One of my favorite illustrations of what can happen when God’s people come together in prayer is found in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. There we find the wonderful Old Testament king named Jehoshaphat and the nation of Judah facing a dire situation. They were about to be attacked by not one enemy army but three of them at once—the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Meunites.
Militarily, the little army of Judah had no hope of defeating such a multitude. In the natural, the battle was lost before it began. So what did Jehoshaphat do?
He “… set himself [determinedly, as his vital need] to seek the Lord;” and “he proclaimed a fast in all Judah. And Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; even out of all the cities of Judah they came …” (verses 3 – 4 Amp).
Notice Jehoshaphat didn’t just get alone in his prayer closet to seek God about the situation. He didn’t call his chief advisors or the leadership of the nation. He called everybody together and he stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord.
An assembly is more than a gathering. People gather together all the time without producing any particular result. They gather at the theater to watch a movie, for instance. Or they gather to hear a concert. A gathering is a passive thing. An assembly, on the other hand, has order and purpose. To see the difference between a gathering and an assembly, think of a jigsaw puzzle. When the pieces are simply gathered together in the box, they don’t form a picture. They’re just a jumble of parts. But when they are assembled, they reveal the image that is imprinted on them. They become what the designer of the puzzle intended them to be.
That’s exactly what happened when Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah assembled to seek the Lord. The picture God had for their future was revealed. It was a picture of victory and salvation, a picture of all their enemies being defeated not by their own hand but by the mighty hand of the Lord. That’s the picture God wants to reveal through the Church today. He has imprinted a part of it in every believer. Although each one of us as individuals carry a portion of it, only when we assemble can the fullness of it be seen. Only when we put our pieces together in corporate prayer do we become what our divine Designer created us to be.
Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 20:1 – 17
On the chilly March night in 1972 when Lynne Hammond took her first step into a life of Spirit-led prayer, she had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was the hunger in her heart for God wouldn’t let her sleep. In the few short months she’d been born again, her desire to fellowship with Him had grown so strong she could hardly contain it. “Help me, God!” she cried. “I want to know you. I want to be able to talk to you. Please, teach me to pray!”
Suddenly, a heavenly presence flooded the room. Lynne sensed waves of spiritual fire sweeping over her and a beautiful language began to flow like a river from within her. Although she’d never heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she knew instantly, without a doubt—this was God!
What began that night soon blossomed into a life of prayer that ultimately became a ministry of prayer when, in 1980, Lynne and her husband, Mac, founded Living Word Christian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Under Lynne’s leadership, the prayer ministry at Living Word has become an internationally recognized model for developing effective pray-ers in the local church.
A teacher and an author, Lynne publishes a newsletter called Prayer Notes, has written numerous books, and currently serves as the national prayer director for Daughters for Zion. Her passion for inspiring and leading others into the life of Spirit-led prayer continues to take her around the world to minister to believers whose heart cry, like hers, is “Lord, teach me to pray!”