Report on a mission event in our city - please pray

"We miss our Children, but we get more from the field! " a candid statement by a young missionary mother Rosemary when asked about leaving her kids down south to work in the north epitomizes an FMPB Missionary's Zeal - a No Holds Barred approach to winning souls.

Visakhapatnam, a rapidly growing industrial city with a sizable economically viable Christian community is slowly waking up to Missions. On the eve of the Missionary Dedication Ceremony, saturday morning, the 11th of August saw 300 people converge at the venue 'Quirk Memorial Baptist Church' for a full day of fellowship with Missions and Missionaries.

Mere Samaj Se Uupar Aasish Tune Dhe Hi (You blessed me beyond my understanding) sung by missionaries Mrs. & Mr. Aaron Singh reflected the in depth cheerfulness of a striving missionary. Spiritual mission songs, choreographic displays on popular songs have kindled a missionary spirit. Missionaries Vyas Babu, Aaron Singh and Rina, Satish Reddy and Ratna Kumari, Waco and ...shared their personal testimonies, experiences and prayer requests.

Bro. Dhanpal gave a brief vocal presentation on the humble beginnings of FMPB to its present day status as a leading missionary organization with 883 missionaries, 800 suvarthicks, 2,71,961 disciples in 23 states with 230 Mission Stations, 3910 congregations and 646 pucca churches. He vociferously urged prayers on their behalf.

"Contrary to us humans who go for quality, God chooses the weak, the foolish and the leftovers in this world. He ordains them, places them in any part of the world and commands them to go and bear fruit that would last," thus spoke Bro. C. S. Isaiah, the main speaker for the ocassion. Make a committment he said "whereever you send I will go.".

A sumptuous lunch was served at the venue, it aided interaction with the missionaries - the Go-ers and the Senders.

'Death of a Corn of Wheat' is the theme of the second message by Bro. C. S. Isaiah. True stories of missionaries who died as a corn of wheat and the resultant fruit it bore interspersed his message. He challenged people to come with what they have and not to worry about what they don't. It ended with the song 'All to Jesus I surrender' sung by the whole congregation.
Rev. Rakshanandam Kr. prayed and Rev. Praveenchand pronounced the benediction. The day ended with people charged up to serve God, and a sense of joy to meet the missionaries again on Sunday.

The vibrant Sunday evening began with Mission Songs, choreographies and Mission Video presentations. Key Christian personalities of the city and over 300 Christians gathered in honour of the Missionaries to be dedicated.

All missionaries were invited on stage for a brief random interview whereby they shared their testimonies, mission field, people group and prayer requests. The gathering was entralled by their towering commitment to serve God.

Later missionaries dressed in white walked through the crowds on to the stage where they kneeled down in prayer. Ordained pastors, elders stood on stage with their hands stretched forth while rev premchand earnestly prayed the dedication and all the congregation said Amen. Gifts were distributed to the missionaries as they left the stage.

Bro. C. S. Isaiah gave the Word for the evening. He spoke on standing firm in the Lord and redeeming the time. He urged the congregation to keep on working for the Lord.
The august dedication ceremony ended with the prayer of Bro. C. S. Isaiah, Rev. Praveenchand pronounced the benediction.

Dinner was hosted by the local committee in honor of the missionaries. It was a wonderful time of fellowship with the soon to depart missionaries. The promise of prayer is one sure thing the missionaries wanted.

A Missionary Retreat was organized by the industrial belt of fmpb at the 'United Baptist Church,' Gajuwaka on the 15th of August, Independence day . Around 250 people attended the full day retreat. Missionaries Bro. Satish Reddy and his wife Sis. Ratna Kumari shared their Mission experiences. Bro. Israel, secretary fmpb exhorted everyone with a thunderous message on being a blessing to others through prayer. "Prayelessness is a sin, a disease, prayer for all people is precious in the sight of God" he said.

Visakhapatnam is truly blessed by the presence of these missionaries, a privilege of an invaluable fellowship albeit for a brief moment, yet their influence inspires us to aim heavenward, to facilitate Winning Souls.

ps: I am a member in this mission org. and prepared this report.

How big is God?

There are 6 billion people in the world. God will is all mankind to be saved, but everyone has a free will to choose their own destiny. If one million people pray, that is 1/6000 of the population, will God answer every single prayer request. If a million people pray to win the lottery, and God said yes to all, a million people would win $1, because there were a million winners. If two christians pray living in the same area, one wanted rain, because he was growing crops and the other wanted plenty of sunshine because the work he was doing was outdoor work. How would God answer the pray request of both christians?. If a million people pray for a miracle or supernatural healing, will God say yes to every request and so a million people at once gets healed. God has to satifisy millions of prayer requests from christians all over the world. It would be a mighty task to fulfill those requests. God knows every single prayer request, and answer them one by one. God know what our needs are and will provide all our needs, sometimes it might not be the answer we are looking for, but don;t worry because God always provide for us for what is needed.

Prayer and Miracles

What is a Miracle? To have food on the table when the kitchen is stocked with groceries is not. To be able to walk with a good pair of legs is not. Miracle is not something that you know you can do, its not something that you are quite sure about. It is something that occurs when you have nearly no hope but yet have some degree of hope, expectation in.

Are Luck and Miracle synonyms? No, I usually don't use the word 'lucky' its something that should be outside a Christians dictionary. Technically Luck can be described as an occurrence that you didn't at all have a hope for. As Christians we always have a hope no matter how feeble it may be.

Prayer, righteousness, a step in faith, reading and hearing the Word, fellowship of Christians keep our hope aglow. As Christians we have a hope that will not be cutoff, our hope is not merely in our own efforts, abilities, money and influence but in the Creator through His Word guided by the Holy Spirit.

Our hope and source for Miracles is our God, He performs miracles, they can be expected in any realm - physical, mental, spiritual and social. He changed our hearts, He saved us, He is Keeping us in Him. If He has given us a hope, a hearts desire for something, lets press on, our expectation will not be cut off, we shall possess our Miracle.

Not easy to be Righteous

"The effectual fervent prayer of a Righteous man availeth much James 5:16,"

Its not easy to be righteous all the time. Righteousness and Prayer seem to be directly proportional.

We might fail at being right with some people, its so tough to say 'sorry' when its really needed. This can affect prayerlife.

Prayer is very important, so to overcome this hurdle we need to be proactive in prayer to build up a character that is consistently righteous.

The Prayer Experiment

The prayer experiment goes for two weeks.

1) Let God know about the experiment and ask for spiritual protection.
2) First week, do not pray at all
3)Record the week and observe your christian walk
4) Second week, pray if your life depends on it, pray daily
5) Record the week and observe your christian walk
6) Compare the two weeks
7) Did prayer improve your christian walk?

Guideline to prayer

1) Pray daily, with many different requests to God.
2) First be right with God, prayer will be ineffective with our relationship with God and others is not right. If you have sin, repent from it, sin separate us from God. 1 John 3:21-22
3) Pray with the right motives, if we pray with wrong motives, we would not receive what we ask for. Use common sense, God is not a magical genie, that we can turn to get what we want. James 4:3
4) Be lead by the holy spirit, the holy spirit helps us in our prayers. Romans 8:26-27
5) Pray according to God's will, if we do we will have what we ask for. 1 John 5:14-15
6) Have faith that God will answer our prayers, believe that you will receive, if we don;t have faith to believe it will happen, it won;t happen. Mark 11:22-24. Note in verse 25 for forgiveness with anyone so our prayers will be effective.
7) Write a diary, a list of prayers that you have request to God and then check how many prayers have been answered. This will give you a guideline to how your prayers are going.
8) Don;t give up, keep trying, go back to step one if necessary.
9) remember the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective James 5:16

.. really want to believe in prayer?

Do we really want to believe in prayer? Sometimes our actions, attitude to prayer seem otherwise. Honestly, if things would work out even without prayer then I am no fan or fanatic of it and would jump up and dump it!!

Unreached grapes are sour or so we want to believe. If we believe in prayer then we pray and if we do not pray then we latently want to decieve ourselves into disbelieving it.

Christianity begins with prayer and continues with it, its not a one time event but a process. Lacking in prayer is definitely denying oneself an opportunity to be better than the position he/she is in.


p.s: guys am no expert but trying to learn, please shoot your comments.

Problem with Praying..

What is it that prevents you from praying, considering you are a good Christian in other issues? Using our God given ability to sense the various needs in our life and streamlining those thoughts to ask, seek and knock seems to be a problem.

Most would want their work cut out, streamlined, have a guiding channel for free flow. Mental fatigue apart from the physical is quite draining. Maybe this hits us the hardest at the thought of initiating prayer

Giving expression to our deepest needs, praying for others with empathy are no easy tasks. These demand mental exertion.

To have a written plan to pray helps in initiating prayer, write down the various issues that require prayer as and when they crop up so that your mind doesn't need to take a sudden load at the thought of prayer.

Pray your plan.

The right motive

When we pray to God, we should pray according to God's will. 1 Jn 5:14-15. We should be following God will, not our own selfish motive. If we were to pray for a 1/2 million dollar red ferrari, and ask God that he will provide, that is a selfish motive. James 4:3 - " When you ask, you did not receive, because you ask with wrong motive, that you may get spend what you get on your pleasures." It is important that we are right with God and lead by the spirit when we pray, and pray according to Gods will and so that he hears us and answers our request. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

How To Pray For Other People

We might often wonder how should we pray for our friends and family.
Following Pauls example, he asked God to give Timothy 3 things:

1 Timothy 1:2

To Timothy, my true son in the faith: Grace (spiritual blessing and favor), mercy, and [heart] peace [be yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Grace - To be able to overcome any difficulties that you might be facing
Mercy - God forgiving us and always remaining in contact with us even if we might forget Him
Peace - The peace from God to guard our hearts and minds

So next time we pray for our friends or family we should ask God to fill them with His grace, mercy and peace

Thinking - Trust - Tenacity - Triumph :)

Interesting title I thought.. Prayer involves thinking, its an integral part of prayer. Unlike the general thinking that many do, prayer is thinking, meditating, ardently expecting God to open our eyes to see things that we normally cannot and this involves Trust.

Personally I prefer to trust in God, there are times when money seems a great defence, influential friends, family seem to be but on the long run there is immense possiblity that all these can ditch you if your eyes are not focussed on God.

Trusting in God requires Tenacity, we got to keep going in prayer, keep encouraging ourselves, even others and maybe its a Great Blessing to be able to influence others to spend time with God, so do your bit however small or insignificant it might seem. Teach a person to fish rather than to give a fish and forget.

We in Christ are more than conquerors, we are in Christ in the devil's territory and yet we are Triumphant. The things that are impossible with men and possible with God. God reigns and its an understatement to say 'our team will Triumph' its inevitable. Just keep praying.

Prayer and Thinking..

Matt 6:7 (KJV) "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions..."

Thinking with a purpose is one tiring job, and it scares many. Prayer does involve thinking and probably that is one reason why many try to avoid or postpone it.

The above verse clearly states not to use vain repetitions, it implys that we need to think as to what we have to ask, seek and knock about (Matt7:7). Prayer can also be thinking along with God, it is a cognizant effort by us with a reliance, faith and hope on the omnipotent God.

There could be times when we are quite confident on our own thinking/ understanding, we weigh ourselves quite high and lean on our own abilities, and there also could be times when we succeed but there invariably is always a scope for improvement in every aspect that we do if we can take it to God and think along with Him.

There can be a tendency in each of us to get complacent in thinking along with God, maybe we are bored of it and want to jump into an available instant action without heeding the impulse of the Spirit.

Maybe we should take time now and then to prepare a personal blue print for prayer so as to have a free flow of thought, just like some preachers do for a sermon.

Our God wants us to connect our head to His so His brilliance can flow into us in every area of our Life. Lets Connect!!

Setting aside time for prayer

Suppose if a pastor was to be completely nuts about prayer, to pray 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Whilst praying over a period of time, God was concern

* need to eat soon, for he is getting hungry
* need to drink soon, for he is getting thirsty
* need to go to the toilet very soon
* need to sleep soon, for he will fall asleep
* need to go to work, so he can pay his bills
* his wife and kids are demanding for his attention
* need to relax and have some fun soon
* his ministry was neglected
* his church members wonder why he hasn;t been at church

As having a busy life, we would need to balance our prayer life. How often should we pray?

Lets consider some verses in the bible NIV

The parable of the Persistent widow - Lu 18:1-8

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up"

"And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." - Eph 6:18

"Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God;s will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Th 5:16-18

"God , whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you" - Ro 1:9-10

"I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I remember you in my prayers. 2 Ti 1:3

"With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith" 2 Th 1:11

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Ph 4:6-7

It would be important for a christian to pray constantly in their walk with God. We would need to balance our time with our busy life and set aside time for prayer. Our time for prayers would need to flexible and scheduled.

The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective

Quotes from the bible NIV

"The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him" - Pr 15:8.

"The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous" - Pr 15:29

"For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil" - 1 Pet 3:12

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" - Jas 5:16

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." - 1 Jn 5:14-15

"Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything that we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." 1 Jn 3:21-22

In studying these verses, it would be important that our relationship with God is right, that our heart is right with God so God will hear our prayers. So often in my experience, when I am walking in the light, it is easy to pray but when I have sin and walking in the darkness, my approach to praying for others is that I feel uneasy praying.

The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective, if we want our prayers to be heard by God and receive in what we ask according to his will, then we should be right with God that we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

Of course if we are not right with God, or have sin against him, we should confess and pray for his forgiveness so that our hearts may be right with God.

Trusting God for outcome of prayer

Christians send their prayer requests to God, sometimes they don;t seem to get a response. This can be disappointing and frustrating. However God does answers all our prayers, sometimes is yes, no or wait. God already knows in our heart even before we pray. God is never busy to answer our prayers. Prayer is important to christian as it is communication with God to express themselves. God sometimes does feel hidden from us or doesn;t not seem to be there, but God is always there right in front of us, sometimes God hides from us to test our faith and strenghten our relationship. Be patient, God always answers our prayers.

Share Your Prayer ... thoughts, experiences, triumphs..

Please feel free to share your thoughts on prayer. Like my friend Shai, you can also post links or paste articles on prayer which you think would benefit all of us.

You can also post anonymously if you choose to by using the comment section. I can copy and paste it in the regular blog :)

Have a great day

a few words on prayer

There are some who are quite disciplined, who have family prayer regularly, who have a stipulated quite time daily and so on... There are some who chose to be random in their approach to prayer meaning there is no fixed time of Prayer. I have a policy of being flexible and yet rigid which I would write about later.

One of the things I would like to encourage all is to keep discussing, writing about prayer as it keeps you awakened to the fact that you need to pray :)

By the way I don't consider myself an expert on prayer but hopefully God may use this blog to help us stay focussed on the fact that Prayer is an essential part of Life.



Have a great day :)