VITAL CHRISTIANITY

THE CHRISTIAN AND THE "CHURCH"

BY PRAYING TOGETHER
You don't have to read the latest books by students of the American religious scene to know that there is a growing rebellion against "organized Christianity" in this country and abroad. For a few years after World War II, in America at least, this rebellion was quiet, while organized Christendom enjoyed the biggest boom it ever had. But now we again begin to hear the voices of many people who look upon church ... going to church on Sunday, or functioning in any way as part of a congregation ... as quite unnecessary. You hear it from your friends at work ... you hear it from your neighbors down the street or across the hall in the apartment, "I don't have to go to church to be a Christian! I can be just as good a Christian right here in my living room as those people who go to church."

These are fighting words for us who feel that we have to defend the church-going way of life. We argue ... "You can't be a Christian sitting home in your living room ... you need the fellowship."

The amusing thing about this is that most of us who do go to church are actually trying to be Christians in the same way as the people who don't. In spite of the fact that we come to church, we are trying to be Christians all by ourselves. We enter the sanctuary and perhaps shake hands and smile to one another ... we worship ... we listen to the same sermon. Yet each of us remains in a tightly enclosed little world of our own. When it comes to opening our hearts, joining our spirits with one accord and truly worshipping God together, we hardly know what it is. Somehow we are just as alone sitting together in church as if we were home in our living room...there is an invisible compartment of reserve that walls us in.

Until these compartments break and we have actually become one we have nothing better than our friends out in the world who feel they can be Christians alone. The fact that we are physically together doesn't mean very much. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him into the depths of Gethsemane to watch with him ... he wanted their support ... he wanted their spirits to join with his in prayer to the Father. They were there, but they might just as well have been home in bed. They were four separate, isolated people.

This separateness, this aloneness, which persists even when we're gathered together in church, never lets go of us until we enter into the reality of corporate prayer. When we have really learned to pray together... not as an assembly of individuals hooked up within their separate souls, but as spirits which have openly and freely come to-gether around Jesus to call on God ... then we have something no isolated man, however good he may be, can know...out there by himself.

The solitary individual is very unlikely to meet Jesus Christ alone in his prayer closet until he first meets him in fellowship with at least one other believer.

If two of you agree on earth… Where two or
three are gathered in my name…

Think of Cornelius, he was a man of prayer. He lived a devout, God--fearing life but he was alone. His fellow Romans did not understand him… the Jews would have nothing to do with him because he was a Gentile. Yet God blessed Cornelius. God sent an angel to speak to him. But before Cornelius could receive the grace of God he was seeking, he had to come together with a believer who knew Jesus.

Send to Joppa for a man named Peter...
This is God's order ... this is God's way of doing things. Jesus was not being sentimental when he took those three disciples with him to watch while he prayed ... he needed them ... oh how he needed them!

When we say a person cannot be a Christian apart from the church, this is what we mean; he can get along without the formalities ... he can get along without the ceremonies ... he can survive without the organization… but he cannot get along without having some disciples with whom he can come together before God to pray. And the sad fact is that for all the "togetherness" in Christendom these days, we know very little about coming together to pray. We're with the Lord in the temple ... we're with him in the upper room ... we're even with him when he gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink in communion. But when Jesus takes us into Gethsemane and asks us to pray with him, our minds cloud ... we don't see the importance of it. We yawn and fall asleep.

And so one of the deepest joys that can be known this side of heaven is passed by unnoticed and untasted.

What happens when believers pray together? The primary blessing is that they have fellowship with the Lord Jesus. When one person alone calls on the name of Jesus he or she indeed receives an answer. But when two people or three people or ten or fifty gather ... and with one accord call on the name of Jesus ... Jesus comes into their midst and blesses them with the unspeakable joy of his presence. Fellowship with the Lord comes as at no other time when Christians are praying together.

When Christians pray together, they are given power to "bind and loose."
Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you that if two of you shall agree on
earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall
be done for them by my Father which is in heaven.

God alone knows how many times that promise has been taken at face value by believers. But more doors have been opened and more demons have been bound, and more tragedies have been averted (or transfigured) by simple believers crying out together with one accord to God, than this earth will ever know. A link is established with heaven the instant Christians begin praying together, and the invisible powers of heaven move behind the visible things of this earth in answer to the heart cries of the gathered children of God.

When Christians pray together, they are renewed by the Holy Spirit. There is a refreshing worth more than sleep or food or drink that comes to believers when they pray together. Burdens lift...vision clears... vigor returns to body and mind. The apostles were "filled with the Holy Spirit" not only on Pentecost...they were filled again and again. These in-fillings occurred ordinarily when they were gathered together and praying. This is what kept them going.

Most Christian enterprises these days can be characterized by an insatiable thirst for money. Few people ever question the unspoken premise that lies behind the endless stream of financial appeals that flood the country in the name of Christianity... "If we had more money we could do more good." When this is said (or implied), it is a sign that the church is spiritually tired ... it lacks the energy of God and now turns to the energy of man that is stored up in dollar bills. Whatever our financial needs may be as churches or missionary enter-prises, they are always secondary to the need for the energy of the living God...the power of the Holy Spirit. When we have this we shall never lack money or the things it buys. And the energy of God's Spirit will surge through the church once more when it prays together.

This is not a plea for more prayer groups or more prayer meetings. We could multiply prayer groups and prayer meetings again and again and still be no farther along than we are now. Many a prayer group meets faithfully, but somehow never enters into true corporate prayer. And there are prayer meetings which attract large numbers every week.... still each one remains imprisoned in his own soul.

What we have to do is take the occasions that already bring us together around the word of God...at church, at home, in Bible studies ... and turn our formal prayers into the real thing ... into real praying together.
If we study the promises of our Lord concerning corporate prayer, we find two factors that command attention.

The first is agreement.
If two of you agree on earth as touching any-thing they shall ask...

Our Lord is talking about something more than intellectual agreement. We may agree that such unity of Christians would be a good thing... and we may say a few prayers about this on Sunday in church... but mere intellectual agreement is not enough. Before we can enter into real corporate prayer, there must be agreement of heart. Are we really burdened for what we request? Do we really, deeply, want the petition we bring? For instance, Jesus commands us to pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth more laborers ... we agree ... but how deep is our agreement? Are we agreed in our hearts that this prayer is as important as he says it is? Are we burdened with him for the fainting multitudes who are like sheep without a shepherd? When we agree in our hearts an arc of heavenly fire burns between believer and believer, and it becomes the prayer of the Body of Christ.

The second factor which will bring our corporate prayers to life is to enter into the name of Jesus.
Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name.... Where two
or three are gathered in my name...

Obviously this means more than ending our prayers with the formula, "in Jesus' name, amen." To enter into Jesus' name we have to get out of our own name ... out of ourselves. Forget who you are and what you are and what people think of you. Leave your little private compart-ment. Let your spirit go forth to join the others under the canopy of the name of Jesus. There you will find yourself able to pray with perfect liberty.

When we are nervous and self-conscious in praying together, this is a sign that we haven't entered into the name of Jesus. We're worried about whether or not we're being accepted by others who are praying ... a sure indication that we're still tangled up in ourselves. Or when we are impatient and domineering in group prayer, this is a sign that we haven't left ourselves behind ... we're afraid to let Jesus have charge, of the group. We're trying to run it. But when we have truly gathered our spirits under the name of Jesus and let Jesus rule the praying, then there will be accord, unity, and liberty to truly pray together.

In our family prayers, or in the prayers that are shared in the Bible study we attend, real benefit will come by taking time to think together about these two factors mentioned by our Lord... agreement and being in his name. Are our hearts in agreement on the things we’re going to pray about? Are our spirits ready to leave the protective castles of our own names and gather together under the name of the Son of God?

When we have agreement, and when we are unified under Jesus' name, then we can pray. Together we will have fellowship with the Lord him-self, we will exercise power to bind and loose, and we will be renewed by the Holy Spirit. For the gathered fellowship of praying believers is the dwelling place of Christ on this earth. Nowhere this side of the End does the light of the Kingdom of God shine more purely than when disciples pray together.