A Desperate Faith: Cornelius’ Habit (part two)

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I learned to make prayer a lifestyle rather than an obligation or act in my days in Teen Challenge. I had a roommate that loved to pray, and in the world’s eyes he was a convicted felon and drug addict. He spent years in prison, and he looked the part as well. He was not a small man, in fact, he was huge and no one in their right mind would mess with him. This was my roommate that loved to pray. He begin to invited me to pray with him, well, he would wake me up at 4 and 5 A.M then tell me to get up to pray as if I didn’t have an option. He did this for about a month in a half, and then the tables turned, I began to wake him up––sometimes even earlier. Together we learned to hunger after God, but we made prayer a lifestyle. I found by regularly consecrating time to pray I could adjust my whole mindset throughout the day on God. I began to do what Brother Lawrence described as “practicing the presence of God”, which is the name of his book. One of my pastor friends says, “The future belongs to the intercessor.” You can change history by having a dedicated lifestyle of prayer and servanthood.

Dedicated to a lifestyle of prayer and servanthood. (Acts 10:1-4)

Cornelius was also one of the desperate ones. He was apart of the Italian Regiment as a Roman centurion. He was God-fearing and devout to point that his whole family was following after God. He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. He had a dedicated lifestyle of prayer and servanthood. The Angel of the Lord came to him and said, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God (v. 4).” Cornelius was instructed to send men for Peter, so he did. Meanwhile, Peter was in a trace and had a vision. Afterwards, the Bible says while Peter was thinking about the vision the men sent by Cornelius came to him, and the Holy Spirit instructed him to go. Peter went with the men and went to the house of Cornelius, which eventually lead to one of the most glorious experiences in Church history, the Gentiles being baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time, which was confirmed also by the vision that Peter had in the trance.

We can elevate into a desperate faith that changes history through a dedicated lifestyle of prayer and servanthood. Cornelius was one that was used to change history, yet the angel revealed that his prayers and gifts to the poor had come up as a offering before God. There is a unexplainable mysterious about the heart of God, yet He links Cornelius into a position to facilitate revival in his home because of his desperate attitude toward the Kingdom. His prayer was not something that was once in awhile, or when ever he needed God because of trails. His prayer was not something that he did only every time he got together with people of like faith. No, his prayer was a lifestyle––it was unbroken fellowship with God as he communed with him regularly. If we think that we are going to change history and not have a dedicated lifestyle to prayer and servanthood we are saying that are methods and our minds are greater than God’s. We are saying that we can do it alone and that are motives are impure. We must have lifestyle of being intimate with “Poppa”, Father God, to be used like Cornelius–––Changing the roads of history.

The Moravian Mission movement, changed church history as we know it. It was birthed through lifestyles fashioned in prayer. I can only imagine a prayer service lasting one hundred years. Men and women were literally born, raised, and sent out as missionaries soaked in a life of prayer.

“When God was visiting the Moravians in the early days, they organized at Herrnhut two praying bands, one of men and the other of women, each with twenty-four members. These bands set apart one man and one woman to pray every hour of the day, so that the men in their place and the women in theirs were praying continuously during the twenty-four hours. This double prayer, unbroken through every day, was maintained for a hundred years. During this period there emerged the Moravian Mission movement in which the missionary church grew three times as large as the home church. The Moravians were used to give new light on essential Bible truths to John and Charles Wesley, thus preparing them for the revival that swept England and reached America.” (Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations)

You can change history by having a dedicated lifestyle of prayer and servanthood.

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