September Prayer Night: Corporate Holiness

Someone recently asked me how COVID-19 has impacted our church. I gladly shared how the Lord has been kind to keep sickness to a minimum. But honestly, my greatest concern for our congregation these days has less to do with our physical health and more to do with the condition of our souls.

Sin thrives in isolation from community. For every person who shares a sense of quasi-guilt over enjoying more time at home with their family, someone else tells me how loneliness has intensified the battle with depression or substance abuse. The less time we spend in the physical company of other believers the more susceptible we are to the sinful desires in our heart, the lies of the world, and the schemes of the Evil One. 

Our experience confirms the truth of Hebrews 3:12-13, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” 

One of the most important ways we lean into community in the fight for holiness is the discipline of corporate prayer. Prayer is not a religious duty box we check. It is a powerful, game-changing act of spiritual warfare in the cosmic struggle for the souls of men (Ephesians 6:18). 

On Sunday, September 13, we’re gathering from 6:30-7:30pm in the Seminar Room to pray for holiness in three areas: (1) holiness in our marriages, (2) holiness in our friendships with other Christians, (3) holiness in our relationship to the world. In the way we think, feel, and act, we want our collective witness to the goodness and beauty of God to keep growing, not diminish. We need God’s help to do that, brothers and sisters. We need to cry out for power to obey the word of the Lord in Leviticus 19:2, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”