When Daniel Nash Prayed, Heaven responded. Charles Finney, whom Father Nash labored with, was quoted as saying that revival was like a crop of wheat–what was sown in prayer was reaped in harvest. Yet, it is not accident that within a few months after Daniel Nash died, Finney put up his regular preaching, because the power was no longer there. The power, and Charles Finney knew it, was in the prayer.
Daniel Nash was recorded to have rented out a root cellar one time, and prayed and fasted there for two weeks before breakthrough came, and word was sent to Finney. He knew when the right level of overcoming had been acheived, and, when it had, Finney preached, the Spirit fell, and many souls were saved.
During the OneThing 2012 conference, George Otis, Jr. talked about breakthrough prayer. He talked about prayer, not 24/7 in a prayer room with ambiguous results, but the kind of prayer that is specific, targeted, and, if God doesn’t move, you know it.
I love prayer, and I know that God hears every prayer. But, there is that specific kind of praying that moves things, and it is only done through faith. We need a healthy prayer movement, and, while it is right to have people praying 24/7, all the time, it is equally as right for us each to have those specific times with God’s destiny, where we see either the fruit or failure of our endeavor. And, there are failures. Not everything that happens is God’s plan. But, if we are willing to keep Him at the center, to lift Him up even when it seems like things turn against us, he can turn even our failures into good for us.
If we do not acknowledge that we can lose a battle, we can never know that we can win one. If we do not acknowledge that all sickness is not God’s will, we will never be confident that it is always God’s will to heal. Sure, there may be reasons why we fall ill and even fall asleep early, but it’s still not God’s heart. He would rather us do right, and be well, and that is all part of prayer, healing, and deliverance.
The purpose of praying is that it changes things. It availeth much! The goal of our praying is to see God’s Kingdom and will established in our lives here, today, right now on this planet in our midst. If it is not, it is not faith!
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
If we do not pray with faith, we should not expect to receive. But, if we even have a little of what Jesus called faith, we will see the world change! If we even had a mustard seed, He says we can move mountains.
That is what Daniel Nash did when he touched Heaven. That is what George Otis Jr. was talking about with breakthrough prayer.
Yes, we should continue to see night and day intercession continue and increase throughout the Earth. But, may each heart be faced with the personal challenge to see something they need changed, and to pray until they receive the faith to see it changed.
It is in both the corporate and the personal encounter that we grow and increase. We do not want to go merely on someone else’s testimony of faith, but we need our own. And, until we have a need, a true dire circumstance, our faith remains yet untested. But that tried faith is like the gold refined in the fire.
As we each have these encounters, and bring that living and active faith into the corporate, continuous flow of worship, we will see greater and greater heights to which He will bring us there.
And, in that glory, we all will cry Holy, Holy, Holy!
