Pray Network Forum

I recently finished the rough draft of a book on AGAPE. I have to admit that writing it has been a thrill. One of the things that God pressed on me is that agape, the love of God, the love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have lavished upon one another from before time, is at the heart of our bond with God. And agape needs to be the driving force of our prayer. Let me point out some natural expressions of the love of God that should shape our prayers.
Prayer for the Needy
God cares for the poor. He loves them with a special love. (James 2:5) You can pray in general for ministries to the poor. Thank God for them. And of course real agape and real prayer will give to such ministries. But that is not enough. You can pray for people you may pass every day. You may see them on the side of the road or in the grocery store. You may very well see them in church. And you can pray for opportunities to get the know some of them personally, and find personal ways to pray for each of them.
The neediest people you will ever meet are people who are lost without Christ
Prayer for the Lost
God cares for the lost. Jesus began His teaching in Luke 15 with this parable. Which one of you who has a hundred sheep but loses one of them will not leave the 99 in the open field to go after the one lost sheep? When he finds it, will he not put it on his shoulders with joy? Coming home he will call his friends and neighbors saying, “Celebrate with me because I have found my lost sheep!” Jesus concluded, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Are you praying daily by name for people who do not know your Lord? I assumed many of us would have to look for needy people. But that is not true about lost people. God has placed you in the midst of family members, neighbors, coworkers and acquaintances who need Christ. He has trusted them to you. Pray for a clear witness to them. Pray for softened heart. Pray for every need they have. Pray for His power in their lives.
Prayer of Forgiveness
As Jesus hung on the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them.” Who do you think He was praying for? He was certainly praying for the Roman soldiers who were carrying out His crucifixion. I believe He was praying for the multitude shouting, “Crucify!” I believe He was praying for the men who had condemned Him. But He was also praying for me. His whole crucifixion was a powerful prayer for God to forgive me and you. That prayer was a declaration of the will of God from before the foundation of the universe.
Are you praying for God to forgive those who have sinned against you? They probably include people whom you love, people who are close to you. They will include people who hate you. They will include people who hurt you deeply, and people who are not at all sorry about it. This kind of praying requires spiritual growth. And it will be a major factor in your growing more and more in the love of Christ.

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/
http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/
http://daveswatch.com/index.html

“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

Connect The Dots

I was very blessed to have an enjoyable drive to work. Most of it was back country road, no interstate highway or four lane road. Not much traffic unless I was running late and encountered school buses. As I was driving to work one morning, I looked to my left and saw two deer grazing in an open field. They heard the car and watched as I drove by. A half mile further, I looked up in time to see a flock of geese flying in formation overhead. The sun was just coming up and the sky was a brilliant shade of red and orange.

I had to just keep thanking God and praising him for the wonders he had placed in my pathway. As I was thanking him, it occurred to me that he orchestrated this beauty just for me. I never saw another car as I drove down the country road and that increased my awe in my creator.

Why would he plan such an event for me? He must really love me and want to bless me. That really got me to wondering how I fit into the scheme of things in the world.

I am a praying person, maybe more than some, but probably not as much as others. I am led by God’s Holy Spirit and when the Spirit asks me to pray for someone, I do.

Each morning I have my devotional time before starting my day. I need that time to get prepared for the day. It seems to help me be ready for any and every situation I may face.

I have been praying around the world with the help of a world prayer map. It directs my prayers to different countries on specific days. This is a tool that I use to pray for those who have never heard the gospel message. It amazes me that someone on the other side of the world may be blessed because I prayed for them.

Back to my story, I’m not sure what I was praying as I drove down the road that morning. I know that I was marveling at God’s work in the heavenlies. The sunrise was breathtaking. God spoke to my heart that morning and assured me that I was part of something much bigger than my own little corner of the earth.

In Psalm 139:7 - 8, David says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

As Christians, we are never separated from God and his love. His word tells us so. (See Romans 8:35-39.) That being said, we know that we are to pray. We are instructed to pray for other Christians, for our enemies, for those who persecute us. We are told to pray without ceasing and we are told by Jesus to pray: “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:9-13.

Did you hear what Jesus asked us to pray for? He said “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Wow, we are asking God to do his will on earth as it is in heaven. That is pretty awesome. I can’t really imagine what God does in heaven, but it is something fantastic. We know that Jesus is preparing a place for us in heaven. We know that the true temple of God is in heaven. We know that there is a throne in heaven.

When we ask for God’s will to be done, we are impacting our planet in a mighty way. When I pray for the gospel message to be preached in other countries, when I ask for God’s purpose and plan to be fulfilled in the leaders of other nations, when I ask that Christians would have the mind of Christ, my prayers are being heard in heaven and affecting the heavenlies.

Remember when God created the heavens and the earth? What did he do to create things? He spoke them into existence. Although I am not God, when I speak the things that his Holy Spirit instructs me to speak, I too am causing things to happen in the spirit realm.

What an awesome responsibility and how powerful are our words. I don’t really know the impact I have on other countries when I pray. I usually ask according to Jesus words in Matthew 9:36-38, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, (that is you and I) “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” We are asking according to God’s will when we ask him to send workers into the harvest field.

How does my life affect what happens in the universe? I can’t really say, but I do know that God hears my prayers. When someone is sent into the harvest field to become a missionary and preach the good news of salvation, I am there with them in Spirit. The impact they have on others may be a result of my prayers and the prayers of other saints around the world.

When someone hears and accepts the gift of salvation, the angels in heaven rejoice. “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15:7 Now that is far reaching. A little prayer from me and others like me can open the doors of heaven, send workers into the harvest field, the message of salvation through Christ can be preached and people can have eternal life.

Eternal life, now that is universal. It is so far reaching that we may never know just how far that one little prayer went.

Multiply our prayers by thousands or hundreds of thousands and you may be able to understand how you can affect what happens in the universe.

Now I have never really read anything in the Bible to prove what will happen when we live for eternity, but I have heard it said that what we are experiencing here on earth is like pre-school compared to what we will experience in eternity. And yet, we cannot experience eternal life unless we give our hearts to Jesus here on earth.

Our prayers for the lost people of the world are so important. If they are lost they don’t know to look for Jesus. We have to share the message with them. Not everyone who hears the message will accept it, not everyone who hears the message will understand it, but Jesus died for everyone on earth. That means that everyone on earth should at least have the opportunity to hear what he did for them. God wants to give everyone the chance to accept his gift of eternal life.

Do your prayers make a difference in the universe? Yes they do. Even if you don’t see visible proof, you have to pray and keep on praying. God knows your heart and he knows that you are sincere in wanting to reach the lost.

Father,

We know that no matter where we are, you are there, your Holy Spirit is with us, as Christians, wherever we are. We thank you for the way you reveal yourself to us and we want you to reveal yourself to those who don’t know you.

We know that you are the Lord of the harvest and that you can send workers into the harvest field to share the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

We know that you have a purpose and a plan for leaders of nations around the world, you are the one who has put them positions of leadership. We pray that your plans for the leaders of the world would be fulfilled and that they would become the men and women you created them to be.

We want to advance the gospel around the world and we pray that those who hear the gospel would accept your gift of eternal life. We know that heaven is poised and waiting to rejoice as people accept your gift and we rejoice with the angels.

Thank you for hearing our prayers offered in Jesus name. Amen

Convened by The U.S. Lausanne Committee / Mission America Coalition
April 4-7, Orlando

On Sunday afternoon of the last day at the Lausanne Cape Town 2010 Congress, participants gathered according to country into breakout sessions. The Mission America Coalition team helped coordinate the U.S. meeting and cast vision for a spring gathering in the United Sates that would bring those delegates together with hundreds of MAC / U.S. Lausanne Committee partners and other Christian leaders. The purpose of this gathering is to bring together practitioners, academic leaders, mission strategists, pastors, evangelists - all who carry a burden for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to transform neighbors and neighborhoods, nations and corporations.

Fueled by the glorious gathering of the Church in Cape Town, MAC partners, Cape Town 2010 participants, and leaders from the cities of America will come together for a catalytic consultation on evangelization. We will be in listening mode and learning mode: seeking the mind of Christ on how to reshape our efforts at evangelizing our home nation and looking for ways to partner with the global Church in reaching the nations with the message of Christ. Take advantage of early-bird registration rates at www.missionamerica.org. Then, help us shape the meeting that will shape the future - add your ideas and insights at www.orlando2011.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.

Instead of surrendering our ability to pray because our expectations aren't fully met in the moment (or in the way(s) we expect them to be fulfilled), shouldn't we surrender ourselves, and continually do so, to God?

*  Revival (when Christians, and the Church, become saturated with God).