Pray Network Forum

Most of us are aware that the Bible calls us to pray for those who have authority over us in government. But let me suggest that we need to pray quite as much for spiritual leaders whom God has raised up to touch our lives and strengthen His church. Many of you are already praying, hopefully daily, for your pastor, your Bible study teacher or that person who has a great influence in your life.

Beyond praying for those whom we know personally are some who teach and inspire us. Many of these influence entire nations and much of the world. It is crucial to pray for their spiritual, moral and even physical protection. You know that the enemy is bombarding them in every way he can think of. You can easily imagine how many people would be harmed if they fell into sin, heresy and public disgrace. And who knows what God might do through them because you are praying.

I pray every day for Eric Metaxis. I know my prayer is part of God using him. There are other writers with not nearly so public personas that I pray for. I once shared Christ with someone by getting them to read Vienna Prelude, by Bodie and Brock Thoene. I pray for them and their powerful novels. My wife and I read Phillip Yancey's Disappointment With God, years ago when our daughter was critically ill. My wife was reading in the night in our daughter's hospital room tears streaming down her cheeks as God ministered to her. A nurse came running into the room wondering why Marsha was crying.

"Oh, I'm just reading this book." She held it up. The nurse charged her not to read it any more in the hospital room in the night. God used that book in our lives in those days.

Do you pray for Franklin Graham? Are you praying for his son, William? I also continue to pray for another of Billy Graham’s grandsons, Tullian Tchividjian, after all that has befallen him. I am sure much of it is his own fault. Who knows how God might restore him. And I still pray for Billy in these final years of his life.

I think we need to pray daily for Tim Keller with his emphasis on the gospel touching all of life. I pray with him and with Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan as they desire the number of believers in New York to triple in the next ten years. We need to pray for Ravi Zacharias and the ministry of his team members in more than a dozen countries across the world. Ravi will be on hundreds of university campuses this year. 

I often discover some new preacher to pray for, maybe one that I should have been praying for all along. I just added Chip Ingram and David Jeremiah to my daily prayer list. I can't wait to see who God calls to my attention next. God may use me to pray for a Luther, a Wesley, another C.S. Lewis or an Elijah for these days. My prayers could become vital support for the two witnesses that stand before all the earth in Revelation 11. Whom will God use you to pray for to further His kingdom on the earth? 

On a recent day, the sun was shining and the weather was warm. It was a beautiful day, perfect for being outside and enjoying nature. However, all the weather reports focused on the upcoming storms, predicted to hit during the night. No reports of the beautiful weather, just the warnings of pending doom. Life gets that way some times. We miss the joy of the present by focusing on the possibility of a troubling future. Morris West, an Australian novelist whose books were published in 27 languages, and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, wrote, “If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” Jesus spoke of the future when He said, “what you will eat” and, “what you will put on” and then spoke of the present, “do not worry about your life” (Luke 12:22). While it is true that “joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5), it is also true that you can enjoy joy in the present, whatever happens between now and morning.

When members of the congregation or intercessors are considering praying for their pastor, here are some things to consider as they make steps to pray for them.  The closer the member or intercessor is to the pastor or the more formal the prayer relationship, the more deeply that person may be able to pray for their pastor's needs. 

Because pastors may not formally invite them into a prayer relationship, members and/or intercessors could consider praying for the following needs:

• General Needs:  Family, Finances, Job (Secular), Health, and Ministry--These are needs for which most pastors (or anyone for that matter) needs prayer.  These things can be prayed for without a formal prayer relationship. 

• Informal Needs:  Observations--These are also needs that do not require a formal prayer relationship.  These are the needs that are expressed in passing, over the pulpit, or just merely seen by observation.  For example:  He may speak of a child that may be having issues or a pain.  She may look extremely exhausted or like there is something heavily on her mind.

Tune in for Part 2!

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 Matthew 23:9 Jesus spoke these words.

"And call no man your father on earth,

for you have one Father who is in heaven."

It is terribly important to grasp this truth. This is at the heart of the gospel. And the gospel is the heart of Christian theology. When Jesus instructed us to pray to God as our Father, and when Paul said God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, "Abba, Father," the pattern was set for our relationship with God. We are born again into His family, into His embrace.

When I recognize God as my Father, I admit that He is the source of all that I have and all that I am. He brought about my spiritual birth. He suffered all the labor pains. He's covering the cost.

I am physically the product of my parents combined DNA. Even that was determined by God. He determined when and where I would be born. He decided who my parents would be.  More than that, He has determined my spiritual gifts for His great purposes. He plants His spiritual DNA, in me.

He is developing His character in me. When I was a child my earthly father worked with me to develop my character. The summer before my final year of high school I went to work on a farm in a different state, hundreds of miles away. All that spring Dad was obvious in his purpose of developing my character. He did that because he loved me. He also let me know he was proud of me even though he was often frustrated at how slow I was to apply what he was trying to teach me. Knowing God is my Father leads me to submit to Him. It gives me a hunger to spend time with Him in prayer, Bible study, service, and obedience, so He can graft His nature into my heart.

Knowing God is my Father helps me trust Him to provide my needs. If the God of the universe is my Father, I can be at peace about my needs. More than that I can grow in the joy of His generosity. As God prompts me to give more and more, I can enjoy it, trusting Him to provide. If God is my Father, I can risk everything in the adventure of His purpose. My Heavenly Father will take care of me in and even beyond this life.

I have one final word for this blog, although we will never grasp the breadth and length and depth of this reality. If we are God's children, we do not do any of these things to win His approval. We serve Him because are His. We have become God’s children. He loves us as much as He loves Jesus. Your pictures are on His refrigerator. He holds you in his heart.

ionprayer

A day, in the Presence in the prayer room

Posted on May 20, 2016 by ionprayerblog

Looking toward the beginning of the 6th month, pondering  the rest of 2016. . .

At the beginning of the year, the Lord gave us the word “REFRESH” for 2016. He began speaking this beginning in December as I looked into what the ION Prayer Focus might be going into the new year for January.

Continuing in the message of “wait” was my answer. For the past 8 years I had been in the habit of writing prayer focus guides for ION. Originally weekly, then twice monthly and in the last few years it has been a monthly prayer focus guide. That all was been put in “wait” mode as we entered into 2016. God has been working on me as to what is really needed. Is it my habit, or is it His guiding?!?

Let me give you some background. For over the past two years, our core prayer team has been walking out James 1:2-8

James 1:2-8 The Christian can even welcome trouble  (J.B. Phillips) When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God—who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty—and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God’s help or not. The man who trusts God, but with inward reservations, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the wind one moment and driven back the next. That sort of man cannot hope to receive anything from God, and the life of a man of divided loyalty will reveal instability at every turn.

James 1:2-8  (VOICE) Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing. If you don’t have all the wisdom needed for this journey, then all you have to do is ask God for it; and God will grant all that you need. He gives lavishly and never scolds you for asking.

Wisdom, as James understands it, is the ability to live life well and make good decisions. Wisdom doesn’t come from old age or hard knocks. Wisdom begins with knowing and depending absolutely on God, who is never stingy when it comes to wisdom for those who seek it. He supplies all the wisdom we need when we ask. But when we try to go it alone—without God—trouble is around the corner.

The key is that your request be anchored by your single-minded commitment to God. Those who depend only on their own judgment are like those lost on the seas, carried away by any wave or picked up by any wind. Those adrift on their own wisdom shouldn’t assume the Lord will rescue them or bring them anything. The splinter of divided loyalty shatters your compass and leaves you dizzy and confused.

We will be the first to confess, this has not been an easy time for any of us. But we will also be the ones to say God has been right in the middle of all this with us! And we are stronger for these days. In the midst of all of the trials, tests and hardships a new level of TRUSTING GOD, comes in the chaos.

God is in the chaos. . .

It is He who can give us the correct perspective in the middle of the storm, but we must look to Him (and Him alone). Have you been in the midst of some trials? What if it is God working on your maturity or the maturity of those around you. This is a body issue, the whole body of Christ is in the midst of understanding their true identity and what must happen to REFRESH. A recalibration is needed. A recalibration is happening!

Understanding our true identity in sonship. . .

1 John 5:20 – And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, [even] in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

Luke 1:35 – And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Romans 8:10-12  – In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.”

Romans 8:16 – The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God

Remember that our primary purpose in being a son of God is to bring God glory. Our proper identity and correct alignment is in who God calls us. -Sons of God, children of His!

Sons of God, hear the Father’s voice, Sons of God speak what the Father tells them to speak, Sons of God do what the Father tells them to do. Hearing Him is critical. Being of Him and people of prayer is key for this season. We have heard His voice and are in a new place of hearing Him. Hearing Him call us and others to pray and to lead others to pray into the future for those who still wait to hear God’s name and to have an opportunity to follow His Son. Only through the work of the Holy Spirit will that happen. So this week after Pentecost, we continue to cry out. . .

Habakkuk 2:1-3  (WEB) – I will stand at my watch, and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.  Yahweh answered me, “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read it.  For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it; because it will surely come. It won’t delay.

Habakkuk 2:14 (WEB) – For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 3:1-2 (WEB) [God Racing on the Crest of the Waves] A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, with orchestra: God, I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you, and I’m stopped in my tracks, down on my knees. Do among us what you did among them. Work among us as you worked among them. And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, remember mercy.

As we round the corner to the coming of the first of June and the beginning of the second half of the year, it is becoming more clear! God is in the quieting of us down so to speak.

When we look back to where we were a year ago this week (at the last week of our 50 days of intentional listening prayer initiative) we see God is answering our prayers. He has shifted us in many ways, yet the vision remains the same.  Read more about the vion of ION here: https://orality.net/about/#vision

Coming into focus are some spectacular stories of what God He is doing out in His Harvest field. We are delighted at the opportunity to join Him in His activity.

IMB Sub-Saharan African Peoples

Worker’s reply after you prayed for the speed of deer rather than turtle speed on May 18th for the completion of the final recordings of a StoryTogether project…: “Answered prayers yesterday! We are making big strides. One story teller went from stuttering to confidence in the first story!” Please continue claiming Psalm 18:33 as you pray for these recordings and the peoples on a different religious ‘course’ who will now have an opportunity to hear the Good News in their heart languages.

Scripture App for the Amis: Taiwan

A pilot project was launched recently by Wycliffe Taiwan among the Amis community, one of the largest language groups in the country. The project aims to provide the Amis people an app so they can access Scriptures easily in text and audio forms. Once the Amis project is completed, similar projects will be started in other people groups. Thank God for Taiwan Bible Society and the Amis churches who are the key partners in this project. Pray also for the 16 language communities in Taiwan. Pray that they would all have access to God’s Word and know Him as the Author of hope, love and life.

Using their language in church: Russian Federation

Over the past three summers a translation team has worked with local believers from a small people group in Siberia to craft a set of 30 oral Bible stories. Praise God that the believers who helped the team enjoyed the work so much they practiced translating verses from the Bible while the team was away. They told them, “You have helped to redeem our language for the church. Now we talk, pray and sing in church all the time in our mother tongue!”

American Bible Society Celebration of 200 years. They are into their 3rd Century of joining God in the Bible cause in America and throughout the World. Habakkuk 2:14

  Sharing a blog post from the American Bible Society:

Prayers That Give Me Peace in Times of Chaos: When the busyness of life drags you down, you can turn to God for comfort

  Faith Comes By Hearing

Time to celebrate ‪#‎GodsWord‬ recorded in 1000 languages. Praise God for His provision and partnerships. Now let’s do ‪#‎1000More‬.

Thinking back to the prayer room when Morgan Jackson came into our ION Prayer Room and shared what they would be doing in a goal of every heart language having the New Testament in Audio format available. WOW! Look at what God has been doing. So very grateful for the opportunities to come alongside our ION Partner groups in prayer.

PRAISE GOD for this movement of putting the Scriptures into every heart language. Now lets continue to come alongside the work of groups like Faith Comes By Hearing and ask for continued favor.

Let’s pray big and set our hearts together to pray for the whole Bible in every language. We have seen God do remarkable things over this past 10 years as the ION Prayer Team. You are invited to join in asking. . .

ION Mission

Seeking to radically influence the way oral preference learners are evangelized and discipled in every people group

Source: https://ionprayer.com/2016/05/20/a-day-in-the-presence-in-the-prayer-room/ via @ionprayer

n prayer this morning I heard the Lord say, “Your victory does not lie in your defense but in your offense.” He followed this with a prophetic word (below) that will encourage you to resist the temptation to trust in your defenses and instead, to advance with Him in a victorious offense!

Click Here to Read

Every congregation needs three essential gatherings – one for worship, one for teaching and training (discipleship), and one in which the congregation meets God in corporate prayer. These are not exclusive one of the other. As the church gathers for prayer, there should be at the heart of the meeting, a worshipful disposition. The corporate worship experience should be structured to include significant congregational prayer moments. Yet neither, the church gathered to worship and hear the Word nor the church gathered to pray the Word, can replace the other. The act of praying together is itself a form of discipleship. We learn to pray by praying.

The discipleship-training-teaching effort of the church should include a prayer training component, in which, a deeper

understating of prayer is cultivated, and again, neither can replace the other. The central spiritual discipline that enlightens us is prayer – over an open Bible. Without prayer, discipleship fails. Since, without the discipline of daily time with God, as well as regular moments in which the congregation pauses to meet with God corporately, we testify to independence and self-sufficiency, the opposite of the spirit of one under discipline.

A fundamental characteristic of healthy worship is its vertical orientation. It is not the singing or preaching that inspires us, not the horizontal. Rather, it is edification (horizontal), insistently, in the context of glorifying God (vertical). Our chorus and syrupy brotherly love moments, our best inspiration praise music and positive preaching, will not sustain us. What is demanded is an encounter with the Presence, with God. That necessitates corporate interaction with God, our talking to God, doing it together, and that is corporate prayer.

Sadly, too little prayer occurs in our corporate worship. Even when we sing prayer songs, we recite the lyrics, but do not pray them. We are in church, unconscious of God’s Presence. Essentially ignoring Him – with Him in the room. Talking to one another about Him – but not to Him.

The element of prayer in worship has almost been lost – prayer is a quick opening to say to the people, “We are beginning the service!” And it is a closing exercise, a moment in which many race for the door to be the first out of the parking lot, and in which the pastor positions himself at the door for congratulatory handshakes about the morning message. The benediction, which should be the high point in worship, that moment in which God’s blessing is pronounced on the people, is disappearing.

In smaller congregations, where prayer request times have survived, a collage of needs are cast heavenward with such casualness that the experience testifies to our waning faith in prayer. That too, is the time when staging shifts occur. Prayer is ancillary to worship, almost irrelevant, certainly the stepchild of corporate worship. If prayer is not practiced when the people of God gather for worship, by that omission, we declare its value as insignificant. We assume God’s grace. We transform worship into clubs of sincere people gathered to inspire one another – and that is less than true worship. The congregation needs to hear the pastor, not only talking to them, but also talking to God in their behalf,

modeling Biblical prayer, functioning in his primary role as shepherd-watchman-intercessor. And the congregation needs to be led in corporate prayer.

It is estimated that 90 percent of the people attending some religious events, even church services, are passive observers.^[1] The church has been a spectator event. We are sung to, prayed for, and preached

at. The church is thought to exist for the inspiration it offers, the services it provides, the bang for the buck – not so. The church does not exist for itself, for its members, but for the Lord, and because of His loving nature, for the world around us. Contrary to popular thought, worship is not ‘for what we receive from the experience’ but for what God receives. Narcissistic self-interested worship is a form of idolatry; it is self-worship, thinly disguised. And it is self-deception. The new reformation, someone has said, is ‘do whatever works.’ Pragmatism. In our attempt to be contemporary, and to reach a post-Christian culture, we are in danger of becoming ourselves post-Christian. Of losing the faith. To make it all about the person, the sinner, whose major problem is self-centered life, only reinforces the sin. It is the radical opposite that is needed – repentance, a cross, humility, the death of sin and self.

• This blog is part of The Praying Church Handbook – Volume III – Pastor and the Congregation which can be purchased at alivepublications.org>

^[1]       Mike Erre, Death by Church (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2009), 39.

Continue Reading here

I have begun thinking, studying and praying about writing a book on hope. I have already written a few preliminary things. And I want to share one of these with you today.

I have been frustrated at reading books that offer hope with no foundation of ultimate hope. They treat hope as if it were merely a hopeful feeling that could be drummed up without reference to our ultimate predicament. I want to show hope from the beginning of our anxiety. I have recently heard this problem posed in several different ways. The essence of it is that God created us even though He already knew that Satan would tempt Adam and Eve, and we would all be plunged into sin.

First, let's examine the nature of God and reasons He created the world. As a tri-personal being the Father, Son and Holy Spirit loved one another with infinite love from eternity. The same Bible that affirms God's omniscience says God is love. This defines His nature. He did not create us out of any need. He created us that we might be caught up in His love.

Now, there are several possible worlds that God could have created. He could have created no world at all. Or He could have created a beautiful universe without any sentient beings. He could have created an a-moral world where it didn't matter what we did. He could have created beings that were not tempted and were programmed only to do right. But love would not be possible in a world without free will and the risk of failure. There could be no true devotion in a world where rebellion was impossible. In a different world there could be no moral courage. There would be no heroic faith or sacrificial love. There could be no repentance or redemption in a world without freedom. I am aware that the humility of repentance can be fearsome and painful. But for those who submit to God, it becomes one of the most fulfilling facets of our lives.

The primary issue of right and wrong is not merely obeying a law. It is love. Jesus said all the law and the prophets were summed up in the commands to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds and our neighbors as ourselves. Paul said love is the fulfillment of the law. And God draws us to come, even as sinners, into the redemption, embrace and expression of His love.

God already knew everything that would come when He created the world and said it was good. If we look at things the way they are now, it is hard to say the world is good or that this is the best of all possible worlds. But that is like deciding a ball game is lost before it is over. You might say, "This is a terrible game. My team is so far behind they will never catch up!"

But what if at the very end your team comes from behind against impossible odds to win after all? Is that a terrible game because your team was embarrassingly behind? No that game is far better than a game where your team won easily.

Well, God's omniscient foreknowledge extends beyond today. And while things look bad at this point, we can trust Him to bring them to glorious conclusion in the end.

You can trust God because He is good, benevolent and loving. The same Bible that reveals His power and foreknowledge tells us He is good and the source of all good. I believe we know this instinctively.

And I believe we can know the source of accusations against God. The same one who continually accuses you before God accuses God of injustice. But God who saw our failure before He created us, also saw the cross where our redemption was purchased. And while He will not force healing on those who are determined to reject Him, His grace is freely offered. And He sees the ultimate conclusion. In Revelation 15 we read,

"All nations will come and worship before you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed."

We put our faith in God, in the promise of His word, to bring all things to a satisfactory conclusion. To doubt this is to believe that the ultimate, all powerful, loving Creator will not work things out in the end. What is the point of that belief?

There is certainly no hope related to such faith. If the creator is not good, goodness is smuggled in to our reality. If God were not love, there could be no selfless, unconditional love. If you believe this, your hope is hopeless. Your only hope is in something or someone less than God. You are trusting in the wickedness of our world. Your hope is in the devil himself and in his vision of the world. How does that faith make life better or easier? It leaves us screaming in terror at what must come.

Grandparent’s Day of Prayer- September 11, 2016  

Recently a Grandparent told me, “I am really worried because our grandchildren are growing up in a desperate moral and spiritual climate navigating in a world hostile to truth.” I agree, the enemy has launched an aggressive attack on all fronts using media, technology, education, social influences and political pressures. The boundaries of truth and righteousness that hold nations and families together are being desensitized and clouded.

One thing grandparents can do is to unite in fervent and intentional prayer to rescue our precious grandchildren from the aggressive attack of the enemy. Prayer is the most powerful weapon for praying grandparents to pull down strongholds.

In accordance with its mission Christian Grandparenting Network is asking grandparents all over the world to unite in prayer for their grandchildren on Sunday, September 11, 2016. This date coincides with the official United States National Grandparents Day designated by a Senate proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

With this in mind CGN is calling all praying grandparents to join together to participate in the Million Plus Praying Grandparents movement before September 11, 2016. Many grandparents will be joining in prayer with other grandparents in their homes, churches, and community and around the world for an intentional day of prayer on behalf of the next generation.

Imagine the difference grandparents can make in the world by praying daily, intentionally and deliberately for their grandchildren and their parents to walk wholeheartedly with the Lord. Now is the time to unite in one voice calling on God to rescue our grandchildren from the enemy. 

To indicate participation in the movement click here. www.millionprayinggrandparents.com

For additional information and to order promotional resources for Grandparents’ Day of Prayer click www.grandparentsdayofprayer.com.  If you have additional questions email me at lpenner@christiangrandparenting.net.

Please share this blog with your friends.

May God show favor on you as you pray for your grandchildren.

Lillian Penner,
National Prayer Coordinator
Christian Grandparenting Network

As the summer months come, pray for those who are living in the low lands and along the sea in a country where there have been frequent power outages as well as lack of supplies. Pray that their basic needs will be met even in the heat of the summer. Pray that fighting will stop in their country and that rebuilding will begin.

"Will you help me go to America?", asked a young Yemeni man who left his country to work in another. He sees no future, as he waits tables in a restaurant. He now lives in a country where there are many believers in Christ. Pray that he will hear the Truth and experience the Hope which Christ offers.

Please pray for believers who are currently working on military bases in this one Arabian Peninsula country.  What an opportunity to shine the light of Christ among the most powerful people in these restricted places.  Pray for divine appointments and opportunities to share the Good News with those who are ready to receive it.  Pray that the various forms of the Good News that have already been spoken would take root and bear fruit in God's good timing! 

Pray against the fear of man since the military can be intimidating.  Pray that the fear of God would rule in the believers' hearts and that they would be protected by the full armor of God.

Pray for the believers around the Arabian Peninsula who are struggling with how to share their faith in places where they could face much opposition for doing so. Pray that God will give them wisdom in conversations and boldness at the right moments.

Pray against a spirit of fear or timidity. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile."    - Romans 1:16

PRAYER GUIDE
PTAP is excited to share its new prayer guide for 2016 and beyond! Download the new guide at: http://www.prayforap.com/downloads/countrytopicsA4.pdf.  You can then start praying for the Arabian Peninsula with this updated information.  Please share this with all of your friends, family, and churches.  You can download it anytime from PTAP's website: http://www.prayforap.com 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our entire nation joined together in prayer for America, just like the Israelites convened at the sound of the trumpet to pray? Now, more than ever, our government needs prayer. Our families need us to pray. And we need God to heal our land. Thankfully, thousands of Americans are planning to pray together this week, and you can be a part of this historic event.

Thursday, May 5, 2016, is the National Day of Prayer, a day set aside for prayer by Presidential order since 1988. Here's a list of 10 things you can do to strengthen your prayer life on this national day of prayer:​

Click to keep reading

...in response to his frustration in asking for prayer to be more active in the ministries and activities of congregational life.

Most leaders/pastors do not value highly either the critical need to invite the congregation to the place of prayer (a prayer meeting or meetings throughout the week where prayer is the primary purpose; praying for the holy huddle but also for the culture and community) ... and to take prayer to the places the members are already gathered (small groups, studies/classes, planning team/committees, families, etc).

We pray "up" (asking for all our needs) but fail to pray "out" by asking the Lord to empower us to live prayer-care-share lifestyles that deliver the tangible love of God through Christ to neighbors, neighborhood and nations.

Comments anyone?

Frustrated?

Blessed by your experience?

There are four prayer streams in the life of the people of God that are critical.

1. The congregation gathered in and for prayer. Not preaching. Not teaching or training, but in prayer.
2. Smaller prayer groups. Not the entire congregation gathered, but slices of church life gathered for prayer. For example, at the heart of every ministry and group in the congregation, there should be a developing prayer culture. To isolate prayer by framing it as ‘prayer ministry’ and placing it there; having youth and children, men and women, singles and seniors, a dozen other ministries here, all undergirded by the prayer ministry there – is fatal error. To assign prayer to a few, even a significant but detached team is to attempt to use prayer as a kind of engine for church ministries, and yet, separate from them. That makes prayer pragmatic, utilitarian, and that is a flawed equation. Every ministry, to be New Testament, is to be humbly dependent on God in prayer. At their heart, must be a culture of God’s Presence, of holiness and humility and that necessitates prayer. The goal is to press prayer into the seams of congregational life. If church activities and ministries are to be animated by the breath of God, they must be praying ministries – the Spirit is breath and prayer is breathing.
3. The family altar. Currently, only 5 to 8 percent of Christian homes have anything resembling a family altar. That must change. If prayer is foreign to daily life, we declare to ourselves and our children, that we have learned to live without family gatherings in which God is at the center of our lives and activities, our daily relationships, in a formal and openly affirming manner. God must not be ignored. Our children, having learned from us to live without engaging God in an intentional manner six days a week, soon forego the seventh – not continuing church attendance as adults. Tozer bluntly declared, “If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week.”^[1]
4. Personal prayer. Daily prayer. Relentless praying. John and Charles Wesley, when traveling together, had the habit of rising early to spend time with God, and then meeting together, often for an hour or more, before they began their day. Spurgeon would rise early for personal prayer, and then gather his family for prayer before they met the day.

Without personal prayer, without family altars, without small groups in which we are all active in prayer, the corporate prayer gathering lacks the roots that cause it to flourish. Yet, without the corporate prayer meeting, that models prayer, that offers teaching prayer experiences that become templates for personal, family and small group praying, the other corollary elements don’t develop. Each feeds the other, and none can replace another. They are interdependent. The most conspicuous of the four is the corporate prayer meeting, the congregation gathered for prayer. Without these, church is a ceremony, not a celebration of lives lived out God’s Presence.

Welsh pastor, Geoffrey Thomas, asserted, “There is no way that those who neglect secret worship can know communion with God in the public services of the Lord’s Day!”^[2] D. A. Carson notes, “The person who prays more in public reveals that he is less interested in God’s approval than in human praise. Not piety but a reputation for piety is his concern.”^[3]

We are not to go to church to worship, but to go worshipping – out of a life of worship. The form of corporate worship feeds the informal – confession, praise, offering, preaching, prayer, the reading of the Scriptures, repenting, professing, singing, sharing, the bread and the cup, baptism, the blessing. All these feed the personal, informal daily prayer times; and they in turn, feed the public.

• This blog is part of The Praying Church Handbook – Volume III – Pastor and the Congregation which can be purchased at alivepublications.org>

^[1]       Tozer.

^[2]       Geoffrey Thomas, “Worship in Spirit,” The Banner of Truth, August-September, 1987, p. 8.

^[3]       D. A. Carson, Matthew, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 volumes (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 8:165.

Today I want to speak to those of you who lead prayer times and prayer meetings. You have a great responsibility in helping people focus on God in prayer. Most of you are aware that the great tendency in corporate prayer meetings and possibly in private prayer is to focus on ourselves, our needs and immediate desires. Let me suggest that the next time you lead a prayer time that you try to stretch the prayer requests people lift to eternal perspectives.

You need to begin by praying about this for several days before you come to the prayer meeting. You might also stir some excitement about such a prayer meeting by announcing in advance what you are planning to do, explaining how you plan to do it.

I would warn you not to complain about how people have prayed in the past. Even in petty prayers people enter the presence of God Almighty. You can tell them, "We will pray for every request, then we will try to stretch it to an eternal perspective."

Explain this again as you begin the prayer meeting. I think all prayer meetings should begin with praise. As you invite people to lift praises explain the difference between praises to our wonderful God and thanksgivings for specific things He has done in our lives. You can lift thanks as well, but you need to help people see that God is great even when He does not give us what we think we need.

Then as people lift requests start stretching them. Different groups and different prayer times need to operate differently, but if it is possible you need to word these petitions. Suppose someone asks prayer for an aunt having surgery. You might pray briefly for a successful surgery and healing. Then ask rhetorically, "How do we stretch this prayer toward eternity?" You might then suggest that you pray for the lady to know she is in God's hands. You might ask that God give her a powerful witness of God's grace to the doctors and nurses.

After you have stretched several prayer requests begin inviting people in the group to stretch prayer requests toward a divine perspective.

I am not leading a prayer meeting right now. But I wish I were. I would like to try this and see how people respond. If some of you try it out, let me know what happens. 

http://daveswatch.com/

http://watchinginprayer/

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

Because prayer is a work done mostly in secret, it is rare for an intercessor to immediately know whether his prayers are effective. It is rarer still for someone to realize they are being prayed for, since humility constrains us from boasting about our praying!

Yet from time to time, we do hear of amazing answers to prayer, and have the joy of knowing that there is indeed power released when we pray. In the midst of a very difficult week, God allowed both me and my pastor to see the power of prayer. I want to use this story as a "case study" on prayer.

My pastor and I were talking about intercession, since he had experienced a moment in the middle of his day where the Presence of God so overwhelmed him that he knew beyond doubt that someone was praying for him. He told me how much it blessed him to know that others were sustaining him by their prayers! But this was only a precursor to what God would show us.

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