Sunday 26 January 2014

Word of life from a messenger

Like me, there may be someone you really want to become a follower of Christ.

Again like me, you feel he or she knows the way to Jesus but is reluctant to take that last step of faith.  You wonder what to do next.

Perhaps you haven't been specific enough in your prayers.

Neil Anderson, author of Praying by the Power of the Spirit, offers prayer ideas that have yielded results in his life and in the lives of others.

My wife and I often pray that a believer will come across the path of the individual we are praying for.

Neil Anderson endorses that idea and notes that Jesus declared that the harvest of potential believers is plentiful but there are few workers - few believers presenting the gospel.  In Matthew 9, he tells us to pray for workers who will go out into the harvest.

Anderson mentions a missionary friend of his who prayed for his father's salvation for 25 years without success.  A few weeks after he began praying for someone to come and share the good news with his father, the missionary said his father wrote to him to say that he had been invited to a Bible study in his apartment building and he had become a believer.

Anderson gives several other personal examples of this prayer approach leading to people giving their lives to Jesus.

Years ago, I remember hearing a preacher state that seekers often need to hear the gospel from several different people - and in different circumstances - before they become believers.  Perhaps you need to pray for others to speak about Jesus to your friend or relative.

The author also urges us to:
  • Pray that the person will receive spiritual life (1 John 5:12);
  • Pray against Satan blinding the person to the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:3-4); and
  • For those who are rebellious, ask the Lord to "do what you have to do in order for them to come to their senses, but spare their lives."
The prayer for the rebellious is a hard one to pray.  But Anderson said it is better for someone who is fighting God to experience what it is like to live in this fallen world if that is what it takes to find Jesus.

Prayer is a powerful tool in preparing people to receive Jesus as Lord.



Sunday 19 January 2014

"Yes, but not yet"

I am slowly learning that God sometimes answers "Yes, but not yet" to my prayers.

A couple of years ago, I stepped out of my comfort zone and prayed for a considerable increase in people turning out for a special church event.  I had prayed for a modest increase at an earlier event and had seen my prayers answered.

Well, this time the answer was "No."  Or, at least I felt it was.  Certainly, the turnout was no where near the target I had picked.

I asked myself why this audacious prayer was not answered.  I went through the usual list: Was it my lack of faith?  Was my prayer selfish?  Was I really looking for the glory of God?  Is number-picking or target-setting wrong?  Shouldn't I ask first what God wants?

I am still not sure why God did not say "Yes" for that event.  It may be any of the reasons I have mentioned - or none.

It could be that God wants me to continue praying along these lines - and not give up.

The reason I say that is that God recently answered another prayer that I have been praying for some years.  In that case, I also set targets - a time period - and God did not say "Yes" during those time periods.

In fact, I was surprised by the way God answered my prayer.  It was better than I hoped.

Jesus makes the point in Luke 11:5-13 that persistence is an important aspect of prayer.  God wants to see that we are serious about our prayer requests.  It is part of our training to trust in him, no matter what.

 In the Luke 5 passage, Jesus tells of a man who pounds on his neighbour's door asking for three loaves of bread to feed an unexpected visitor.  The neighbour refuses, saying it is late at night and he and his family are in bed.

But the man keeps on pounding and eventually the neighbour gives in.


The point isn't that God is reluctant to give us what we ask for.  He tells us that if we ask we will receive.  And Jesus tells us in verse 13 that God loves us and wants to give us the Holy Spirit

The point is that we must not give up if we are praying God-honouring prayers.  Selfish prayers will not receive a "Yes" answer.

I often think of prayer-warrior George Muller's prayers for several friends to give their lives to Christ.  Over his long life, they all became believers - except for one.  That man became a Christian at Muller's graveside.




Monday 13 January 2014

Direct line to God

Sometimes people who pray for others forget that the best praying comes from the person seeking prayer.

Neil Anderson, author of Praying By The Power Of The Spirit, discovered this truth as a young pastor many years ago.

It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that people who minister to others in prayer have special access to God.

As a young pastor, Anderson would often pray for the person seeking his counseling, asking God's wisdom and direction for that individual.

He recalled sitting with one person in silence for 15 minutes, waiting for God's guidance.

"Then one day it dawned on me: Why should I ask for God's wisdom and direction on behalf of another person and then expect Him to tell me what the answer is?  Why don't I encourage them to ask God for wisdom and direction?"

It is true, as Anderson notes, that an important part of prayer is praying for others.  But there is no biblical basis for the person who is seeking prayer to remain silent while others pray for him or her.

"Children of God are invited to seek God themselves," says Anderson.

While he was teaching at Talbot School of  Theology, a pastor asked him to counsel a young man who was hearing voices and suffering from many unresolved conflicts.

The pastor came with the young man and was delighted with the results of the three-hour counseling session - the young man left with no distracting voices or thoughts.  Anderson says the "peace of God was now guarding his heart and his mind."

"Why? What had set this young man free was his prayers, not mine."

Sometimes, people ask others to pray for them because they feel God will not hear them because of their life-style or other moral issues.

Anderson says such people will get nowhere in their prayer lives if they hang on to their bitterness.  But they will also not get around this problem by getting others to pray for them.

"The only effective prayer for [such people] is a prayer from their own repentant hearts."

"When Christians are encouraged to pray for God's guidance themselves," says Anderson, "the results are dramatic. The Lord brings godly sorrow, and the Holy Spirit leads them into all truth which is what sets them free."

 It makes sense, too, when someone asks for prayer for a family member or friend.   The person asking for prayer knows the family member or friend better than the pray-er and so can pray with greater insight.

I see this as a team approach: The prayer minister gladly joins in praying for the person seeking prayer and, at the same time, encourages him or her to pray for help from God, too.

God will always answer honest prayers, flowing from the heart.


Sunday 5 January 2014

Saturating your church in prayer

A while ago, I read an inspiring story about how prayer put a declining, divided church in North Carolina back on its feet - and more.

In her book The Prayer Saturated Church, Cheryl Sacks tells the story of Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, North Carolina which went through a bad time in 1993.

The congregation of 600 had dwindled to 175 after a series of events including dissensions and a power struggle.  There was no pastor and the only staff member left was a part-time secretary.

The church began to call out to God.

"The congregation went through a time of confession, repentance and cleansing," Sacks wrote.  And the people began praying for a pastor with a vision that would lead them.

The new pastor, James Walker, and the congregation began dreaming about what their church would look like.  They prayed that people would come who would help the pastor fulfill the vision - God's plans for the church, not man's.

"We asked God to do something big that no man could take credit for," said Carolyn Fuqua, a church member and now on the church staff as prayer coordinator.

Within 10 years, the church grew to almost 5,000 members with 80 church staff, including 16 ministers.  I checked the web-site of Biltmore Baptist Church this week and saw that it now has three campuses in the Arden area.

"According to Carolyn, the phenomenal turnaround is all because of prayer,"  Sacks wrote.

Carolyn Fuqua now heads a nine-member prayer ministry team that coordinates prayer activities in the church.  The prayer ministry asked for God to provide 300 pray-ers and, within 10 years, it reached 825 people active in the prayer ministry.

But Sacks makes an even more important point: "Every person in leadership is part of the prayer ministry."

"Whether you are a pastor, deacon, or Sunday school teacher, you're either leading a [prayer] group or you're a committed member of one," said Carolyn Fuqua.  "We are a church dedicated to and excited about seeking God together."

The church baptizes between 300 and 400 people annually and 500 to 600 join the congregation.

Along with increased fruit, the Fuqua talked about increased harmony and unity and an increased sense of the presence of God.

"Because of the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, we've been a place of healing," she said.

What a testimony to the power of united prayer to God!