This is from an amazing book that has spoken my heart in ways that I can’t describe in a few words.  I wanted to write on this topic, and I have spoken about it in many church circles but it has seemed to fall on deaf ears in many circumstances because people felt as if I was attacking them when really I was only trying to reveal an error in belief and bring Truth into the situation.  In Matthew’s own words, I pray you will hear my heart on this sensitive subject.
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“Why do we do the things we do?  Why church on Sunday morning?  Why church in a building?  Why prayer meetings?  Why rallies?

I believe we tried to regulate Christianity in America instead of impacting darkness with who God is.

I have struggled with a period of time that we Christians went through.  I call it the prayer movement.  Hundreds of thousands across the country gathered together to pray.  We came to rallies, crusades, prayer nights, prayer meetings.  Events started up like IHOP, BURN, 24-hour prayer meetings.

All of them have the potential to be great, yet I was not satisfied.

I remember waking up one morning and asking God why I was having odd feelings about prayer.  How can I not love this idea, a generation coming together and praying, crying out for the heart of God to be moved?

God’s answer stirred me:

‘We (Christians) are the answer to the very prayer we are praying.’

What did He mean?

One of my spiritual fathers, Martin Scott, shed light on this one evening for me.

He said that we have cleared the spiritual landscape.  We have torn down the high places in the spirit [realm], yet we have failed to occupy.

He used the Scripture in Matthew 12:43-45, where Jesus says if a demon is sent out of a person but the person is not filled with God, then seven more will come back–fiercer, more intense, and more destructive.  He said this is what we have done.  We drove the demons out, yet we have not occupied the land, so we have created a place where the enemy has come back in, stronger, bolder, with greater numbers, and reoccupied.

Finally, it began to make sense to me.  My problem is not with prayer.  Prayer is vital, important. I have grounded my ministry on the concept that you cannot have breakthrough if you have not prayed through.  You must lay the ground work in the spiritual before you can see the breakthrough in the physical.

But we have prayed, and ended with that.

We hold the rallies; we have the 24-hour prayer nights.  Yet we have failed to occupy the land.  Prayer without putting it into practice is falsehood.

In Sacramento, it was frustrating to see hundreds of people come together every week for a prayer house, yet I had hundreds of unsaved coming to [our church] and I was begging for help.  Their prayers were getting answered–the unsaved were coming–yet they didn’t want to fulfill the other part of the equation:  seek and save the lost.

I had a conversation with a young man who was part of one of these prayer movements.  He was greatly offended at my revelations.  He began to cite Scripture on the importance of the prayer houses, and what was first established in Levitical law, what was created with King David and the importance of what Jesus did when He went away to pray.

I agreed–meeting with God and praying is awesome, vital, a foundation.

Let’s just not negate the most important thing that came as a command from Jesus’ own lips–”GO! Go into all the world and preach the good news!”

Jesus did not say some stay and some go.  He said GO!

Why do we spend so much time trying to link pieces of Scripture together to validate our ministries instead of just laying hold of simple commands of God and doing them with excellence?

For so long the church of America has done the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  How about this?  Let’s simply do what God has asked of us and then see the results that have been promised.

I talked with another young girl who was telling me about a prayer meeting and demonstration they were having over an abortion clinic.  She said they would be praying all night for this clinic to be shut down.

So I asked her what kind of results they had seen.  She told me that they had prayed for weeks for one clinic to be shut down, and then one day a sign was on the door saying the clinic was closed.  It ended up being closed for three days.  She rejoiced and praised God for the babies that were spared.  Praise God, we know that there is power in prayer, why does that amaze us so much?

But I asked her, what did you do in those three days?  I remember her looking at me, puzzled.

“What do you mean,” she asked, “what did we do in those three days?”  We began praying over another clinic, she said.

Wow, how lost we have become.  I remember telling this girl that the end of abortion would not come from prayer alone, to her shock.  Is prayer important?  Yes, absolutely vital.  But I don’t have to pray for the answer for girls who are considering abortion–I am the answer.  The point is this–we are the salt of the earth, we are the light–we are supposed to shine.

In those three days, we could have met the girls coming, and prayed with them for strength.  We could have talked to them about adoption, helped them with making good choices.  We could have connected them to Jesus and allowed His Glory to fill their lives.

Instead, we did nothing but rejoiced in a closed building.

Let’s not forget–sinners are going to sin.  Why does that still surprise people?  What we need to do is connect people to Christ and let Him invade their lives.  He is the answer that they are looking for, and we are the deliverer of the Package.

So should we pray for clinics to be closed?  YES YES YES!  Should we stop there…?  NO!  We are not even beginning to scratch the surface of what God has called us to do if we pray without occupying.” – pages 49-52
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You can purchase Matthew’s book here.