How to Pray for Missions: Introduction
With this article, I am beginning a new series of blogs focused on the question of How to Pray for Missions. I believe that the first and most important key to the expansion of God's Kingdom and the fulfillment of the Great Commission is Prayer. I also believe that God has called all His children to pray, but certain ones are especially called and gifted as Intercessors. The purpose of these articles is to help give practical instruction to those who want to be more effective in Prayer for Missions and the completion of the Great Commission.
Recently I was on a short vacation with my family in Florida. My wife and I, along with my daughter and son-in-law, were staying at a condo near Pensacola. It happened that during that same week, there was a key Missions strategy meeting in Panama, Central America. I was part of the planning committee for this meeting in Panama, and circumstances had led to the fact that both our condo booking and the Panama meeting were the same week. So after being with my family for a few days, I left them on vacation, and flew to Panama for the meeting. Following the successful strategy session in Panama, I returned to Pensacola and drove back home with my wife.
The day before I flew to Panama, I was driving around on my last vacation day, spending time resting and also in prayer. I stopped at a Starbucks to get some coffee and sit and do some reading. I remember as I walked into the coffee shop, I was talking with the Lord and out of my heart I said something like, "Lord, show me what you are doing on the earth". When I got my coffee, I walked outside where there were some tables and sat down with my book. There was an elderly lady sitting by herself a couple tables from me. When I sat down, she spoke to me and made some kind of statement like "God bless you". I started talking with her and found her to be a sweet Christian lady. She asked me to pray for a need in her family and she came over to my table where we spent some time in prayer together. In the process she shared some things with me that were very encouraging to me personally. When she left, I gave thanks to the Lord for sending that lady to minister to me in such a good way. It seemed as though that through her, God was answering my question as to what he was doing on the earth. Let me paraphrase it this way:
"In our world, there are thousands of faithful, spirit filled believers like this woman. They are totally devoted to Christ, and they are full of faith and they love to pray and see God move. The problem is that the majority of these people do not have the information about the status of the Great Commission, the lists of Unreached and Unengaged People Groups, or the names of missionaries and projects that need prayer. They know how to pray, but they don't know specifically how to pray for the Missions Enterprise of the Last Days. They can pray in the Spirit, but they do not have the understanding of the Real needs of the End Times Missions Work. They need to know How to Pray For Missions in the Last Days!"
With this series, I hope to address this need. If you have been called as an Intercessor, or even if you are not sure about that, but you just want to learn how to pray for Missions more effectively, you are who I have in mind with this set of articles. So stay tuned over the next several weeks.
Recently I was on a short vacation with my family in Florida. My wife and I, along with my daughter and son-in-law, were staying at a condo near Pensacola. It happened that during that same week, there was a key Missions strategy meeting in Panama, Central America. I was part of the planning committee for this meeting in Panama, and circumstances had led to the fact that both our condo booking and the Panama meeting were the same week. So after being with my family for a few days, I left them on vacation, and flew to Panama for the meeting. Following the successful strategy session in Panama, I returned to Pensacola and drove back home with my wife.
The day before I flew to Panama, I was driving around on my last vacation day, spending time resting and also in prayer. I stopped at a Starbucks to get some coffee and sit and do some reading. I remember as I walked into the coffee shop, I was talking with the Lord and out of my heart I said something like, "Lord, show me what you are doing on the earth". When I got my coffee, I walked outside where there were some tables and sat down with my book. There was an elderly lady sitting by herself a couple tables from me. When I sat down, she spoke to me and made some kind of statement like "God bless you". I started talking with her and found her to be a sweet Christian lady. She asked me to pray for a need in her family and she came over to my table where we spent some time in prayer together. In the process she shared some things with me that were very encouraging to me personally. When she left, I gave thanks to the Lord for sending that lady to minister to me in such a good way. It seemed as though that through her, God was answering my question as to what he was doing on the earth. Let me paraphrase it this way:
"In our world, there are thousands of faithful, spirit filled believers like this woman. They are totally devoted to Christ, and they are full of faith and they love to pray and see God move. The problem is that the majority of these people do not have the information about the status of the Great Commission, the lists of Unreached and Unengaged People Groups, or the names of missionaries and projects that need prayer. They know how to pray, but they don't know specifically how to pray for the Missions Enterprise of the Last Days. They can pray in the Spirit, but they do not have the understanding of the Real needs of the End Times Missions Work. They need to know How to Pray For Missions in the Last Days!"
With this series, I hope to address this need. If you have been called as an Intercessor, or even if you are not sure about that, but you just want to learn how to pray for Missions more effectively, you are who I have in mind with this set of articles. So stay tuned over the next several weeks.
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