Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire - Jim Cymbala

With Dean Merrill.
Published by Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2018 (1997).

I recently did a sermon on prayer and fasting, and borrowed a number of books from our church library shelf that seemed to have some connection to the topic. I browsed a few for research (and read the entirety of Fasting by Derek Prince) and then took most of the rest back to church when the sermon was done. A handful, however, I kept to read later, and Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire was the first of these that I picked up post-sermon.

I'm so happy I did, because this is an inspiring book, with a far more biographical bent than I was expecting. 

The author, Jim Cymbala, is the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, quite a large church in New York that - aside from my parents-in-law playing some musical clips - I've had no exposure to. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire tells the story of the growth of that church from a small handful of people to a congregation numbering in the thousands, but (rightly) is far less focused on the numerical growth. Instead, Cymbala talks about the heart of prayer that helped see the church flourish, and questions why any other focus should drive us: "Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, "We are not New Testament Christians if we don't have a prayer life." This conviction makes us squirm a little, but how else will there be a breakthrough with God?" (page 53).

There are some powerful testimonies of breakthroughs coming in response to prayer, including that of Cymbala's own wayward daughter, who - on the night of a church prayer meeting where someone in the congregation felt stirred to make her the prayer focus - had a powerful dream that brought her back to the Lord (page 67).

Everything in this book is about stirring Christians to pray - and this is exactly what God has been stirring me about personally for some time. 

This book was very timely. 

Recommended.

Completed 20 December 2024.

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