Lord, we did it!

Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Lord, we did it!
We made the 10-Day Fasting and Prayer!
We finished our race!
We pressed on. We marched on.
Thank you for Your grace and help, so we could complete what we began.

Yes, it has been a long 10 days.
We have encountered many challenges, difficulties, and temptations.
However, You hold our hands and led us.
We fought the good fight because You are with us!
You strengthened us. You encouraged us.
So we could finish our course and not give up.
Thank you for Your Presence with us.

Lord,
Thank you for all who participated in.
Thank you for their commitments and their devotions.
Thank you for their persistence.
We did it together!

All the prayers we offered to you…..they will not go astray.
All the intercessions we lifted up to you….they will not fall to the ground.
We believed that you heard us.
Now, we anticipate Your answers with an excitement and overwhelming joy in our hearts.
Now, it is a matter of time….we will wait in confidence and trust.

Lord,
We raise the cross up on high as our banner for victory
We celebrate with You for our accomplishment
We sing with you. We dance with you.
Today is the day of celebration.
Today is the day of joy.

Lord,
Please continue to work Your miracles in our church and through our congregation
Please continue to do it again as You did in the book of Acts.
Please continue to bless our church and bless each and every one of us.
Please continue to write the 29th chapter of the book of Acts through our church and through us
Here we are, Lord.
Use us to be Your Divine instrument to reveal the Love of God to the people in our community.

Lord,
Please empower us to keep our faith!

10-Day Fasting and Prayer

Scripture: Luke 2:36-38
36.There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37.and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying……

Not everybody will be able to do fasting . Fasting has to be always voluntary. Please refer to the “Fasting Guidelines and Information” enclosed in your bulletin. However….everybody can pray. 10-Day Fasting and Prayer is the calling of an intercessor. I am calling forth those with the same “Anna Anointing” to day and night intercessory prayer.

Here are the strategies for our corporate intercessory prayer.

1. We will pray for our church every weekday for 10 days, Monday through Friday, from Monday, September 20th till Friday, October 1st. We will rest on Saturday and Sunday.
2. We will also get together every night for 10 days, Monday through Friday, at 7 p.m. at the chapel of the 2nd Education Building for corporate intercessory prayer.
3. We will, by your own willing and choice, fast as well for 10 days while we are praying. You can do one meal fast, two meals fast, or fast for certain time period of the day.
4. We will pray through the book of Acts. We will simply ask the Holy Spirit to do the same things in and through our congregation as He did in the books of Acts. We will cry out to God, “Lord, do it again!”

My Beloved, an extraordinary power force is released when a group of Christians pray together in agreement over a period of time about the same thing.

The book of Acts is unfinished because the acts of the apostles are not finished. We are His apostles, and the Holy Spirit is still seeking to advance the Kingdom of God in the earth today. But we must be willing to invite Him into our presence.  By asking the Holy Spirit to work the same miracles now that He did in the book of Acts, we are actually writing the Acts 29th chapter.

Jesus Christ will pour out the anointing of the Spirit of Intercessory Prayer upon us!

When the prayers of us who are anointed with the Spirit of Intercessory Prayer are filled as the smoke of the incense were filled in the Holy of Holies, the Lord will bring the restoration, renewal and revival into our church…..as God’s consuming fire came down from the heaven on the Mercy Seat.

The fire of the Lord will awake our church from sleeping. The fire of the Lord will awake us His children from ignorance. For us….there will be a time of waiting…..the time of being still until the prayers of intercession get filled! God said in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

This is the time to pray.
This is the time to stay still and know that God is the God of Almighty.
This is the time to kneel down before the Lord.
Let us all kneel down before the Lord.
Let us all cry out to the Lord.

Prayer and Vigilance

Scripture: Ephesians 6:18, NIV
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

New King James Version says, “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”

New Revised Standard Version says, “Pray in the Spirit al all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.”

This is the Divine direction and the wisest advice given to us by Apostle Paul. The number one and the foremost thing to do as Christians is to pray. Prayer shouldn’t stop until our breath stops!

We are to pray on all occasions, at all times in our life…….
at time of success and at time of failure,
 at time of light and at time of darkness,
 at time of victory and at time of defeat,
 at time of mountain top and at time of valley,
 at time of gain and at time of loss.

We are to pray all kinds of prayer……
 a prayer of joy,
 a prayer of thanksgiving,
 a prayer of praise,
 a prayer of concern,
 a prayer of request,
 a prayer of petition,
 a prayer of supplication.

We are to pray always in the Spirit because the struggles in our life are “not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Pray always with all prayers in the Holy Spirit!

Prayer and Obedience, Part 2

John 11:41b-42a
And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard me. And I know that You always hear me.”

God cannot help but hearing the prayer of an obedient child!

Jesus explains the reason why God always hears Him in John 15:10. He says, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

God always hears Jesus Christ because He always obeys the Father’s commands in love. God always hears His obedient children when they pray.

Apostle John explains the reason why God answers to the prayers of His obedient children. Apostle John says in 1 John 3:22, “and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.”

Thank God that it is possible for every child of God to please the Heavenly Father! Obey His commandments!!!

Obedience follows love, and prayer follows obedience. Our love for God delights to obey His commandments, obedience enables us to ask God with boldness, and God delights in the prayers of obedient children!

Loving obedience puts us where we can “ask anything in his name,” with the assurance, that “He will do it”!

Prayer and Obedience

Scripture: John 15:10
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

Obedience is a high virtue which Jesus Christ requires of Christians. In this text Jesus sets an example for us: He obeyed all God’s commands.

Obedience is doing God’s will: it is keeping His commandments. Jesus says in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” Obedience is the outward proof of our inward love for God. We prove our love for God by obeying His commands.

There are 613 commandments in the Law of Moses. And Jesus added more in the Sermon on the Mount. Can we keep all of God’s commandments? Does God give commandments which we cannot obey?

Do earthly parents require of their children commandments which they cannot obey? The answer is NO! Likewise, God doesn’t require of us commandments which we cannot obey!

Jesus said in Matthew 7:9-11, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Can we keep all of God’s commandments? The answer is YES! But it has o be by the power of the Holy Spirit!  We can receive the Divine ability that enables us to obey every one of them.

Jesus said in John 14:15-16, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.”

Apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:13, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” And he exhorted us in verse 6, “Do not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

We can obtain ability to obey all of God’s commandments through prayer!

Holy Spirit,
Come upon me!
Strengthen me!
Enable me!
 To carry out Your pleasing wills.

I am weak but You are strong!
I cannot but you are able!

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Prayer and Character and Conduct

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective

If a factory makes toys we call it a toy factory. If a factory makes breads we call it a bread factory.

A product reflects the character of the factory that makes it. It is a very simple fact that if a toy factory begins to make breads the toy factory will be no longer called the toy factory; it will be called the bread factory.

The church of Jesus Christ is God’s factory on earth! The product of the church is righteous men and women – Christians! The primary work of the church is not to acquire members, nor to increase finance, nor to do charitable works, but to produce the righteousness of the inward character and the purity of the outward life of sinners.

At the factory, a toy or bread is produced when raw materials are labored by workers. At the church righteous man and woman are produced when sinners are prayed for by intercessors because through the prayers of the intercessors God touches the hearts and minds of sinners.

Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-24, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

The transformation of heart and life of a sinner takes place in the church by prayer!

The prayer of a righteous man and woman is powerful and effective! However, in order to have a powerful and effective prayer the one who prays first has to be righteous!

Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:22, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” God is the one who gives us the righteousness, so we pray to God for each other in the name of Jesus Christ so that the righteousness from God comes to each other.

Prayer and Importunity

Scripture: Luke 18:1-8
…..2.He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men 3.And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4.For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5.yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”…..

Jesus says that the purpose of this parable is “to show His disciples that they should always pray and not give up.”

In this parable, Jesus emphasizes the importance of praying without giving up – the importance of importunity prayer.

The importunate prayer is the pressing of our desire upon God with urgency and perseverance. The importunate prayer is deeply rooted in the assurance and understanding of who God is.

I can boldly say that if you don’t pray you are not a Christian! Instead, you are simply a sinner, because prayer is the only way ordained by God in which a sinful man can have a complete communion with God through Jesus Christ who is the source of all things. Simply there is none other way to do such divine communication with God.

And you can only pray to God with importunity because you have the clear understanding of the divine character of God.

This understanding comes from the total realization of helplessness of yourself for your inward and outward needs and the total dependence on God for all that God has for you.

In this parable the widow presses her case to the unjust judge till he grants justice to her because she clearly understands that the judge is the only one who can do such thing.

She recognizes her total helplessness that there is nothing she can do about the situation and yet she knows who can and put her total dependence on the judge.

Jesus says in verse 7, “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night.”

In Genesis 32:24-29, we see Jacob wrestles with God all night. Jacob says in verse 26, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Jacob had a clear understanding that he can get the blessing he needs only from God, no one else can give!

So, even though God strikes his hip and made it wrenched, Jacob was holding God with all his strength.

Jesus urges us that we should always pray and not give up. Our dependence on God has to be deeply rooted in who we are to God. A child totally depends on his father and the father always listens to his child!

Prayer and Free Will

Scripture: Matthew 6:8
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him

Many people raise a question, “Why do we have to pray if God knows what we need even before we ask Him?”

Some people even argue that there is no need to ask God because He already knows what we need.

If that is true, then God wouldn’t say, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). If that is true, then Jesus wouldn’t say, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). If that is true, then the Apostle Paul wouldn’t say, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).

Then, why do we have to ask God if He already knows what we need even before we ask Him?

The answer is because we have Free Will and God honors our Free Will. God asks us to ask Him for whatever we need out of His respect for us.

God doesn’t want to jump in and gives us the things we need before we ask for even though He already knows what we need because He honors our Free Will.

God honors our life and God honors our decisions that we make in our life. God is actually humbling Himself out of respect for us.

If we don’t allow God to intervene our life He will not do it. God wants us to tell Him what we need because then we are allowing, by our Free Will, Him to intervene our life. And when we do that God takes great delight in our decision.

God will never violate the law of Free Will that He has established at the time when He created human being!

When we talk to Him about our needs God listens to us as if it is the first time He has known about them. God is not pretending; He actually listens to us out of respect for us!

Prayer and Fervency

Scripture: Matthew 18:19
Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven

If you remove a blazing log from a fireplace and set it aside, soon the log will lose its blazing flame.

When you make a campfire, first you make airways on the ground, and then you pile dried logs in a square shape. In the middle of the pile of logs, you put in branches, long thin branches, then you add dried leaves at the bottom, then you pile more logs.

When you light a fire, dried leaves get flamed and transmit its flame to branches. Branches get flamed and transmit its flame to logs. Logs get flamed and transmit its flame to each other.

It is hard to be fervent alone. As for a log, by itself, it takes great effort to be flamed; it takes great effort to be fervent if you pray alone.

Jesus says in Matthew 18:18, “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

There is a power in praying together! When two or more pray in an agreement in the name of Jesus Christ about ANYTHING, the promise of our Lord is that “It will done for you by my Father in heaven.”

Like a campfire, we have to make our church to be a place of prayer. We have to come together, every one of us. Each one has its function like dried leaves, branches, and logs.

We have to build the House of Prayer together. To the place where two or more people pray, the Holy Spirit comes as a fire!

And the fire of the Holy Spirit will make pray-ers to pray with fervency! And by flame, prayers ascend to heaven as incense pleasing to God!

Prayer and Desire

Scripture: Philippians 2:13
For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose

When you feel hungry what do you ask for?

When you are hungry you will not ask for peace or comfort. When you are hungry you will ask for food!

Hunger is a feeling of a physical need for food. Hunger makes you to want to eat something. It is called “desire”. And this desire prompts to ask for food.

So, basically, it is a three-step process: need, desire, and request.

As hunger is an active sense of physical need, spiritual hunger is an active sense of spiritual need. It makes one to desire and this desire prompts to ask for spiritual nourishment.

If prayer, in this sense, is asking God for something, then the prayer has to be expressed and expressed in a very specific way.

We have to realize that it is God who gives us desire. According to Philippians 2:13, God accomplishes His good purpose by giving us a desire to do something. Desire is what God stirs up our heart to yearn for what we need.

King David says in Psalm 27:4 (New King James Version), “One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple”.

In Mark 10:46-52, we see a blind man named Bartimaeus who was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard of Jesus passing by he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” As many rebuked him and told him to be quite, he shouted all the more.

Jesus stopped and asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

The blind threw himself at the feet of Jesus and said, “I want to see.” Jesus said to him, “Your faith has healed you.” The blind received his sight.

What desire do you have now? Do you have a burning desire in your heart? If Jesus asks you now, “What do you want me to do for you?” what would you say?

James 4:2-3 says, “…..you do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives….”

If you have a burning desire in your heart, bring it to God and ask for His good purpose. God is the one who works in you to desire and to act because He wants to bring His good purpose through you.

Desire is not merely a simple wish. It is a deep seated craving; an intense longing for attainment. If you don’t have desire, you should pray God for desire; then when desire is given, you should ask for what you desire according to God’s good purpose.

When we pray God we have to be very specific on what we ask for. A specific request comes from a specific desire, and a specific desire comes from a specific need!