I don’t know about you but the end of the year always makes me think about how I might improve next year. Each year I carefully review the preceding year. I spend five minutes reveling about my victories, and then move on to spending hundreds of hours reviewing what I did wrong and trying to fashion ways that I might correct my flaws in the upcoming year.
Oddly most of the faults that I identified about myself last year are still with me this year.
Huh?
What’s up with that?
Why can’t I conquer them?
I’m reminded of what Jesus told His disciples when they couldn’t help a possessed child in need. It’s recorded in Matt. 17:16 Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. “I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.” And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.” . . . And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
Hmmm . . . Prayer and fasting is something near and dear to my heart. In fact one of the most important projects that our Worldwide Ministry is preparing to implement in 2014 is establishing a prayer warrior team with a global membership stretching all over the world. In fact we want to enlist 5000 prayer warrior team members in every nation in the world to pray continuously that our ministry will succeed.
So you might say, I’ve heard of “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” before, but don’t you think that this might just be a tad over the top?”
Bah!!!! Did you not just hear what Jesus Himself said about faith, prayer, and fasting? My good friend Pastor Daniel in Ghana Africa already has his church praying 24/7 on our behalf and that is a powerful start.
We are organizing time slots for people to pray continuously on our Ministry’s behalf day and night throughout the year. We’ve enlisted a coordinator to schedule prayer warrior volunteers and keep up with the progress.
Believe in prayer! God will bless this effort; just you wait and see.
Be thinking of a time slot that you might like to snag in order to pray for the renewal of faith throughout America, preaching the Gospel and making disciples of every nation, and that untold numbers of people will call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. You will be mightily blessed by this project in more ways than one. Not only will you be an invaluable part of beaming a ray of hope all over the world, but if you fast some, you might even shed a few holiday-induced pounds.
I don’t want to appear selfish, but I’d also like to be the recipient of some of those prayers. I have a long way to go in my Christian walk as evidenced in my finding tremendous amusement in hearing of a gift given to my father for Christmas.
So what do you buy for someone who is 92 years old, has Parkinson’s disease, and lives in a small room in assisted living and is not very ambulatory. He has a television, DVD player, radio, iPad, clothes, and all of his needs taken care of by the staff, (including someone who will drive him around in his car and take him anywhere he wants to go). He has everything he wants and needs.
Well some enterprising friend sent him the perfect gift. The sender remains anonymous to this day, but knows him well because they had his name and room number at the assisted living facility correct on the Fed-Ex package. (He accused me of sending it, but I told him it was not me, we sent him some assorted cookies).
His gift?
A roll of toilet paper!
TOILET PAPER????
What kind of gift is that?
Well it’s not ordinary toilet paper. It has a photograph of Barrack Obama’s smiling face imprinted on each sheet.
AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!
AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!
I’m laughing so hard I’m crying I tell you . . .
AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!
I thought I would stroke out laughing when he told me that one. That is perhaps the best gift I could imagine to give my father and he has shown it to everyone in his assisted living home to their unbridled delight.
Now that the laughter has subsided some however, I can’t help but think that Jesus would not approve of my thoughts on this gift and I suppose he would much prefer that I would pray for that despot . . . uh . . . our illustrious leader.
So as you can see I too am a “lunatic and very ill” similar to the kid described in Matthew and have a VERY long way to go and need lots of prayer and fasting in 2014.
“Pray without ceasing” not just for me, but ask specifically that we will be afforded the opportunity to preach the Gospel to every nation using powerful technologies of every description to bring the world stories of real people, who faced real problems who overcame and conquered them through their faith in Jesus Christ thus offering hope to the entire world.
We need prayer warriors, volunteers for many different projects and of course financial help to accomplish our ministry’s lofty goals and great mission. I prayerfully ask you to consider being a big part of it. Let’s all join together praying and fasting so we can “tear down that wall” of evil that is destroying our lives. AMEN!
Jer. 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
December 26, 2013 – Click here to listen