Stories, practical resources & thought-provoking articles to help mobilize God's people in Canada to be fruitfully engaged with God, on mission.
A story from a Muslim Background Believer and a church who prayed for the mosque in their community.
Imagine getting this email:
“My name is Rachael. I am a born-again Christian of 2 years. I actually used to be a Shia Muslim. I attended the mosque on your street for many years of my life. The Lord pulled me out of the darkness of my former life as a Muslim and brought me into His loving light...
I recently heard that your church prays specifically for salvation over people at the mosque. Is this true? If so, I’m not sure how long your church has been doing this, but I wanted to email you as an encouragement to you and your congregation to let you know that the Lord has heard your prayers and is AT work in this Muslim community.
I thank you and your congregation for committing to pray for your neighbours. It is funny to me how not once in my years of attendance at this mosque had they ever thought of praying for your church! I guess the proof is in the pudding. If you’re not filled with perfect love--how can you pour out perfect love? My heart yearns for them to know how much God actually loves them, that God would shatter the scales over their eyes, and lead them to take their seats as Children of God in the house of our Father.”
Keep reading to hear Rachael's testimony ...
Join us in praying for our Buddhist neighbours.
I was recently in a conversation with someone who had been asked, ‘Why do you pray since God already knows everything.’ They were a bit stymied how to answer even though they had a healthy practice of prayer and knew that it was important.
As we chatted and I unpacked some of my understanding of why prayer needs to be a priority for ALL Christians, I realized that my thinking in this has grown a lot over the years!
Here’s some of what I understand about prayer ...
About a decade back I encountered a significant health journey. God used it, over the course of more than 18 months, to do a major overhaul in my relationship with Him.
And as the crisis of it all began to wind down, I wondered what I could do to keep walking in such intimacy with Him.
Right about then, God handed me one of the answers, although I didn’t know it at the time ...
Just before my granddaughter turned two, she learned how to walk.
Most of us learn to walk around that age, and when you are that young, learning to walk is the development of a brand-new skill that opens whole new worlds to be discovered and enjoyed. We tend to lose that joy as we get older.
The same dynamic is at work in our prayer lives. As new Christians, we discover the wonder and joy of talking to God, but somehow as the years pass the joy of prayer and the wonder of prayer somehow seem to get misplaced. Just like walking, prayer somehow tends to drift into a mundane activity. It becomes just a way to get somewhere in life, and a way that at times, we are even reluctant to take.
Prayer-walking is something we can all do ... it can be a powerful tool for discipleship, a pre-cursor of evangelism and even a prophetic act. Prayer-walking has as many forms and expressions as walking does, but the easiest and most common form is exactly what is sounds like: prayer, while we walk.
In this article, Marcus shares practical & helpful steps to incorporate prayer-walking into your everyday life...
The sheer number of people who have never had the opportunity to hear the gospel overwhelmed me. 40% of the world's population!
What could I do that would make a dent in this? I might not be able to go, but I could pray...
The story of a church who developed a vision for all nations, through prayer for unreached people groups!
I suppose in my heart, I’ve had to wrestle with whether my small prayers can make a difference ‘over there.’
I think of the unnamed woman behind the hijab or sari. She loves her family and seeks the best for them, yet she has never heard that God loves her so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die for her shame and give her hope.
I think of the grandma who suffers grief when her children and grandchildren don’t have food, clothing, a warm (or cool) place to sleep. She is someone who can’t cast all her cares on the God who loves her because she still doesn’t know His name. She is powerless to lift herself from poverty and knows no Jesus-followers to show her the power of prayer.
Can my prayers help?
Weaving all forms of prayer together, we find our prayer lives becoming richer, fuller and more meaningful than we ever dreamt it could be.
We learn to find prayer exhilarating instead of exhausting, a treasure rather than a chore.
Best of all, when we practice various kinds of prayer and learn to practice them better, we become more effective at blessing others. Actually, more than merely blessing others - we become more effective at growing the Kingdom of God all around us. For this is truth; prayer is the means by which the eternal reality of God’s Kingdom is brought into our present reality here on earth.
HimPhone: A radically better communication device than the one you carry with you today! And it's free!
(disclaimer: We haven't started selling phones ... this article is actually about prayer!)
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