Devotions

I once heard a missionary speak of great awakenings around the world. It was clear that in every case, the “spirit of prayer” is tied to the last harvest. In Vietnam, China, Siberia, the Amazon, Africa, God’s people are praying with fire and fervency — weeping and crying out to God, seeking His face, dealing with sin and turning to righteousness.

You cannot manufacture this kind of inclination to pray; it is the result of the spirit of supplication. We called for weeks of prayer at Times Square Church and experienced a small taste of this outpouring of the Spirit. Indeed, there is a measure of fire and diligence in prayer throughout this nation but we have not yet experienced the outpouring of the spirit of supplication.

God is showing me that even the desire and inclination to pray must come from the Holy Spirit. The answer is found in Zechariah 10:1: “Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain. The Lord will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.”

We must ask the Lord for the spirit of supplication! He is telling us in Zechariah, “Ask and I will give you this burden from heaven. But you must seek it from Me.”

It is time we started asking the Lord, “Oh, God, pour out your Holy Spirit on me that I may learn to pray! Open up the fountain and let me be a part of Your final harvest!”

Once His spirit of supplication showers down upon you, you will find yourself praying for holiness, godliness, purity. You will intercede for your lost loved ones and weep over this dying world. But you must ask the Holy Spirit to do it in you — and then trust Him! 

Let us look at Daniel’s prayer: “Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications … incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations … for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercies” (Daniel 9:17-18).

The word “supplication” is never used in the Bible except to denote a cry or prayer that is vocalized; in other words, it is not private or a meditation. Supplication definitely has something to do with the voice!

The Hebrew word for “supplication” signifies “an olive branch wrapped with wool, or some kind of cloth, waved by a supplicant seeking peace or surrender.” Simply put, these were flags of surrender and they signified a cry of total, unconditional surrender.

Picture a battle-weary soldier, ragged and worn, tired and overwhelmed, stuck in a foxhole of self-will. He is all alone and has come to the end of himself, so he breaks a branch off a tree and ties his white undershirt to it. He then lifts it up and crawls out of his foxhole, crying, “I surrender! I give up!”

This is supplication! It says, “I can’t fight this battle anymore. I’m lost and in despair.”

Supplication is not just calling on God to do what you want; it is not pleading with Him to assist you in your plans. On the contrary, it is a total giving up of your will and your way.

For centuries Christians have called on God while full of self-will, crying, “God, send me here, send me there, give me this, give me that.” But in the last days the Holy Ghost is going to fall with great power and produce a sense of spiritual bankruptcy. We will wake up to the fact that even with all our money, brains, programs, ministries, and plans, we have not even touched this world. The truth is, the Church has lost ground and become weak and pitiful.

There must be surrender! Our cries must be accompanied by a willingness to give up everything in our life that is unlike Jesus Christ.

The book of Titus tells us that grace is given to us as power over sin, to enable us to live sober, holy lives. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13).

There has been a marvelous measure of this grace in God’s people since Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has sent conviction of sin on all nations, teaching believers of every race and tongue how to forsake ungodliness and worldly lust. The result has been a people who live soberly and righteously and who long for the coming of Jesus.

The Bible says in Zechariah 12:10 that the Holy Ghost will be poured out as “the spirit of grace and supplication.” I believe this spirit of grace will turn God’s people completely from worldliness and produce in them a cry for purity of heart.

We are going to witness convicting, sin-exposing, repentance preaching beyond anything ever seen in history. All unrighteousness, ungodliness and foolishness will be exposed and those in God’s house will feel compelled to do right.

I received a phone call from a dear brother in the Lord, the head of a ministry. He and other leaders in this ministry had been gathering to seek the Lord and soon the Holy Ghost began to expose sin in their midst. Several on the ministry team were dismissed and the brother said to me, “Now that the Holy Spirit has come down, there is a pressure to do right.”

His phrase struck me and I couldn’t shake it: a pressure to do right. When the Holy Spirit comes down and exposes sin, those who have been lukewarm or are living in compromise become convicted.

Beloved, the pressure to forsake sin and do right is going to intensify in God’s last-days Church. 

It doesn’t matter what kind of manifestations you see in a so-called revival. It is not a true move of God unless it is focused on the harvest! Holy Ghost rains always fall to produce an ingathering of souls.

God poured out His Spirit at Pentecost to soften and prepare the ground for the gospel seed to be sown. Spirit-filled believers were sent out from the Upper Room into the entire world to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

After almost two thousand years of sowing and growing, it is now time for harvest! All who died in Christ up to now represent the first fruits or the early harvest. The Lord has been waiting patiently for His final, mighty harvest.

“Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and the latter rain” (James 5:7).

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). This passage speaks of the promised latter rain that must precede the final harvest.

Many so-called Holy Ghost movements have vanished quickly because they were man-centered — focusing on gifts, self-improvement, happiness. But if a move is truly of the Spirit, it will result in a hunger to reach a lost and dying world. In fact, Jesus tied the harvest to lost souls when He said, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38).

Any true outpouring of the Holy Spirit will focus on this prayer of Jesus. The very few revivals documented as genuine all were blessed with great harvests of souls. There is no true revival without a great ingathering of lost souls!

“Jesus is beautiful.” I hesitate to use this phrase because it carries so little power to convey the awesome reality of His glory. And I’m not using “beautiful” the way we normally do, meaning, “Isn’t she lovely?” or “Isn’t he handsome?” We can’t fathom all the depths of Jesus’ beauty —how glorious, amazing, wonderful, separate and unique He is.

Yet all His attributes bear saying again and again and again. Jesus is tender, kind, precious. He is full of majesty and splendor. He is wondrous, strong, mighty, powerful. He is clever, wise, outstanding. And He never fails!

Jesus never slips, He’s never weak and He’s never knocked down for a single moment. He is always listening to us and He always advocates for us. He never takes a break from fighting Satan for us, and never stops loving us even when we fail.

The Bible describes Jesus in ways it would never describe us. Isaiah says there was no deceit in Him, meaning He had no false motives. He didn’t preach to attract crowds or heal to impress people. It also says He was tempted in all ways, meaning that He was subject to every kind of battle you and I face. Yet He is so beautiful that even in those temptations He was without sin. In fact, He said of the Father, “I am pleased to do Your will.”

So how did Jesus describe Himself? He says He is gentle and humble in nature. Yet His use of the word “humble” does not mean self-effacing; His meaning is much stronger, suggesting He willingly lowered Himself from His rightful place in heaven to become human flesh. He set aside His reign from on high to take on a dependent form of divinity, so that as a man He relied on His Father to empower all His divine activities on earth. Talk about real humility! Who gives up power once they have it? And nobody has the kind of power Jesus possessed. What He did is beautiful!