Saturday September 11, 2010

Read John 8:42-47

September 11 marks a tragic day in history. As you are well aware it’s the day that terrorists hijacked three planes and crashed them into the World Trade Centre buildings and the US Pentagon. Many people needlessly lost their lives. As you think about the many different tragedies of the world, have you ever sought to uncover their source? Have you ever wondered why we have such tragedies?

The answer is as simple as it is complex. We are in the throes of a spiritual battle. Kingdom has risen against kingdom. The evil one is waging war and believers, all believers are on the front line - even though some believers live like they are on R & R at a tourist resort!

The world is made up of two groups of people - believers and non believers. In Jesus’ day, the non believers sought to shut Jesus up, to remove Him and to kill Him. They didn’t believe His claims to be from God, to be God’s offering to the world and to be God in the flesh. Because they were children of the devil, they sought to do the devil’s work.

The situation is no different today. Over the next two weeks we will be embarking on a voyage of gospel sharing. Do not be surprised if the evil one seeks to bring disunity, disruption and disintegration as we seek to do God’s work. Do not be surprised if we face opposition and negativity from outside. It’s the evil one attacking us to make sure that the gospel doesn’t get out.

I strongly urge you, encourage you and exhort you to be prayerful this next fortnight. Pray continually as the Scriptures say. Pray without ceasing. Lift up every event, every person, every speaker to the Lord in prayer. Let me exhort you to spend more time this fortnight on your knees in prayer than you have ever spent in your life. Whenever you have a spare moment, use that moment to pray. When you wake up in the morning, pray for the mission fortnight. In your breaks, pray. In your spare time, pray. It’s radical but it’s absolutely necessarily vital. I can’t stress it strongly enough. The evil one is at work and is seeking to destroy our mission to bring salvation to the world.

This battle will be won through prayer.

Prayer:-

m Pray that the next two weeks of mission will see many brought to the Lord for salvation. Pray that the evil one would be bound up and shackled so that captives can be released from the dungeons, so that the blind can see, the deaf hear. Pray that God’s Word will work miracles and wonders to bring many to the faith.

m Pray that we will have more than enough workers, helpers etc at each event. Pray that our love for Jesus will shine out to the world and that many be drawn to Christ. Pray for a passion and a zeal to be in the hearts of all believers.

Get Into It!

Grab yourself a copy of the mission week timetable and pray for every event, every speaker. Resolve today to spend next week praying.