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PTAP's Vision "To see the global church praying for the Arabian Peninsula so that the gospel and churches will be planted for every indigenous people in the Arabian Peninsula" |
Revelation (8)
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PTAP's Vision "To see the global church praying for the Arabian Peninsula so that the gospel and churches will be planted for every indigenous people in the Arabian Peninsula" |
For Muslims in the region most of the very basics of Christianity are a struggle to accept and contrary to their view of God. To think of God as Father is really difficult. The concept of the Trinity is a big obstacle as well. It is believed God does not share his deity with another, so it is hard for them to accept Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Another difficulty is the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. It is believed that if Christ was God, then he would never have had to die on a cross set apart for criminals. Additionally, it is thought that no man can die for the sins of another, each must make restitution for their own wrongs. The people in this regions struggle with some of the most basic truths that come from God's Word.
Pray for the truth about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be revealed across the region this year. Pray that many in this region would come to understand what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Pray for the Holy Spirit to be released over the hearts and lives of people in this region. Pray for a revelation of God's personal touch in this area of the world.
Laylat al-Qadr (commonly known as the Night of Power, Night of Decree, Night of Value, Night of Measures, or Night of Destiny) is considered the holiest night of the year for Muslims and is traditionally celebrated on the 27th day of Ramadan. This day commemorates the day when the Qur'an was revealed to Mohammed.
This is a day when many Muslims believe that God's abundant blessings are mercy are more accessible on this night. Pray that as they celebrate this night, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, would show up in mighty ways. Pray that hearts would be opened to the Good News.
Over the next 24 hours, numerous communities of believers throughout the Arabian Peninsula will be gathering to pray for Jesus to show up and move on this night. Please pray for the Holy Spirit's leading, coverage, and protection as many gather together and declare Jesus over the Arabian Peninsula.
Also, on May 31, you can tune into prayercast and join many in praying for Muslims on this day. You can watch the livestream here:
Continue to look with me at this powerful passage from Habakkuk 2. Verse 2 reads,
“Then the LORD replied: Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”
Let's focus on two applications of this verse;
The Foundation of Writing
and
The Purpose of Writing
It stretches metaphor to say the foundation of our writing is from above. But I think you get the point here. When you are in fellowship with God you will see the same things you saw before, but you will see them from the rock of God's perspective. You may write about a dysfunctional home, but you will see it through the weeping eyes of God who loves them. And behind your words will be the knowledge of how it should be. You may write about a good elderly woman but you will not be blind to flaws in even the best person's character.
And notice that God tells us to write to affect the lives of people. We are to make what we write plain. You are writing for people to understand, not to impress them. I have read books that the authors admitted were written to help them work through a trauma. But those books were only good, or readable for that matter, if truth could be applied to the reader. The purpose of our writing is to make truth known to as many people as possible.
God' truth is the foundation of our writing. And people are the target of our words.
http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/
http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/
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.
In Luke 20:1-8 the scribes and Pharisees challenged the authority of Jesus who the day before had cleansed the temple. Incidentally, they also questioned his authority to cast out demons and heal the sick. His question of what they thought was the authority of John the Baptist silenced the rulers. This passage brings us face to face with the question of all authority. And it highlights the genuine authority of Jesus that obviously did not need to be defended.
This story shows us, The Authority of Righteousness.
His cleansing of the temple did not lean on any human or earthy authority. But everyone who saw what he did knew that what Jesus did was right.
He depended upon, The Authority of Revelation.
As He cleansed the temple Jesus quoted Scripture. "It is written!" I once heard Henry Blackaby comment, "I know people who talk a lot about the inerrancy of Scripture who do not submit to its authority in their lives. But authority is the question of inerrancy. Believing the Bible is true does not mean I understand everything I read. It means Scripture has the authority to call me into account.
His presence also brings out, The Authority of His Person.
When Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, I doubt if anyone was thinking about His right to do it. They were too busy fleeing from His presence. I believe that is a sign of nearness to God today. His nearness to you may be wonderful. But it will also overwhelm you with His majesty and authority.
And in this account we see, The Authority of Purpose.
Real authority is not an end in itself. It always accomplishes the purposes of God.
(I have a new video trailer for HOME IN THE WILDERNESS on the book page of my website.
On a couple of occasions recently I've been called to lead a time of corporate prayer for ministries I'm involved in that face some real challenges. Of course I asked God how He wanted the prayer times to be led—and He gave me a picture. In my mind's eye, I saw Jesus, similar to how He is described in Revelation 1, walking among these ministries. He was talking to us, sometimes smiling, putting a hand warmly on a shoulder, sometimes looking serious and concerned.
Continuing my reflection, I turned to Revelation and meditated on the first three chapters. With what I read there along with the picture God gave me, I sensed how He wanted the prayer times to be led. The format was very simple. It went like this:
Start with worship. In Revelation 1, John has a vision of Jesus that literally causes him to fall on his face. Although John was probably Jesus' closest friend on earth--intimate enough that he rested his head on Jesus' bosom--this is the glorified Jesus John is seeing now, and his response is holy fear, awe and worship. Worship is an excellent way to start a time of prayer for your church or ministry. Whatever challenges it faces, a vision of Jesus in His glory puts things into perspective. During one of our prayer times we started the worship part by singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" and then offered short prayers of praise and worship.
Thank God for the good. When our churches or ministries are going through hard times, it's easy to lose sight of what's going well. In our recent Revelation-based prayer times, we recalled that as He walked through each of the seven churches in Chapters 2 and 3, Jesus commended the good He saw there. He noticed how different churches had exhibited hard work, perseverance, faithfulness, and so on. So we asked Him to help us see the things in our fellowships that bring Him pleasure. We listened quietly for a while, then thanked Him for what the Holy Spirit brought to mind. There were some surprises--joys we'd nearly lost sight of in the midst of the more recent challenges. Being reminded of and expressing gratitude for those goodnesses gave us courage and hope.
Repent of personal sin. However, Jesus did not only commend the good. He also had things "against" the churches. When He looks at our fellowships, I'm sure He also notices where we're falling short. Often it's easy for us--okay, for me--to think the "problem" is everybody else. But guess what, I'm part of the body, and I make my contribution to its dis-ease. So in our prayer times, we allowed everyone a chance to invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and then confess what He revealed. Many of us confessed sins in our reactions to the problems our ministries are facing. Reactions of bitterness, detachment, discouragement, pride, anger, frustration, fear-of-man, arrogance, futility, and so on. It was really good to receive God's forgiveness for these. Doing so put is a much more humble and understanding place to move on to the next part.
Intercede for what is not going well. In each case, those of us who gathered for prayer had ideas of what we each thought was out of line. But as we prayed with this Revelation format, asking Jesu to show us what He saw, some of those ideas were adjusted, others dropped, new ones added. How Jesus saw us was not exactly how we had seen ourselves. He revealed heart attitudes, spiritual warfare, seemingly trivial actions--things we hadn't seen or considered--and led us to confess them on behalf of the body and intercede for repentance.
Close with confidence. At the end of Revelation 3, in a verse familiar to most of us, Jesus says that He is knocking at our "doors." If we will hear Him and invite Him in, He will share a meal with us--He will fellowship with us. Knowing this gives me great confidence. Whatever challenges and distress our ministires find ourselves in, Jesus is still knocking, not giving up, wanting to come in and be with us and lead us into life. So we closed our prayer times with declarations of our confidence in Him--His love, guidance, truth, help, rescue, healing, and so forth.
It's too soon to know the big-picture outcomes of our prayer times. But I do know that all of us who participated went away knowing we'd connected with Jesus, and that inspite of our struggles, He was still with us and for us and and working among us to make things right and whole. If you lead prayer for a ministry that is facing tough situations, perhaps you'd want to try leading a prayer time with the Revelation format. Let me know how it goes.
