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Online Pastor Announces a New Series about How to PrayDateline: Berkeley, CA For: Immediate release.
Dr. Roland Trujillo, host of Talk to a Pastor Online, announced a new series of articles on How to Pray. These articles will be posted as blog posts at Talk to a Pastor Online. "This is an important topic," says Pastor Roland. "People ask: how do I pray. As the Internet pastor, I believe it is important for me to address this issue and give people some guidance. I really want people to know that you don't have to belong to a certain religion and you don't have to say a particular set of words. God knows our heart. But it is important to ask."
"I plan to give some very specific help, and it will be completely free. All my posts are free and so are my sermon podcasts. I am excited about this new series of posts about what is prayer and how to pray.
The first post will be a post I wrote a few months ago in response to questions people asked me. The title is: Does Prayer Work? In other words, is prayer effective. I think this will be a nice introduction to my new series."
While you are here - don't forget that Pastor Roland answers questions.
Send him your spirituality or religion question, your life issue, or just a question you would like to ask a pastor, and he will quite possible answer it.
P.S. Sometimes pastor is available for free chat so you can live chat your question to him and get an answer right away.
Dr. Trujillo who has a Doctorate in Pastoral Psychology is the author of 16 books on coping with stress and finding the spiritual side of life. Dr. Trujillo is well know as Pastor Roland or Pastor Rolly. His popular web site offers free chat to ask questions, and he also answers people who ask him to "pray for me." He is host of the Talk to a pastor Radio Program in Southern California.
Read Does Prayer Work? Pastor Roland's first post in the series
How to Pray Past 2 - Will God Answer My Prayers
The Need of a General Revival
If we are to pray aright in such a time as this, much of our prayer
should be for a general revival. If there was ever a time in which
there was need to cry unto God in the words of the Psalmist, "Wilt Thou
not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?" (Ps. 85:6)
it is this day in which we live. It is surely time for the Lord to
work, for men have made void His law (Ps. 119:126). The voice of the
Lord given in the written Word is set at naught both by the world and
the church. Such a time is not a time for discouragement--the man who
believes in God and believes in the Bible can never be discouraged; but
it is a time for Jehovah Himself to step in and work. The intelligent
Christian, the wide-awake watchman on the walls of Zion, may well cry
with the Psalmist of old, "It is time for Jehovah to work, for they
have made void Thy law." (Ps. 119:126, Am.R.V.)
The great need of the day is a general revival.
Let us consider first of all what a general revival is.
A revival is a time of quickening or impartation of life. As God alone
can give life, a revival is a time when God visits His people and by
the power of His Spirit imparts new life to them, and through them
imparts life to sinners dead in trespasses and sins. We have religious
excitements gotten up by the cunning methods and hypnotic influence of
the mere professional evangelist; but these are not revivals and are
not needed. They are the devil's imitations of a revival. NEW LIFE FROM
GOD--that is a revival. A general revival is a time when this new life
from God is not confined to scattered localities, but is general
throughout Christendom and the earth.
The reason why a general revival is needed is that spiritual dearth and
desolation and death is general. It is not confined to any one country,
though it may be more manifest in some countries than in others. It is
found in foreign mission fields as well as in home fields. We have had
local revivals. The life-giving Spirit of God has breathed upon this
minister and that, this church and that, this community and that; but
we need, we sorely need, a revival that shall be widespread and
general.
Let us look for a few moments at the results of a revival. These
results are apparent in ministers, in the church and in the unsaved.
1. The results of a revival in a minister are:
(1) The minister has a new love for souls. We ministers as a rule have
no such love for souls as we ought to have, no such love for souls as
Jesus had, no such love for souls as Paul had. But when God visits His
people the hearts of ministers are greatly burdened for the unsaved.
They go out in great longing for the salvation of their fellow men.
They forget their ambition to preach great sermons and for fame, and
simply long to see men brought to Christ.
(2) When true revivals come ministers get a new love for God's Word and
a new faith in God's Word. They fling to the winds their doubts and
criticisms of the Bible and of the creeds, and go to preaching the
Bible and especially Christ crucified. Revivals make ministers who are
loose in their doctrines orthodox. A genuine wide-sweeping revival
would do more to turn things upside down and thus get them right side
up than all the heresy trials ever instituted.
(3) Revivals bring to ministers new liberty and power in preaching. It
is no week-long grind to prepare a sermon, and no nerve-consuming
effort to preach it after it has been prepared. Preaching is a joy and
a refreshment, and there is power in it in times of revival.
2. The results of a revival on Christians generally are as marked as
its results upon the ministry.
(1) In times of revival Christians come out from the world and live
separated lives. Christians who have been dallying with the world, who
have been playing cards and dancing and going to the theater and
indulging in similar follies, give them up. These things are found to
be incompatible with increasing life and light.
(2) In times of revival Christians get a new spirit of prayer.
Prayer-meetings are no longer a duty, but become the necessity of a
hungry, importunate heart. Private prayer is followed with new zest.
The voice of earnest prayer to God is heard day and night. People no
longer ask, "Does God answer prayer?" They know He does, and besiege
the throne of grace day and night.
(3) In times of revival Christians go to work for lost souls.
They do not go to meeting simply to enjoy themselves and get blessed.
They go to meeting to watch for souls and to bring them to Christ. They
talk to men on the street and in the stores and in their homes. The
cross of Christ, salvation, heaven and hell become the subjects of
constant conversation. Politics and the weather and new bonnets and the
latest novels are forgotten.
(4) In times of revival Christians have new joy in Christ. Life is joy,
and new life is new joy. Revival days are glad days, days of heaven on
earth.
(5) In times of revival Christians get a new love for the Word of God.
They want to study it day and night. Revivals are bad for saloons and
theaters, but they are good for bookstores and Bible agencies.
3. But revivals also have a decided influence on the unsaved world.
(1) First of all, they bring deep conviction of sin. Jesus said that
when the Spirit was come He would convince the world of sin (Jn.
16:7,8). Now we have seen that a revival is a coming of the Holy
Spirit, and therefore there must be a new conviction of sin, and there
always is. If you see something men call a revival, and there is no
conviction of sin, you may know at once that it is bogus. It is a sure
mark.
(2) Revivals bring also conversion and regeneration. When God refreshes
His people, He always converts sinners also. The first result of
Pentecost was new life and power to the one hundred and twenty
disciples in the upper room; the second result was three thousand
conversions in a single day. It is always so. I am constantly reading
of revivals here and there, where Christians were greatly helped but
there were no conversions. I have my doubts about that kind. If
Christians are truly refreshed, they will get after the unsaved by
prayer and testimony and persuasion, and there will be conversions.
2. Look now at the church:
(1) Look at the doctrinal state of the church. It is bad enough. Many
do not believe in the whole Bible. The book of Genesis is a myth, Jonah
is an allegory, and even the miracles of the Son of God are questioned.
The doctrine of prayer is old-fashioned, and the work of the Holy
Spirit is sneered at. Conversion is unnecessary, and hell is no longer
believed in. Then look at the fads and errors that have sprung up out
of this loss of faith, Christian Science, Unitarianism, Spiritualism,
Universalism, Babism, Metaphysical Healing, etc., etc., a perfect
pandemonium of doctrines of devils.
(2) Look at the spiritual state of the church. Worldliness is rampant
among church members. Many church members are just as eager as any in
the rush to get rich. They use the methods of the world in the
accumulation of wealth, and they hold just as fast to it as any when
they have gotten it.
Prayerlessness abounds among church members on every hand. Some one has
said that Christians on the average do not spend more than five minutes
a day in prayer.
Neglect of the Word of God goes hand in hand with neglect of prayer to
God. Very many Christians spend twice as much time every day wallowing
through the mire of the daily papers as they do bathing in the
cleansing laver of God's Holy Word. How many Christians average an hour
a day spent in Bible study?
Along with neglect of prayer and neglect of the Word of God goes a lack
of generosity. The churches are rapidly increasing in wealth, but the
treasuries of the missionary societies are empty. Christians do not
average a dollar a year for foreign missions. It is simply appalling.
Then there is the increasing disregard for the Lord's Day. It is fast
becoming a day of worldly pleasure, instead of a day of holy service.
The Sunday newspaper with its inane twaddle and filthy scandal takes
the place of the Bible; and visiting and golf and bicycle, the place of
the Sunday-school and church service.
Christians mingle with the world in all forms of questionable
amusements. The young man and young woman who does not believe in
dancing with its rank immodesties, the card table with its drift toward
gambling, and the theater with its ever-increasing appeal to lewdness,
is counted an old fogy.
Then how small a proportion of our membership has really entered into
fellowship with Jesus Christ in His burden for souls! Enough has been
said of the spiritual state of the church.
3. Now look at the state of the world. (1) Note how few conversions there are. The Methodist church, which has led the way in aggressive work has actually lost more members than it has gained the last year. Here and there a church has a large number of accessions upon confession of faith, but these churches are rare exceptions; and where there are such accessions, in how few cases are the conversions deep, thorough and satisfactory.
(2) There is lack of conviction of sin. Seldom are men overwhelmed with a sense of their awful guilt in trampling under foot the Son of God. Sin is regarded as a "misfortune" or as "infirmity"
I hope you enjoyed these excerpts from How to Pray by
