Maybe you've heard someone say or said it
yourself.
We've done all we can.
The only thing we can do now is
pray.
If we really understood the power of prayer,
it would be a first resort rather than
a last.
Hey, join us for the road to reality.
It's Richard Buse here.
I've heard preachers sometimes say seven days without
prayer makes one weak.
No guilt trip friends, but to look back
over this past week and examine our daily
prayer life, how would we assess it?
We might feel a bit shaky.
In the paranoia of life today, the practice
of prayer is too often replaced by the
practice of blogging.
This week on the road to reality, Brother
KP Yohannan is going to dwell on the
power of prayer and how prayer can be
a daily practice.
Seeking the Lord and connecting with him is
to be our top priority.
Hi, this is KP Yohannan.
You know, this is true of me.
Every time I come into the studio and
sit in front of this microphone, I say
to myself, you know what, I really wish
I could be with this brother or sister
in their car or in their kitchen or
wherever and just talk to them face to
face.
Obviously, that is not possible.
So here is a miracle.
Once again, the Lord has provided that we
can have this conversation.
You know, I don't know, just a few
months ago, I heard that some study was
done by some people in Atlanta, Georgia, about
the prayer habit of believers or Christians here
in North America.
And I do not know if this is
accurate or not, but what I read goes
something like this.
Average Christians in our country here pray less
than 8 minutes a day and ministers or
clergy or pastors spend less than 12 minutes
a day in prayer.
Now, that kind of tells us maybe how
many tens of thousands or millions of Christians
actually may not even pray at all.
Their prayer habit may be just say, Lord,
thank you for this food and make the
sign of the cross and go on with
life.
How many really understand the seriousness of spending
time with the living God on their knees
and really interceding for the crisis, the need
or in other words, for the things that
God is concerned about.
Now, my objective today is not to criticize
you or condemn you or put you down
or anything like that.
But think about it.
What is the one crisis we have in
the church today?
If you ask me, I'll tell you it
is the lack of the knowledge of the
living God.
People keep asking me often the same question.
Just the other day, somebody was visiting with
me and who come from a very well
-to-do financial situation.
And, you know, he wanted to follow the
Lord and asked me a question in the
end.
You see, you've been working with God now
40 years and serving God.
Tell me one thing that you think is
so important and critical in a believer's life.
And I didn't have to think much about
it.
I said, you know, believe it or not,
the most important thing is to seek God
and know Him.
But I said, the problem is you cannot
know the Lord and have this scripture fulfilled
in the life of believer.
That is, we are not called just to
be obeying this and that and not doing
a bunch of bad things and doing a
bunch of good things.
No, actually we are called in the new
covenant to be partakers of the nature of
our Lord.
It is no more something objective or outside.
Rather, it is the life of the living
Christ now we are able to experience and
have Him incarnate through our earthen vessels and
fulfill His plan in the light of eternity.
And I said, this is not possible until
and unless we come to the place where
we experience the reality of being with Him
in prayer.
Not just five minutes a day, not just
ten minutes, you know, crying out for this
need and that need and all those things
and make all our plans and say, God,
please bless this.
I'm doing this for you now.
But really waiting to hear Him and to
know Him.
And the scripture says, you will seek me
and you will find me when you do
so with all your heart.
Those who seek me will find me.
And this is exactly what I think we
need now in our time with all the
crises and problems, everything going on.
But, you know, here's a problem.
Especially people in North America.
People are conditioned to think from the childhood,
no, we can make it happen.
We are very pragmatic.
Don't tell me it cannot be done.
It can be done.
So we transport this cultural thinking into Christian
faith.
So you go to the Christian bookstores, what
do you find?
Hundreds of titles, how to do this, how
to have that, how to achieve it, how
to be a good husband, how to be
a good wife.
And, you know, we are constantly bombarded with
things from the pulpit.
As to all the things we must do
to be pleasing to God, to fulfill His
plan.
But so little do we hear about being
the slaves, the servants who will wait and
watch to hear what God had to say.
And I think, my brothers and sisters, the
answer to whatever we are looking for, it
needs to be from the Living God.
And we will not know His ways until
we come and be with Him.
I've been spending quite a bit of time
reading the history of the early church.
Not only the first century, of course, you
know, all traditions passed down by the church
fathers.
Then, of course, you know, these desert fathers
and people who left the limelight and all
the busyness of life just seek God.
Not for something from Him.
No, just for God and God Him alone.
They went out and spent weeks and months
and years seeking God.
And some of their stories and their journey
impacted me greatly.
Now, in the book of Ezekiel, in the
Old Testament, in chapter 22, verse 30, we
have this interesting verse.
Well, rather convicting verse.
God says, I looked for a man among
these people who would build up the wall
and stand before me in the gap on
the behalf of the land, so I would
not have to destroy it, but I found
none.
Now, if you know the passage, I mean,
there are hundreds of prophets and, you know,
in our contemporary language, pastors and preachers and
evangelists and, you know, and whatever names you
want to call these people in so-called
full-time ministry, God says, you know, they're
everywhere.
But my problem, God says, I'm seeking for
one man, one woman who will wait and
stand before me on the behalf of the
land so that they will not be destroyed.
But I am not able to find one
person.
I talked to a pastor some time ago.
I mean, this kind of conversations usually don't
happen, but it was kind of a heart
-to-heart conversation.
And he opened his heart, asked me about
the ways of the Lord and my journey
with the Lord and all these things.
And he was quite hungry.
And so, during the conversation, I had the
freedom to ask him the question.
I said, you know, brother, if you don't
mind, can you tell me how much time
you spend to prepare your Bible study for
your church, like Sunday morning or midweek Bible
study?
And he said, yeah, but the truth of
the matter is I spend eight, nine, ten
hours, no less than that.
Sometime, he said, take three days of daily
study, several hours.
Then I said, how much time did you
pray?
I paused.
And I said, when was the last time
you were on your knees for an hour
or half hour?
And his face looked kind of blank.
I said, please understand, I'm not trying to
put you on any kind of trip or,
you know, and make you feel bad.
Then he put his head down and kind
of quietly said, yeah, I know what you're
saying.
It kind of reminds me of one time,
you know, this dear pastor friend of mine
who actually passed a very large church in
Washington state.
And he happened to travel to one of
our mission field overseas.
And he was there to teach a whole
week in one of our major seminaries.
And I was not, you know, staying with
him at the house.
But so there was a young brother assigned
to take care of this pastor, you know,
bringing tea and food and different things because
it was a full assignment of teaching.
And we want to make sure that he's
taken care of.
So one day I asked this young brother
who was actually the caretaker for this pastor
who was there in India doing the teaching
at the time.
And I asked him, so is he doing
OK?
And this young brother said, you know, one
problem.
I said, what?
Every morning I make the tea and bring
it and I can see the door is
kind of open maybe.
And I look in, but I find him
on his knees.
And so I didn't want to disturb him.
So I put the tea outside hoping that
he will come out and take it.
He said so many times when he tried
to bring something to him or whatever, often
he find this pastor actually kneeling by the
bedside and praying.
And one time he said, I heard him
crying.
Well, I was not surprised by that because
I often wondered what actually is the secret
of this man's teaching that something God uses,
people's hearts are gripped.
It is not entertainment and oh, wonderful teaching,
but rather people's lives are transformed and there
is fruit that remains.
Repentance and transformation was not self-induced or
temporary, but year after year, whenever he goes
to any of these nations to teach, report
I hear of how the lives been impacted.
Now, you don't need to be a pastor
to have a large congregation built.
Really, when you think about it, some politicians
draw huge numbers of people.
They are very well learned and they can
articulate their thoughts well and brilliant orators.
But the kingdom of God, it is not
in words, but in power.
But none of us in the ministry can
truly represent the Lord unless we stand before
Him, wait before Him, pleading, interceding to hear
from God.
The Lord saying, this is what I wanted
to tell my people.
This is what I am thinking about it.
Well, in so many belief systems, God is
thought of as unknowable and beyond our communication.
Not so with the Bible.
His friends can talk to Him anywhere and
at any time.
Do we use this astounding privilege?
We are hoping and praying that the Lord
will use today's road to reality to stir
many hearts to enter into prayer as a
daily way of life.
We will hear more from K.P. Yohannan
in just a second.
First, may we give you something today.
In Learning to Pray, K.P. shows us
in this booklet how we can grow in
our daily lives.
You can download the PDF free from our
website, or if you'd rather have the booklet
sent to you, we can do that too.
We suggest £1.50 plus postage and packaging
for Learning to Pray.
K.P. also recommends getting a world map.
We'd like to send that to you as
well.
And in this full colour map, we highlight
what is called the 1040 window, which represents
the most unreached areas of the world.
The suggested donation for a small map is
£2 and a large map £5 plus postage
and packaging.
And to receive emails with up-to-date
prayer requests from the mission field, just go
to roadtoreality.org.uk to sign up to
our prayer team.
That's roadtoreality.org.uk or call us on
01904 643 233.
Now here's K.P. with the rest of
today's message on the power of prayer.
I'm so grateful.
Recently, during one of my visits to the
East Coast in Philadelphia, a dear friend of
mine who is pastoring a huge congregation, I
think 7 or 8 thousand people or more
than that, and he said to me, we
are cancelling our Sunday evening service.
That means, I mean, he teaches through the
word, verse by verse, and he said, I'm
cancelling that.
Rather, now we are calling Sunday evenings for
prayer meeting.
Well, I was delighted to hear that because
I knew families are in crisis, the economy
is in crisis, and the problems are mounding.
And I know so well, there's no answer
except the dad and mom waking up in
the middle of the night, praying on their
knees for their children, for their future, for
their life, and for the nation, and for
the society.
And the churches coming together, not for entertainment
and more knowledge, more this and that, rather
crying out to God and weeping before Him.
And when I heard that, oh man, I
said, so wonderful.
So, after that prayer meeting on the Sunday
evening, I called him after a couple of
days and said, oh, by the way, I'm
just calling to find out how did the
prayer meeting go Sunday evening?
He said, oh, wonderful.
I said, can you tell me more about
it?
He said, well, we had 1800 people show
up for the Sunday night prayer meeting.
Oh man, then he began to talk, he
said, you just won't believe it, people are
weeping all over the place.
People just getting up and going to others,
praying with them, repenting and seeking forgiveness and
reconciliation.
And he said, the Lord showed up.
And I was so happy.
And he said, oh, we are going to
continue to do that.
We are not legalists.
He said, you know, I mean, the Lord
can tell us not to do it, fine,
but right now we know the most significant
thing in life is to seek God and
know Him.
You know, again, I want to ask you
a simple question.
Just a few weeks ago, maybe a couple
of months ago, did you hear what happened
in Pakistan?
Within a few days, nearly 2000 people lost
their lives.
They all died in that flood, nonstop monsoon
rain.
Did you hear that 70% of the
entire country's crops completely destroyed?
Did you hear several million children are wandering
without any hope?
Did you hear about the bomb blast by
the Taliban destroying the schools where they are
teaching young girls?
Did you hear about the flooding in Sri
Lanka?
Just a few weeks ago, what happened in
Bangladesh?
Do you know what's going on in different
parts of the world?
You say, what do you mean?
Well, this is all over television or magazines
and whatever, but the question I want to
ask you, what did you do with the
information?
Did you say, well, man alive, what am
I supposed to do?
Or did you say, oh Lord, on the
behalf of this world, the people in Afghanistan,
in Albania, in Cuba, in Mexico, in Spain,
and Haiti.
Lord, I want to take this time to
plead, to intercede.
It aches, it's painful, our flesh hates it.
But you know, prayer, you will never learn
by reading books.
Yes, E.M. Bowne's books and Arthur Wallace
and thousand other books are out there, wonderful.
But my brother, my sister, you learn prayer
by praying.
Some people ask me to tell them about
Gospel for Asia, the mission I'm part of
and how our life is and how this
all began and all these different things.
You know, I tell them, you know what?
Some 32 years ago, when I was pastoring
a church, being a clergy of a church
in Dallas, Texas.
The Lord spoke to my heart about walking
away from everything to give my life for
the lost world.
And I really didn't know what to do.
And one day, my wife and I said,
OK, we'll just start praying.
So Tuesday evenings, we will call some of
our friends and we will just pray.
We have a world map up there on
the wall instead of television set.
And we just pray for different countries of
the world.
And we say, Lord, whatever you tell us,
we will do.
And it took weeks and months as we
began to pray and seek the Lord.
The Lord began to minister to us what
we were supposed to do.
That was the beginning of Gospel for Asia.
Today, scattered throughout dozen nations, seeing multiplied millions
of people come to know the Lord.
Some 60 plus minor seminaries where thousands of
young people are trained and reach in the
lost world.
And, you know, Christian gospel broadcast in 110
languages.
I can go on and tell you a
whole bunch of things that's happening.
But it all began with prayer.
And that is reason, by the way, around
the world, even today, we have the tradition.
I would say a good tradition.
Every Tuesday evening, every week, we meet from
7 o'clock in the evening till 9
in the evening, just praying.
And first Friday of every month, we gather
our entire staff, some 160 people here in
the US headquarters in Canada and UK and
all over the world.
We meet from Friday evening till morning hours,
praying all night prayer meeting.
I tell you, we finish our Tuesday night
prayer or Friday night.
We can't cover all the information.
I mean, think about the book Operation World
that is out there.
Information about every country in the world.
What to pray for?
What kind of people live there?
What are the things happening every single day
that we watch?
That can become prayer request.
And by the way, for some time, our
staff have been talking about maybe opening a
prayer meeting for brothers and sisters like you
and congregations who want to join us through
streaming.
And we tested this out, by the way.
It's absolutely amazing.
Hundreds and hundreds of families and prayer groups
are able to log on and do the
streaming.
What that means is that they can see
actually all our people praying and prayer requests
are shared.
And like, you know, I'm sharing prayer requests
and I say, look, we are going to
pray for Burma.
And we say, you know, this is what
happened.
This is a need and this is a
crisis or persecution, what is going on in
some parts of the world.
And this is the prayer request.
And all of a sudden, we are now
dividing into three or four small groups and
kneeling and, you know, and huddled together praying
for these things.
And at the same time, people who are
streaming, they are also now praying for this
prayer request in their homes.
Here, among our staff, you'll find a daddy
and mommy and two kids, you know, as
a family, they're praying together or brothers and
sisters praying together.
And there in the homes, people are joining
us in prayer.
So we have decided that we will open
it up for anyone who want to join
us for these prayer meetings.
It's a revolutionary, fantastic, exhilarating experience.
And if you'd like to know more about
it and join us in this kind of
prayer experience, again, you learn to pray by
doing it.
And I ask you to go to our
website and Gospel for Asia's website and learn
about this Tuesday evenings.
You can join us also Friday, the all
night prayer.
You don't have to join us for the
entire six hours or eight hours.
You can join us for an hour or
whatever.
But here's the thing.
God is looking for those whose hearts are
completely His.
It is not by might, not by power,
but by His Spirit, say the Lord.
Please listen to me.
When life on earth is over, God will
make sure that whatever that remains as a
result of our life on earth will not
be things we have done with the power
of money, our energy or influence or any
of those stuff.
He will make sure those things will remain
that are of Him.
And things that are of Him actually comes
about through our absolute dependence on our Lord
and the power of the Holy Spirit.
But we need to understand this.
Our flesh always will want to get the
credit and make things work.
But as far as God is concerned, He
is not looking for majority or huge things,
but a mighty minority that know Him.
People that He can manifest His glory once
again through their lives.
So I earnestly request you to consider this.
And maybe you should get a world map
and put it there somewhere in your room
and look at the world.
TV and radio and magazines, whatever news that
you listen, let not that be just news,
let that be prayer request.
Get an alarm clock and see if we
can use it to wake you up maybe
12 in the night or 1 in the
morning and spend that half hour before the
Lord.
I have a little booklet I wrote, Learning
to Pray.
It is free for downloading and you can
get it or you can ask for it,
whatever.
Again, one of my dreams, Lord, would you
please raise up a few million people who
will know you, who will pray on their
knees.
Who will see fasting not as a means
to lose weight, but rather weeping before you
on behalf of the society, the community, the
world.
Remember, 80,000 people die every single day
having never heard Jesus name, especially in the
Asian part of the world.
And then think about the whole world.
Let us be those people who know the
living God, who will do exploits, but that
happens on our knees.
May the Lord speak to us and draw
us close to Him.
Thank you for listening.
KP also recommended getting a world map, remember?
We can send you one for a suggested
donation of £2 for a small map or
£5 for a large map plus postage and
packing.
Both maps highlight the 1040 window, that most
unreached area in the world.
And then, friends, if you want to join
our prayer team, go to roadtoreality.org.uk
to sign up to receive emails sharing prayer
requests from the mission field.
Our web address again is roadtoreality.org.uk.
You can also call us on 01904 643
233.
That's roadtoreality.org.uk or 01904 643 233.
Hey, that'll do for this week.
We'll be with you next time on the
Road to Reality when KP Yohannan will once
again encourage us from the Bible.
In the meantime, a resolution.
We are going to be men and women
who pray.
This is Richard Bews with Gospel for Asia,
sharing with listening friends a love for Jesus
and a love for even the most unreached
in His world.