Prayer that Heals

2 chronicles 7 14

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.  James 5:16

RECOMMENDED READING: I KINGS 17:17-24  “17 And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him.18 And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?19 And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.20 And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.22 And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.23 And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.”

COMMENTS: This morning I have been reading about the Christian revivals experienced initially in the USA and spread abroad.   The first was 1734-1743, during a time of rampant sin.  A young pastor, Jonathan Edwards, had only seen 6 converts after many months of earnest labor until one young woman was converted. She led 300 to Christ in a town of 1100 souls. News spread and other communities followed, and in 1739 George Whitfield’s preaching struck a match.  He preached relentlessly, resulting in 80% of the 900,000 colonists personally hearing his preaching with revival following.  The second revival was 1800-1840.  By then only one in 15 Americans, 5.3M Americans populated America at that time, belonged to an evangelistic church.  James McGready, a Presbyterian pastor preached in Logan County, Kentucky sparking revival there that grew further camp revivals into Ohio. Over the next 25 years 500,000 were led to Christ.  100,000 were converted in Rochester, NY alone.  By 1850 the nations population grew to 23M but born-again Christians grew to 13% of population or 3M.

Then came the “Businessmen’s revival of 1857-1858 in New York City.  The North Dutch Church in NYC hired a businessman, Jeremiah Lanphier to be a lay missionary.  He prayed seeking God’s direction while carrying a great burden for his fellow businessmen.  3 weeks before the Bank panic of 1857, he opened the church for prayer at noon each day so businessmen could come and pray with him.  The first meeting had 6, the next had 20, and next 40.  He quickly ran out of space so other churches were opened.  Then revival broke out across city and then across USA and then world.  This revival is often called the Great Prayer Meeting Revival.  1M were converted and revival came to 4M already attending church.  Then the Civil War broke out (1861-1865) over the dispute of slavery.  31M people lived were in the USA at that time.  By the end of the war, 300,000 soldiers were converted on both sides. 

Next came the Urban Revivals of 1875-1885.  Dwight Moody, a young businessman was impacted by the 1857 revival in Chicago and led revivals in British Isles that resulted in 2.5M converts before returning to begin revival meetings in USA in 1875. Many hundreds of thousands were converted during his revival services while being attacked by Darwinism and other liberal thinking taking hold too.

The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 and 1905-1906 in in USA starting in Pennsylvania and spread to other states led by evangelists like Billy Sunday resulted in over 1M converts.  The Azusa Street revival of 1906 in Los Angeles spawned the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

WWII prepared Americans for a post-WWII revival period starting in 1947, including the work of Billy Graham which started in 1949, resulting in millions being converted just in the USA but spreading abroad.  The Charismatic Revival and Jesus Movement were results.

Revival   were also realized in the 1990’s.    The Toronto Blessing in 1995, Melbourne revival in Florida’s Coast; Modest Revival and Brownsville revival in Pensacola, Florida resulted in many hundreds of thousands of converts; and the Promise Keepers Revival that peaked in 1997 with 1M men gathering in Washington, DC to pray and seek personal and national revival.

Common characteristics of each revival: 

  1. Timing – during spiritual and moral decline that led to intense prayer.
  2. Prayer – A longing in the hearts of many to pray in humble repentance for revival
  3. The Word – preaching and reading of God’s Word bringing deep conviction and desire for a personal relationship with Christ.
  4. The Holy Spirit – open receiving of God’s Holy Spirit and following His guiding hand and council.
  5. Conviction – Open and humble realization of sin and repentance of personal sins.
  6. Glory for God – Response of praise and honor and worship to God exclusively.
  7. Reformation and Revival – New ministries spring up and change in churches and communities

Revivals are life changing but results are not sustained without sustaining the seeking repentant spirit and prayer that triggered revival.

Such a revival happened when Elijah confronted the 450 prophets of Baal (I Kings 18-19), but it didn’t last either. 

History and scripture warns us of the consequences of not following God’s way to redemption and life.  But history also reveals that crisis is the most effective way of persuading humans to come to God.   Truth is, children are the most open and willing to come to Christ.  Teens and especially adults tend to be so prideful or set in their ways to be less likely to come to Christ without a personal crisis to motive them. So why should we be surprised or angry with God when we face personal crisis.  When we live exclusively following our own wisdom, we open ourselves to endure consequences of our own foolish choice.  But we also need to realize God’s love and desire to be in fellowship means He is willing to allow hardships and crisis in us in order to draw us to Him or draw us closer to Him than we currently are.

Best to yield to Him early and often instead of resisting.  It is folly to resist Him, for His ways are best for us and best for others.  It is also folly because He will prevail in His time and way.  To be on God’s side is to be on the eternal winning side.  Like it or not God will win and any who oppose Him by choice or by simply following their own way, will only bring ultimate death and misery.

So, let’s learn.  Scripture and examples of those before us all give us clear instruction on what God offers and requires.  He also shows us what to do and offers His Holy Spirit to help and guide us on the journey of obedience He calls us to take with Him.

Consider the amazing things He did through Daniel and Joseph and Esther and Paul and   Billy Graham and ….  The list is infinite. Then again, how about the amazing things He did through a loving grandmother and Sunday school teacher or coach or pastor that made a huge difference in our lives.  How about a friend to showed you Christ in their lives?  

We don’t need to change the world, but we need to let Christ change us and then follow His lead and guiding hand.  He likely won’t ask us to face 450 pagan prophets or save a nation from starvation or lead a nation to revival, but who knows.  He won’t ask us to do anything we can’t do with His help.  Your calling may be as simple as raising a child to know Christ or encourage a neighbor or friend.  But revival happens when His people pray and come together to worship and praise and obey Him

“Fervent prayers produce phenomenal results.”  Woodrow Kroll

If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 233 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.

You may also access my facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily.  My facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/

My hope and prayer is, they will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.

 

Published by donsdevotions

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Don McDaniel - Who am I? Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever. Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me. I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private. However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool. Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry. He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 . I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine. I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward. Don & Arlene McDaniel In His Service, Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951 If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ ) You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.

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