Sunday, December 12, 2010

PRAYER STILL WORKS, WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE FAILS.

. In the book of Proverbs chapter4 and verses 20-23 we read:
“My son, attend to my words; incline your ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart.
For they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh”.
Finding or locating a rhema word in a time of crisis, can easily instill hope and faith in our hearts and catapult us to victory.
I will never forget a miracle, in fact three miracles in one that God performed for a dear sister a few months ago. I know that going to sleep at night, and waking up in the morning, can actually be a miracle since it is not everybody that goes to bed at night that wakes up in the morning. However, that is not the kind of miracle that I am talking about here, this is actually more than that.
This precious sister that I am talking about, was pregnant with her fourth child, and has been having elevated blood pressure and blood sugar for some. She happens to be amongst that group of women who suffer from what doctors call-Pregnancy induced hypertension; as well as Sugar diabetes.
Normally, she was expected to have sought the attention of a trained Gynecologist, who in addition to managing her throughout that pregnancy, would as well have involved a trained Internist, or Specialist physician, who would have controlled her blood sugar, and blood pressure at the same time. This would have helped her baby develop normally, without being overweight, and would have helped her to have a near normal pregnancy. I am not her family physician, but I had tried to let her know about the dangers of not taking these precautions.
She received antenatal care, but not the kind care that was appropriate, as indicated above. She had ignored all the things that she was told. This she did not do because of her faith in a miracle working God, but because of carelessness, and an apparent ignorance of the enormity of the problem.
As her pregnancy drew closer to the time of her delivery, a seer had warned her that there was actually going to be a problem at the time of her delivery, and that if care was not taken; she and the baby may lose their lives. Everybody would have thought that these were enough troubles for our sister and her family, but it did not end there.
At the same time that these things were happening, our sister’s husband was being pursued by hired assassins, who were masquerading as kidnappers. The same seer had warned that unless serious prayers and intercessions were made, there was no way he would escape them. He equally warned, that without divine intervention, he might not be released alive, even after the payment of a ransom
One morning, while her husband was in the office doing his business, the wicked men struck, but God gave him a clue of what to do, and he escaped, before they could decide whether he was the one they were looking for or not. However, a client who came to his office that day was not lucky, and he was shot dead. This clearly showed that these were not mere kidnappers. After that incident, he decided to relocate with his family to another city. The seer warned that this was not the solution to the problem.
Two months later, his wife’s pregnancy had come to full term, and one morning, the husband left for the office, and had no idea that his wife would go into labor that day, and that he would be kidnapped by the men that had been sent after him.
When our sister went into labor, in a near rural community in Nigeria, with a poorly managed and medically complicated pregnancy, and on the same day that the horrible news of her husband’s kidnap came in, it seemed that all of hell had been let loose.
Surprisingly, that was just the beginning of lots and lots of trouble. The kidnappers, refused to make any contact for two days, she labored for two days in a small rural clinic, and her baby could not come out. She had thought that her labor would be normal, and that she would deliver her baby with minimal stress, but the opposite was the case. At the end of the second day, she was fully dilated, and that baby stayed for eight hours in the womb with a fully dilated cervix, but still would not come out.
At this point, they had contacted me on phone and there was no way I could possibly get to her before something horrible happens. I requested to speak with her doctors on phone, and was put through. They told me how complex the situation was, and that her baby was too big, as could be expected following her medical condition. They had decided to refer her to a tertiary centre for caesarian section.
I advised her to cooperate with them, and go to the tertiary centre for the surgery, but she explained that she could not go for a number of reasons. I immediately called some friends in a town close to where she was to please go and help her, but before they could get to her, she had requested to be taken to a maternity centre, because, she was confused and dejected, and was not sure that she would see her husband again. She equally was afraid that before she gets to the tertiary centre, something horrible might happen, besides, without money, most doctors who are not Christian, do not care who dies or who survives.
All this while, I was keeping in touch with them, but forgot something very important-the power that is resident on the inside of us! This was now clearly beyond me and in fact, was already looking like that warning was about to come true negatively. If care was not taken, I was about to lose my sister, her baby and husband.
I called my brothers who were around, and only one person came to join me, and I explained to him, that the enemy had planned to take away our sister, her baby and husband because they are vulnerable, but that I was not going to let him do that. At that point rhema began to pour into my spirit- I shall decree a thing, and it shall come to pass; When men shall say, there is a casting down, I shall say, there is a lifting up; And nothing shall be impossible with God!
We began to pray, and I commanded the devil to lose his grip and let that baby come out, and decreed that the enemy’s captives, even if they were his lawful captives, be releases immediately.
We went ahead to pray in the spirit for about thirty minutes, until, I suddenly had peace in my spirit, what is called a note of victory. Then we stopped praying, and I told my brother that it was all over, and we would hear shortly that she has delivered safely.
Amazingly, two hours later, the phone rang, she had delivered a 5.6kg, live baby, and both baby and mother were in good condition. The surgery was no longer necessary.
I cannot express the joy, and peace, and every good feeling that I felt. I was totally awed by the greatness of God.
Two weeks later, her husband was released, and is alive and hale and hearty today, although ransom was paid.
To God be the Glory, GREAT things He has done.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

THE PLACE AND THE POWER OF CORPORATE PRAYER-1

There can be no greater or better way of releasing the power of God than through corporate prayer. It is therefore pertinent that we give attention to what united or corporate prayer can do, in releasing the power of God that is needed to destroy yokes and burdens of affliction.
Briefly, the Old Testament has a number of occasions in which God's people came together to pray, as we can see in some other chapters of this book, e.g. in the case of Esther and Jews fasting for 3 days to annul the evil decree made against the Jews and induced by Haman, the son of Harmedatha. Although fasting was involved but, it does not have to be always.
The principle is summarized in 2 Chronicles Chapter 7 and verse 14.
14: "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land".The words used by the almighty God in this verse have a lot of things to reveal about trouble and the solution to it. He would not have talked about healing their land, if there was no trouble in the land that required healing. In other to understand things better here, let’s read verse 13-
13 " If I shut up the heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among the people"…
These scriptures talk about drought, locust, pestilence (epidemic of disease: an epidemic of a highly infectious disease e.g. – bubonic plague), or a serious infectious disease. Thus God is saying that if there is trouble or affliction and His people call upon him in prayer and humbling of themselves; He will intervene.
The scriptures have a lot more to say about the power of united prayer or pursuit in the Kingdom of God, thus in
Leviticus 26: 8 "five of you shall chase a hundred and hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you". Mathematically speaking, this does not look proportionate or accurate, because five chasing a hundred, implies that one person chases twenty people or enemies, whereas a hundred chasing ten thousand implies that one person chases a hundred people, meaning that as more of God's people come together, the power of God is amplified five times. Thus each and every one of the hundred people who came together, can do five times more than the five people who came together. Again in Deuteronomy 32: 20 we read:
20: "How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had surrendered them?”This goes further to show us how that power of God is amplified by the coming together of his people.
Finally in Psalm 133, verses 1-3, we see the excellence of Christians coming together revealed.
1 "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garment";
As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.
This incredible revelation summarizes it all. In the place of unity, we have the release of oil or something similar to it that is the anointing to destroy yokes and remove burdens. The dew of Hermon refers to the anointing (freshness and purity).
The third verse says that God commands the blessing there. The blessing is the Old Testament word that explains everything that the anointing does.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

WELCOME BACK

I wish to welcome you back to the prayer network blog.You are surely going to recieve revelation that will change your walk with the Lord.The Holy Spirit is right here to gu
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DWELLING IN THE SECRET PLACE

The secret place of the Lord is that place where we approach Him in secret or in the secret of our closet. Our Lord Jesus Christ said in
Matthew Chapter 6 and verse 6 as follows:
6"But when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy father which is in secret; and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly". Again in Matthew chapter 6 and verses 17 – 18 we read as follows:
17" But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face;
18 – "That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret, and thy father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly".
We can clearly see from the Lord's statements that the secret place of the Most High is the place where we approach him by faith in a manner that is hidden to the world around us. We can approach Him here by giving in secret as written in Matthew Chapter 6 verses 3 – 4, or prayer Matthew Chapter 6verses 5 – 6, or fasting Matthew 6 verses 17-18, also Jeremiah 33 verse 3 says,
3 "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things which thou knewest not", And we call upon Him in the secret place of prayer. We can understand from all this that dwelling in the secret place of the most high has two important meanings. The first encompasses all that I have explained above. The second is also like it and I will explain it with this scripture quotation.
"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and to them will he show his covenant" This is talking about hidden revelation, which the Lord by His Holy Spirit, gives to those that fear him, because the worlds' cannot know it and cannot understand it because it is foolishness to the world, but the wisdom of God (it is a secret).

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

DO YOU MAKE FIRE, OR DO YOU MAKE NOISE WHEN YOU PRAY?

A few years ago, while listening to a dear man of God, I heard him refer to a common phrase that is used by most Nigerian Christians each time they pray, or while they are in the church and most especially when they encounter what they consider to be satanic opposition or demonic activity. The term am talking about is ‘HOLY GHOST FIRE’ .He was essentially emphasizing the fact, that most Africans do not give and that when they do give, they give very little. Then he said, no wonder, most Africans are poor, and suffer a lot of demonic attacks, and defeat from the devil, because the secret of being rich and receiving and having power with God, is giving, as revealed in the word of God .Then he said, all that the y know how to do is to shout –HOLY GHOST FIRE- which has no chapter or verse in the Bible, and that was when he got my attention.
This now brings me to the subject of our discussion today-Do you make fire when you pray? The scriptures have a lot to teach us about the fact that real prayer generates fire. King David in Psalm 141 verse 2 states thus:’Let my prayer be set before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.’ The man of God recognized the fact that there was a spiritual activity that followed prayer that could release smoke and that could burn as an incense and ascend before the throne of God.
This was latter to be demonstrated by the man of God by the name –Elijah. The first time he did it was when he had an encounter with the prophets of Baal as is written in the book of First Kings, chapters 17 verse1, then the whole of chapter 18.Thus in chapter 18 and verse 37 we read: “Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their back again. 38 Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is God; the LORD, he is God.”This is the first account of how that Elijah brought down physical fire from heaven through prayer. He repeated this a second time in 2 Kings chapter 1, when an angry King, sent a band of fifty soldiers to go and bring him down from the mountain top where he was, thus in 2 Kings chapter 1, verses 10 and 11 we read, “And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty, And there came fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.” If you read verse 11, you see the same feat repeated.
Actually, King Solomon, who came directly after king David, saw such a manifestation, after his prayer, during the dedication of the temple, as stated in 2 chronicles chapters 6 and 7.Thus in chapter7 and verse 1, we read; “Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, then fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the hou se”.Now in the New testament book of Revelation we read in the eight chapter thus, i.e. Revelation chapter 8 verses 2 to 5; ”And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.3And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer ;and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thundering and lightening, and earthquake.”We can see from the this last instance, that the prayers of the saints in heaven, is indeed a tangible raw material for the angels of God to work with, and that after the mixture, incredible power is demonstrated.
Conclusively, I believe in the existence of the HOLY GHOST FIRE, because the fire that came down and consumed the captain of fifty and his fifty was called, the fire of God, and the HOLY GHOST, is God (refer to 2 Kings chapter1 verse 12).Many times, in our prayer meetings, especially in truly living churches, some individuals fall down, and begin to shake, and cry out in pains, and when this happens, many onlookers, are confused. They wonder, what the hell in this whole wide world is going on ?, what they don’t understand, is that when a truly righteous man prays effectually, and fervently, he generates fire –HOLY GHOST FIRE-which in turn, torments and tortures, contrary spirit beings which are true personalities, that though they are invisible, they are real. These evil beings which have forcefully possessed the weak and the ignorant are tormented and driven out by fire, because demons cannot stand the fire of God .

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

SEVEN BIBLICAL PROOFS THAT SICKNESS COMES FROM THE DEVIL

Many Christians and non-Christians have heard but do not yet understand how and why it is said that sickness comes from the devil. Some have not even heard this saying before, and still many, who might have heard it, do not believe it. If you believe that the Bible is the authentic, and the authoritative word of God, which I am sure that it is, then as you go through this article, you will understand it fully.
Firstly, we are told in the book of Job chapter2 and verse 7, “So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole of the foot unto his crown.”Here we are clearly shown, how that the old devil himself, carried sickness in the form of sore boils, and put it on the God’s servant-Job.
Secondly, in the book of Luke chapter 13, we read the story of a woman, who was bound by a spirit of infirmity for 18 years, and could in no wise lift up herself because according to Jesus, it was Satan, that bound her, thus we read in Luke 13 verse 16:”And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, this eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
Thirdly, in the book of Mathew chapter 12 and verse 22 we read the story of someone who was possessed by the devil, and is was written that the same individual was both blind and dumb because the devil had made it so, thus we read: “Then was brought unto him, one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, in so much that the blind and dumb, both spake and saw.”
Fourthly, in the book of Mark, chapter9, verses 17 to 27, we read the story of another child that was possessed by a devil that made him dumb, and caused him to pine away or to loose weight, and to gnash his teeth and foam in the mouth. The disciples of Jesus, had tried to cast out that devil and failed, but that child became normal, after Jesus cast out the devil.
Fifthly, in the book of Acts chapter 10 verse 38, we read: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power : who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with him.” We can clearly see that the Bible shows here that the devil is the one that oppresses people with sickness and disease, while Jesus was anointed to heal them.
Sixthly, in the book of 1John chapter3 verse 8b, we read:”for the devil sinneth from the beginning .For this purpose was the son of God manifested , that he might destroy the works of the devil.” In the book of John, chapter 10 verse 10 we read:”The thief cometh, but for to steal, to kill and to destroy…” Here we can clearly see the threefold ministry of the devil, killing, stealing and destruction.
Finally, in the book of Mark chapter 5 and verse 15, as well as in Mark chapter 7 and verses 24-30, the devil is clearly shown to be the cause of insanity in both the syrophenician woman’s daughter, and the demoniac of Gadara. Thus in Mark chapter 15 and verse 8, we read: “For he (Jesus), said unto him, ‘“Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” ‘“, and in verse 15 of the same chapter 15, we read, “And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.” In the case of the Syrophenician’s daughter, we read in chapter 7 of Mark, from verses 24 to 30, and especially in verse 29 And he said unto her ,For this saying, go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” If you read the next verse, you can see that the daughter was actually healed following the casting out of that devil.
In conclusion, l have just given you a few examples of how that the devil causes sickness, and notice that the devil caused sore boils, deafness, dumbness, blindness, insanity, or mental illness. In the same way he causes, paralysis, other diseases and death .It is my heart’s desire that all those who treat the sick today, including all doctors and nurses, etc, will have this kind of knowledge.