Tag Archives: India

August 1, 2014 · 2:20 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (8/1/2014)

It is estimated there were approximately 300 million people living in the world at the time of Christ. Of this total, there were probably two to three million Jews, most living within a few hundred miles of Jerusalem.

What was the Lord’s plan for evangelizing the world?

Peter and the other original apostles were first sent to the Jews while the rest of the world awaited a scrawny, short Jew, who met the Lord on the Damascus Road, five years after the Lord’s ascension. It was another six years before Barnabas went to Tarsus and brought Saul to Antioch, and still another six years before Saul was released into his apostolic ministry and called Paul.

Israel and the Jews had waited approximately two thousand years for their Messiah to arrive in Jerusalem. Yet, the rest of the world waited an extra seventeen years before their man – the Apostle Paul – was sufficiently readied for his ministry to the Gentiles.

Think about this: our heavenly Father chose one Man, His Son, Jesus, to save the world. Then, the Lord Jesus Christ, chose one man named Paul to be His pioneer missionary to the world.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, I pray that You would stamp on the hearts of a hundred thousand missionaries for the 10/40 Window the commissioning words You spoke to Paul, so that blind eyes are opened, that people may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among the sanctified believers. (Based on Acts 26:16-18)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebre ws 13:3.

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July 25, 2014 · 4:26 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (7/25/2014)

There are eleven million children abandoned by their parents and living on the streets of India. Ten million of these children are little girls between the ages of four and eleven years old. What will become of these children?

Some end up as beggars. Some are kidnapped by the sex trade and end up as prostitutes. Some are forced into slave-like positions as laborers. Most are abused.

Life is unfair, right?

Today, I prayed:

Lord, break our American hearts with the things that break Your heart. Give us no rest until You reveal what we can do to relieve Your heartache.

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebre ws 13:3.

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July 18, 2014 · 4:01 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (7/18/2014)

I was raised in a farming community in rural Northern Illinois where farmers helped their neighbors. If a farmer became ill, his neighbors helped take care of his livestock, planted or harvested his crops, fixed equipment, or whatever had to be done until the farmer was back on his feet again.

If the husband died, the neighbors helped the widow transition through her grief to her new life. Whatever needed to be done, the farmers helped her out. All of this was a part of being a good neighbor.

This has been a part of my cultural mindset since my childhood.

Let’s look at India:

For over 40 million widows in India, life is a desperate struggle for survival. They’re blamed for their husbands’ deaths, they’re forsaken by their families, shunned by their friends, and despised by their communities.

One in four homes in India is home to a widow.

92 percent of India’s women age 70 and older are widows.

Street begging or prostitution often becomes a way of life.

Many are left caring for their children with little help from relatives.

In order to provide for themselves and their children, many resort to gathering food from the trash. Some gain income only from selling their bodies on the streets. For those who cannot bear the shame, suicide is their only escape. (Gospel For Asia)

The cultural mindset of India is so unlike mine, but do the differences allow me to ignore them?

Today I prayed:

Lord, help us American believers return to a pure and genuine religion in Your sight that cares and helps orphans and widows in India and other nations in the 10/40 Window. (Based on James 1:27)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebre ws 13:3.

(If you are interested in helping the widows in Asia, check out Gospel For Asia.

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July 11, 2014 · 9:45 am

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (7/11/2014)

I grew up on a farm in Northern Illinois and like most farm boys, I had chores to do each day. These chores included feeding cattle, gathering eggs, shoveling corn, working in the fields, making hay, and doing whatever Dad needed me to do that day. I didn’t consider the chores work because this was our way of life.

We weren’t rich, but my parents fed and clothed me well, treated me with love, and allowed me to enjoy my childhood with all of its many activities, such as sports, 4-H, movies, and so forth. Dad always excused me from chores if one of my activities interfered with his work schedules.

Now, look at the above photo. These are Dalit children who are forced to work in almost slave-like conditions to help their families survive or pay off debts. It is estimated that 150 million of these children suffer similar fates in India, which has the world’s largest child labor force. Abuse is common, with long hours in miserable conditions and no hope of escape. This is the fate of a Dalit child.

There was a time when I ignored the pain of children in far off lands, such as India. Why can’t they take care of themselves, like I did? I thought. My arrogance must have been a putrid stench in God’s nostrils.

But now, I can no longer disregard the truth that it was God’s grace which allowed me to be born in the “breadbasket of the world” and not in a Mumbai slum.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, I pray that our American ears are opened to the Dalit mothers in India who weep for their children and who refuse to be comforted because their infant’s childhoods are no more. (Based on Matthew 2:18)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebre ws 13:3.

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June 27, 2014 · 3:23 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (6/27/2014)

The above picture of a street scene in India does not show one person in chains or behind bars. All seem to be moving about freely and carrying on with their lives. But if our spiritual eyes were opened, we would see almost all of them shackled and chained to the power of darkness without any hope of ever being released from the sentences of death upon them.

What can we do to help them?

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)

Two thirds of world’s population lives in the 10/40 Window, which is the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia lying between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. This region includes the nations of China, India, Iraq, Sudan, and nearly sixty other nations. The majority of the world’s followers of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism live in these nations.

These nations are the least evangelized of all nations in the world.

Fasting and prayer is always needed for these nations, but so are preachers. Consider supporting a native missionary, like one through Gospel For Asia.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, I pray that we Americans would pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest to send our laborers into Your harvest in the 10/40 Window. (Based on Luke 10:2)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebrews 13:3.

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May 30, 2014 · 10:30 am

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (5/30/2014)

A few years ago, I had a vision which demanded a decision.

In it, I visited a dark, smelly prison cell in North Korea. A young Christian woman was the only prisoner there. She had been repeatedly raped, beaten, tormented, and abused. The cell was freezing cold because it was winter time. She wore a tattered, thin dress and had no blankets to protect her from the frigid temperatures. She ate rice husks and was starving to death. A bucket in the corner was her toilet. Rats scampered around her feet.

My level of Christianity could do little to help her. She needed something more than a big smile, a pat on the back, and a “Just trust Jesus ” from me.

As I stood there, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. “Will you trade places with her?”

If the young lady had been standing in front of a firing squad, I would have gladly volunteered without hesitation. I am not afraid of death, but that was not the case.

The horrible conditions paralyzed my tongue.

If I could have, I would have rebooted the vision to anywhere but that rat-infested cell. I wanted to yell, “No. Find someone else to take her place. I will pray for her and give extra money to missionaries, but this it too much to ask from me.”

Somehow, I remembered my words to the Lord on the day He saved me. I asked Him to send me to the places no one else wanted to go to. What could I do?

“I trust You, Lord. I will take her place,” I whispered through sobs.

The vision ended.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, help us American believers to remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since we are also in the body. (Based on Hebrews 13:3)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebrews 13:3.

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May 29, 2014 · 8:53 am

Vacation Bible School? Really?

I grew up on a farm in Northern Illinois and attended a small one-room schoolhouse from first grade through fifth grade. The friends I played baseball with in the summertime attended a much larger grade school in Forreston, seven miles from our farm. These friends invited me to Vacation Bible School because we wanted to spend more time together.

In my case, the one thing I took away from Vacation Bible School was one Bible verse:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Maybe you’re not impressed with my retention of just one verse, right?

Yet, Bill Hamon once said that if an atheist spoke John 3:16 to a stadium filled with thousands of atheists, God would honor His word and someone would get saved. That is the power of John 3:16.

Over the following thirty years, I often saw signs with John 3:16 printed on them. Each worked on my heart like a hammer until finally I gave my life to the Living Word – Jesus Christ.

So, you can understand my passion for Vacation Bible School because it works. I am proof of that.

In 2013, hundreds of thousands of Indian children attended Gospel for Asia’s Vacation Bible Schools throughout India. Each one heard about Jesus. Each memorized verses. Many were saved and their parents also were saved.

If you can afford $5 or $25 to help sponsor children this year, please consider doing so. You can check out a great two minute video, narrated by Natalie Grant, and learn more about the VBS program here.

Vacation Bible School? It really works. Let’s be a part of what’s happening in India today.

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May 26, 2014 · 11:16 am

A Memorial Day Discovery

I have watched the above 2 minute video of K. P. Yohannan nearly ten times over the last few days. It seemed like there was a deeper message in it for me, but I could not grasp it. My frustration level blew past the boiling-over point.

Then, I discovered this morning there was a video of Yohannan’s preaching his whole message on the Call of Christ. I watched it just now.

Yohannan touched on three points in the video that broke my heart:

1. He told the story of a 28 year-old Sri Lankan woman who laid down her medical practice and committed her life to guerrilla warfare and killing people for the possible freedom of her Tamil people. She was captured and faced death. She said, “I am so glad I am in prison. Even through my death, if I can further our cause one step, I am grateful for that.”

If that is the commitment for something that is so hopeless, what kind of commitment do I have? (K. P. Yohannan)

2. If your church is only making you a better Christian, a better family man, a better father, a better mother, I am sorry for you. This is only the beginning. The call of Christ is for you to die, not to live. I can assure you of that. (K. P. Yohannan)

3. At the 19 minute mark in the video, Yohannan told the story of a 60-year old man who asked what he could do. What the man eventually did and to hear Yohannan declare, “What a privilege,” stirred my heart. (K. P. Yohannan)

If you want to see the whole forty minute message, you can see it here.

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May 23, 2014 · 2:43 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (5/23/2014)

The Apostle Paul referred to himself as a “prisoner of the Lord or a prisoner of Christ Jesus” six different times in his letters to the Ephesians, Timothy, and Philemon. Paul wrote these letters when he was an old man by first-century standards. He was approximately fifty-six years old.

Ten years earlier, Paul wrote:

We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. (1 Thessalonians 2:18 NLT)

Wait a second, right?

In the letters to the Ephesians, Timothy, and Philemon, Paul was in prison or under house arrest in Rome. When he stated that Satan hindered him, Paul was in Corinth planting a church and was a free man.

Was Paul a prisoner of the kingdom of darkness when he wrote the letter to the Thessalonians? No, I don’t believe so.

It is my opinion that Paul’s revelation of Christ grew over the ten years between the writing of Thessalonians and his writing the three letters. He understood that if Satan prevented him from going somewhere or doing something, it was because Christ allowed it. Paul was Christ’s chosen ambassador. Demons could not deter him from running the race set before him.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, I pray for your prisoners of the Lord in America that the Father of glory may give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of their hearts enlightened, that they may know what is the hope to which He has called them, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward those who believe. (Based on Ephesians 1:17-19)

What do you think and has the Lord spoken to you?

Join with me on Fridays to fast and pray for prisoners, according to Hebrews 13:3.

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April 18, 2014 · 3:07 pm

Friday’s Prayers for Prisoners (4/18/2014)

I have been rereading No Longer a Slumdog by K. P. Yohannan this week:

One of the hardest things to witness is the large number of little boys and girls looking into our Gospel for Asia Bridge of Hope Centers wanting to be involved, but unable to join.

…The hardest part is turning down child after child and seeing them suffer without firsthand contact with the love of the Lord. Honestly, there are so many children out there who need our help. One of the biggest requests from our leaders is, “Can we please open up more centers?”

As we have more resources, we proceed with opening more centers. But there are so many times, I have to tell our leaders, “Not yet.” (No Longer a Slumdog, K. P. Yohannan, © 2011 by K. P. Yohannan, GFA Books, pages 145)

Each morning my heart is blessed when I pray for the six children on the bulletin board over the computer that Carol and I sponsor for Bridge of Hope. But then, my heart is broken when I consider the millions we are not able to sponsor. I always pray, “Lord, don’t let them slip through the cracks of eternity without hearing about You.”

Today, I prayed: