The Power of a Praying Church by Stormie Omartian with Jack Hayford

THE POWER OF A PRAYING CHURCH

by STORMIE OMARTIAN WITH PASTOR JACK HAYFORD

I have a few of Stormie Omartian's books - The Power of a Praying Wife and The Power of a Praying Woman and I like her style of writing.  She puts a lot of theory into the chapter and then has a specific prayer which uses the theory followed by a list of encouraging verses.

Chapter 1 - What is the Power and How Do I Get It?

In the opening chapter Stormie shares how she came to faith in Christ.  Reading some of her background was harrowing and shocking but the hope came when she met Pastor Jack Hayford.  He recognised a longing in her heart to change and she found that within minutes of their meeting she was disclosing information never shared with anyone before.  The chapter continues after her acceptance of Christ as Saviour and Lord, specifically with teaching she received regarding prayer.  The illustration used by Pastor Hayford was of comparing the power of prayer to the engine of a car.  The car engine has power but it needs the key in the ignition first.  Jesus said "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 16 verse 19)  Keys mean the authority, the privilege and the access.  Some things will not be turned on unless you turn them on.  Some things will not be turned loose unless you turn them loose.  Some things will not be set free unless you set them free.  The key doesn't make the power of the engine, it releases the power of the engine.  Our problem is we sometimes forget where we put the keys to our car.  The same is true in our prayer life.  We misplace the key that unlocks God's power.  We come upon a situation ... or a situation comes up on us ... and we forget to use our key of prayer to move powerfully in and through it.  Stormie uses this illustration and expands on it to show where our power in prayer comes from and how we can access this power.  She illustrates this from her own past life and the whole concept is something to really take your time over and think about.

Chapter 2 - The Power of One

In chapter 2 Stormie talks about the discipline of daily devotional habit of prayer.  A revelation by her pastor Jack Hayford that he had lost this habit shocked Stormie but the reality of this fact came too quickly in her own life when she went through a period of illness.  

"The more time we spend alone with God the more powerful our prayers will be when we pray with others. It's not that praying with other people is less effective than praying alone. There is great power when we pray in numbers but praying with other people without spending time alone with God will compromise the effectiveness and power of your prayer. In other words you will be a more effective prayer partner if you have not neglected your time alone with the Lord." 

Stormie asks the question - what is prayer exactly?

Prayer is communicating with God

Prayer is praising and worshipping God for who He is

Prayer is telling God we love and adore Him

Prayer is telling God we need Him

Prayer is making our requests known to God

Prayer is serving God His way

Some of the reasons why people do not pray very much include:

I find praying difficult because there are many different kinds of prayer and I'm not sure how to pray

I find praying difficult because I don't think I do it very well

I find praying difficult because down deep I doubt whether prayer really works

I find praying difficult because I feel I am not good enough to deserve an answer

I find praying difficult because I see God as being distant

I find praying difficult because I am not sure I am praying in line with God's will

I find praying difficult because it requires too much of my time to be effective

What makes prayer work?

Prayer works because of what Jesus did

Prayer works because we live God's way

Prayer works because we don't hesitate to ask

Prayer works because God has set it up that way

What can I do to maintain a daily prayer habit?  Firstly don't decide on how much time you devote to prayer because if you are not able to do this then you will feel defeated very quickly.  It is good to determine a time each day that we can be with God alone or the opportunity will slip through our fingers.  It should also be that we wouldn't think of starting our day without being alone with God.  We should ask God to help us carve out the time we need to spend with him.  In order to move into all that God has for our lives we have to establish our own personal prayer time with God. 

What do I do now that I am on my knees?

Acknowledge God as your heavenly Father

Praise God for who He is and what He has done

Choose one of God's names, attributes or characteristics and thank Him for being that to you

Present your day to the Lord

Present your body to the Lord

Confess your sins before God and ask Him to help you live His way

Ask God to help you speak only words that bring life

Ask God for whatever you need

Pray for God's will in your life

Pray for other people and situations

I found this list to be one of the best and simple list of what to pray especially when it feels like you do not know how to pray.  I think it would be a good list to keep and use in a personal daily prayer time.

Chapter 3 - Finding a Partner

In this chapter Stormie outlines the idea of a Prayer Circle.  In her church at some point in the service the Pastor asked everyone to stand up and turn to face people in front or in back of them.   Then they formed a circle by joining hands with 3 or 4 people.  Each had to introduce themselves, share their prayer requests and pray for one another.  Only 5 minutes but how frightening this was at start.  Stormie recounts one Sunday morning when the Pastor asked everyone to form a Prayer Circle but Stormie found herself with no-one in her group.  She then started to weep but then someone tapped her on the shoulder and asked if he could pray for her.  After sharing her concerns the man started to pray for her.  An announcement was made that the time for the Prayer Circle was finished and when Stormie looked around she could not find the man with whom she had been praying with.  She never found out who this person was but believed he was sent by God at that exact difficult moment in her life.

Stormie then tells of how she searched for someone to become her own prayer partner.  That led her to a friend who she had been close with for a number of years but had become distant.  This friend was not a believer of the Lord by this stage but she felt the Lord was leading her to pray for this friend.  Then she called her friend and surprisingly the friend was open to hear what Stormie had to say.  She was led to find faith in Christ and joined Stormie in church the following Sunday and became Stormie's prayer partner until her death. 

The idea of intercession, as it occurs in the Scriptures, recognizes a chance element, said Pastor Jack Hayford. One meaning of the word used for intercession means to happen or to light upon by chance.  God has people in different places at different times, and they often don't realise they are there specifically for that moment and time.  A prayer circumstance can arise that is a divinely appointed place for the lightning of heaven to strike, but it's waiting for a point of contact on earth to draw on the power.  Some people say that if God could arrange for a person to be at a certain place to pray, why didn't He just go ahead and arrange the answer to the prayer.  But He doesn't work that way.  He desires that our prayers partner with His power.  we are the lightning rod of earth, God could 'strike' - or manifest His mightiness - without us, but He does not act randomly.  Rather in His sovereign will, He has chosen to work on earth through partnership with those who want and welcome His will.  We may think that the things that happen to us are all by chance, but they are not.  We may think, isn't it interesting that I happened to be there at the moment this person needed prayer, but it's not just interesting, it was divinely arranged.  There are people everywhere who will pray with you on the spur of the moment, and you need to recognise these golden opportunities and not let them pass by.

Chapter 4 - Join the Group

In this chapter Stormie talks about a home prayer group which started from her church.

"Only God knows how many people keep themselves together with merely a thin glue of desperation in order to survive.  Even good Christian people."  What an amazing statement and it was written as a result of a disclosure made by one of the members of her ladies group.  Stormie speaks openly of the testimonies of several within their home group and how prayer was made and answered.  She also states "there is nothing more powerful in your life than having prayer partners to meet with you regularly."  She then goes on to talk about unity in prayer.  People join together to stand strong against things that would seek to wash away their lives and destroy them.  The bible says that rather than be anxious about our lives, we are to pray about them (Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7).  And when we find ourselves in serious circumstances, we are to stand united with other believers and pray for one another.  The Greek word for unity is sumphoneo and it is where we get the word "symphony".  In order to have harmony, there are a number of things we need to agree on.  These are: the basics and secondly on who it is exactly we are paying to and that His word not only invites our prayers but it also promises answers.  Thirdly it is important to agree on what we are praying for and how you want to pray about certain things as they come up so that the group can be in unity.  There is power in unity because God strengthens our faith as He joins our hearts together in one accord.

Thinking about this, I would agree wholeheartedly with what Stormie says because I have sat in prayer meetings and listened to people praying who try to convince other hearers that what they are praying is what is best for the person being prayed for.  We need to know exactly how we are to pray and too often that question is not asked of the person for whom prayer is being made.  The result is that the person themselves does not get the answers he thinks he should have got and as a result loses faith.  There is also the problem of being open and transparent with others in prayer.  Too often there are barriers in our prayer times and it is because we are not willing to share openly our needs and how best to pray.

"We must not underestimate the power of group prayer in straightening and clearing the path we are to travel and then enabling us to walk on it."  

Stormie goes on to describe an affinity group - people who meet together to pray who come from the same job backgrounds.

Guidelines are given as to how to start a prayer group and how to keep things flowing smoothly.  At the close of the chapter Stormie talks about how each person in the prayer group had the opportunity to pray regularly about something for as long as it took.  Praying together forced them to verbalise their prayer needs and taught them how to allow other people to share burdens.  They gained strength, encouragement and faith each time they heard others pray and corporate prayer opened up a wonderful flow of God's blessings into their lives.

"The truth is you always grow to love the people you pray for.  That's because you develop God's heart of love for them.  Don't pass up the chance to experience that.  The power of a praying church is strengthened each time we pray for one another, no matter how small the group."

Chapter 5 - The Power of a Praying Church

This to me is probably the best chapter so far - so much that I read in this chapter was thrilling and made me say to myself "I have been saying this for so long myself and here is someone else who understands what I mean!"

At the start of the chapter Stormie gives a real life answer to prayer during her second pregnancy.  She states at the end of this section "I came to see that the power of a praying church is a formidable force with unlimited possibilities.  It is a resource that has yet to be tapped to its fullest.  And tap it we must.  For the time is upon us when we as a believing people must draw on that resource and learn to pray in Holy Spirit-led-and-enabled power.  The salvation of our world - in every meaning of the word - depends on it.  May God help us understand the consequences if we don't!"

Stormie then talks about the early church and how it was a praying church - Acts 2 verse 42.  This early church had one long continuous prayer meeting and when they prayed, things happened.  When I thought about this I realised something very important - I once did an exercise where I sat down and recorded every time the word "pray" or "prayer" or "praying" was mentioned in the book of Acts  - as I thought about this again it made me think about how the early church was not a preaching or teaching church primarily but a praying church.  Through those prayers people came to faith and trusted in Christ and then they became a preaching and teaching people.

Stormie quotes her Pastor when she says "One of the things that has to happen is people must come to a conviction about the invisible life.  The need to be unified in believing that the invisible realm is real and that they have been give a place of privileged authority and access in it.  Most people know they should pray, but many don't believe it's going to make any difference."

Now comes the point in this chapter where I really feel God is speaking .... Stormie talks about worship at church.  She reminds us that the Lord promises whenever we worship Him, we are establishing a place for His presence to come and dwell.  And this can happen - wait for it - anywhere - in our home, in our church, on a mountaintop, in a field, out at sea or all places in between.  That's because when we worship God He is enthroned in our praises (Psalm 22 verse 3).  There are 3 dimensions of the presence of God revealed in the Bible - the omnipresence, the promise presence and the manifest presence.  The omnipresence of God = he is everywhere.  The promise presence = comes when he guides us, walks with us, and speaks to our hearts.  The manifest presence of God = seen at a group level when people move together in a spirit of worship that welcomes the presence of God's power.  The way to build a house for God's manifest presence is through worship.  When people welcome Him with praise and worship, his manifest presence comes in power.  He will not come in the fullness of His presence if we don't give Him a place to dwell in our worship.  So very true and when I think that so many times as I have watched people worshipping God on Sunday mornings without really thinking about what thy are singing ....

Every congregation makes a choice as to what degree they want the presence of God in their midst by the importance they assign to worshipping Him.  When we praise God, the Holy Spirit comes in power and Satan is defeated.  When we worship God, He works powerfully to defeat anything that opposes us.

"Praise destroys the atmosphere in which sickness, defeat, futility and discouragement flourish.  Praise upsets the climate which furthers the growth of so much of life's suffering, confusion, turmoil, and strife.  Praise beats out hell's fire and breathes heaven's life into the vacuum death produces on earth.  God's power is like a tornado that sweeps away the obstacles of sin, self, sickness and Satan."  By praising God we are expressing our love and reverence toward Him and being obedient to what He asks us to do.  The Bible does not say for everything give thanks but in everything give thanks.  Whatever the situation, irrespective of how bleak, we are to praise God that He is greater than our circumstances and that His love guarantees our triumph over or through them.

Building a house for God's presence happens when we set ourselves to worship God His way and make it our first priority.  That means each of us as individuals must make that a priority in our lives as well.  Not only do we need to be a part of corporate worship times in our church services or other meetings where believers are gathered to worship God, but it's important that we praise and worship Him countless times throughout our day.  Worship is a form of prayer.  Seeing power in our prayers begins there.

The church building is a place where believers can gather to be nurtured, grown and prepared to go out and do God's work.

Everyone in the church - the body of Christ, the believers - has a purpose for their lives.  And God has placed gifts, talents, and abilities in each one of us in order to accomplish that purpose (Ephesians 4 verses 8 - 16).

Belonging to a church - a local body of believers, a congregation - led by godly leaders who will help you grow, is the most effective way to identify and develop those gifts and become an effective person for Gods kingdom. 

What characterizes much of the church in the world is that people think of pastors or clergy as hired professionals who will be godly on their behalf.  They look to their leaders to do church and they go to church so church can happen to them.  In doing that, people don't think of themselves as instruments for penetrating the world with the life of Jesus.  But the church is not an organisation, it is an organism.  And God's plan is that the leaders nurture in people a dimension of who they were created to be.  Being in church and praying with other believers helps you to see that you are connected to and a part of what God is doing on the earth  That's why every time you come to church, something discernable - something of growth - should be taking place inside of you through the teaching, worship and prayer.  Whenever you are with the body of Christ you should feel refreshed, renewed, encouraged and edified.  How true the opening 2 sentences are - people do expect so much of their pastors and leaders, that thy somehow make up the church on our behalf.  I have heard many say that when a church is vacant things are not the same - but this should not be so!  We all have a part to play in the church and pastors have their part too.

At a prayer meeting in the early church at Antioch, the Lord set forth a plan that changed the world (Acts 13 verses 1 - 3).  Members of that congregation recognised that change would involve 2 things: their response to the Holy Spirit that brought them to prayer and fasting and their sending forth ministry.  And the world was changed.

People who pray and understand who they have been made to be in Christ set the direction of history in their world - be it local, regional, national or international.  Most of the believing church today thinks of faith in Jesus Christ as an escape.  But God says He wants us to be instruments of redemption and intercessory prayer and ministry will flow out of that.

We have a mutual dependence upon one another because we are defined and refined within the context of a local body of believers.

There are many people who would like to have a privatized walk with God.  The intimacy of our private walk with the Lord is a very wonderful part of our life, but if that's all you have you do not have a developing Chritian life.  Too easily, it can wither.  We will end up focusing on ourselves.  Sadly there are people who live that way and consider it spiritual: withdrawing  into their own world.  When we join with other believers, we can become an 'on fire' church that not only prays with power, but reaches out with God's love.

Building a people to do God's work happens in the local church when we are connected to and grow with the rest of the congregation.  It is within that context that we find who we are created to be and what we are created to do.

Stormie at this point recalls another answer to prayer as a result of her church's Wednesday night prayer meeting.

God is not sitting up in heaven thinking up traumatic circumstances and events that will teach us a lesson.  He is waiting for us to come to a place of repentance over our prayerlessness and lack of faith in His abiilty to answer our prayers  He is waiting for us to wake up and become a force so strong that neither the forces of hell nor the forces of nature can resist it.

Stormie moves on in this chapter to talking about breaking down denominational walls.  She uses an example from her own Pastor's life regarding a large church situated down the street from his own small church.  One day God spoke directly to the Pastor and asked him to pray for the large church.  The breaking down of denominational barriers starts with people like you and me praying together for unity in the body of Christ  And we must also reach out to touch others in different denominations. 

Stormie again quotes another incident when her Pastor invited a number of leaders and pastors in Los Angeles to come together for a prayer breakfast at his own church.  He outlined his vision and issues of deep need for Los Angeles.  When he finished speaking there was an incredibly dramatic earthquake.  It certainly got everyone's attention and all who were present recognised it as more than coincidence.  Stormie then recalls another meeting when people were invited to come together to pray for Los Angeles.  Her Pastor invited one pastor from each congregation to come up on the enormous stage at the front of the building.  They were each asked to say a prayer for the city in their native language - 30 languages were represented that day. 

The only way racial and cultural barriers will be bought down is by the church getting down on its knees to pray.  Satan of course, will rest that.  He doesn't want us united on this issue.  But we can resist him (1 Peter 5 verse 9).  We can "be steadfast, immovable, always abouning in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15 verse 58).

Any time racial and cultural issues separate people, the praying church must take action.  In order for there to come reconciliation, there must first come intercession.  And it will begin to be noticed when individual churches not only pray but reach out to other churches and people in the community who are different than they are and give something of themselves to them.  Let's invite the Holy Spirit to do what He longs to do, and that is to knit us - His children - all together in a bond of love.

There's a biblical principle that the multiplying of partnership in prayer multiplies the dimension of impact.  It's taken from the Lord who said that 5 will chase a 100 and a 100 will put 10,000 to flight (Leviticus 26 verse 8).  It's not a matter of saying God is obligated because of the number, but there is a penetrating power when there's agreement in prayer.  Agreeing is like striking notes in harmony.  The words "one accord" convey the idea of people all having the same temperature - the same degree of passion, the same degree of focus (Acts 2 verse 1, 46; 4 verse 24; 5 verse 12).  This reality calls us to pray together believing the same way about what is possible for our cities.

In order to reach a harmony - a "one accord" - we need to: define what we're going to pray about and understand the biblical grounds upon which we're expecting those things to happen.  That's what brings focus to our prayers.  When we join God's prompting (what He puts on our heart as weighty issues) to His promises (what God says He will do when we pray), faith rises and effective prayer is lifted to heaven.

Through prayer God has called us to overcome adversity and take dominion over and govern the affairs of earth.  Our call to govern is not so much in the sense of political government but to govern in the spiritual sense of praying "Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6 verse 10)  The Bible gives us hope to believe that God in His mercy will rescue the city and preserve it from the destruction that's due to it, if there can be found people who will pray.

When Abraham prayed for Sodom in order to spare his nephew Lot and Lot's family he asks God if he would spare it for the sake of 50 righteous people.  And God says He would.  He asks if He would spare it for the sake of 45.  And God says yes.  He asks about 40.  Then 30.  20?  10?  And the Lord says for the sake of 10 He would spare it.  God never stopped saying yes until Abraham stopped asking.  It was because there could only be found 4 righteous people that the city was destroyed (Genesis 18 verses 16 - 19; 29).

Listen to the heart of God in this story.  Is God anxious to wreak judgment on humanity?  no.  He was not and He is not.  That was a culture that stood as the symbol of the most perverse, anti-God city in the Old Testament scriptures.  So much so that the traits of Sodom have become a word to describe human and cultural perversion.  Still in that environment the Lord says He would save it for 10 people.  Let's remember that - and remember that God stopped conceding only when Abraham stopped asking.

How often do we do that too?  How frequently do we stop asking God to pour out His Spirit on our cities and do wondrous works of salvation and restoration in the people who inhabit them?  If Abraham would have asked more, could Sodom and Gomorrah have been spared?  Perhaps.  But in any case, the Bible shows that God is waiting to find intercessors, and nothing in our cities is going to get better apart from a praying church.

Chapter 6 - Uniting in Prayer to Move a Nation

Stormie opens this chapter with how her congregation met together to pray at the time of Watergate.  At that time they started to look at Nehemiah in the Old Testament when the people gathered at the Water Gate.  The Water Gate was one of a number of gates constructed into the wall around the city of Jerusalem.  But the wall had broken down and its gates burned when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and took the Israelites into exile. Years later after some of the exiles returned, Nehemiah, who had become the cupbearer to the king of Persia, heard that the wall still had not been rebuilt.  It grieved him so much that he wept and mourned for many days, fasted and prayed before God and confessed the sins of the children of Israel, who had not kept God's commandments.

Nehemiah sought permission from the king to return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the walls.  Once permission was granted, he went there and organised the people to do the rebuilding work.  When the repairs were finally made, the people gathered together in front of the Water Gate to read the Book of the Law and worship God (Nehemiah 8 verses 1 - 6).

Stormie's pastor began regular-in-depth teachings on intercession that were rooted in a discovery he was making.  Based on 1 Timothy 2 verses 1 - 4 there are 3 important things for us to remember:-

Intercession and pray for everyone - especially governmental leaders - is an absolute priority assignment given to the church (verse 1).

The climate of a culture can be affected by praying this way - even unto "a quiet and peaceful life." (verse 2)

The objective of such prayer is the advance of the gospel and the entrance of more and more people into the salvation offered through the grace of God's kingdom purposes (verses 3 and 4).

Stormie then recounts incidents in the past when the nation (America) had been powerfully affected because people gathered at crucial times to pray.

Stepping into the gap means stepping up to the plate in prayer.  It's about standing before God and praying on behalf of other people.  A gap was a breach or break in the wall that needed to be repaired.  Any gap not repaired would be a place where the enemy could come in.  An intercessor is someone who steps into the gap between God's righteousness and man's failure and through prayer, brings the merits of the cross to bear upon people and situations.

Intercessors are needed because the world is filled with men and women who don't understand the effects of their own sin.  Or they don't understand everything God can do for them, and so they don't know to ask for themselves.  They don't realise the extent of God's provision for them, so they need someone who will step into their situation in prayer.  And even people who do know to pray can sometimes be so overwhelmed by their circumstances that they can't pray.  They need an intercessor to step into the gap for them too.  We can answer God's call and partner in His kingdom purposes by praying for people and situations that need the touch of God.

"I sought for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.  Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath' and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads." (Ezekiel 22 verse 31)

God is saying that this destruction could have been avoided if He would have found just one intercessor.  The folly of the people in that land at the time was that they believed God would tolerate their ongoing commitment to evil.  They presumed that, having experienced His favour, they were not accountable to the laws of His divine righteousness and judgment.  It was His chosen people who rejected the wisdom of His ways and finally brought down judgment upon their own heads.

Bad things don't come from God. They happen because we have sown bad seeds or as a result of the enemy's work.  Either way, God gives us the opportunity to avert both of those things by standing in the gap through prayer.

When God looked for a person to pray and couldn't find one, the land was taken over by enemies.  As we pray, according to God's Word and invoking God's power as intercessors, we can affect the outcome of events, and there can be an averting of judgment on our land.  The promise in 1 Timothy 2 focuses our ultimate concern - that people be rescued from judgment in order that they might be saved through the preaching of the gospel.  We need to understand that it will be everyday people - people like you and me - who will make the difference as we stand in the gap and pray. 

"When God's people intercede, the headlines you don't read today (of devastation or destruction) are because of the intercession God's people made the day before."

God is looking for more people who will step into the gap in prayer.  He is looking for more people who will open their eyes to the invisible realm and see what He wants to do in our world today.

How often do we think, My prayers won't make a difference, instead of asking God to open our eyes to the truth of the invisible realm?  There is a spiritual force that opposes the things of God.  Even though we don't see it in the natural, the force can be spiritually discerned through God's word and as we pray for revelation.  There is another force that is spiritually discerned too.

In the OT Elisha the prophet and his servant saw that an army had completely surrounded the city with horses and chariots.  "What shall we do?" asked Elisha's fearful servant.  "Do not fear for those who are with us are more than those who are with them," Elisha answered.  "Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see."  "Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw.  And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." (2 Kings 6 verses 16 and 17)

We need to pray that God will open our eyes to see how He protects us.  We need to see the truth about God, the truth about ourselves and the truth about the enemy so we can pray with confidence, boldness and faith.

Jesus told us to occupy until He comes.  He made it clear that we are not to sit back and do nothing.  Occupying means keeping our eyes open for ways to pray and doing the work God has called us to do.  If we stop praying, who knows what needless suffering will come to us, to those we care about, and to countless others we don't even know?

If we don't know how to pray, we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding, wisdom, insight, knowledge and direction in prayer.  He will do that and then help us see the root of the problem so we're not just praying about symptoms.  But we have to ask God to open our eyes to see the truth.

We may not be risking our lives the way Nehemiah did, but being a watchman requires something of our lives in terms of commitment and time.  Nehemiah's concern for the people of the city motivated him to pray.  Our love for the people in our nation should motivate us to pray too.  We need to be so heartbroken over the brokenness of people that we think more about their well-being than we do about our convenience.

One of the hindrances to intercessory prayer is ignorance of the church's collective mission, which is the call to prayer.  There is nothing whatsoever anywhere in the bible that suggests that man is the victim of an irretrievable circumstance.  The whole concept of redemption argues against that.  Christ's coming and reversing the power of death - transforming the future by His resurreciton - is in itself a statement that nothing is irredeemable.  But His action is also a statement that says though things may be redeemed, they are not redeemed without someone stepping in.  Just as His "stepping in" is described as an intercessor's action (Isaiah 53 verse 12) on the grounds of what He achieved through His death and resurrection, we are called to 'step in' to see the power of His triumph applied today. 

That's where we come in.  We are the intercessors God is calling today.  He has made us agents of His kingdom and He wants us to become His instruments of redemption in every situation through Holy Spirit-energized prayer.  If we can get beyond our doubts that prayer doesn't change things and be willing to answer God's call to pray, there is no limit to what He can do in our land.

What God does with reference to earth, He has chosen to do in partnership with humankind who will respond to His love and who will welcome His power and grace into their lives and then into their world.

Jesus said "Here are the keys to the kingdom.  You have the privilege of moving in partnership with the Father's kingdom and whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16 verse 19)  'Binding' is when we take action to invoke His rule by revoking the sin or evil workings of flesh or devils. 'Loosing' is when we take action by welcoming His power to release the flow of His mercies and grace into the middle of earth's pain and problems.  And all the while, we remember that the power is His, but the privilege of tapping into it is ours.  It's His plan; Without His sovereign power, we can do nothing; without our obedient partnership, He will do nothing.

Many are called, but few are listening.  Let's be among those who are listening.

One of the most important things that Nehemiah did as he mourned the condition of the city and the people was to confess the sins of the nation (Nehemiah 1 verses 1 - 11).  God is asking us to do the same.  God wants our hearts to break for the people of our country too.  He wants us to humble ourselves before Him and confess the sins of our land so He can heal the breaches in the walls of our nation.  We as Christians can become self-righteous if we believe that because we have been forgiven of all of our sins, then we no longer need to be identiied with the people in our nation who haven't  But the prophets in the Bible always identified with the sins of their people.  They lived God's way, yet they had to confess the sins of those who didn't.  It's important to remember that "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1 verse 9)  Confession is the only way our nation can be cleansed from the effects of sin.

While we need to confess the sin, we don't need to focus on the sin.  We should instead focus on the sinner, who needs to be free of his sin by coming to the Lord, and we should do without condescension or self-righteousness of attitude but with compassion and humility.

We can expect that every confession we make and each prayer we pray will affect something or someone.  

God wants each one of us to become a member of an army - his army!  God is Commander-in-Chief of this army and the weapons of choice are prayer, praise and the word of God.  That's because "though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.  For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." (2 Corinthians 10 verses 3 and 4).  No enemy can stand against these weapons, unless, of course, the enemy convinces us that our weapons are powerless and we stop using them.

Principalities and powers are terms in the New Testament that are used to describe invisible demon powers that resist the purposes of God on earth.  As people come under control of this realm of darkness, you and I have been given the power through the cross of Christ to pray against the plans of evil.  We make war against this evil force in prayer.

God's army is an all-volunteer organisation, so we have to enlist.  We have to tell God we want to be a part of His army of prayer warriors and ask Him to put us on high alert so we can be mobilized at a moment's notice.  The best part about being in God's army is that He goes with us into every battle.

You may be saying to yourself, How can I make a difference?  I'm just one person.  But when Samuel prayed on behalf of Israel as the Philistines attacked them, "the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel" (1 Samuel 7 verse 10).  Every prayer you pray brings confusion upon the enemy too.

The great thing about praying for your nation is that you are never praying alone.  That's because you have become part of the army of prayer warriors who are always praying.  

Where we go wrong is that we fight from battle to battle and never really enter the war.  We think that when we win one battle we have won the war, and so we stop fighting.  And on the other side of that, sometimes when we lose a battle we feel we have lost the entire war and so we give up.  What we have to realise is that the war is never over! 

The triumph Jesus won when He said "It is finished" (John 19 verse 30) broke the power of sin, death and hell once and for all.  But that victory awaits application on earth - and prayer is the warrior's strategy by way of God's assignment.  The conflict will not be over until we go to be with the Lord.  That's why we must learn to go on the offensive in prayer instead of waiting until something happens and then trying to defend ourselves.

God wants us to intercede every day with the same degree of passion we have when we are in the middle of crisis.  He doesn't want to just keep losing and regaining the same territory over and over.  He wants us to pray in advance of disaster so we are not constantly mopping up the mess the devil has made.  The peace that God would like to give us depends upon us doing that.

Chapter 7 - What in the World Can I do?

This chapter is all about interceeding on behalf of others in prayer.  Stormie sets out what a "church" really is - not only a building used for public Christian worship or an organisation of Christian believers in separate church congregations but it also means the worldwide body of Christ.  A praying church then can also be believers all over the world united in prayer about something important.

She then goes on to describe 2 incidents where intercessory prayer for others really was effective and one that was not.  God gives each of us promptings we must not ignore.  He often starts close to home - with the people and issues of our own lives first - almost like an intercessor's training ground.

I have to pause here because I know this to be so true in my own life.  Just after I became a Christian (and I was only in my teens then), I was prompted to pray specifically for my brother who was on a weekend away with his school.  During that weekend a teacher and a pupil lost their lives and I believe that it could have been much worse if God hadn't prompted me to pray and at the same time answered my prayer for protection.  Yes I admit I prayed for my brother more than anyone but as Stormie says - God uses the people who are closest to us first of all as a way of testing.  Unfortunately far too often we don't trust that we are really hearing from God and so we don't respond with prayer.

Jesus said that all power in heaven was given to Him and on the cross He broke all the power of hell and rendered powerless all works of the flesh.  He put those powers of darkness under His feet, but He tells us that if those things are going to be kept underfoot we need to pray.  When we see works of hell beginning to break loose and manifest, when we see human flesh failing miserably, God says we have the right to immediately step into that situation in prayer.  The intercessor stepping in has been given a role and that is to bring the triumph of the cross of Jesus Christ to bear upon the situation.  Intercession is praying on behalf of another, with the Holy Spirit's direction and enablement, while recognising all consequences depend on those prayers.

Prayer is not guesswork, superstition or an arrogant assumption that we ourselves are powerful.  When people pray, things happen, but the power is God's.  Many unwanted things happen to people because they don't pray when they are warned.  God wants our full attention so that we will.

Whenever you receive a prompting, don't ignore it.  God may be calling you to pray.  Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how.

Just as I finish typing this I am reminded that God himself gave me that memory from all those years ago of praying for my brother - that was his prompting by the Holy Spirit! 

If you think 'the issues in this world are so enormous and I am so small.  Who am I to ask for such big things?  Who am I to think that I can actually make a difference when I pray about important and seemingly impossible issues?'  You serve a big God.  You don't need to become intimidated by the grand scope of the things you pray about.  They may be bigger than you are, but they are never bigger than God is.

The Bible reveals that the praying that Jesus calls us all to do together - is a God given means to touch the core of His divine purposes so that they resonate in the human circumstance.  Again He invites us, no calls us, to partnership in the release of those purposes.  Frankly and simply put, there are certain things that won't happen unless people pray.

Don't ever be intimidated by the size of the issues God calls you to pray about.  Because He is on your side, no force of darkness can resist the power of your prayers.

No matter what a situation looks like, with God nothing is impossible.  And we don't have to know all the answers, because God has solutions we can't imagine.

God has not forsaken the nations of the earth.  We have forsaken our call to prayer.  But as we respond to what the Lord is calling us to pray about, no matter how big or impossible it may seem, there is no limit to what God will do.

The word intercede means "to come upon by chance".  The word intercede in both Hebrew (pahgah) and Greek (entunchano) focuses on the unplanned or seemingly accidental nature of the encounter.  As an intercessor you are never a victim of circumstance. Things just don't accidentally happen to you.  God foresees every moment of your life, so when you come upon a circumstance that seems disturbing to you, ask God what you are to do about it as His intercessor.

The bible says "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5 verse 16).  'Effective' means that it's energized beyond human energy.  'Fervent' means there is a human passon that recognises its moment and becomes gripped with a sense of 'I'm here on purpose!'  It's recognizing that God is wanting to do something with me.  I may feel, 'This is way beyond me, but the circumstance and my ability to address it is not limited to me because I know how to pray beyond myself.  And if I know how to pray beyond myself, then I can watch God transform situations that are beyond me.'  That's intercessory prayer.

Stormie recounts how when her pastor called each individual member to pray for every nation on earth, she chose South Africa.

Intercession may guarantee someone a tomorrow because we obeyed the Holy Spirit today.

Having read this book I have been given new incentive to pray more effectively and I really would love to see more Christians read this book for themselves.  I believe that if more people read this book and took on board the issues raised they would be challenged in their own personal prayer times as well as corporate church prayer times.