A Prayer of Intercession for a Self-Reliant Church

The church was never meant to be built by human strength, clever strategies, or self-reliance. In Isaiah 30, Judah sought security through an alliance with Egypt rather than seeking the direction and power of God. We can fall into the same trap when our plans, systems, traditions, and abilities replace dependence upon the Holy Spirit. God is calling His church back to repentance, humility, and complete reliance upon Him. As you pray today, intercede for the church to abandon self-reliance, receive God’s vision, and rediscover the power that comes only through His Spirit.

Prayer

Jesus, break the back of self-reliance within Your church. Give us the understanding that the flesh accomplishes nothing. Judah’s alliance with Egypt accomplished nothing. Help us understand, even serving You, we cannot accomplish anything in our own strength. Give us the solid conviction that self-effort only makes us unfruitful and ineffective. There are many people in Your church that solely desire to work their plan. They don’t want Your vision for Your ministry. They only wish to hear affirmations that their plans ‘for You’ will work. I declare right now they’re receiving Your vision. Repentance is coming. Reliance on You is on the rise. The established systems built on man’s efforts are clasping. What You’re building is emerging in its place. Restore the people who have been abused and oppressed by the religious system. Renew them in the Holy Spirit. I believe a church is rising up that trusts in You like never before. Do it Jesus! We pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Isaiah 30:1-14

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.” A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”

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