What Motivates Fervent Prayer

Ezra 9:3 KJV

And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.

Israel had returned to their land but they had not come home a pure people. Over the years of captivity, and continuing in their early years after the return, they had involved themselves in gross compromise. Royalty, priests and common people had all alike relaxed the standards of God's Word. They were home but they were far from God. 

The situation is not unlike what exists in America. While the majority of Americans would still claim to believe in God, the overwhelming number of them have no real relationship with God.

• Their lifestyle
• Their choices
• Their priorities

reveal that, though they may have some sort of religious affiliation, they are very far from God. 

Ezra's response to the news of this compromise is as telling upon us as anything we find in the Bible. Ezra was

• Astonished
• Grief stricken
• Completely appalled

by the condition. An American preacher who thus responds would be considered a radical and unreasonable religious zealot. 

We need a call to such a kind of zealotry as Ezra displayed. America needs Christians who fear His Word to be

• Visibly
• Spiritually and
• Emotionally

moved by our country's distance from God.

Then and only then will we pray earnestly and fervently for God's forgiveness, mercy and for real revival.