Anna: Persevering in Prayer
I. A WORLD WIDE PRAYER MOVEMENT
“Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the
Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls which are the prayers of the saints.” Rev. 5:8
A. The Lord has scheduled a prayer movement that will sweep the entire planet in the generation that the Lord
returns. Before the Return of His Son, the Father has determined that the Body of Christ will be described as a praying
Church and the bowls containing the prayers of the saints will be full—unlike any time in history. There will be a unified
cry of intercession from the Body of Christ at the end of the age. (Isaiah 56:5-8; 61:11-62:1, 6,7; Zech. 8:18-22; 12:10;
1 Chr. 9:33; Lev. 6:12-14; 24:2-4; Rev. 12:10; 1 Thes. 3:10; 1 Tim. 5:5; Rev. 5:8; Ps. 134:1; 135: 1-3)
B. God has chosen to wait for partnership on the earth before He carries out His plans. Prophetic promises will only
come forth in the context of being birthed through persevering prayer. God longs for partnership with His people on the
earth. He will starve us out of our passivity, our over-busy lifestyles, and our independence until we do it His way.
C. Intercession is the primary means that God has chosen to release His government both in His relationship with
Jesus within the fellowship of the Trinity and with His people now and forever. The mystery of intercession is that we tell
God what He tells us to tell Him to release His power.
25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make
intercession for them. (Heb. 7:25)
34 Christ…at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us. (Rom. 8:34)
D. God is waiting for our persistence in prayer before Him. Isaiah taught that He longs to release His grace and
power, but actually waits until He hears the cry of His people in intercession (Is. 30:18-19).
II. ANNA: SUSTAINED GRACE TO ENTER A LIFE OF PRAYER AND FASTING
“Now there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age, and had
lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. And this woman was a widow of 84 years who did not depart from the
temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. Luke 2:36-38
A. Anna is a remarkable figure in the Word of God. What we know of her is that as a young woman she lost her
husband of seven years and from that point on, for sixty years, she was found night and day in the temple, serving the
Lord in fasting and prayer. She was an intercessor, crying out to God continually, a prophetess, operating in the power
of the Holy Spirit, and an evangelist, telling all about Jesus the Redeemer when He was born. Her life serves as a powerful
portrait of a specific grace that the Lord will give to many before His Return.
B. Necessary to the First Coming of Jesus was this woman called Anna who served the Lord for some sixty years in prayer
and fasting night and day in the temple. Anna is a picture and a promise of what God will do among a whole company of
people before the Return of Christ.
C. God demands that this “cry” be in place before He sends His Son. Jesus’ Return will not happen except in
response to the cry of the praying church. Vital to the Church at large becoming a praying Church is the role of those
who live like Anna lived, in extravagant abundance of prayer and fasting over many decades. By their response and their
faithfulness, these will raise the water level in the prayer ministry of the Church worldwide—an indispensable role in God’s
universal plan to send His Son in response to a Church crying “Come!” (Rev. 22:17).
D. There was a grace before the new covenant to enter into a life of prayer and fasting. The Spirit of God wooed
this woman Anna as a picture of a ministry that would be released before the second coming. The whole drama of
Luke 1 and 2 is a picture of how God sends His Son unto the earth. The way the unchanging Father sent Him the first
time is but a dress rehearsal for how He will send Him the second time.
E. Anna entered into a sustained grace that lasted 60 years. This was a grace found in the old covenant. How much
more grace will be given to the generation when the Lord returns with the power of grace in the new covenant?
F. What does sustained grace in the place of prayer and fasting look like? It is about relationship, communion and
intimacy with the God-Man. It is standing in the gap between this age and the next with a heart gripped in lovesickness
and mourning. It is about taking our position in that gap and crying out to the Father in unity with the Spirit for the
Return of His Son.
G. God is raising up intercessors all across the globe that will love Him by their groan. We will ache with what He aches
with. We will long for what He longs for. We will not be okay to live in a darkened world as though it were alright. Day and
night our beings will cry out for the new Day of His appearing to come. We will mourn until that Day.
H. At His Return, Jesus desires that we would be one with His heart. He is the God-Man who is coming to reign as
King on the earth. He is coming to make the wrong things right and to overthrow all enemies of darkness that take their
stand against Him.
1. What happens when Love Himself comes to earth? He wants to find many on the earth who are in agreement,
full agreement, with His love and all it requires, with His hatred of wickedness and love for righteousness. He will rule in
flaming bright-righteousness and love. And when He comes, He comes as Himself. He must be Himself without reservation.
And everything that does not come into perfect agreement with all that He is must be destroyed.
2. This is our urgency—to come into union with that Man’s heart and be made holy, without any known opposition
within. Out of that union we lift our voice, crying out for what He cries out for, refusing to live as though things were alright
until He reigns as King on earth.
3. The realities of intimacy and urgency are of one reality. We cry out in urgent intercession because of a burning
intimacy that cannot be denied until fullness is realized.
III. THE ANOINTING OF ANNA: SUSTAINED URGENCY
A. Perhaps the greatest wonder of Anna’s life was the culmination of years spent in the place of prayer and fasting, day in
and day out, decade after decade, for sixty years continually.
B. Undoubtedly Anna faced much ridicule from her friends of her earlier years. As she moved out of her twenties and
into her thirties, she probably experienced a painful stigma as her friends and relatives would say, “Anna, you’ve done
this long enough. Why don’t you get on with the rest of your life? You’re going to waste away in that temple! Anna, what
has happened to you?” Yet year after year, day in and day out, she persisted. What kind of inward fire burned in her,
what kind of vision was set before her eyes, what kind of love fueled this urgency that persisted for such a prolonged
measure of time?
C. Sustaining a life of prayer and fasting is a combination of the grace of the Lord at work on the heart and the
response of the believer to remain fueled by an inward fire of love for God and far from the spirit of slumber and dullness
that so readily grows in the human heart.
1. First, we must stay connected to the heart of Jesus as our Bridegroom whom we love desperately. Only one truly
in love with God can sustain the rigors of this lifestyle. If love and desire for God is not our primary motive in fasting and
prayer, we will burn out quickly over time and end up as “burned stones,” disillusioned and disconnected at the heart
level.
2. Second, we must resist the dullness that subtly settles in over time, the gradual distance and disconnect at the
heart level from the groaning that once stirred so deeply. We have been called to live lives of wakefulness, continuously
watching with hearts alert, fighting always the spirit of dullness that seeks to settle in. This does not mean that we live
frenzied or fearful; it means we live desperately focused.
“You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep,
as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” 1 Thess. 5:8
3. Third, we must bear a certain stigma in this calling. The enemy will go to great lengths to sideline us in the place of
prayer. He will use the stigma voiced by others that says we should quit being “inactive” and give ourselves to serving in
ministry, helping people rather than just “checking out” from the true difficulties of life. This is a sure stigma that must be
understood and born in the calling of being an “Anna” before the Return of Jesus.
4. Fourth, we must grasp the role of intercession in God’s governmental strategy. Critical to sustaining our urgency
in the place of prayer and fasting is a deep understanding of the centrality of prayer in God’s government and a continual
reconnecting to the nobility of this calling. Intercessors must know that intercession is the primary means that God has
chosen to release His government in the earth.
5. Finally, we must cultivate a true understanding of God’s desire to answer our prayers. He has called us and
anointed us to pray because He desires to answer and bring forth the promises given in His Word in correspondence
to a praying Church. We must believe that it is in His heart to really Answer.
IV. FRIENDS THAT MOURN FOR THE BRIDEGROOM
And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days
will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. Mt 9:15
A. Mourning for God and Jesus’ Return is our great invitation and the heart posture He would desire us to walk in as
friends in this hour. We are to be those who live out a persistent cry, a continual voice lifted in intercession, crying out
for His Kingdom to come presently and ultimately.
1. To mourn is to live in the lamenting of Jesus’ absence. It is to live in a continual groan because things are not as they
should be. Things are only ever as they should be in Jesus’ presence. It is only when He is here, once again, on the earth
that the mourning finally comes to an end.
2. Our mourning gives witness that we are not of this world. And we groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the
King to come once again and make the wrong things right.
…we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body…but if we hope for
what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Rom. 8:23 - 25
3. We mourn because things are not right and there is only one Man, in all heaven and earth, who can make them
right and He is not here in bodily form.
4. Only when His feet walk once more on the earth, when His voice can be heard by every ear, when He rules from
His throne in Jerusalem, ordering and bringing all things under His perfect leadership, only then will things be right. Only
then will there be peace and safety.
B. Mourning for God is more than longing in lovesickness or sweet yearnings. To mourn is to tear the heart. It is to
groan in an intercessory cry without consolation until His Appearing.
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared…teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great
God and Savior Jesus Christ. Titus 2:13
It is in the context of this mourning laying hold of the Body of Christ, this Cry ascending on the Church worldwide, that the
Father will hear from Heaven and respond by splitting the skies with the Return of the Son. God’s invitation to us is that
we would partner with Him in this governmental role of intercession, becoming lives consumed by this all-consuming Cry,
responding to God’s grace in lifestyles of prayer and fasting, with the great UNTIL always before us…UNTIL He comes.