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10 Days of Prayer

24 Hour Prayer Vigil | January 20-21, 2023

Livestream Schedule:
Friday, January 20, 2023 | 7:00 pm | English | Click to view English livesteam on YouTube
Friday, January 20, 2023 | 8:00 pm |  Spanish Zoom ID 99230931164

Sabbath, January 21, 2023 | 7:00 pm | English | Click here to view the livestream
Sabbath, January 21, 2023 | 8:00 pm | Spanish Zoom ID 99230931164

 

Hour

Prayer

Scripture

Specific Focus

 

7pm

Lord, we come to You in reverence

Romans 12:1

God is Worthy

 

8pm

Lord, please forgive us

Psalm 66:16-20

Confession&Repentance

 

9pm

Lord, we hunger and thirst for You

Psalm 42:1

Pursuing Righteousness

 

10pm

Lord, we pour our lament to You

Psalm 46:1-2

Deliverance

 

11pm

Lord, we exalt You

2 Samuel 22:47

Praise & Thanksgiving

 

12am

Lord, sanctify us with Thy truth

Psalm 119:159-160

Truth

 

1am

Lord, our wounds are deep

Isaiah 53:5

Comfort & Healing

 

2am

Lord, remove our fears

1 John 4:18

Fear

 

3am

Lord, hear our cry

2 Timothy 2:1-2

Country & Communities

 

4am

Lord, strengthen us

Philippians 4:13

Spiritual Strength

 

5am

Lord, we are standing on Your promises

 

God’s Faithfulness

 

6am

Lord, let Thy love dwell within us

Psalm 136:23-26

God’s Power

 

7am

Lord, Your mercies are everlasting

Lamentations 3:23-25

God’s Mercy

 

8am-1pm                                                          “Lord Remember Us”            [ In church or small groups]

 

1.    Pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, deaconesses and leaders of ministry teams.

2.    Our conference leaders, ministry directors, administrative staff in the Texas Conference

3.    Our children (all ages), teens, and all young adults. Pray for our Club Ministries.

4.   Outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our churches and schools.

5.    Preparation for the Second Coming and fulfillment of the Great Commission.

1pm

Lord, help us to walk in wisdom

James 1:5-7

Godly Wisdom

 

2pm

Lord, restore our relationships

Ephesians 6:1-4;

Families

 

3pm

Lord, thank You for Your goodness

Psalm 34:1-7

Blessings

 

4pm

Lord, teach us to abide with You

John 15:1-5

Intimacy with God

 

5pm

Lord, give us Your compassion

John 14:1-6

The Second Coming

 

6pm

Lord, make us one

John 17:21

Unity

 

Welcome to Ten Days of Prayer 2023!

We believe prayer is the birthplace of revival. God has worked so many miracles in past years as we have sought Him together in prayer and fasting. The Holy Spirit has brought about conversions, renewed passion for evangelism, revived churches, and healed relationships. Here are just a few testimonies from the previous year:

After participating in the Ten Days of Prayer, my spiritual life has completely changed.”
–Josphat T.

“The blessings were immeasurable. The Holy Spirit was evidently in our midst!”
–Barbara J.

“The Ten Days of Prayer have brought our members closer to the Lord. The fellowship has been sweeter, and individuals have verbalized that they are more determined to engage in mission and soul winning.”
–Arlene A.

Has God’s voice been calling you to revival? The Bible is full of promises for you:

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32).

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20).

Wherever you are in life right now, God is closer than you think. He wants to pour out His blessings on your family, your church, your community, and your world!

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

Back to the Altar — Praying for a Reconnected Heart

“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” Genesis 3:9 The Most Important Question Is there a more searching question than the one God directed at the newly-fallen Adam? God, of course, knew exactly where Adam and Eve were. He is omniscient—all-knowing—after all, so God was really asking, Adam, do you know where you are? Adam and Eve had disobeyed God (Genesis 3, 4), and their disobedience created a breach, a break in what had heretofore been a perfect relationship between God and His crowning creation. The place where God had met them on every previous day was empty on this day. The first faces ever created bore no smile for their Creator that day. Arms He had fashioned from clay did not enfold Him that day. Hearts whose beats had often synchronized with His own were strangely distant, almost silent that day.
Not Enough
Ellen White comments, “Satan represented to the holy pair that they would be gainers by breaking the law of God. Do we not today hear similar reasoning?” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 54). Adam and Eve made the mistake of listening to the devil, and he convinced them that what God offered them was not enough, that communion with God in a close, trusting relationship was not enough. In an instant the mild, balmy climes of Eden now “seemed to chill the guilty pair. The love and peace which had been theirs was gone, and in its place they felt a sense of sin, a dread of the future, a nakedness of soul. The robe of light which had enshrouded them now disappeared, and to supply its place they endeavored to fashion for themselves a covering; for they could not, while unclothed, meet the eye of God and holy angels” (p. 57). Sin had changed the spiritual condition of the only creatures in Eden with whom God had shared His very image. Indeed, it had shattered God’s image in them.
Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

Back to the Altar — A Place for Remembering

“And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him”
GENESIS 12:7

Consecration and Commemoration

In the Bible, altars always represent places of consecration and commemoration. They are an outward symbol of one’s personal connection to God, of one’s acknowledgment and worship of the true and living God. Altars were often built to commemorate encounters with God that had a profound impact on someone’s life. When God did something “super-normal,” “supernatural,” or “super-special,” the recipients of God’s mighty act often did not want to forget it, so they would build an altar—a place for remembering—on the spot where they had seen God move.

When God told Abram in Genesis 12:7 that He would give the land of Canaan to his descendants, Abram built an altar there because his encounter with God was “super-normal.” In that moment God promised to transcend everything normal in Abram’s life and make from his seed a great and mighty people. When Isaac was wandering the desert of Gerar and fighting the locals over well-water, God appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants” (Genesis 26:24). Isaac commemorated this divine encounter by building an altar on that very spot because his encounter with God was “supernatural.” God had broken through the natural order of Isaac’s life to affirm that His promise to Isaac’s father was now Isaac’s promise also. Isaac’s son Jacob traveled to a place called Bethel (Genesis 35:3) and built an altar in honor of God, who had appeared to him during his flight from Esau. Because that encounter with God was “super-special,” Jacob built an altar there. A fearful Gideon was pleasantly surprised when God appeared to him in peace and called him to lead the nation to victory. Gideon was so moved that he built an altar on the spot and called it “Jehovah is Peace” (Judges 6:24) because his encounter with God was “super-peaceful”!

Never Forget

While many see God’s mighty acts in their lives as mere moments of coincidence or chance, others recognize the moving of God and do all within their power to never forget what He has done. And there is an added benefit to their efforts: future travelers along life’s journey are blessed by the altars set up by believers. Ellen White notes, “Abraham set us a worthy example. His was a life of prayer. Wherever he pitched his tent, close beside was set up his altar, calling all within his encampment to the morning and evening sacrifice. When his tent was removed, the altar remained. Roving Canaanites received instruction from Abraham, and wherever one of these came to that altar, he there worshiped the living God” (From Eternity Past, p. 76).

What heavenly blessings do you want to remember in the future? And what altar to God will you build today?

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

Back to the Altar — The Cadence of Life

“Stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at evening,” 1 Chronicles 23:30.

Life with God

A reading of 1 Chronicles 23 reveals that God commanded the Levites—those who cared for the ancient Jewish temple and its services—to stand in His presence, lifting their voices in thanksgiving and praise to Him every morning and every evening. This devotional exercise originated in another imperative that God gave Moses when He asked the Israelites to “make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). God further enjoined, “One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight” (Exodus 29:39).

Life in Between

Israelite life was meant to be lived between two daily, foundational spiritual experiences. God’s people were to begin and end each day with Him. They were never to take His saving grace for granted. They needed God’s power to protect them from outward threats as they traversed a hostile wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. They needed to be guarded against temptations from within—the desire to practice Egyptian values and Egyptian spirituality and Egyptian attitudes learned in captivity. The morning and evening sacrifices were God’s way of laying down a devotional pattern for Israelite individuals and families to follow, a way of keeping them in right relationship with Him. Here is how Ellen White describes this sacred, solemn, daily experience:

“As the priests morning and evening entered the holy place at the time of incense, the daily sacrifice was ready to be offered upon the altar in the court without. This was a time of intense interest to the worshipers who assembled at the tabernacle. Before entering into the presence of God through the ministration of the priest, they were to engage in earnest searching of heart and confession of sin. They united in silent prayer, with their faces toward the holy place. Thus their petitions ascended with the cloud of incense, while faith laid hold upon the merits of the promised Savior prefigured by the atoning sacrifice. The hours appointed for the morning and the evening sacrifice were regarded as sacred, and they came to be observed as the set time for worship throughout the Jewish nation. And when in later times the Jews were scattered as captives in distant lands, they still at the appointed hour turned their faces toward Jerusalem and offered up their petitions to the God of Israel. In this custom Christians have an example for morning and evening prayer. While God condemns a mere round of ceremonies, without the spirit of worship, He looks with great pleasure upon those who love Him, bowing morning and evening to seek pardon for sins committed and to present their requests for needed blessings.” (Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 353, 354)

If your devotional life has lost its cadence, ask God now to renew your commitment to morning and evening worship today.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

Back to the Altar — Rebuild It and He Will Come — Again!

“So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down”
1 KINGS 18:30

When the Rains Stopped

The atmosphere that fateful day was charged, though an eerie silence had engulfed Mount Carmel. In previous times this wooded mount was lush, green, and beautiful. It received plenty of rainfall and was considered a holy place, a place of blessing and fertility (Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 144). But all that had changed. What used to be green was now burnt and bare, the result of a painful, three-and-a-half-year drought (1 Kings 17:1; 18:1; James 5:17). Here’s how Ellen White describes Israel at this time:

The earth is parched as if with fire. The scorching heat of the sun destroys what little vegetation has survived. Streams dry up, and lowing herds and bleating flocks wander hither and thither in distress. Once-flourishing fields have become like burning desert sands, a desolate waste. . . . Once-prosperous cities and villages have become places of mourning. Hunger and thirst are telling upon man and beast with fearful mortality. Famine, with all its horror, comes closer and still closer. (Prophets and Kings, pp. 124, 125)

The Drought Within

Perhaps greater than the physical drought that gripped the nation was the spiritual drought that left God’s people soul-thirsty and faith-depleted. Israel was ruled by the evil King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. Ahab’s Sidonian bride had helped weaken his allegiance to God. It was into this catastrophic spiritual apostasy that God called the prophet Elijah. Of Elijah, Ellen White writes, “there dwelt in the days of Ahab a man of faith and prayer whose fearless ministry was destined to check the rapid spread of apostasy in Israel” (Prophets and Kings, p. 119).

Elijah Rebuilds the Altar

After the prophets of Baal and Asherah failed to get their gods to send fire, it was “at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (1 Kings 18:36) that Elijah called the people near and rebuilt the broken altar to the true God. In a very real sense, Elijah was not just calling the nation back to the altar of true worship; rather, he was calling the nation back to the altar of regular, systematic worship of the true God! Israel’s corporate worship altar was broken, but Israel’s personal and family altars had been broken long before.

What Brings God Back

It was the restoration of true, heartfelt worship that moved God to respond at Carmel. Elijah’s first act of national spiritual revival was to rebuild the broken altar. If your personal or family worship altar is broken, rebuild it, and let the fire of God’s presence consume all who gather to worship Him!

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

 

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him”
JOHN 4:23

Back to the Altar — Early Will I Seek Thee

 

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23).

The Altar Truth

There is an “altar truth” in the life of Jesus that no Christian should miss. During the past few days we have reflected much on altars in Scripture and on the lives of those who built them. The altar is a metaphor for a place and time of worship to the true and living God. One need not possess a physical altar in order to worship God. In fact, if a follower of Jesus lives in consistent, earnest, Bible-bathed communion with God, he or she has already erected an altar as real as the one that Elijah rebuilt on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18).

We see such an “altar” in the life of Jesus. Amid a busy life of daily ministry, constant threats, and withering assaults from the devil, Jesus made time for long seasons of prayer and worship. He who was equal with the Father (Philippians 2:6) still thought it important to “be still and know” that God is God (Psalm 46:10). Jesus understood from an early age that His calling required constant connection with His Father. This was the only way to carry the sins of the world to the cross.

Early Seekers Wanted

In Mark 1:35 Jesus rose “a long while before daylight” and found a quiet, solitary place to talk—and listen—to His Father. The previous day had been spent in full-on ministry—healing the sick, casting out demons, and redeeming the lost. When the disciples awoke, they noticed Jesus was gone and went in search of Him. “When they found Him, they said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for You’” (Mark 1:37). Jesus’ answer is a powerful reminder of the blessing that awaits all who tend their morning and evening altar.

“Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth,” Jesus remarked (Mark 1:38). Did you get that? Jesus was faced with a powerful dilemma. Stay in the place where He was—Peter’s home—and continue fruitful ministry there. Or, leave that place for new, untested ministry territories. Few Christians today would give up a fertile ministry moment for an unknown one. Yet, Jesus did exactly that with no hesitation. How did He make the right decision? God the Father had revealed the plans for that day to Jesus during His private devotional time. The Father affirmed Jesus’ purpose as He prayed and waited in His presence.

Friends, when we fail to seek God early in worship and prayer, we miss God’s plans for our day and His affirmation of our purpose. Today let us pray for the commitment to rise early and spend time with God that He might ready us to fulfill His purpose for our day and our lives.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

“Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God”
LUKE 6:12

Back to the Altar — Ending the Day with God

An Example for Us

Jesus was known to spend whole nights in prayer, as He did on the night before selecting a team of 12 disciples who would one day take the gospel to the world (Luke 6:12, 13). You might be inclined to stay awake all night too if you had a world to save with the help of 12 unqualified sinners. The responsibility was so heavy. Here is how Ellen White describes Jesus, the all-night Prayer Warrior:

The Majesty of heaven, while engaged in His earthly ministry, prayed much to His Father. He was frequently bowed all night in prayer. His spirit was often sorrowful as He felt the powers of the darkness of this world, and He left the busy city and the noisy throng, to seek a retired place to make His intercessions. The Mount of Olives was the favorite resort of the Son of God for His devotions. Frequently after the multitude had left Him for the retirement of the night, He rested not, though weary with the labors of the day. . . . While the city was hushed in silence, and the disciples had returned to their homes to obtain refreshment in sleep, Jesus slept not. His divine pleadings were ascending to His Father from the Mount of Olives that His disciples might be kept from the evil influences which they would daily encounter in the world, and that His own soul might be strengthened and braced for the duties and trials of the coming day. All night, while His followers were sleeping, was their divine Teacher praying. . . . His example is left for His followers. (Homeward Bound, p. 169)

Understanding the Stakes

While some Christians start their day with God, due in part to the fear of what awaits them once they leave their home, many rarely end it in His presence. Having received what they needed to get them through the day, they barely pause to thank God for His provision and protection over their lives. Tired and worn, they drop into bed with little thought of seeking Him for power to face tomorrow’s trials. They rarely even thank Him.

Jesus understood the high-stakes spiritual reality that greeted Him each day. He had a keen awareness of the spiritual danger that His disciples faced, even when they had not a clue (Luke 22:32). Today—and every day—let us never miss the opportunity to end our day with hearts lifted to God in prayer and praise. Let us pray earnestly for each other that God might keep us faithful as we near the return of Jesus Christ.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

“Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker”
PSALM 95:6

Back to the Altar — Our Most Urgent Need

 

(Un)regular Worship

A 2018 worldwide survey of Seventh-day Adventists found that only 34 percent of Adventist homes are engaging in regular morning and evening worship, and only 52 percent of church members have any personal devotions at all. Can a church with an end-time message centered on worship—the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6-12—deliver this solemn message if its members are not faithfully engaged in personal and family worship? In other words, can we proclaim effectively what many of us are not doing daily?

Ellen White comments, “There is nothing more needed in the work [of God] than the practical results of communion with God” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 47). Elsewhere she writes, “Like the patriarchs of old, those who profess to love God should erect an altar to the Lord wherever they pitch their tent. . . . Fathers and mothers should often lift up their hearts to God in humble supplication for themselves and their children. Let the father, as priest of the household, lay upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice, while the wife and children unite in prayer and praise. In such a household Jesus will love to tarry” (Child Guidance, pp. 518, 519)

Our Most Urgent Need

The restoration of personal and family worship among Seventh-day Adventists is perhaps the most pressing need of our time. But it will not be easy. Today we face the challenge of technology that increasingly occupies our time and alters our minds. Our addiction to media, especially social media, has left us anxious, irritable, lonely, stressed, depressed, sleepless, and unhappy with our station in life.

Ironically, personal and family worship have the opposite effect. Worship calms our minds, decreases loneliness, reduces stress, increases peace, fulfills our emotional needs, and teaches us contentment. Might the altar be the antidote to our frazzled minds and restless hearts?

Now more than ever, God is calling us back to His heart, to consistent times of refreshing in His presence. It is for this reason that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has launched the “Back the Altar” initiative, a landmark effort to rebuild the broken personal and family altars in God’s church. By 2027 we hope to see at least 70 percent of Adventist members engaged morning and evening in personal and family worship. You will hear more about this initiative in the days ahead, but we can all begin now to worship God faithfully and consistently. If we go back to the altar with God, we will be transformed into His image and empowered to finish His work!

Today let us ask God for a special outpouring of His Holy Spirit on our worship experiences with Him. Now more than ever, we need the precious blessing of communion with God.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

“Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water”
REVELATION 14:7

Back to the Altar — Devotional Life and the End-time Message

The First and Second Angels’ Messages

As Seventh-day Adventists, we are called to proclaim an end-time message of so much importance that nothing else should divert our attention (Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, p. 302). We preach the message of the first angel “flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 14:6), urging all to fear God, give Him glory, and “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (verse 7). These verses remind us that humanity’s origin is divine, not evolutionary. We possess the “everlasting gospel”—timely and timeless, essential and eternal, needful and never-ending!

We also share the message of the second angel found in Revelation 14:8: “Babylon is fallen”! This sacred message calls all true followers of God to reject all humanly originated forms of worship and belief not based on God’s Word. It calls us away from randomly assembled beliefs which are not based in Scripture nor supported by the Spirit of Prophecy. Come out of Babylon that you be not partaker of her sins nor of her plagues, the angel of Revelation 18:4 would later command. This sacred message is a call to stand apart in our true worship of God!

The Third Angel’s Message

But, Friends, if the first two messages were powerful, Ellen White says something quite startling about the message of the third angel. Ellen White writes in her Letter 209: “The power of the proclamation of the first and second angels’ messages is to be concentrated in the third” (1899). How so? Because the third angel’s message captures the everlasting gospel of the first message and its call to worship! It embraces the second angel’s call for separation from false worship. But the proclamation of this third message is unlike the first two in that it delivers a fearsome warning: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation” (Revelation 14:9). This message reveals earth’s marked-up beast-worshipers and heaven’s sealed-up God-worshipers!

“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). Of this message Ellen White further notes, “It is present truth. This message is to go forth with great distinctness and power. It is not to be clouded by human theories and sophistries” (Letter 20, 1900). As we pray today, let us ask God to empower our worship that we might powerfully proclaim His end-time message to a perishing world.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life”.
PROVERBS 4:23

Back to the Altar — Worship Keeps the Mind

Heart of the Matter

The unregenerate human heart is something to behold. If you watch the news from day to day, you will see human beings acting in ways that make us question their humanity. Wonderful acts of love and kindness happen around the globe each moment of the day, but there is no doubt that evil is likewise manifested wherever we look. While we rightly obsess about unending wars, political corruption, and senseless violence on a mass scale, we must also acknowledge that wherever dastardly deeds are done, deranged human hearts are at work.

Quite frankly, the Bible does not have much good to say about human hearts that are un-surrendered to Jesus Christ. God states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The heart to which God refers here is not so much the “ticker” in our chest but our “brain heart”—the seat of our thinking, the center of our intellectual and moral being, the fount from whence our desires flow. Jesus made the point even clearer when He observed, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

With the Mind We Worship

Ellen White wrote the following about the importance of the human mind: “The mind controls the whole man. All our actions, good or bad, have their source in the mind. It is the mind that worships God and allies us to heavenly beings” (Mind, Character, and Personality, vol. 1, p. 72). It is the mind that God seeks to enlist in the Battle against self and evil. Commenting on the power of the Bible to educate and strengthen the mind, Ellen White also observed, “Nothing will so impart vigor to all the faculties as requiring students to grasp the stupendous truths of revelation. The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is allowed to dwell” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 24). What a blessing it is to know that our minds can be reshaped by God’s healing Word!

Keep Thy Heart

Human minds must be kept, tended, and guarded, as Solomon encouraged in Proverbs 4:23. Like King David we must ask God to create in us clean hearts and minds (Psalm 51:10), but we must guard this gift with all diligence. Regular seasons of personal time spent in praise, prayer, Bible study, and witnessing will do more to guard our minds in Christ Jesus than anything else we can do each day: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3). Keep your mind, even when everyone else is losing theirs.

Let’s talk to our God.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me
ISAIAH 6:8

Back to the Altar — Empowered to Finish the Work

Worshipers Go

Who is willing to go? That’s the question God asked Isaiah when he caught a life-altering vision of God. The moment was filled with amazing special effects. God was seated on a throne “high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). His robe filled the temple as six-winged angels serenaded Him with a chorus of “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” (verse 2). As God began to speak, the doorposts of the temple began to shake and smoke filled the house. The whole episode so “undid” Isaiah that he cried, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (verse 5). Can we blame him? Who can catch a glimpse of God and not be unmasked?

Isaiah was awed by the holiness and majesty of God, but God does not reveal Himself purely for our astonishment. God’s revelation of Himself is usually followed by a request. This was the case, for instance, when He gave John a revelation of Jesus Christ while exiled on the island of Patmos. John’s vision of the end of the world and the return of Christ was meant to be shared. Likewise, when God revealed Himself to Isaiah, He was looking for a messenger willing to spread His message of love and warning. Isaiah’s answer was one for the ages: “Here am I! Send me” (verse 8).

One on One

But God did something for Isaiah that led him to accept the call to go. When God took away his iniquity and purged his sin, Isaiah’s response to God’s grace was “I will go” (Isaiah 6:8). His decision to accept God’s mission was made during a private, devotional experience with God. The power he would wield in public for God was power that he gained in private with God. Anointed writer, faithful prophet, fearless proclaimer—all of Isaiah’s outward identities were but a reflection of who he was on the inside. He had been to the altar with God!

As we end our 10 Days of Prayer experience, it is our prayer that you have begun to rebuild your personal altar of daily worship. It is our hope that your family has covenanted to meet God each morning and evening. But more than that, we pray that you will accept God’s special invitation to go. In so doing you will be touched, and “To those who make so full a consecration that the Lord can place His touch upon their lips, the word is spoken, Go forth into the harvest-field. I will cooperate with you” (Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, p. 23).

Let’s pray together.

Find additional information at tendaysofprayer.org.

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