Pray Long

 Peter Wagner says, "The central, foundational activity for spiritual warfare is prayer. In one sense prayer is a weapon of warfare, and in another sense it is the medium through which all of the other weapons are utilised." Without prayer we will live defeated Christian lives. That is why Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:18, to put on the whole armour of God, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…."

Pastor Ha's church in Vietnam grew from twenty-nine to over 5,000 in just a few years during the communist regime in the late 1970's. When asked the secret of this phenomenal church growth, Pastor Ha replied, "I have a very simple theology. When you have problems, pray! When you have more problems, pray more!" Every morning this church had a well-attended prayer meeting at six A.M. And the church grew and grew. Although they were constantly living under pressure, there was one Scripture text chosen for the wall of their sanctuary, "In everything give thanks."

And yet after his years of imprisonment, Pastor Ha said, “When I had my freedom, I worked with prayer sometimes in the background. In prison, I discovered that prayer is everything. It's like a pilot using a checklist before he takes off. If he skips the first item, many lives might be in danger. The first item on our checklist should always be prayer. If we skip it, the whole mission is in jeopardy.”


Vietnamese Pastor Cuong also spent over six years in prison. He says this about prayer:

“In my work I was so busy I had no time to pray. But in prison, I was thankful to God that He gave me time for prayer. I had about six hours of prayer every day. I had time to recall every member of my congregation to pray for them. Before that, although I served the church, I didn't have enough time to pray for them. I learned about the real presence of God in prayer there. When you kneel down and pray wholeheartedly with the Lord, you feel His answer right there.”

Even in the difficult conditions of imprisonment, Irina Ratushinskaya continued to write poetry, scratching out verses on a bar of soap and committing them to memory before washing them away. Later she said that writing helped her to survive her ordeal. While still at home in Kiev following her release, she was interviewed over the air by Chicago radio station WBEZ. Asked if she would consent to read one of her poems, she replied: "I will read a poem which I wrote already in freedom . It is dedicated to all those who thought and remembered about my fellow prisoners or about me." The following is a literal translation of the poem, submitted by one of our readers.

Believe me, so it happened often:
In solitary confinement, on a wintry night
Suddenly an embrace of warmth and happiness,
And a note of low would sound.
And then I sleeplessly know,
Leaning against the ice cold wall-
Now, now they are remembering me,
They are begging the Lord for me.
My dear ones, thank you
All, who remembered and believed in us
In the cruelest prison hour.
We, surely, could not have
Gone through all from end to end,
Not bowing our head, not faltering,
Without your lofty hearts
Illumining our way.

“I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. I am a disciple of HIS. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed! I’m finished with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, and dwarfed goals! I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power! My faith is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road is narrow. My companions few. My Guide reliable! My mission clear! I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, or delayed! I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, or negotiate at the table of the enemy! I won’t give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ! I am a disciple of Jesus! I must go until He comes, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have NO problems recognizing me. My banner will be clear!” --  this text was found on a scrap of paper in the home of an African pastor shortly after he was martyred.


At the beginning of 1935, Rees Howell had a new burden to pray for world missions. He shared this with staff and friends at SIM and they agreed to intercede for any nation and country, as well a missionaries, as the Lord indicated.


With the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Rees and his intercessors were called to ‘stand in the gap’ in prayer; as prayer warriors they were to have no more claim on their lives, time or possessions than if they had been drafted into the forces. Particular prayer was made for Ethiopia when Mussolini invaded. Rees experienced a great trial of faith when Addis Ababa fell, but the outcome of their intercession was seen when in later years S I M missionaries returned to Wallamo Province, where they had anxiously left 48 young believers, to find a church of 10,000 Christians.


Two sisters in southern China came to Christ in a house church meeting. Twenty months later a friend from Hong Kong visited them and asked what they had been doing since their conversion. "Starting home meetings," was their timid response.
"How many home meetings?"
"Only thirty," was their halting reply.
"How many attend your meetings?" was the next nonchalant question.
"Well, at the smallest one about two hundred and eighty!"
Now the questioner was totally involved and quickly continued,
"How many attend your largest meeting?"
"Not even 5000, only about four thousand nine hundred!"
The Hong Kong Christian was flabbergasted. And in his excitement quickly asked, “How do you ladies—both new Christians—know what to do?"
They simply replied, “We pray. And after we pray, the Holy Spirit tells us what to do!”






Paul Youngi Cho, of South Korea, has one of the world's largest churches, with over one million members. When asked about the secret of his success, he says, "I pray, and I obey." His whole ministry is marked with prayer. They have a whole mountain for prayer, not just a room in the church. It is called Prayer Mountain. The mountain is covered with small caves where people from the church will go and hide themselves to pray for days at a time.

Every morning, Cho prays for five hours before starting any other work in the church. Many have asked him how he can find time to pray that much. He answers, "You don't understand. If I don't pray for five hours, I don't have enough time to do everything. But when I do, then God does everything I need."

James declares that prayer is powerful and effective" (James 5:16) John assures us that "God hears and answers" (1 John 5: 15). In the book of Acts there are 36 references to the church growing. Fifty-eight percent [i.e. 21 of those instances) are within the context of prayer. We would all love to see growth in every church in the world like it was at Pentecost and immediately thereafter. The key to what happened is found in Acts l:14 when it says: "They were all joined together constantly in prayer. They were all joined together - one mind, one purpose, one accord. That is the prerequisite for effectiveness. Then, they were all joined together constantly in prayer. The word used there means to be "busily engaged in, to be devoted to, to persist in adhering to a thing, to intently attend to it." And it is in the form of a present participle. It means that the practice was continued ceaselessly. The same word is used in Acts 2:42: "They devoted themselves ...to prayer." Over in Colossians 4:2 Paul uses the same word again in the imperative form "Devote yourselves to prayer. Most significant expansion movements of the church through its history took up that imperative.

Pastor Cho from South Korea also shares this story - "The place where I went to plant my church - there were already shrines, and the priests from the shrines tried to intimidate me. They tried to burn up the tent churches. So to combat this, I spent five hours every day praying. But now a days I usually spend three hours every day praying, and if I don't keep praying regularly in such a way then I can't maintain the fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I believe ministers cannot maintain their ministries without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. For me, that means three hours a day to maintain my intimacy with the Holy Spirit."

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Willingly Suffer

Here is a thought from an unnamed Chinese Christian:


Where there is no cross, there is no crown. This lesson cannot be learned from books, and men do not usually taste this sweetness. This rich life does not exist in a comfortable environment. If the spices are not refined to become oil, the fragrance of the perfume cannot flow forth; and if the grapes are not crushed in the vat, they will not become wine.

 Another pastor shared this request - “We don’t ask that you pray for the persecution to stop, but that we will be faithful and stand strong in the midst of the persecution.”

Sister Pasqualita spoke at the “Mexico, I Love You” Congress. She had suffered severe ostracism in her small town in the very southern part of Mexico because she had become an evangelical. Other Christians had already been forcibly driven from the town.

One night a group of her persecutors surrounded her grass-roofed home setting it on fire. As she opened the door, someone fired a gun at her. A co-worker shares her story in his own words:

“When she was sharing her testimony she was crying. She said, ‘I thank the Lord that only twenty-one ammunition bits touched me.’ She had been shot all over her body and even in the neck. She was still able to run and fell into a hole where her persecutors couldn’t see her in the dark. She was losing blood quickly but some other townsfolk somehow took her out through the mob to another nearby town’s clinic. She survived but three other family members in the house were murdered.
“She complained to the Lord saying, ‘Lord, why now that I’ve given you my life and my family am I suffering this way?’ The Lord reminded her of a song that she used to sing very often, ‘I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.’
“She continued, ‘Then I understood that when I decided to follow Jesus, it was in the midst of any situation, any persecution. My life now belonged to Him. I gained strength in that song. I am preaching again and I am encouraging the rest of the believers that when we decide to follow Jesus there is no turning back.’”

Today Pasqualita continues to be a strong Christian leader and teacher in her community and she still loves to sing, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.”

We will be led into difficult times. We are perfected by our suffering, when we suffer like Jesus did, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Don’t waste your pain or your suffering. Use it for a witness, use it for the gospel. Christians are like nails—the harder you hit us, the deeper we go.

Christians are like flowers. The more you crush us, the sweeter the fragrance.



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I am always with you

Gul Masih was a Christian in Pakistan and was condemned to hang on a charge of blasphemy.  In prison he wrote this as a response to a Canadian woman:

"First of all, I am thankful to you that you have encouraged me. My Lord has come to me twice in my prison cell. One day, I was sitting in my cell thinking about this injustice in a sad and hopeless mood. Suddenly the cell filled with light and my body trembled. I saw my Lord. Four days after this, my Jesus came again and overshadowed me by raising His hands & blessing me. From that day on, I have been happy & at peace. My Lord is with me in Jail. He doesn't leave me alone. We are five members in our family. We have a great love for each other. I am very grateful to my Lord. He has fulfilled all my needs in the best possible way. I am also thankful to you and my other brothers & sisters who have supported me. I hope that by the grace of God we will see one another. Let us not forget the power of prayer."

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Lose your life for Jesus

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who gave up his life taking a stand against Hitler wrote,

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." - Cost of Discipleship

That's what it means to lose our life in order to save it.  Jesus was our example, being willing to go to the cross on behalf of others - even a lost world.

Check this great testimony -  http://members.opendoorsusa.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=50404.0&dlv_id=69525

I read about a pastor who works in upper Egypt, an area of intense persecution for Christians.  He runs a day care centre, a medical clinic and a literacy training program as well as caring for the families of those in prison.  He has been beaten twice by Muslim fundamentalists and threatened daily with death,  He knows they are trying to kill him - but he continues to daily bear his cross.

Another person came for counseling because the young she had trained at her work were recently promoted to be her supervisors.  She was passed over solely because she was a Christian.  That's the cross one must bear in Egypt.

The essence of what I am saying is that instead of exercising and asserting my will, I learn to cooperate with God's wishes and comply with His will.

There is another story of a pastor in Cuba receiving Bibles and he knew he was at risk in receiving them - but he responded to that possibility by asking the question right back - what risk?

Rinaldo Hernandez is a Methodist pastor in Cuba.  He decided to stay in Cuba as a cross he must bear.  I did some research and think I found he source of strength -

In the years following Cuba’s 1959 Marxist revolution, many of the Methodist pastors who didn’t flee their homeland were “strangely warmed” by the same fire that burned in Emilio’s heart. Rinaldo Hernandez, then a young seminarian studying at a Methodist school in the city of Matanzas, discovered the heaven-sent fire in 1979 when a visiting professor from the United States told students at a chapel service that she had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Rinaldo, his wife and some other students prayed for an infilling of God’s power and began speaking in tongues.
A few months later, before he could finish his studies, Rinaldo was labeled a criminal by the Cuban government and sent to a labor camp. But the fire he encountered at the seminary in Matanzas only burned more brightly during those dark days he spent away from his wife and infant daughter. The Holy Spirit’s presence renewed and invigorated him, and confirmed to him that God had called him to share Christ with his countrymen.
When I met Rinaldo in 1993, he was pastoring a lively congregation of young people—many of them new converts—at the same Vedado church where Emilio Gonzales had been baptized in the Spirit forty years earlier. The Communists were not interfering with the work of the church, and the young people worshiped without fear of recrimination.
“We are not praying for a revival,” Rinaldo told me. “We are in a revival. There is a growing church in Cuba, a powerful and dynamic church. This movement is quiet, but strong.”
Like the majority of Methodist churches in Cuba, Rinaldo’s congregation is fully charismatic in doctrine and worship style. On a typical Wednesday night at the Vedado Methodist Church, the young members clap, shake tambourines and raise their hands as they sing lively praise choruses. Some of them stood in front of the congregation and shared words of prophecy and exhortation.

Jamie Buckingham wrote an article this year, The Risk Factor - read some of his challenging words here - http://ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/ministry-news/19489-the-risk-factor

http://youtu.be/7wkft_6ASVI

Depths of Love

Almighty God, who has given many the  boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for their faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

From Common of the Saints, Of a Martyr, Book of Common Prayer, p. 246-247

 

The New Testament suggests persecution is a likely consequence of Christian belief: Jesus in Mark 13:9-11 does not say if they hand you over to councils, but that they will hand you over …

Today for affluent Christians such passages are viewed as references to a time long ago. But for Christians in the burgeoning churches of the Middle East and North Africa, persecution and martyrdom are modern realities.

In his book, A Distant Grief (published 2006), Ugandan writer and pastor Kefa Sempangi tells of a certain Easter Sunday - getting confronted by five of Idi Amin’s thugs who were going to kill him. 

"Despite the growing shadow of Idi Amin, Easter morning, 1973, began as a most joyous occasion for the redeemed church. The sun had just risen and the sky was empty of clouds when the first people began arriving at the compound where we worshiped. They came from almost every tribe, from the Baganda, the Besoga, the Bunyacoli, the Acoli and the Langi, the Baguari and the Bakisu. They came from as far away as Masaka, a town 80 miles southwest of Kampala. There were old men with walking sticks and young women with babies on their backs. There were small children with flowers in their arms. There were doctors and lawyers, businessmen and farmers, cotton growers and government workers, only a few traveled by car or taxi. Most came on foot or rode bicycles. Others crowded into lorries so lopsided they seemed ready to collapse at any moment. By nine o'clock, over 7,000 people were gathered. It was the largest crowd ever to attend Sunday service at the redeemed church. When there were no more places in the compound, people climbed trees or sat on the roofs of the lorries. A few large groups set up in nearby yards with their own amplifying systems and hundreds stood in the streets. Before the service, the elders and I met in the vestry, an empty house by the compound, to pray. We felt deeply the hunger in the hearts of the people who had gathered for worship. We knew their desire to hear the Word of God and prayed that their lives would be transformed by its power. As we poured our hearts out to the Father in agonizing intercession, desperate scenes from the previous week flashed again in my mind.     I saw a face burned beyond recognition and a woman huddled in a corner weeping. I saw a crowd of soldiers standing in the park cheering. And I heard the sound of boot crunching against bone. I remembered the arrogance of the mercenaries and the dreamlike deadness of my heart. And once again the triumph of evil overwhelmed me. I felt a deep fear. I myself had fallen, how could I hope to strengthen others on this Easter? Who was I to feed God's children in this most desperate hour? What words could I speak? My brothers and sisters needed courage to stand firm in the growing terror. They needed strength to sustain them in suffering. They didn't need my sermon, they didn't need my thoughts on the resurrection. My father had been right. In such times, men do not need words, he had said, they need power."
"I took my Bible and went to preach that Easter morning with new courage. My message was the suffering of Jesus Christ. I spoke of His triumph over evil and His victory over death. I spoke of the power of His resurrection. And behind me were the elders, sitting on a bench and praying. In front of me, thousands of unfamiliar faces. There were believers in need of encouragement and unbelievers in need of salvation. At 12:30 the sun was pouring hot on our heads and I tried to close the service." That's three and a half hours later.
"The people refused to leave. We have not come for a church service, someone shouted, we have come to hear the Word of God. Go rest yourself and then come back and preach again. The crowd clapped and shouted their approval. I went to the vestry for a brief rest and returned in the mid-afternoon. Hardly a person had moved. I preached for three more hours. And this time when I finished, no one objected. The sun was going down and everyone knew the hour had come to close the meeting. It was not safe to travel after dark. We didn't know whether we'd ever see each other again, or when God might call us home, but we went out in peace because we had seen with our eyes the salvation of the Lord. And with a loud 'Amen' from the people and a final chorus from the choir, the Easter service ended and I turned to the elders and we embraced praising God. It seemed as if days instead of hours had passed since we had met for prayer. I was exhausted but there was joy in my heart. God had answered our prayers. He had broken bread and fed His people. I had to push my way through the crowd and when I finally arrived at the house, I was exhausted and too tired to notice the men behind me until they had closed the door. There were five of them. They stood between me and the door, pointing their rifles at my face. Their own faces were scared with the distinctive tribal cuttings of the Kakwa tribe and they were dressed casually in flowered shirts and bell-bottom pants and wore sunglasses. Although 1 had never seen any of them before, I recognized them immediately, they were the Secret Police of the State Research Bureau, Amin's Nubian assassins. For a long moment no one said anything and then the tallest man, obviously the leader, spoke, 'We're going to kill you,' he said. 'If you have something to say, say it before you die.'
"He spoke quietly but his face was twisted with hatred.
I could only stare at him. For a sickening moment I felt the full weight of his rage. We had never met before but his deepest desire was to tear me to pieces. My mouth felt heavy and my limbs began to shake and everything left my control. 'They'll not need to kill me,' I thought to myself. 'I'm just going to fall over. I'm going to fall over dead and I'll never see my family again.'
"I thought of Pinina, home alone with Damali. What would happen to them when I was gone? From far away I heard a voice. And I was astonished to realize it was my own. 'I do not need to plead my own cause,' I heard myself say. 'I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden in Christ. It is your lives that are in danger. You are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you've killed me, He will spare you from eternal destruction.'
"The tall one took a step toward me and then stopped. In an instant his face was changed, his hatred had turned to curiosity. He lowered his gun and motioned to the others to do the same. And they stared at him in amazement but they took their guns away from my face. And then the tall one spoke again. 'Will you pray for us now?' he asked.
"I thought my ears were playing a trick. I looked at him and then at the others. My mind was completely paralyzed. The tall one repeated his question more loudly and I could see that he was becoming impatient. 'Yes, I will pray for you,' I answered.
"My voice sounded bolder even to myself. 'I will pray to the Father in heaven, please bow your heads and close your eyes.'
"The tall one motioned to the others again and together the five of them lowered their heads. I bowed my own head but I kept my eyes open.
"The Nubian's request seemed to me a strange trick. 'Any minute,' I thought to myself, 'my life will end. I do not want to die with my eyes closed.'
"'Father in heaven,' I prayed, 'You who have forgiven men in the past, forgive these men also. Do not let them perish in their sins but bring them unto Yourself.'
"It was a simple prayer, prayed in deep fear, but God looked beyond my fears and when I lifted my head, the men standing in front of me were not the same men who had followed me into the vestry. Something had changed in their faces. It was the tall one who spoke first. His voice was bold but there was no contempt in his words. 'You have helped us,' he said, 'and we will help you. We will speak to the rest of our company and they will leave you alone. Do not fear for your life. It is in our hands and you will be protected.'
"I was too astonished to reply. The tall one only motioned for the others to leave. He himself stepped to the doorway and then he turned to speak one last time.
"'I saw widows and orphans in your congregation,' he said. 'I saw them singing and giving praise. Why are they happy when death is so near?'
"It was still difficult to speak but I answered him. 'Because they are loved by God. Because He has given them life and will give life to those they love because they died in Him.'
"His question seemed strange to me but he did not stay to explain. He only shook his head in perplexity and walked out the door. I stared at the open door of the vestry for several moments and then sat down on a nearby straw mat. My knees were no longer strong and I could feel my whole body tremble. I couldn't think clearly. Less than ten minutes before, I had considered myself a dead man. And even though I was surrounded by 7,000 people, there was no human being to whom I could appeal. I couldn't ask Kiwanuka to use his connections. I couldn't ask the elders to pray. I could not appeal to the mercy of the Nubian killers. My mouth had frozen and I had no clever words to speak. But in that moment with death so near, it was not my sermon that gave me courage, nor an idea from Scripture, it was Jesus Christ the living Lord."

 Here are two other quotes from his book that I really enjoy - 

 We were, I knew, a needy people. We could not afford to be answered in abstractions. We could not afford to separate doctrine and life. Even our language reflects this need for the concrete. “Truth” for a non-westernized African does not refer to a statement’s correspondence with a fact. Truth is a quality of things. A mango tree is true if it bears sweet mangoes, a house is true if it is upright. A man is true if he knows how to run his home, control his temper, resist gossip.

A religion is true if it works, if it meets all the needs of the people. A religion that speaks only to man’s soul and not to his body is not true. Africans make no distinction between the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual is not a category among categories but the lens through which all of life is viewed. A tribesman from my village knows that cutting a tree, climbing a mountain, making a fire, planting a garden and bowing before the gods are all religious acts.

Kefa Sempangi  and his family made their way to Philadelphia, where a group of Christians began caring

for them.  One day his wife said, “Tomorrow I am going to go and buy some clothes for the children,” and

immediately she and her husband broke into tears.  Because of the constant threat of death under which

they had so long lived, that was the first time in many years they had dared even speak the word

tomorrow.     Their terrifying experiences forced them to realize what is true of every person: there is no

assurance of tomorrow.   

Here is a quote on what happened to his spiritual life while in Philadephia - 

 

The biggest change came to my prayer life. In Uganda I had prayed with a deep sense of urgency. I refused to leave my knees until I was certain I had been in the presence of the resurrected Christ. It was not just the gift I needed. I needed to see the Giver. I needed to know that the God of orphans and widows, the God of the helpless, heard my prayers. Now, after a year in Philadelphia, the urgency was gone. When I prayed publicly I was more concerned to be theologically correct than to be in God’s presence. Even in private my prayers were no longer the helpless cries of a child. They were spiritual tranquilizers, thoughts that made no contact with anything outside themselves. More and more I found myself coming to God with vague requests for gifts I did not expect.

 

The positive results of loving God wholeheartedly are many.  God will bring good from very terrible events and circumstances, personally and corporately.

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