Birthing a Nation

Gen. 25:21 “Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife,”

The Spirit of intercession gives birth to all ministries of the Lord. When is the last time we pleaded with God in prayer for the answer only He can give? If we are to pioneer a ministry of God, the groundwork of prayer and intercession must be the preparation for any work to succeed.

If birth is to occur, it must begin with the intimacy of intercession.  When planting a church in Greensboro, in Greenville, in Chapel Hill, and in Belarus the movements always began with a small prayer meeting, a gathered few pleading with God.  Prayer is the pattern. 

Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, John Wesley, Billy Graham, and all great revivalists of the ages recognized this need for incessant petitioning God and sent prayer teams before them into any area before the evangelism began.  Whenever God is about to move on the earth, He begins by calling His people to prayer.

For many years the church has lost the need to plead to God.  But now God has raised up a concerted prayer movement unrivaled in all of history.  “This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face.”  (Psalm 24:6)

You are a part of this historic generation that God is raising up as a forerunner for revival across the globe. We are the Jacob Generation, and God is calling us now to humble ourselves in prayer, to turn from our wicked ways, and to seek His face so that He will heal our land.

Jacob’s first calling, the circumstances of his birth, his tattered walk through the wilderness, and the legacy he left as Israel combine to make a ministry of pleading, praying, and wrestling with God for the blessing on the earth.

When is the last time you wrestled with God for His purpose to come on the earth?  If He has given you a vision and a heart to see change occur, if you are seeking to birth a movement or church, it must begin in the place in intimacy with Jesus. 

Cry out like Hannah.  Do not be restrained like Isaiah.  Continue to bow and pray like Elijah and give the Lord no rest until He establishes peace on the earth.  Jacob was birthed in response to the pleas of Isaac for his barren wife.  From the moment he was conceived, God was teaching him, and us, something about the importance of prayer.