DAY 25: Desperate For Heaven To Come

By Chris Ngai (LoveUnited)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit [utterly helpless, spiritually bankrupt], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:3 (NIV, with annotations)

All throughout history, God has moved in extraordinary ways in response to the hunger and desperation of His people. When men and women come to the point where they realize that unless God comes, there is no hope of anything changing, then they begin to get desperate for Him. This is when revival begins!

A man named John “Praying” Hyde had a passion to see revival in India in a hard place where no one was responding to God. He would spend entire nights in prayer crying out for God to move. This passion consumed him to the point where one day he began to pray, “O God, give me souls, or I die!”

His prayers of desperation began to move the heart of God. He began praying for one soul to be saved every day – and by the end of that year, over 400 had given their lives to Christ! The next year, he began to feel that one soul a day was not enough, so he began praying for two souls every day. At the end of that year, 800 had given their lives to Jesus! Yet, so great was his hunger that even two souls a day weren’t enough. He began crying out for four souls to know Christ every single day!

In fact, Praying Hyde was so moved by the heart of God, that before he died at the age of 47, his heart had literally (physically) shifted to the other side of his body from weeping and crying out so intensely!

What would happen if we began to be moved by the heart of God like that? What would happen if we began to pray desperate prayers for the salvation of our friends and our campuses?

God is looking for those with a heart like John Hyde, who will become so desperate for God to move, they will weep and cry out until He breaks through. He is looking for those who will say, “God, give me my campus or I die! Give me souls or I die!” and who will be satisfied with nothing less!

PRAYER POINTS:

• Take a moment, not to pray a formula, but to enter into a heart response. Ask God for a holy hunger and desperation that only He can give you. Ask Him to consume you with desire for His presence, that He would ruin you for anything less than revival in this generation!
• Pray for a holy hunger for souls to be saved on our college campuses–maybe even a specific campus near you. Pray that God would use Christian students to bring others on their campus into His Kingdom and that God would even show you how to share His good news and love with a college student you know or may meet in the future.
• Pray that God would set apart a holy people, passionately in love with Jesus marked for revival and awakening on our nation’s campuses. Pray that God would raise up a generation that seeks His face, with “clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:4) who will never settle for anything less than the full outpouring of God’s Spirit!

[Excerpt from A Vision of Revival for College Campuses by Chris Ngai, pp. 3, 6-7]