Sudan: Bloody attack on protesters
07 Jun 2019
Tens of thousands of protesters had camped outside Khartoum’s military headquarters since 6 April as protesters and military officials negotiated a transitional government. Protesters want ‘limited military involvement’ in civilian rule. The ruling generals refused to relinquish power. On 3 May negotiating stopped and security forces attacked the sit-in camp, shooting randomly as people ran for their lives. The military blocked all roads, hundreds were arrested and tents at the sit-in were set on fire. A doctors' committee reported on 4 June, ‘40 bodies were pulled from the Nile River and the number of those killed was at least 108’ but warned ‘it was likely to rise; more than 500 were wounded’. Pro-democracy protesters vowed to keep up their campaign, calling for total civil disobedience to paralyse public life across the country. Many analysts believe the military rulers are influenced by powers outside Sudan(Egypt and Abu Dhabi). The bloody assault risks an escalation..
Global: Mercy Ships in partnership with UCB
07 Jun 2019
Sadly, two out of every three people worldwide can’t get safe, affordable, timely surgery. Most of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa – people like mother and daughter, Valerie and Edith. Valerie lived with an enormous tumour on her face for nearly 20 years, but her heart didn’t break until she saw a similar lump growing on her daughter Edith’s face. To watch their story click the ‘More’ link. Mercy Ships believes everyone deserves access to safe, affordable medical care. They use the world’s largest charity hospital ship to deliver free, safe medical care to some of the world’s poorest people. They also train local doctors and medical professionals, enabling them to make an impact that endures long after their ship departs. Mercy Ships has helped the lame walk and the blind see, sharing God’s love and healing all around the world.
Images of a controversial administrative order went viral across Iranian social media in recent days, enraging large sections of the country's religious minorities and causing widespread public outrage. Iranian authorities had to revise the official order that sought to ban religious minorities from teaching at government-run kindergartens. A Zoroastrian parliamentarian reminded the government of a paragraph in the Iranian Constitution which advises against any form of discrimination and calls for equal opportunities. He also demanded Iran ‘will no longer witness such inhumane and unethical decisions against the followers of divine religions.’ Iran's religious minorities have experienced widespread discriminatory policies and practices. In particular, Baha'is, Zoroastrians, Sunni Muslims and of course Christians.
Windows International Network reported, ‘Christian churches are locked down, Believers are threatened and beaten, homes are invaded, Bibles are confiscated and destroyed, pastors are imprisoned’ and ‘the Muslim persecution of Christian Believers has drastically increased since 2017.’ Algeria is a former French colony, and the French government is so disturbed by this new intolerance that the French parliament has officially opened an inquiry into persecution of Christians in Algeria which has risen to number 22 on the 2019 Open Doors World Watch List of the worst persecutors of Christians in the world. Pray for Christian believers as they face increased persecution and the pastors who are imprisoned to be sustained by the Holy Spirit. Pray also for Muslim-background Christians to be strengthened in their witness to family and friends.
USA: Worker kills 12 colleagues
07 Jun 2019
A mass shooting is when two or more people are shot in one incident at one location at roughly the same time. Since 1 January 2019 Wikipedia reports 150 mass shootings, causing 161 deaths and 585+ people wounded in the US. The most recent saw 12 people killed and several injured at a government building in Virginia Beach Municipal Centre. This tragedy happened just before the National Gun Violence Awareness Day on 2 June. Many want to see an end to the easy access to guns which frequently brings schools and cities across America to prominence for all the wrong reasons. Pray into America’s gun law situation.
Dr Jason Hubbard, Director of the Light of the World Prayer Center in Whatcom County, Washington State, USA tells us about how God is answering prayers for Community Transformation in extraordinary ways.
Their 3 fold prayer strategy involves 30 churches taking a day of prayer, once a month. Its like a prayer relay, where a church takes the baton to pray for a day, then passes the baton to the next church. This means they have ongoing, unceasing prayer.
Secondly, Godly men and women gather together in 7 strategic teams seeking the Father’s will for seeing transformation taking place in their community across the seven spheres of society.
Thirdly, they have build a communications system with a prayer guide conveying specific, measurable prayer points. Alongside this, they prepare praise reports with details of answered prayers.
The result is a canopy of united, strategic, sustained prayer.
Jason tells us how 80 of the 100 local Pastors regularly gather to pray – with the outcome of deeper expressions of unity between the churches, a growing Church, impacts in the marketplace, the community, mission and much more!
Watch the video here (14:40): https://vimeo.com/334628060?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=29220
More: www.lowpc.org
As we approach Pentecost Sunday, June 9th, 2019, let’s ask the Lord Jesus for a fresh ‘infilling’ of the person and presence of the Holy Spirit. One of the keys to a powerful intercessory prayer life is ‘praying in the Spirit.’ Dutch Sheets states boldly, “Without a doubt the greatest single key to successful intercession is learning to co-operate with the Holy Spirit allowing him to be all he was sent to be in us!”
As John the Baptist stated,
“This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes in and with the Holy Spirit.” (John 1:30-33)
God-the-Son in our flesh who comes to take away the sin of the world, is also the One who comes to baptize in and with the Holy Spirit. The two works belong together. When these two titles are kept together the gospel is really ‘good news.’ Jesus-to-the-rescue takes away sin, and then baptizes humans in and with the Spirit of God.
The term baptize simply means to ‘immerse.’ The Greek text uses both ‘in’ and ‘with,’ the Holy Spirit. The ’in’ relates to that which we are immersed into, and the ‘with’ speaks of that which saturates us or literally, overwhelms us. Therefore, Jesus the Baptist dunks us in and drenches us with the very life of the Triune God!
Dallas Willard uses the word ‘engulfment’ to describe this experience. Jesus promises an engulfment in the Spirit of God. He promises to clothe us, or dress us with ‘power from on High.’ Jesus of Nazareth, God-in-flesh, redeems us from the power and grip of sin and then baptizes us, immerses us, soaks us, dresses us, saturates us, drenches us, and marinates us with the very Life of the Living God!
When the text says that Jesus ‘baptizes,’ it is in the present tense. In New Testament Greek the tenses of verbs speak of the time of action and the kind of action. The ‘present’ tense speaks of continuous action, literally ‘to keep on.’ Jesus is the one who keeps on baptizing in and with the Holy Spirit. In other words, He comes to keep on soaking us, keep on drenching us, keep on immersing us, keep on filling us with the Holy Spirit, until every fiber of our being radiates with the very presence of the Living God!
We see this confirmed in the story of the early church! Jesus promises, “in a few days you will be baptized in and with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5). On the day of Pentecost, ‘they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”(Acts 2:4). And then a few chapters later in Acts 4:31, the text says, “the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:31).
Paul says that it is God’s will that we ‘be filled with the Spirit.’ Not just once, twice, but over and over again!
“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” (Eph. 5:17-18)
Whereas wine can ruin one’s judgment leading to debauchery, in contrast ‘being filled with the Spirit,’ leads to empowerment, self-control and a life exhibiting the fruits of the Holy Spirit! It is the nature of Jesus to keep on giving his life to us. He fills us and keeps on filling us in stages, ‘grace upon grace’ as John puts it, transforming us from, ‘glory to glory’ as Paul teaches us (2 Cor. 3:18).
Barriers
I believe there are two common reasons why many do not experience the fullness of the Spirit in their lives. The first is fear. We fear that if we really open up to Spirit we might be swept up into something beyond our control. The fact it is, Jesus is beyond our control. We are talking about the Living Lord Jesus coming to occupy and possess us by the Holy Spirit! Out of fear we can settle for a form of religion devoid of power. We try to domesticate the One who is an All-Consuming Fire and settle for the predictable even if it is no longer satisfying.
The second reason is the lack of hunger. We think we have all we need. We are content with what God has done for us, and we no longer come to God desperately needy and poor in Spirit.
However, the reality is that we need the life of God ever-increasing, ever flowing like a river out of our innermost being (John 7:37-39). We need to come more and more under the sway and influence of the Holy Spirit!
We need to be invaded, and permeated, saturated, and flooded with the life of the Spirit in every aspect of our lives! From the very beginning, God has revealed his passion to give his Very Self to the world.
The Holy One intends to fill the whole created order with his Glory! The filling of the Holy Spirit makes fully alive, fully human! We are finally what we were created to be when filled with and animated by the life of the Triune God!
In Luke 11, Jesus writes,
“And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The Father is a good father and gives good gifts to his children. In our life of prayer we come to him in dependence recognizing we can’t do anything apart from Jesus.
We need HELP! As Alvin VanderGriend states, “The Father is in the prayer-assistance business. He has appointed his Son, Jesus to be our enthroned prayer assistant, and his Holy Spirit to be our indwelling prayer assistant.” Jesus is telling us to ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking for the great Helper, the third person of the Trinity!
So this Jesus comes as a Lamb- to- the- rescue to take away the sin of the world. And He comes to baptize again and again and again in and with the Holy Spirit. And whenever he does “there enters into our helplessness and fatigue, ‘a surge of new life,’ and we are freshly empowered, “to do the undoable, to face the un-faceable, to bear the unbearable.” (William Barclay)
Let’s return to the Holy Spirit, turning away from our own works to a total dependence on the Holy Spirit!
Dr Jason Hubbard - Executive Coordinator
International Prayer Connect
We live in a historical time. Every single people group can be reached with God’s Word and kingdom within the next decade. Millions are still waiting to have access to the Gospel. What is Jesus calling us to do?
Well, there is one thing that we have seen God use over and over again to accomplish His eternal purposes: prayer. This upcoming Pentecost, God is uniting the international body of Christ to refocus on what matters. The unreached. Hundreds of like-minded ministries and thousands of churches are united under the Pray for ZERO banner so the unreached are no longer waiting.
Pray for Zero is an international prayer movement dedicated to the provision of God’s Word and kingdom among the remaining unreached, Bibleless peoples. There are currently over 2,000 people groups without access to any Scripture in their language. Through social media and regional prayer gatherings, we connect God’s people to the goal of seeing all remaining translation projects started within this next decade.
You are invited to unite with millions of others to pray for the number of unreached people groups to be brought down to ZERO. Each year we will gather to pray until we live in a world where every single person has access to the Word of God in their language and a local expression of the body of Christ.
If we love those still waiting for a chance to hear of Christ through His Word, then we should do whatever we can to raise awareness so that others will join us in this effort. We encourage you to adopt a people group, pray for them frequently, and post pictures and videos on the International Day for the Unreached — June 9, 2019.
Take a stand. Do your part. Pray for Zero. Visit prayforzero.com.
“Always pray and never give up.” Luke 18b (NLT)
Solomon Lujan