The Call to Prayer...The Call to Love

It seems our generation is longing for something more than the weekly religious service and religious routine. There is a longing to really know Him - to know Jesus in an intimate way. There is a fresh cry in my heart towards prayer...not asking God for things, but waiting upon Him - giving Him my ear - leaning upon His heart and listening to what He wants. What do you want Jesus? What do you desire from us? We have spent time and effort doing our plans and programs...now, Lord...what is it that you desire? I want to be your friend, to listen to you - to hear your heart and feel what you feel. When someone cultivates this type of prayer - the prayer of waiting upon Him in humility and brokeness, bringing Him nothing but our empty hearts, He will respond. We need His heart in our day. He don't need another good sounding worhsip song or motivating speech. We need the Word of the Lord - we need to encounter Jesus in such a way that His purifying love ruins us for nothing more than the things that move His heart. The poor, the sick, those that can't help themselves. Justice! The oppressed, the abused, the lonely...that we would allow the Lord to bring us to such a low place that we can identify with others as He identified with us. It is not a time to think we know how to do it - it's a time to fall on our faces and cry out for God to bring His power and love in our day. Awaken our hearts Lord!
Another thing I've been thinking about how the Lord is jealous for the affections of our generation. He wants a heart connection with us - not just our outward actions, but a real heart connection - to where we know Him on the inside - we encounter Him in our hearts and emotions in such a way that we are changed by the reality of His love. He is an affectionate God and He is jealous over our affections -anything that we would lift our souls to other than Him He considers an idol. May we come back to the place of prayer and back to our first love in Jesus. It's anything but dry religion - it is a love that consumes and transforms the hardest hearts and satisfies the deepest longings of the human heart. Shake everything that can be shaken in our lives, Lord - it's time we put off EVERYTHING that hinders us - to find the place of prayer again...to give our time to Him - to have an urgency of the hour in which we live!!! To hear the cry from heaven for lovers to be raised up - who carry the heart and affection of heaven. Make us friends of God! Giving up everything - letting go of the past and pressing on to what you have for us Jesus! Set eternity in our hearts that we would be awakened to this calling Lord! Stir us up again!