The PASSION Blog

Ezekiel 33:1-6 talks about a watchman standing up on the wall looking to the distance to see if a threat is coming against the city. If the watchman sees a threat he is to sound a trumpet warning and then it is up to the people in the city to respond to the call. It says if the watchman sounds his warning he has done his job. It is then up to the people to respond or not.

In many ways the role of an intercessor is a bit like a watchman on the wall. When you pray for certain events and situations you sometimes pick things up that might be a “threat”. It is almost like you are staring into the distance trying to see what is coming. As you pray and ask for more understanding, the Holy Spirit might reveal how to pray or other things specific to that situation.

As the Holy Spirit reveals things then you respond in prayer to cover the situation. Sometimes though, you might find it is bigger than just your prayer and that you need to “sound the trumpet” to let others know. Much like the watchman it is up to the people to respond.

If you would like to read more on intercessory prayer, Joy Dawson brought out a great book a number of years ago called “Intercession: Thrilling and Fulfilling”. It is available from Koorong.com.

One of the things I really feel called to is the ministry of intercessory prayer. More than anything else I do ministry wise, this is where I most feel like I am partnering with God in His work.

For me intercessory prayer takes place in two ways.

1. My prayers - These are when I chose to pray for someone or some situation that I have seen or heard about. I simply bring the case before God like a lawyer or attorney takes up the case before a judge. This may happen once only or may last a number of weeks or months. Examples of this might be someone who is sick, has a big life moment coming up or an event that is taking place in a church/community.

2. God’s prayers - These are the prayers that I feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray. Many times I have suddenly been given a desire or burden to pray for a person or situation. It usually starts by a desire to pray and spend time with God. Then as I do that, I start to get someone or a situation on my heart and I have a huge desire to pray. I just keep praying until the burden lifts. Examples of this might be when someone is sick, needing help or a major world event happens like September 11 or the Asian Tsunami.

For me intercessory prayer is the most pure form of ministry I can do. I really feel like I am partnering with God in bringing His plans to pass in this world. The thought that the God of the universe would call someone to pray and partner in His work in this world blows me away sometimes. But that is how God choses to work in this world - by partnering with open vessels who are willing to be used. Intercessory prayer is just one of those ways.

One of the things my wife Larissa and I have tried to do is involve our kids in our faith and ministry as much as we can. We have never pushed them to be involved as they are only young (10 & 8), but we have allowed them to be present in our prayer times and home groups if they were awake or if they come into the room.

We have done this so they can see what happens in a prayer meeting or home group. Sometimes they see tears, sometimes people are jumping for joy and sometimes the presence of God is so strong that all we can do is sit. Because we have allowed them to be present they see this sort of thing as normal.

One recent example of this is two of my friends were are our house praying. One of my girls was sitting on a chair listening and watching. She had a huge smile on her face and was soaking it up.

My other girl picked up what was happening and went to the computer and made a book mark with a picture of an Eagle on it. On one side it had Isaiah 40:31 where it talks about wings on eagles. One the other side it had a message from God which really impacted my friend. At the age of ten she ministered to a 40 year old man in a way that really spoke to him.

This happened because we have really tried to live out our faith in front of our kids. We have included them in our home groups and prayer meetings from when they were toddlers. Because of this they see these things as normal, not something weird, and it is natural for them to pull up a chair and get involved as they feel led.

It is amazing how rain can bring hope. Overnight we had 10mm of rain. That is more rain than we have had in one day all year. My wife went out to the local shops this morning and people were buzzing. One of my neighbours even called out across the road and said wasn’t the rain lovely.

It is amazing how much of a difference to people rain can make, especially in farming regions. When we lived in Perth rain was about the dams and keeping the garden green. In country areas it is about livelihoods, families and local businesses surviving. It certainly has changed my perspective on rain and the difference it makes.

Rain brings hope. Hope that crops will come, which means the banks can be paid, families stay on the land and local businesses survive. It really is a domino effect. One that I am only just starting to understand.

If you are a praying person, can you please pray for more rain in the Central Wheatbelt region of WA. Just like hope, many people need it.

God Bless,

Dave

The Bible says in James 1:5,“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him”.

Dictionary.com describes wisdom in several ways…

1. the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight,
2. ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight,
3. the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.

As you can see, wisdom is more than knowledge. It is about putting knowledge into practice in a common sense way. It seems to be about right choices and decisions that are made with sound judgment.

When I am faced with the tough decisions of life, it is great to know that I have God in my corner helping and guiding me. My understanding of situations is not always right and my natural wisdom only gets me so far. I need God’s wisdom that surpasses all understanding to be my guide. How about you?

Prayer

Dear God,
I thank You that you are there for me each day. I thank You that when I am not sure what to do I can just simply stop and ask for Your wisdom. Thank You that the Bible says You give wisdom generously to all who ask. Help me Lord to look to You in situations that require wisdom and sound judgement. Amen.

Colossians 2:6-7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness”.

If we need to “continue to be rooted and built up in Him”, how do we do this? I believe there are three main ways.

1. Read the Bible - I believe the Bible is God’s handbook for life and its power to transform our lives. Reading the Bible helps us to learn more about Jesus and His teachings. When we know about Jesus’ teachings and we try to follow them we are able to grow in our faith.

2. Ongoing Prayer - Prayer helps us to get in tune with God, but it strengthens us and makes a difference in our everyday situations. If you are not used to praying simply talk to God like you would with your closest friend. The key to prayer is to open the lines of communication with God and go from there.

3. Fellowship - Meeting with other people who share your faith is a key to going deeper in Christ. Meeting with others helps us to learn from each other and to support each other along life’s journey.

Prayer is something that comes naturally to me these days. However, it hasn’t always been the case. Over the years though, I have come to develop a disciplined prayer life. Because of this discipline I have seen a real change in my life, a deepening in my relationship with God and the lives of those around me. This has been a real blessing!

At the heart of my prayer times is my prayer journal. This has probably helped me to grow in the area of prayer more than anything else. Each day I get out my A4 day to a page diary and I sit with my Bible, a devotion booklet and God. I write down what is on my mind, anything that I get from my devotional study or Bible reading and I record my prayer requests.

I have found that doing it this way works for me. I can look back over the year and see the things that are on my mind/heart and the things I have prayed for. Having my prayer requests recorded helps me to track the things I have been taking to God and I can see how He answered the various requests I have made.

Because I have been it this way for a while I can look back over the last 10 years and see what I prayed for on a given day. Seeing what I prayed for and how God has answered has been a real blessing and has grown my faith and trust in Him.

If you are someone who struggles to pray, I would encourage you to buy a diary and start a prayer journal. Like me it took a while to get into the swing of doing it, but looking back now I am so glad I did. It has changed my life and the lives of those around me.

One of the great things I like about the book of Psalms in the Bible is that it is someone pouring their heart out to God. Many times we see that David absolutely poured out his fears, frustrations, sufferings, discouragement and disappointment to God. He didn’t hold back one iota! I really love that God has included this in the Bible because at times I can relate to that!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes life can be really frustrating and just seem not fair. Sometimes when painful situations happen or things aren’t working out the way we want, we can let this frustration build up and it can eat away at us. I think we can learn from David and pour out heart our to God. We can just tell Him how we are frustrated or how disappointed we are and get it off our chest like David did. David was good at that!

This reminds me of a number of times over the years I have sat at my computer and written a letter to God. I sat and actually wrote “Dear God, [this or situation] is really frustrating me at the moment. It just doesn’t seem fair…” I would just pour my heart out and tell Him how I was feeling.

As I have written these letters they have always started out frustrated, but as they have progressed they have changed flavour to putting my faith and trust in Him and asking Him to intervene in the situation. Sometimes they have even asked for the strength to go through it, to learn from it and to be able to help others as a result of my experience!

The thing we need to remember is that God is not going to be surprised by our thoughts and what it going in inside us. He is suddenly not going to think, “Hmmm, Dave is not the person I thought he was!” He already knows us inside out and knows what we are going to write in our letter before our fingers even touch the keyboard or the pen hits the paper!

For me this process is about casting my cares and anxiety on God like it says in 1 Peter 5:7. I am placing my fears, frustration, disappointments and concerns on His shoulders and asking Him to help. I am exchanging my heavy burden for His light yoke. Whenever I do this I feel a sense of relief and like a weight is lifted off me and I am able to continue on in what I am doing.

So how about you? Have you ever written a letter to God telling Him your frustrations and disappointments? Are you going through something like that at the moment? If so, I would encourage you to write God a letter and pour out your heart to Him. It will only take a few minutes, but it might just make a big difference.

God Bless,

Dave

Something the Lord placed on my heart last weekend was to take up a salvation offering at the end of my message.

What I mean by salvation offering is asking the congregation to write down the names of people they are praying for to be saved. The list of people might include family, friends, workmates and neighbours.

Once the names were recorded on prayer cards, the church was then asked to hold them up and we prayed for them as a group of believers. We brought them to the throne and placed them before the Lord.

I prayed from the front and the church agreed the following things:

• the Holy Spirit would move in their lives and draw them to Jesus
• the Holy Spirit would convict them of their sin and show them their need for a Saviour
• that the Lord would bring people around them to share the Gospel
• the Lord would give us opportunities to share our faith with them

Once the group prayer has been made, we collect the cards and handed over to the prayer team. They would pray for them every time the meet for prayer and any time they are prompted to do so.

I really believe as the people are constantly covered in prayer that the Lord will work in their lives and bring them to the point of receiving Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Great things happen when we pray, but even greater things happen when we pray in unity! Over the coming months I expect to hear great testimonies of what the Lord has done as a result of unified prayer time.

God Bless,

Dave

Here’s the outline of the message I did in church yesterday. It is titled “Praying for breakthrough in evangelism”.

1. Pray for your environment

This is the place where you spend most of your time or you feel God wants you to impact. It might be your street, workplace or school.

• pray it will be a place where God’s word can be openly preached
• pray God will raise up workers to go out to the harvest field (Matthew 9:37)
• pray that God will bind the powers and principalities controlling the area (Ephesians 6).

2. Pray for those around you

I find the best way to pray for people is to ask the Hold Spirit will move in their lives (see John 16). These are the people who are in your sphere of influence.

• pray the Holy Spirit will draw them to Jesus
• pray that He will show them their need for a Saviour
• pray that He will show them their sin
• pray that He will open their minds to the truth of the Gospel message

3. Pray for yourself

It is easy to forget to pray for yourself in when praying for breakthrough in evangelism. If you are reguarly out there on the front line you need to cover yourself too.

• pray for God’s covering and protection as you go out
• pray that God will give you the right words to say
• pray that God’s peace will be with you when you share
• pray that God will bring ripe people accross your path