When Prayer Weeps
This morning, at our weekly staff meeting, I read today’s devotional from The Quiet Place by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Today’s reading was entitle “When Prayer Weeps,” and ministered to all of us. So, I thought I’d pass it on. Nancy’s reflection is based upon Luke 19:41.
When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it
OUR SAVIOR was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa: 53:3), an Intercessor who “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7). Jesus prayed with intensity and fervor. Prayer wasn’t a matter of reciting meaningless or dispassionate words. Prayer was how He poured out His heart on behalf of those He came to save. Prayer hurt.
And so when He looked out over Jerusalem, the city where within a week He would spill His atoning blood, He saw things most people do not see. He didn’t only see buildings and crowds engaged in the daily hubbub of activity. He saw the hearts of men and women people who had rejected God’s right to rule over their lives.
And the sight elicited holy, compassionate, hot-hearted tears not just water beading in His eyes, with a few drops escaping to trail down His face. The word wept used in Luke 19 to describe His response on the outskirts of Jerusalem speaks of sobbing, bawling, wailing aloud, the kind of anguish usually reserved for mourning a death.
Most of us don’t often weep over the spiritual needs of others. Perhaps that’s because we don’t see people the way Jesus sees them. And we don’t see the broken heart of a holy God whose mercy and grace have been rejected. For when we do; our hearts will break with His.
How great is our burden for those who suffer around us, not only in hospital waiting rooms and funeral homes but in the unseen dungeons of their own sin? To have the heart of Christ to grieve over their rejection of their King and to join our Savior in His intercession.
Ask God to help you see the people around you through Jesus’ eyes. Ask Him to give you His heart for those in your city who do not know and have not received Him.
