{"id":7510,"date":"2016-04-08T21:26:39","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T21:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=7510"},"modified":"2016-04-08T21:35:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T21:35:57","slug":"forerunning-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=7510","title":{"rendered":"Forerunning prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, <\/em><em>to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children<\/em><em>, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.<\/em> Luke 1:17<\/p>\n<p>For every move of God there is a \u201cback story\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>John the Baptist played a key role in the back story to Jesus\u2019 miraculous time upon the earth. His calling? To prepare the way of the Lord. To be a forerunner before Him.<\/p>\n<p>Did you realize that the preparatory work of the forerunner didn\u2019t stop with John? It\u2019s a calling that has appeared in <em>every <\/em>generation ever since Jesus walked the earth.<\/p>\n<p>This weekend marks the 110<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the outpouring of God at Azusa Street which began falling on April 9, 1906. This move came upon those souls suddenly\u2014<em>but it<\/em> <em>didn\u2019t take <strong>all<\/strong> of them by surprise. <\/em>No, concerted prayer on the part of a couple of local black congregations combined with those of others, including a white man named Frank Bartleman. Fervent prayer preceded this iconic move of God; without it, the Azusa outpouring would have never happened.<\/p>\n<p>When you read about the various moves, revivals, renewals, awakenings, and sweeping reformations, they share one commonality\u2014forerunners in prayer. Often for months or years\u2014even decades\u2014before the first trickle of the miraculous begins to rain down, these intercessors labor in the shadows, interceding before God on behalf of souls.<\/p>\n<p>Preparation for a move of God typically requires that someone intercede on behalf of men, and Luke 1:17 reveals three specific thrusts of such preparatory prayer.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children<\/li>\n<li>To turn the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous<\/li>\n<li>To make ready a people prepared for the Lord<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Preparatory intercession occurs during times of spiritual drought. It happens during times of spiritual famine. It also takes place during times of chaos, turmoil, and trouble. It&#8217;s going on right now, and I fully believe that the Lord is seeking to enlist you and me in this work. Will we hear\u2014and heed\u2014His call?<\/p>\n<p>For the next few blogs, I plan to put a magnifying glass upon each of the three thrusts of preparation found in Luke 1:17. Hope you&#8217;ll join me.<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy<\/p>\n<p><em>I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land&#8230;.<\/em> Ezekiel 22:30a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:17 For every move of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayerperspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7514,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510\/revisions\/7514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}