Pray Network Forum

A colleague asked a Christian worker for a copy of the Bible because she has close friends who are believers and is curious to know what it has to say. Pray that she will actually read the Word with an open heart, and that God will speak to her and open her eyes to the Truth in reading the Word. 

There is a whole category of people who are called to Christ and have a passion for the nations & for the weak & marginal and have sought to go with a variety of service groups and who are repeatedly told no, don't go, be quiet, just settle down young man.

The reality is that if I were to go to my field of focus, I would probably die in short order because I would of my zeal or I would be disregarded as a lunatic because I would lose all my sleep because the medicines that help me relax & sleep sometimes would be unavailable.

Instead I pray.

I dare say that often my prayer lacks impact that I am aware of. I tend to pick certain countries & prayer goals and remember them as reminded, so I make lists.

Is this unfocussed? No, usually the only times I have observed the impact are when I stop praying and problems happen.

In retrospect, I have however seen the Lord start movements in various peoples that I prayed for and the timing was impossibly too neat to correlate due to chance. God uses our prayers for movements. Over and over, I find that God works far more in my absence than in my presence. He is a big God, and he wants us to pray big, foundation-laying prayers.

If the leaves of the tree in the Revelation of Jesus given to John are for the healing of the nations, then we must plead for that salve to be applied for the salvation of the souls of societies.

Praying requires a whole different category of action, it elevates us to the heavenlies, for we read the divine counsel in the Word and render judgements according to Psalm 2:8: the Son will have the inheritance that is His! HE shall possess the earth. HE is waiting for us to ask. He knows exactly what He plans to do and He is always on the right side of history.

Politicians will fail us.
Disasters are unpredictable.
The devil is dangerous.
The nations are too large for us to reach them in our own power.

But every time we kneel in prayer and cry out for help, God hears and acts. Every time we stand on His promises, the Lord proves His faithfulness. Every time we sit in His presence and ask for the nations, the Lord God sends forth His angel armies to intervene. Every time we fall flat on our faces and humble ourselves before the King of the Universe, the Lord God Almighty rejoices over us with singing and stands in the gaps that we cannot fill.

We cannot fill the gaps for we are sinners,
I am the worst
But He is perfect
We fail. He is faultless.
The Lord will succeed in every intervention He begins.

Our actions, our giving, our prayers, our sacrifices all must flow from our lives guided by the Word of God for them to be effective.
This is why years in prayer are often needed to accomplish what may take a season of actual service.
Then, when the doors close behind us after our work is finished, then the Lord Spirit goes to work most earnestly, with greater freedom than we could ever have.
This is the story of China.
This is the story of Iran.
This is the story of all who are bathed in prayer,
This is the story of all who are bathed in the Spirit.

This is why statistics lie about the future.
Statistics are based on what man sees.
Faith is about what God has promised.
Hope is the certainty that God will keep His promises to the end.
Love is behaving according to this confidence that God is love.

Jesus says in the Great Commission, "Go and preach the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15). 

This week, I was inspired by an idea Kevin Senapatiratne wrote about at Christ Connection. It's a great new "tool" for my missions toolbox, and I asked Kevin if I could share it with others. He is delighted to share this idea with you, too, and you'll find it right here:

Be the Spark to a Great Awakening!

We pray for so many things. I saw two prayer requests this week for sick and suffering dogs. I think that is legitimate. Those who lifted the requests loved their animals. Our prayers should reflect the concerns and passions of our hearts. But it is crucial for us to have right priorities of desire and concerns. Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God. Are you praying for the kingdom?

The day will come when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. In 2 Peter 3:11-12 we find these words.

"Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening, the coming of the day of God."

We are to wait for and hasten that day. Now let me ask you what we could do to hasten the culmination of history?

It is legitimate to pray as John prayed at the end of The Revelation. "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" But there is more that we can do and pray in this regard. In Matthew 24 Jesus gave us signs of the end times. And in verse 14 He said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all people groups, and then the end will come."

Are you praying for the spread of the gospel, the spread of the Kingdom?  Do you have lists of missionaries that you pray for every day? Are you praying for the gospel to be brought to unreached and unengaged people groups? www.operationworld.org/ is great place to begin. They have the definitive prayer guide for people groups around the world. You can also find information on praying for the spread of the gospel at www.imb.org/ or on the websites of other mission agencies. We can pray for His kingdom to come.

Next week we will look at praying for God's will.

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

daveswatch.com/

The One Thing You Need to Reach the World for Jesus 11/29/2015 0 Comments   I have been a missionary both at home and abroad. I have traveled to dangerous inner-city ghettos and dusty, dirty African compounds. I have sung songs with poor children in the streets of Mexico and built houses for the homeless in the streets of New Haven. And found that there was only one thing I needed. I have been trained in every type of evangelism possible, from “Evangelism Explosion” to the “Four Spiritual Laws” to “Romans Road” to simple John 3:16 evangelism. I have sat on park benches in Michigan sharing my faith with passersby, and preached, awkwardly, on a street corner where no one really listened. And learned that there was only one thing I really needed. I have served to weariness in churches near and far: sharing my testimony, praying, giving, counseling, worshiping, cooking, organizing, leading, following, discipling, and teaching, in the hopes of reaching others for Jesus. And seen that there is only one thing I’ve ever needed: to be with Jesus. The simple truth is that people recognize when you have been with Jesus.

Continue Reading at His Inscriptions

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Despite all of our divisions and denominations, the great test for every Christian is the test of love. Can we love without judging, when our brother believes differently than we do? Can we rejoice in the preaching of the gospel by those "less qualified" than ourselves? Can we allow for differences of opinion and interpretation while still agreeing on the essentials of the faith? 

This is the great test for every Christian: not simply to preach the gospel ourself, but to allow others to preach Christ in the knowledge they have attained, however limited. Paul recognized this in his letter to the Philippians. Instead of being upset by those who preached Christ out of "selfish ambition" or even contention, he rejoiced that the gospel was being preached at all! (SeePhilippians 1:15-18). Sometimes, even those who attack our faith end up drawing more attention to it, instead of causing its demise.

Click here to continue article:

the-test-of-love

Whose heart are you praying? It is often a step of growth for a person to move from praying casual prayers to crying out to God with their heart. But it is greater spiritual growth to move to praying God’s heart. Even a new Christian can desire to please God. And you don't have to be a spiritual giant to know the best things that ever happen are the will of God. As we grow in those prayers, We begin to long for those things that God desires.

YOU CAN PRAY FOR THE PURPOSES OF GOD.

Read your Bible daily asking God to show you His purpose and purposes. You can ask God to show you His purposes all around you. You know that God is not willing for anyone to parish. Are you praying for lost people He has brought into your life? You know He desires holiness. It is easy to complain about the wickedness that we see in politics, the media and modern society. But it is more important to pray for God to bring about His holiness.

MISSIONS ARE ON GOD’S HEART.

Are you praying for missions and missionaries around the world? Start with someone you know or know about. Keep in touch with that person. Pray earnestly for God’s mighty hand on them. From there ask God to show you more who take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Ask God to expand your passion for the world that Jesus came to save.

YOU CAN PRAY FOR COMPASSION.

Are you asking God to stir your heart with His love? Ask Him to give you His love for people all around you.

PRAY FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH.

Spiritual growth can be painful. We often waste our prayer tmes asking God to make us comfortable. You can pray for God to do what is necessary in your life to make you strong. I sometimes find myself in the midst of pain or difficulty praying for God to keep me from missing the blessing or benefit He intends for me out of the situation. “Father, it would be terrible for me to go through this suffering and still miss what you intend to do in my life.” I find this much more satisfying that simply praying that God will get me out of the painful situation.

http://daveswatch.com/

Thank you for praying!

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Evangelism Connection Share view as web page  APRIL 2011 Evangelism news from the Mission America Coalition (U.S. Lausanne Committee)

The whole Church taking the whole gospel to the whole nation - and to the world. Table of Contents Chairman's Letter | Collaborative Calendar | Evangelism News |News & Trends | Tools to Use 110 Tables, 28 Affinity Consultations, Three Venues -- U.S. Leaders Seek Vision for Evangelism at Orlando 2011   About 700 people gathered in Orlando, Fla. to seek God's vision for evangelism in the next decade. The U.S. Lausanne Committee / Mission America Coalition (MAC) convened leaders to consult together and seek God's vision for evangelism in this decade. The meetings centered around four plenary sessions with immediate table dialog and 28 separate "affinity consultation" groups, their topics spanning every arena of evangelism and missions from global justice to creation care to Islam to mobilizing congregations in missions. The affinity groups discussed the issues the Church faces in carrying out the Great Commission and practical next steps for those involved.

To be honest, when I read of violence like this, my first reaction is to be angry. I'd like to think that anger is righteous anger of the type that Jesus displayed in clearing the temple of the moneychangers, but in my more candid moments I know better. James says that man's anger does not bring about the righteousness of God.

So when I pray over situations like this, I first ask God to cleanse my own heart. I want to feel his grief for both the victims and the perpetrators. That's not an easy prayer; frankly, only God could do that.

Recently, I've begun to "go on the offense" in praying for the persecuted church. I realized that my prayers have been primarily defensive in nature: asking God to fix what was broken, to comfort grieving families, etc. These are important prayers, but for some reason God seems to be leading me to pray more aggressively these days.

In praying for the families of these murdered workers, I've been asking God to do for them what he did for Job - not just to restore what was taken, but many times more than that. I've been praying for an "abundantly more than all we ask or imagine" type of blessing for those impacted by persecution - something that only God could do, something that will bring honor to him by showing both his love and his power.

And in praying for the perpetrators of crimes like this, I've begun to pray for Damascus-road type experiences like Paul had: not just that the persecutors would stop persecuting, but that God would so change them that they become champions of his cause. We know that Paul's conversion caused no small stir in the early church - can you imagine the stir it must have caused among his former allies in persecuting the church? What better display of God's power and saving grace could there be than that he turns around the lives of those who have so set themselves against him?

The church is at war. So yes, I pray for God to protect, to defend, to restore. But more and more these days, I sense God leading me to ask him to take the offense - to break down walls, to change lives, to expand the kingdom. The "armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6 contains both defensive and offensive weapons. I think God is teaching me now that prayer is intended to be the ultimate weapon on both defense and offense. What do you think?