Harvest (10)
Requests for training believers in how to start Disciple-Making Movements are growing fast. Numerous Discovery Bible Studies are happening in several languages and various areas of the Arabian Peninsula and spreading across international borders as people connect by Skype or travel. It is a simple, transferrable, and easily reproducible method to introduce people to the Word of God and have them experience Him at the same time. It can also be done even with the illiterate. Please pray for the Word of God to spread swiftly and that believers will be protected and reproducing. Please pray that those who have tasted and seen that the LORD is good via the Scriptures, Christian media, healings, deliverances, answers to prayer, dreams and visions, etc, will actually be saved by grace through faith.
- The Truth about what He has done for man through the LORD Jesus Christ.Faith to believe the Truth when they hear it.
- Repentance to turn from sin and embrace the Truth to the saving of their souls.
We so often see with earthly eyes and not spiritual, and need reminding that the recent Middle East turmoil surrounding Qatar is both geo-political and in the heavens.
Due to the wealth of the nation, daily lives of residents and locals seem unchanged. The supermarket shelves have been refilled after an initial panic, water and electricity continue, and the minor inconveniences include finding flights that don't go through certain airports. Locals are hanging Qatari flags on their homes; massive flags are everywhere. Bumper stickers and t-shirts with the ruler's image and praise appeared overnight. Public rhetoric says, "We're so rich and nice we can outlast your siege and bickering". The stickers say, with a handsome image, "God, our nation, our leader" and "You have the world, we have our leader".
However, in private, the ripples of uncertainty have begun to fan out. Companies are finding that components are stuck at the border or in nearby ports, delaying or deferring activity. In some sectors, there's talk of downsizing the workforce. Milk from Saudi Arabia has been replaced by Turkish. Vegetables have come in from Iran, subtly agitating the sea of political and religious alliances. Egyptians who form the middle management are reluctant to leave for summer holidays in fear they won't be able to return. Others are looking for jobs in "more stable" countries, talking of trying to emigrate, and even trying to claim asylum from here. There is even mention, with tones of unlikeliness, of what happens if someone inadvertently throws the first stone.
Believers have not seen a new openness to talking about eternal realities with local friends. However, the increased conversation gives opportunity for the bold to state convictions that God rules in the heavens and on earth. And there is always an open door to ask questions regarding the political situation - What's really behind this? What do you think? Where is your hope and trust? From there, it is only a step to sharing where our own faith is grounded. Pray for the believers to have boldness and opportunity to bring in the harvest.
For several years, M has continued a friendship with his former professor. Recently at M's house, they talked about how Old Testament themes reappear in the New Testament, such as salvation through Moses and Joshua, being fulfilled in a spiritual sense through Jesus, etc. Pray that M will seek to verify the truth that is found in Jesus.
PTAP on the PrayerMate App
PTAP is now on the PrayerMate app which you can download for free on iOS or Android. Check it out under the "World Mission" category. Just another way to help us pray for the AP and many other regions of the world! See here for more info: http://praynow4.org/arabianpeninsula
Pray for the many in Yemen who are facing starvation due to war. Pray that embargoes will be lifted, that food will be sent and that it would reach those in need.
Pray for God to be revealed
Ask that the Lord reveals Himself to the nations in the Arabian Peninsula. Although the people are neither seeking nor asking for Him, we ask on their behalf that they may be found by the Lord. The Lord is present. Ask that an ever increasing number of people in the Arabian Peninsula will be found by the Lord. May the people come to know the work of what the Son did on the cross. May the Lord bring repentance over the land that draws the nations into His very presence and Kingdom.
Praying for Workers
A fellowship of workers has been going through a hard time in the past few months with some members facing difficulties in family relationships, some having experienced a lot of remorse and grief at work recently, and many members leaving the country due to job-related reasons. Please pray for this group of workers during this season--for encouragement, healing, restoration, and joy--as they continue to serve the Kingdom faithfully.
A group of people interested in long term work for the Kingdom in the Arabian Peninsula are visiting this week. Pray for the potential harvest workers and their time in the region, for God to make abundantly clear where He is leading them and for these people to become more rooted in His heart for the people here.
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“Christ’s power to save, and save completely, depends on His unceasing intercession. The apostles’ withdrawal of themselves from other work to give themselves continually to prayer was followed by the number of the disciples multiplying exceedingly. As we, in our day, give ourselves to intercession, we will have more and mightier conversions. Let us plead for this.” Andrew Murray
How can you and I have our hearts on fire in prayer for the lost?
A strategic way is to know our Coach and our winning team position in prayer. The intercession of the saints is leading to a great harvest of souls now at the end of the age. Anticipate it, cry out for it, and seek God for this great ingathering of souls into His Kingdom. All over the world as never before individuals are turning to Christ. As we pray for the lost, we need to know in our hearts that we are on the winning team. In watching the World Series, the biggest major league baseball game in the U.S. every year, I could see the discouragement on the faces of the losing team. With the odds against them, they looked anxious, troubled, defeated, and disheartened.
When we think our situation is hopeless, it’s easy to give up and to lose heart. It’s hard to have a heart on fire in prayer when you feel defeated.
In sports, people often talk about being "in the zone.” This is the place of optimal, peak functioning when athletes perform to their absolute maximum and have the perfect game. Performance can be influenced from anything from the amount of sleep, nutrition, relationship status, training, coach input, and a number of other things. Individual player’s methods for attaining peak performance vary. Self-talk, how to deal with mistakes, and effective goal-setting must be considered for peak performance. Music that calms the mind and relaxing, positive self-talk are important.
When athletes are "in the zone," they are fully immersed in feelings of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. They are completely absorbed in what they are doing with single-minded immersion. Their motions are positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. There is the feeling of spontaneous joy while performing the task with a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one’s emotions. There is an intense concentration on the present moment, a merging of action and awareness, and a loss of reflective self-consciousness.
Intercessors praying for the harvest need to know the importance of being "in the zone” in prayer. So many of us can get disheartened with feelings that we have lost the battle. Others have lost their joy in prayer. Many of us do not have energized focus and are often distracted and preoccupied with our problems when we pray. We may have lost our deep focus on the task of intercession and may feel that the world is totally out of control, as well as our personal lives.
If you feel that the world situation looks bleak and hopeless, look carefully at these exciting statistics of what God is doing. The important thing when you feel that you have lost heart is to get back "in the zone" and realize that God is winning! Your prayers are making a worldwide impact, and you are on the winning team. I encourage you to shake off all of that end-time gloom, fear, anxiety, and feelings of defeat. Your team will win.
The Winning Team
“Christianity is openly mocked in all media: television, movies, print. Nightly News portrays a world seemingly in despair with no hope. The U.S., Canada, and Europe continue their downward slide away from God in their rejection of anything having to do with Christ and the Bible. Even common sense and tenets of basic human morality are regularly attacked and vilified. Yet the truth is that, in our time, worldwide, God is winning. The Holy Spirit is greatly moving in what was once called "the Third World". We need to be thankful and even amazed at what God is doing!”
The following statistics are from several different sources and change continually, but regardless of the exact numbers, we can see that God is up to something big! See operationworld.org for the latest updates. Also see www.prayerfoundation.org.
- There are as many as 200 million Christians in China with between 10,000-25,000 converts a day. Some say there are over 30,000 conversion per day (Open Doors)
- The number of Christians in Indonesia has grown from 1.3 million forty years ago to over 23.5 million today. (Operation World)
- The Jesus Film has been translated into nearly 1271 languages in 220 countries and over 200,000,000 people have indicated decisions for Christ as a result of the film. (Campus Crusade)
- No Christian was officially allowed to live in Nepal until 1960. Now there is a church in every one of the 75 districts of Nepal with estimates of over 850,800 believers. (Operation World)
- In A.D. 100, there were 360 non-Christians for every true believer. Today the ratio is less than seven to every believer. (Vision 2020).
- Every day, 20,000 Africans come to Christ. Africa was 3% Christian in 1900 and is now over 50% Christian (Vision 2020).
- Bible translation has been accelerated by over 100 years and is now on pace to be completed in 2025 (Wycliffe).
- About 500 Muslims come to faith in Christ every month in Iran - a country ranked among the top ten persecutors of Christians in the world. (Vision 2020).
- Every day 50,000 people in countries served by Asia Access come to Christ (Asia Access).
- The government of Papua, New Guinea mandated Bible teaching in every school in the country. (Vision 2020)
- In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church. Today Korea is 30% Christian with 7000 churches in Seoul alone with several having over 1,000,000 members (Vision 2020). Today, six new churches open every day.
- After 70 years of oppression in the Soviet Union, Christians number about 100 million - 36% of the population.
- In Nepal, the world's only official Hindu country, over 100,000 Hindus have met the Savior in the last two decades.
- Every month another 15,000 in India are baptized as new believers in Jesus.
- Millions of Buddhists have come to Christ.
- Of over 400 million Latin Americans, more than 50 million have become evangelical Christians.
- In Africa the church is on fire. It's the first continent to become majority Christian (over 50%) in a single century. There are over 25,000 new believers per day.
- More Muslims in Iran have come to Christ since 1980 than in the previous 1000 years combined.
- If only 1 out of every 6 believers "reproduced" themselves one time each year, the entire world would be reached for Christ by the year 2020!
- Christianity is by far the fastest-growing religion in the world today.
All the turmoil that is presently happening—terrorism, natural disasters, and lawlessness—leads people to seek for something beyond this life. Their attention is drawn to look for an anchor of stability and hope, something more than the uncertainties all around them. Our hearts are made for eternity, and we will not be satisfied unless we pursue it with all our hearts.
Our great responsibility and joy is to pray for the ingathering of this worldwide harvest.
There is a cathedral in Milan, Italy with these three inscriptions spanning its great arches. Over one is carved a beautiful wreath of roses, under which is written, "All that which pleases is but for a moment." Over another is sculptured a cross with the words, "All that which troubles us is but for a moment.” Underneath the central entrance to the main aisle is the inscription, "That only is important which is eternal." If we will remember these three truths, we won’t worry as much about the daily troubles we face. We won’t seek after temporary pleasures. We will live for that which is eternal and seek to pray and share the eternal Christ with those who are lost. It's time that we have a heart on fire in prayer for the lost.
God wants us to be “in the zone” on His winning team in prayer. He wants us to function optimally in prayer for the lost. To be "in the zone" with hearts on fire in prayer and to stay there, practice the following daily:
- Look at God’s statistics around the world for an accurate picture, not the news.
- Ask God to keep you in “His winning zone.” Pray for grace to perform to your absolute maximum in prayer for the lost.
- Repent of discouragement, fear, anxiety and all negative emotions and beliefs.
- Cast your cares on Him and ask for His ability to concentrate in prayer.
- Pray for energized focus and single-minded, full engagement in prayer.
- As God's athlete, get enough rest and eat healthy. Practice the Sabbath rest.
- Deal with your mistakes. Repent of personal sin daily.
- Pray for harmonious relationships. You are a team player and pray-er with others.
- Set prayer goals and focused prayer times for the lost. God's athletes live a disciplined life.
- Listen to peaceful worship music that relaxes your mind. Think on things above.
- Watch for negative thoughts and speech. Seek a holy optimism as a winner.
- Ask God to bring you into enjoyable prayer. Pray for spontaneous joy.
- Pray for your prayers to be aligned and energized with God’s Word.
- Follow your Coach carefully every day. Listen and obey His instructions.
Remember that you are partnering with God and are on His winning team. This is the perfect game, and there is no reason to lose heart. You already know the final score. At this point in the game as we pray for the lost, losing is absolutely impossible. Keep in mind daily that one day every knee will bow and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). That day may be soon!
“The Lord Jesus has united us in partnership with Himself in carrying out the great work of intercession. He in heaven and we on earth must be of one mind. We must have one aim in life. That aim is that we should love the Father and the lost by consecrating our lives to intercession for God’s blessing. The burning desire of Father and Son for the salvation of souls must be the burning desire of our hearts, too.” Andrew Murray
- Four facebook pages for books on prayer: Breakthrough Prayer, Ascending the Height in Prayer, Deeper Still, and 24/7 Prayer Arise.
- Join and like the Intercessors Arise facebook page for daily encouragement in your prayer life.
- Have your friends sign up for Intercessors Arise here.
- An Intercessors Arise International School of Prayer is in the initial stages. See The Fire of Prayer blog site.
Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
International House of Prayer (IHOP) KC Staff
deb@intercessorsarise.org
www.intercessorsarise.org
Churches, Business and Government leaders in San Diego County preparing for a great harvest of souls that during San Diego CityFest on Sept. 11, 2010. (See more at www.sandiegocityfest.com)
During the Season of Service (see http://www.sandiegocityfest.com/season_of_service), over 450 churches have been working together to mobilize more than 45,000 volunteers to serve in San Diego communities!
San Diego CityFest is a day of celebration and proclamation. Celebrating all that was accomplished through the Season of Service, the festival features Luis Palau and partner evangelists sharing the Gospel. Christians who served in the Season of Service invite their unbelieving friends, giving them the opportunity to respond to the Good News.
We are asking that members of prayer and ministry networks “strive together in prayer” with San Diego leaders by investing 1 hour of prayer for a tremendous work of grace in San Diego County during the: “36 Hours of Prayer for the Harvest”: From Friday, September 10 at 1pm through Sunday, September 12 at 1am.
This begins with prayer and anointing of the Main Stage with Luis Palau and ends with hundreds of changed people who responded to the Gospel being connected with local churches.
Please reply to let us know that you will be partnering with San Diego CityFest in prayer! If your ministry network would like to volunteer for a particular hour or hours, please let us know so that we can update our “36 Hours of Prayer for the Harvest” calendar.
Will you beseech heaven on behalf of souls in San Diego County? We pray that you will! Thanks in advance for your prayerful consideration and prayer partnership.