into His Church. He wants to transform all of our lives. Often we want the easy way out. Struggle, tests, trials, and tribulations are not pleasant words. But this is exactly what we need in order to see transformation in our lives. This is what is needed in the prayer movement as God brings transformation onto the earth.
Developing 24/7 prayer in our cities and increasing the level of prayer in our churches involves perseverance and struggle. But it brings transformation in our lives personally, corporately, and regionally. Obstacles are necessary for transformation. We would be crippled and without strength without them - We need to struggle to see things from God’s perspective and do things His way - We need perseverance as we prepare for His soon return to earth. He is strengthening our character and stabilizing our hope in the eternal. He is creating within us a faith in His promises.
How do we grow in intimacy and the knowledge of God?
God must reveal Himself to us, and He does it as we behold Jesus in the prayer room (Hebrews 1:1-3, Matthew 11:27, Colossians 2:2-3, 1:19, 2:9, 2 Corinthians 4:6). God wants us filled with fiery love and desire for Him, and the prayer room is the perfect place to cultivate this transformational love relationship. What we behold of God’s heart we become. We are like the beautiful emerging butterfly. Our identity is in Jesus. We discover who we are and what is our worth and destiny by encountering His heart for us in the prayer room. We become successful as lovers of God, and we begin to measure our success in an entirely new way. Imagine what will happen in our cities when God’s people begin to measure success in this way. There will be no more envy and competition. We will be seeking God and His ways, not ours.
When we prayerfully adore and study the person and work of Christ in the prayer room and live obedient lives, we grow in intimacy. This is not studying academically, but it is more a drinking in of the beauty of Christ just as we would behold a beautiful landscape. We fix our attention and affection upon Christ. We listen carefully - We hear - We behold - We gaze in stillness upon Christ and are transformed into His likeness. We use Scripture as we do this, and we give God our time. Jesus must be our focal point. Our hearts will be unsatisfied if He isn’t. He must be central in our study, devotion, and discipleship. We must be dynamically connected to Him. We are His inheritance and delight (1 Corinthians 3:23, Song of Solomon 7:10, 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, Romans 14:8).
God is using prayer to help prepare and purify His Church all across the earth. Remember that a 24/7 House of Prayer in your city will help prepare Christians to live fully for God. God is using the prayer room to sanctify and cleanse His people and make her a Church filled with His glory. The Church is like the transformed butterfly emerging from its cocoon. In the prayer room we learn to abide by dialoging with God and listening to the Holy Spirit actively within us as He gives us wisdom, direction, and empowers us to live the Christian life - We are attentive and engaged - We are developing a heart connection with the Holy Spirit - We are learning the reality of John 15:5-7. In the prayer room we cultivate a transformed heart. Don’t be discouraged by any difficulties you encounter as you build 24/7 prayer in your city. God is developing a beautiful butterfly and teaching you to fly. Remember that without Him we can do nothing, but with Him we will bear much fruit!
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
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