ISBN:978-978-49792-1-4

Copyright (c) 2010

Dr. Francis Bola Akin-John
All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced without the written permission of
the publisher.
All Scripture quotations are from King James Version of the Bible, unless
otherwise stated.
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Dedication 5
Appreciation 7
Possibilities of Prayer 9
Introduction 11
1. Power and Potency of Prayer 15
2. Foundation For True Prayers 31
3. A Fruitful Personal Prayer Life 41
4. The Abuse of Prayer 59
5. The Problem of Unanswered Prayers 69
6. Prayer Boosters 85
7. The Prayer-Driven Church 101
8. Prayer Inside and Outside the Church 111
9. Prayer Shield For Leaders 123
10. Power of Fasting and Prayer 133
Bibliography 141

Dedication
I humbly dedicate this book to the further growth, expansion and health

of the church of Jesus Christ.

To those men and women who have laboured in true prayers for the church over
the years.

Appreciation
I

t has often been said that no man can write a book alone. This is an all truism in
this book too. I acknowledge all my past teachers, mentors and senior Christians
who have

taught me much on prayer. I have gleaned valueable insights from the materials
of Dr. David Yonngi Cho, C. Peter Wagner, Elmer Towns, Cindy Jacobs, Larry
Lea and the irrepressible ‘Herald of His Coming’ Magazine. Ideas have come to
me from various sources and I’m deeply grateful to all these heroes of prayer. I
cannot but mention David Brainard who labored much in prayer and was a great
inspiration to my early life of prayer. E. M. Bounds can never be forgotten for
his seven volume classic book on prayer. I’m profoundly grateful to you all, now
and in eternity.

My appreciation equally goes to the selfless Spirit of the Living God who
reminded me all the stories, examples and gave me the insight to pen this
valueable book.

My usual thanks goes to my wonderful associates, both home and abroad, who
created the needed team spirit and work that made this book possible in record
time. Mighty thanks to you all.

To you my reader, I thank you for picking this book and your decision to read
through it. I know you will never remain the same again in your prayer life.
POSSIBILITIES
OF PRAYER
You can pray like Abraham and barren wombs will open.
You can pray like Jacob and see angels live.
You can pray like Moses and the sea will obey you. You can pray like Joshua
and the sun and moon will listen to you.
You can pray like Samuel and kingdoms will fall and new kings emerge.
You can pray like Hannah and God will give you a Samuel.
You can pray like Elijah and bring fire down from heaven.
You can pray like Elisha and humble an enemy nation. You can pray like Esther
and save a nation.
You can pray like Daniel and stop the mouth of lions. You can pray like Samson
and obtain a long sought promise.
You can pray like the church and open the prison doors.

- ‘Bola Akin-John

THE PRESENT PRAYER MOVEMENT

ecently I was in Cape Town, South Africa for the 10th year anniversary of
Global Day of Prayer. It was a gathering of about five to seven thousand people
who have come to pray for themselves and the nations of the world. The event
was broadcasted live to the rest of the world, and prayers were held in over 220
nations of the world and thousands of people gathered to represent, pray and
intercede for our world. This is an event that has been held annually in the last
ten years with increasing participation from Christians in all walks of life. This is
one stream of the prayer movement that started around 1970.

The church is praying today like never before since that time. Prayer mountains,
power houses, praise marches, prayer towers, prayer walks, prayer watches, 24/7
prayers, vigils, large gatherings of people in one night to pray, prayer camps

and various prayer programmes of 140, 120, 40, 20 and two weeks of fasting and
prayers have been on the upward swing since then. Thousands of prayers are
going up everyday to God from churches, prayer camps, mountains and
government officials are not left out.

In Africa, government regularly ask the church to pray for them. Some of them
have even welcomed prayers in the State House. Nigeria in particular, is
becoming a praying nation. Before any sporting event, prophets and prayer
merchants ask people to pray. During the sickness of our late President, Musa
Yar’adua, people were asked to fast and pray for him, even though nobody knew
the exact nature of his illness. Some prayer contractors made a fortune out of
that. Some were paid One Million naira a week to pray! Some even collected
money to travel to Saudi Arabia to pray for the ailing president in the hospital.
We pray a lot and trivialize prayer in our nation. However, in spite of the
numerous prayers being offered by all and sundry and in every strata of the
society, only few are receiving answers from the Lord.

Today, there are many prayers, but few answers. Answers to prayers are few and
far between because most of our prayers do not spring from piety. They are from
polluted hearts, and their focus is not salvation from sin or wickedness, but
prosperity, get-rich-quick and victory over perceived enemies.

In the meeting I referred to above, I was shocked to see people who came to the
prayer meeting smoking cigarettes and boys smooching girls immediately we
dispersed and were going to catch our buses. It was a sickening sight! And that is
the parody we have brought to prayer today. People are praying in every
conceivable way, but they still cling to those things that are poisonous to their
prayers!

Most of us have heard the saying “prayer changes things”. Yes, prayer changes
things and the first thing it should change is us. If you truly pray, you will
change and grow. Prayer is meant to change you, not God. Prayer should bring
change to your life, character, family, church and nation. Prayer affects us more
than God. It has the power to transform, humble, renew, refine, refurbish,
revitalize and remould you to whom God wants you to be.

Unfortunately, the present prayer movements have not really brought true
change and growth to the church and the nations. Yes, there had been some
sputter of growth and change here and there, but they could have been much
more if only we have not trivialized prayers.

Answers to prayers have been a big headache to many and the reason is that we
have not done away with those things that hinder our prayers. With the volume
of various prayer meetings going on every day and week across churches and
nations, if half have received answers, the church and the world would have
been a better place.

“Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new
moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity,
even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye
spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make
many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.” - Isaiah 1:13-15.

This book is written to address the seeming lapses in the present prayer
movement. It is going to address salient issues that relate to how our prayers can
be much more effective and result-oriented. The purpose of this book is four-
fold: * To re-emphasise the power of prayers.
* To warn about obvious errors.
* To correct wrong practices.
* To challenge leaders to proper praying.
This book is going to be a true prayer manual for both new prayer warriors and
veteran Christians. It will revitalize your prayer life and teach your hands to war.
It will also help you to teach and train others on how to pray prevailing prayers
that receive great answers from the Lord.

It is time to groan, grow and glow in prayers like never before and receive
marvelous answers.

Yours in Him.
Dr. Bola Akin-John. July, 2010.

POWER AND POTENCY OF PRAYERS

got saved before I was 17 years old. By then I was helpless and hopeless in the
world. I had been the son of a widow, the fourth child out of eight of us and
fatherless.

I had just finished learning professional photography for 4 years when I came to
know the Lord in an intimate way. After some few years of living with my
senior brother who was already a Christian, I saw the need to get my own
accommodation. By then I was working as a Sales Representative in a supply
store somewhere in Lagos. But my salary could not get me a one room
apartment and I had to resort to intensive prayers.

I was already in the prayer group of our church, so I made it a point of duty to
pray and present my prayer points to them whenever we gather to pray. I wanted
God to give me a one room apartment with bed, chairs, table and kitchen
utensils. Believe me, that was a tall order for my faith, but since I have nowhere
and no one to run to, I had to trust the Lord to do it for me.

For weeks and months, I passionately prayed and fasted for this big miracle from
the Lord and just when I started wondering whether God answers prayers or not,
the answer came! My potency of prayers.second brother who had been jobless

all this while suddenly got an

employment that gave him a house,
chairs, beds and a good kitchen. He called me and gave his things to me and left
his one room apartment so that I can live there and continue to pay the rent.
Though there was a regret, because while praying, I had included a tape recorder
in my list of requests, but somewhere I started doubting and dropped that point.
So when God answered and my brother called me, he said the only thing he
would take is his tape recorder!

Everyone knows to varying degrees, the power of prayer, but not everyone is
enjoying the

That was a mighty answer to prayers. I was pleasantly surprised the ways the
Lord used to answer my prayers. Overnight, I had everything a young bachelor
needed by then to live relatively comfortably. This made me to know the power
and potency of prayers. My faith in the power of prayers to accomplish great and
impossible things soared high and I have been enjoying the benefits since then.

THE ALL POWERFUL WEAPON

Prayer is as vast as God. It is limitless in its possibilities and God has committed
Himself to answering prayers. Prayer can do what God can do. Prayer is
powerful as God is powerful and this weapon of prayer is what God has given to
His children. We are not aliens to prayer, one way or the other we practice
prayer. Everyone knows to varying degrees, the power of prayer, but not
everyone is enjoying the potency of prayers.

The Bible has much to say about prayers; again and again we see examples of
the awesome power of prayer. It was iterated and reiterated in such a graphic
way that we cannot escape its pre-eminent position in the Bible. Take the case of
prophet Elijah for example.

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be
healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was
a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might
not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six
months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought
forth her fruit.” - James 5:16-18

This prophet single-handedly prayed and locked up heaven over a nation for
three and half years! He stopped the rain by the power of prayers until the king
and the people repented.

We also saw the example of the sycrophonician woman (Matt. 15:21-28), who
sought the Lord and would not take no for an answer until she got healing for her
sick daughter. She broke tradition by coming to the Lord as a gentile woman, yet
she was able to enjoy the potency of prayer for her family. On and on again we
see the power and potency of prayers throughout the pages of the scripture.

Prayer is the greatest of all forces because it honours God and brings Him to
active aid. You can organize until you are exhausted; you can plan, programme
and subsidize all your plans, but if you fail to pray, it is sheer waste of time. The
devil can keep you busy and worked up until you have no time to pray, knowing
that all your efforts and plans without prayer is tantamount to nothing.

PRAY AND GROW

Prayer is the Christians native air, his very breathing.
“Thou has heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry” -
Lam. 3:56.

A true Christian must pray, both as a privilege and responsibility. Every breath
must be a salient cry onto the Lord. Prayer must be regular with us as our
breathing. Prayer is the way to experience growth, development, progress and
change, either in our personal, church or community lives. Without earnest,
sincere and believing prayers, death, decay and retardation will set in. Prayer and
growth work together. Growth can be natural or supernatural. While natural
growth is good, supernatural growth is much better and we can only experience
it through intensive praying. I can truly attribute the rapid growth of my
Christian life and ministry to the power of prayer.

When I newly got saved, I was a member of a denominational church. The

church was a praying church with lots of brothers who have developed strong
prayer lives. My heart longed to pray as I see other Christians praying in our
church meetings. Later I was asked to join the church workforce. But I refused to
join any other department until I asked to be allowed to join some band of
brothers praying every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night in the church.
That was where my prayer journey began in earnest. In that small group prayer
meeting, I grew in leaps and bounds. The gift of prophecy was in operation and
people marveled at my personal spiritual growth. The growth of my ministry
today can be traced to those early days of prayer.

A. Prayer And Personal Growth

Growth in the spiritual life is not possible without secret prayer. To become a
spiritual giant, you must first become a praying giant. To grow in love,
knowledge of God, victory over the self life, you must pray. To obtain more
grace, increase in godliness and become more holy, there must be intimacy with
God. Many have backslidden in their hearts because they are too busy to pray
and seek the face of God.

Philip Henry counsels; “Be sure you look to your secret duty: keep that up in
whatever you do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy
generally begins at the closet door. Be much in prayer fellowship with God. It is
secret trading that enriches the Christian. Pray alone. Pray in secret. Pray long
and pray short prayers. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at
night. The best way to fight sin is to fight it on our kneels”.

Abraham prayed early –

“And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before
the
LORD:” - Gen. 19:27
Jacob built an altar unto the Lord –

“And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for
his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.” - Gen
28:18

Moses sought the Lord alone –

“And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in
the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him,
and took in his hand the two tables of stone.” - Exodus 34:4.

Gideon prayed –

“And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece
together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.” - Judges
6:38.

And Jesus rose up early to pray alone

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and
departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” - Mark 1:35.

There is no more congenial soil in which to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit than
near the throne of grace. Christian character grows in the secret place of prayer.
Secret prayer strengthens the mind, purifies the emotions and invigorates the
will. Prayer changes us and transforms us into fuller harmony with God’s holy
will for our lives. In actual fact, there is no way you can really know the Lord
without private prayers. Your Christianity is false if you cannot tryst with Him in
secret. Your Christianity is without life if you cannot spend time alone with
Him, early and late at night or during the day.

B. Prayer and Church Growth

“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” - Psalm 2:8

The first key to church growth is prayer.

The church, a living organism, with Christ Secret prayer
as the head must receive the inflow of life strengthens the from Christ if she is to grow. The key for all
mind, purifies growth lies in the prayer life of the church. the emotions If she doesn’t have a prayer
emphasis, the and invigorates planning, preaching and programming will the will.be powerless.
Without increasing the
number of Christian workers or their
financial support, we could see multiplied
results if we would only multiply prayer.

Truthfully, church growth is 60% prayer and 40% principles and methods.
Church growth – quality, observable and supernatural, answers to the principle
of strong prayer foundation in the church. Personal and corporate prayers are
essential signs of growth found in every growing church. The case studies of
truly growing churches have one re-occurring factor – prayers.

A friend of mine was taken to a church that have had succession of

It is possible to bring change, if only we would

crisis and growth has plummetted greatly until the church was almost closed
down. Forces of evil were ruling and reigning within and without the church.
Fortunately, my friend is a deep prayer warrior. He employed the weapon of
fasting and prayers. He prayed for days and often spend 7 days in real prayers
and fasting. Initially, people were skeptical and

resistant, but God started to work in answer to those prayers, and the opposition
broke down. Miracles upon miracles started happening and

employ the power

the Lord dealt with all the occultic powers inside the church and some of and
potency
of prayer.

them have to run away. Well, that church is growing in leaps and bounds today.

Lives are being transformed, businesses are being revived, physical and material
growth are seen here and there in answer to prayers. It is only when the church
employs the power of prayers that we can really see true growth in our churches.
The church that never prays, never grows.

C. Prayer and Community Change

The greatest weapon for change that the church possesses is prayer, and we can
see changes occur in every segment of the society if we would only multiply
prayer. Prayer is not optional, it is mandatory, if changes must occur in our
society. For too long a time, Christians and churches only grieve and complain
about the evils, murder, prostitution and violence ravaging the cities, nations and
communities. Well, such evils will continue as long as we fail to employ our all
powerful weapon of prayer. It is possible to bring change, if only we would
employ the power and potency of prayer.

For instance, we have seen some measure of change in the city of Lagos in the
last 5 years regarding violent crimes and robberies. Quarterly, we gather
ministers together for early morning prayers and share breakfast. We pray for
our city, church, government and against violent crimes. Today, God has
answered and is still answering the prayers of His people.

I have heard reports of mass conversion of souls and opposition to churches

removed when Christians decide to pray for and in their communities. We
should stop complaining, rather we must take a strong prayer stand and move out
into our communities to pray. We must take serious prayer stand against the
darkness ruling over our nation, cities, communities, churches and homes. By
united prayer, we will begin to break through the cloud of darkness and bind the
strongman, so that the kingdom of God will shine through and His glory
manifested.

PRAYER MUST HAVE FIRST PRIORITY

If you really want to see God at work in your life, work, family, church and
nation, then prayer must be accorded the first priority. Everything else must
come after we have prayed. Everything must be subject to prayer. It is when we
accord prayer such high priority that supernatural growth and change will come.
Consider the following:

1. Prayer Is Number One With God

“Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to
come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye
me.” - Isa 45:11

God has committed Himself to answer prayer. He asked that we command Him
concerning the works of His hand. Meaning that God will only intervene in our
affairs when we are bold enough to ask Him. He will only work and if necessary
change the laws of nature, only if we know how to pray. Our prayers will move
Him concerning our future and present. Without our prayers, He is incapable of
working in the world. What a powerful thought and inspiration for prayer! It
goes to show then that if God is not working, His hand hanging listlessly by His
side and things are going in disarray, it simply means we are the one responsible
by failing to pray. It was only when men began to call upon the name of the Lord
that He started doing things for them.

“And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos:
then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” - Gen. 4:26.

2. Prayer is Number One with Jesus Christ

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and
departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” - Mark 1:35

Jesus not only taught about prayer, He practiced and demonstrated a prayer life.
He started and ended His ministry in prayer. He prayed first before anything and
took time out to pray regularly. He did not do anything without prayer. After His
ascension to heaven, He is still engaged in priestly intercession for the church.
He started the church in prayer and He is still

upholding the church in strategic intercession. Those of us who are His present
day disciples must seek to emulate our Lord in prayer. To draw down His Spirit
and build His kingdom, we cannot but pray.

3. Prayer is Number One With The Holy Spirit

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we
should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered.” - Rom. 8:26

The Holy Spirit comes in answer to prayers and He is also an intercessor. He

thrives only in the place of prayer. He works only in answer to prayer and He is
the one that helps the saint to pray. He gives spiritual prayer language to His
own so that they can pray according to the will of God. He manifests and
operates His gifts in the atmosphere of serious prayers. He guides, controls and
directs the works of God in answer to strong praying.
The Holy Spirit intercedes for men through the groaning of His people and
brings men into relationship with God. He only works in answer to true praying.
If we really want the Holy Spirit to work mightily in our churches, baptizing,
filling, healing and guiding, then we must pray much. Prayer must saturate and
permeate our lives and meetings if we expect Him to show up in awesome ways.

4. Prayer is Number One Weapon In The Use of God’s Word

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the

sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of Satan trembles God:” - Eph. 6:17

The word of God is referred to as the sword of the Spirit. It is also the twoedged
sword of the Spirit to pierce, convict and convert the soul. And the word will
only work effectively when it is saturated and backed up with powerful prayers.
The truth of the word will wreck much more havoc than error when it is not
backed up with strong praying. The word will only be ordinary letter, devoid of
powerful effect, when it is not soaked in intense prayers. The word of God will
only penetrate people’s heart when it is bathed in believing prayer, before and
after the delivery of the word.

when he sees the weakest saint on his

or her knees.
5. Prayer is Number One in the Battle Against Satan

“(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ.” - II Cor 10:4-5

Satan and his demonic cohorts knew the inherent power and potency of prayers,
that is why they always oppose it as much as they can. Satan trembles when he
sees the weakest saint on his or her knees. We must pray if we are to overcome
Satan and claim our purchased inheritance in Jesus Christ. The weapons of
prayer must be faithfully employed if we are to pull down all
the strongholds of the enemies all around and within us.

Satan loves to build strongholds and bulwarks into our lives, churches and
communities. It is only by the power of prevailing prayers that we can destroy
all the strongholds of the enemy and advance the gospel of our Lord. Satan
doesn’t fear our plans, purpose or activities, but only trembles when we truly
pray. He knows that our prayers enable us to fetch strength against him.
Therefore, we must press to pray, inspite of all the devices of the enemy and see
his kingdom destroyed on all sides.

6. Prayer is the Number One Ministry of the Church

“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the
women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” - Acts 1:14

“But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the
word.” - Acts 6:4

These scriptures show that the apostles made much of prayer. The early Church
was a praying church as well as a working church, and it was a working church
because it was a praying church. As soon as she was born, she began to pray;
and she grew in strength and efficiency as her prayer life developed. Personal
and corporate prayers were daily occurrence and they received mighty answers
to their prayers. No one can deny the prayer factor in the early church.

Throughout history, the church has always been at her best when she truly
employs the power and potency of prayers. The period of backslidden, apostasy
and ungodliness in the history

of the church were as a result of her prayerlessness. When the church backslides
from true praying, then she will backslide in every other area. The decline of the
church is the testimony to the neglect of her prayer ministry.

7. Prayer is Number One in the Life of Faith

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally,
and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing
wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind
and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”man is unstable in all his
ways.” 8

The Christian life is a life of faith. It is a faith walk with the Lord. And the faith
will only work and be strong in answer to prayer. When prayer is made in faith,
without doubt, worry and anxiety, then the faith grows stronger due to answered
prayers. It is impossible to manifest strong faith in the Lord without believing
prayers.

To achieve victory and see the hand of the Lord at work in your life, then you
must pray. You must pray privately, alone, regularly and consistently. You must
pray in faith, trusting the Lord to answer. It is only then that you can enjoy the
Christian journey. Without strong praying, you will always be a weak Christian
and an easy prey for the devil. The only place you

cannot stumble is on your knees.

THE GREAT NEED OF TODAY

If God must work and growth, revival, restoration and renewal experienced at
this end time, then we must return to our prayer chamber. We must harness the
power and potency of prayer afresh because prayer is the longest arm that can
reach anywhere and anyone on the surface of the earth. Prayer is as long and as
large as the hand of God. Lukewarmness, coldness, tiredness, listlessness and
trivialities in prayer must be dealth with. Prayer must return as the main business
of our life and church. Sincere and genuine prayer is God’s price for
supernatural power in our lives and churches.

“No prayers, no conversions; no prayer, no power; no prayer, no growth; no

prayer, no change”. Henry Martyn cried, “Let me burn out for God. After all
whatever God may appoint, prayer is the great thing. Oh, that I may be a man of
prayer”.

John Calvin said: “God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing
prayer”. While the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, yet He is
inactive, as if forgetting us, when he sees us idle and mute”.

And Jack Hayford said: “You and I can help decide which of these two things –
blessing or cursing – happens on earth. We will determine whether God’s
goodness is released towards specific situations or whether the power of sin and
Satan is permitted to prevail. Prayer power is the determining factor.

Need I say more? “God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing
prayer” – John Wesley.

FOUNDATION FOR TRUE PRAYERS

od taught me a good lesson early in my prayer life. And the lesson is that He is
not present in every prayer meeting, neither will He answer every

prayer. The story behind the lesson goes like this: ‘We were in a prayer vigil
doing some serious prayers. We were a group of men in the church and the
atmosphere was intense. Then a word of prophecy came and the Lord said He is
not among us, neither will He answer our prayers because there is sin in our
camp. I was shocked and alarmed. We stopped the prayers and asked each one of
us to start confessing our evil deeds.

A brother who had been quiet among us slowly stood up and told us how he had
been sleeping with two married women in his living quarters and that he could
not break free from it until the Lord exposed his secrets. To say that we were
greatly disappointed was to put it mildly. How can someone be praying and be
participating in a prayer vigil, yet living in depth of sin of immorality?

“Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of
God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.” - John 9:31.

It was only when he confessed, repented and renounced the sin that God returned
to answer our prayers of that night. But that experience in 1984 had stayed fresh
in my mind since that night. And that is the lesson that many praying people
have not really learnt or neglected today. Not all prayers are true prayers and not
all prayers go up to God for answers.

Even though there is much praying here and there today, yet most of them are lip
prayers, routine, lifeless, powerless, rhetoric and nominal prayers that do not go
past the rooftop of where they were offered. It takes much more sacrifice to offer
true prayers to God that will receive heavens attention. Allow me to first look at
true prayers as the Bible described it.

BIBLICAL FOUNDATION OF PRAYERS

Prayer refers to the multifaceted communion of believers with the Lord God.
The scripture commands it and demonstrated its practice in abundant manner to
the people of God. It is described as calling upon God (Psalm 17:6); calling upon
the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26); crying unto the Lord (Exo. 2:23); lifting up
one’s soul unto God (Psalm 25:1); seeking the Lord (Isaiah 55:6); coming boldly
unto the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16) and drawing nearer unto God Prayer is (Heb.
10:22). love in need

Prayer is a dialogue between God and man appealing to that love each other.
Prayer should not be a love in power. one way traffic, a monologue, but a
dialogue between God and man. Prayer is
love in need appealing to love in power. It
is most effective when seen as a relationship and fellowship. Prayer is reaching
out to God from the depths of our heart in silent, open, quiet or loud way with
our needs and He gently answers by touching, changing and remoulding us to
His will and answering in ways that bring glory to His name and expand His
kingdom.

“Prayer is not coming to God to convince Him to do something He doesn’t want

to do. Rather, prayer is coming into agreement with God about something He
already wants to do. It is saying “I’ll do my part so that you, Lord, are free to do
your part”

Prayer can and do come in various forms and ways. It can take the form of
petition; confession and repentance, asking and receiving; praise and worship;
thanksgiving; binding and losing, intercession and spiritual warfare. One can
easily move from one form of prayer to the other in a session of seeking the
Lord. Postures in prayers could also be varied. Your posture in prayer should be
as you are led. You can sit, stand, lay down or raise up your two hands, close
your eyes, or open your eyes while praying. Your posture does not really matter,
it is the condition of your heart that is the heart of the matter to God. The time of
prayer also does not really hold any too much importance to the answer. In the
scripture, we see prayer early in the morning (Mark 1:35); evening (Mark 6:46);
all night (Luke 6:12) and three times a day (Psalm 55:17). We are enjoined to
pray every time of the day:

“Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart
like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of
thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.”
- Lam 2:19.

In actual fact, our hearts should be a continuous prayer altar unto the Lord.
Communion with the Lord should be fervent as our breathing. We should find it
easy more to commune with the Lord over everything and every step than to talk
with our fellow man. Such should be the prime place prayer should be in our
heart and life.

WHY YOU MUST PRAY

Some people don’t feel really comfortable with the prayer emphasis of the
church, they feel prayer is for lazy people and an escape route from work. They
could not have been more farther from the truth. Prayer is mandatory and of
prime importance in our daily lives for two main reasons that I will expantiate.

1. If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Receive

“Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight
and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” - James 4:2.
This is the written principles of God in His relationship with humanity. At the
dawn of creation, He knew the dependent nature of man, He therefore supplied
all the needs of Adam, including a wife, even before he asked. What happened?
When he fell into sin, he blamed God that it was the woman He gave him that
caused it. (Gen. 3:9). In other words, if God had allowed him to ask, he would
probably not have fallen. Since then, God had decided that He will only give to
man what he asked!

Since man is limited in knowledge, power, wisdom and spiritually blind, we will
always need to depend on Him and ask Him constantly for help. Our needs must
drive us to seek Him for everything. Our dependence on Him must be total. We
only get His help and grace when we learn to ask Him and rely on His help
throughout our lives.

“To God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” - Psalm
46:1

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed:
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” - Psalm 61:2

“I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.”
Psalm 57:2

“I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress,
and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the
horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” - Psalm 18:1-2

King David epitomized this truth. He showed the dependence and delight in the
Lord that should characterize the lives of every believer. Your delight and
dependence must be in the Lord, not in idols, created being, grave image or
unseen powers. You must learn to pray and seek the Lord for the needs of your
life, because without Him, nothing and nobody can truly help you.

2. God’s Intervention In Our Lives Will Be Based On Our Prayers

Legally and technically speaking, this world is the territory of Satan. And that
has been so since Adam sold it to Satan when he chose to commit sin with his
wife, Eve. Satan became the defacto ruler of the world (II Cor. 4:4). Jesus
repeatedly referred to Satan as the prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30;
16:11). It was through the coming of Jesus that the the real battle.territory he had
taken from Adam was

invaded. Finally on the cross, Christ dealt

the fatal blow on Satan and His
resurrection consummated the eternal defeat of Satan.

Prayer is not preparation for battle, but

However, each of us will still need to enforce this victory of Christ in our
territorial lives. That is where prayer comes in.

“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” -
Matt. 18:18.

It is only when the prayer starts from earth that God will respond from heaven.
His intervention is predicated on the legal ground of our prayers. It is our prayers
that give Him the legal ground to enforce the victory of Jesus in our lives,
families, communities and nations. In a sense, one can say without our prayers,
God is really incapacitated from working in the world. If He does, the devil will
query His intrusion into his defacto territory. That is why we must pray and
prevail in prayer. That is why prayer is not preparation for battle, but the real
battle. Prayer is spiritual warfare. Though prayer is not easy, but very powerful
and rewarding.
Moreover, most of us have served idols, our forefathers have dedicated our lives,
lineage, lands and communities to certain deities through various worships,
names and rituals in order to gain free and liberation. God’s intervention that
brings freedom from sin, occultic bondage, positive change and all good things
of life will only happen in answer to our prayers. If we don’t pray therefore, then
we deny ourselves all the help and strength we could have gotten from the Lord.
And that will give the enemy the permission to keep on tormenting us inspite of
what Christ had done on our behalf.

GOALS OF PRAYER

As I have noted, many people are praying today like never before, but how many
of these prayers are actually getting result is another question entirely. Prayer or
praying is not an activity that goes unnoticed, either in heaven or in hell. Every
prayer has spiritual repercussion, but many prayers have little or no impact
simply because the goals of prayers were not known or taken into great
cognizance.

The goal of every prayer is the ear of God, His will being done on earth as in
heaven. Prayer should not be for our lusts and aggrandisement. Prayers that are
only meant for our lusts will not receive the attention of heaven. Our prayers
should be to glorify Him, do His will and conform to His image.

In Romans 15:30-32, Paul asked for the prayers of the saints. He told them the
goals he wanted their prayers to accomplish. They should pray so that he will be
delivered; so that his ministry will be accepted, that he will arrive with joy and
be refreshed in the will of God. Prayer should not be aimless and purposeless.
This is what I have learnt. You must have a goal in your prayers.
Oftentimes, I pray and tell the Lord what I want my prayers to accomplish. And
I have found out that God answers and I could recognize the answer when they
come. For instance, when I was to marry my lovely wife. I had some sisters in
the church that I was interested in. But my Pastor then told me that I should pray
very well because a certain sister said the Lord was leading her to me. Well, I
was skeptical but I prayed and told the Lord that he must tell me if it is His will
or not.

My prayer was ‘Lord, I’m going to be your minister, therefore I must not marry
wrongly, so that your glory alone will shine in my marriage and I can be a
blessing to my generation”. While I was still in that prayer early one morning, I
heard the voice of the Spirit inside me that she is my wife. Immediately I had
peace and confidence. And I can say that my life has accomplished all the ‘so
that’ prayers I enumerated to God by marrying my wife.

Apostle Paul also prayed many “so that” prayers:

* “So that you may overflow with joy” (Romans 15:13) * “So that you may
know him better” (Eph. 1:17)
* “So that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith” (Eph. 3:17) * “So that you
may be able to discern what is best” (Phil. 1:10) * “So that you may have great
endurance and patience”

(Col.1:11)
* “So that you may be blameless and holy” (I Thes. 3:13) * “So that the name of
our Lord Jesus may be glorified in

you” (II Thes. 1:12)

This ‘so that’ principle is a tonic for a boring prayer life. Many times our prayers
are good but aimless. We ask God to ‘bless’ someone or to ‘strengthen’
someone, but we have no particular end in view. When you add ‘so that’ into
your petitions, it forces you to be specific, direct and purposeful in your prayers.
Thereby helping you to achieve the goals of prayer.

QUALITIES OF TRUE PRAYING

Not all prayers are true praying. Not all prayers will get to the ear of God. Not
all prayers will accomplish the goals of praying. There are lots of noise-making
and ordinary shouting that we call prayers today but which are empty rhetorics,
simply because they lack the quality of true prayers. True prayers have non-
negotiable qualities. Our prayers must possess the following qualities if they are
going to be resultoriented.

a. Penitent Heart

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” - II Chron. 7:14

To truly pray, we must approach God with a heart of holy reference, penitence
and repentance. A heart full of remorse for sin and willingness to repent and
forsake the sins does much more to our prayers than anything else. Before we
can approach the throne of grace boldly, we must first get rid of our sins in true
heart of repentance before God. (Luke 18:10-14)

You cannot come to God with your self-righteous attitudes and get anything
from Him. You cannot pray the Pharisees prayer and hope to get answer from
God. Rather, you must start with a sincere heart that acknowledges your
sinfulness, knowingly or unknowingly, confess and forsake them. Genuine heart
of repentance is the foundation for all true praying. When sin is in the heart and
life, yet you are praying, God will not answer.

“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” - Psalm 66:18.

Sin in the heart makes God to disregard our prayers. God will not answer our
prayers while we habour sin in our hearts. Unconfessed sin is a mighty obstacle
to prayers. But if we come with a heart full of contrition and repent and ask for
forgiveness, then He will pardon and hear our prayers (1John 1:9). Each time
you come to God in prayer, you need to wash in the blood of Jesus and allow
Him to cleanse you from known or unknown sins. It is then you can pray
successfully.

b. Pure Heart and Life

“As for me, I will behold
thy face in
righteousness: I shall You cannot pray be satisfied, when I the Pharisees awake, with thy
prayer and
hope likeness.” - Ps. 17:15 to get answer

True praying demands for purity of heart from God.and righteous living. Your heart must be

free from pollutions, dirtiness, bitterness

and unforgiving spirit. Clean heart is not
easy to come by these days because many people are being hurt by those closest
to them. And these hurts in the heart are effective hindrance to prayers. When
you truly fail to forgive and release those who have offended you, then your
prayers will not receive heaven’s attention.

I remember a time that I was greatly hurt by a pastor. He sent me an abusive

SMS over a sincere advice I gave him. I kept the SMS in my folder and
determined never to delete it. But while in prayer, the Lord told me that I must
forgive and delete the SMS. It was difficult but I had to obey, because I want
God to answer my

prayers. The pastor has come to apologise and my heart is free. Many who are
holding grudges, malice, hurts and bitterness in their hearts will find that God
will not answer their prayers unless they release those things. True prayer is
based on the foundation of pure heart and righteous living.

c. In His Name

“And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto
have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may
be full.” - John 16:23-24
Praying in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is another foundation of true
prayers. He says our prayers must be based on His matchless name. Praying
without adding His name is fruitless. His name is the strong tower that makes
our prayers much more secure and save (Pro. 18:10). The name of Jesus is the
sure signature to our prayers. It is the name that scares off the enemy and opens
the way to the heart of the Father. My personal prayer experience in the last 30
years can testify to this truth. Praying in the name of man, idols, a saint or a god
is nausetting unto the Lord. Only the name of Jesus quarrantees sure answer to
our prayers. It is faith in His name that brings sure answer to our prayers in
miraculous ways.

d. Faith

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” - Mark 11:25

True praying must also have the quality of unwavering faith. Prayer that brings
result must be done in faith. Where there are doubts, worry, anxiety and
unbelief, our prayers will not receive an answer. Our faith in God and in His
unfailing promises to hear and answer must be strong. Many are praying
faithless prayers. They pray much but they don’t believe in their prayers. No
wonder they receive little or no answers.

In Acts of the Apostles chapter 12, verses 12 to 15, we read of the account of the
church praying in a house for the release of Apostle Peter from prison. And
when Peter came to the door, they could not believe that it was him! They were
praying but did not expect answers to their prayers. Doubts and lack of strong
faith will always rob you of the answers to your prayers, as it did me many years
back. It was my doubt that robbed me of the Tape-recorder that my brother took
away! True prayers must have faith as the foundation. It is then it can be result
oriented.

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” -
Heb 11:6

e. Obedience to His Will

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his
commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” - 1 John 3:22

True praying also have the foundation of God’s will at its heart. To pray rightly,
then it must be according to the will of God.

When you don’t take His will into cognizance, your prayers will only be like the
barking of a dog. The will of God, as revealed in His word must be the heart of
our prayers. Jesus prayed, ‘not my will, but thine will be done’. That must be the
summary of our prayers if they are going to qualify as true ones.

Furthermore, our prayers must be undergirded by our obedience to the word and
will of God. It is when you do His will that He too will listen to your will. It is
when you please Him in every area of your life that He will grant your innermost
requests. Obedience to God is the key to praying true prayers. Many that are
stubborn, sinful, disobedient and self-willed and yet are praying will find lots of
blockage to their prayers. Whatever you are asking the Lord for, first make sure
it is according to His will and that you are obedient to Him, then you will have
the answers.

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing
according to his will, he heareth us” - 1 John 5:14

f. Earnestness

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were
great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” - Luke 22:44

True praying must be earnest, sincere, wholehearted and fervent. It is when we

seek Him with the whole heart that we shall find Him.

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your
heart.” - Jeremiah 29:13

It is when we put life, power, fasting and earnestness into our

prayers that we are really serious. Carefree, listless hearts, wandering thoughts
and spasmodic attitudes will never help our prayers. They are signs of
unseriousness and God will not take us seriously. Dozing, half-hearted words
and sleeping off while praying will never help our prayers to be real and true.
There must be seriousness and earnestness. And that calls for discipline and self-
denial. It calls for self-crucification and whole hearted dedication to the business
of praying. If you are not serious enough to become really earnest in prayers you
cannot get answers. Part of your earnestness in prayer is adding days of fasting
to make your prayers much more effective. You can fast a meal or two, a night
sleep or you go and lock yourself up somewhere and pray earnestly. Your
earnestness depicts your seriousness and that will speed up your answers.

g. Persistency

“And he said, Let me go, for If you are the day breaketh. And he not serious said, I
will not let thee go, enough to except thou bless me.” - become really Gen. 32:26

True praying must also have the ingredient of persistency. Being persistent in
prayer is not taking No for an answer. It is praying and seeking the Lord until
you have the answer in your hand. It is not giving up but waiting on the Lord, no
matter how long, until the answer comes. Yes, many people have prayed, but
only few people have prayed through. Many have quit praying the moment they
started, but true praying will persist and persevere in prayers until the answer
will come.

earnest in prayers you

cannot get
answers.

Many times, God will not grant our request the moment we start whistling for
them. He would want to see how serious we are about what we are asking for.
And many have given up and failed the test here. To pray true prayers, you must
be ready to pray long until you breakthrough. You must pray patiently,
persistently and perseveringly. It is then your answers will come in large
measures.

Thank God for the revival of prayers here and there today. Gatherings of prayer
are being massively attended by people all over today. Let us endevour to build
the true qualities of prayer into all these our prayer efforts. Don’t let us only
gather people to pray, but let us also make sure that they are taught to pray in a
living and biblical way. Let us inculcate the biblical way to pray so that we can
see much more multiplied answers to our prayers.

A FRUITFUL PERSONAL PRAYER LIFE

f there is one thing I’m deeply grateful to the Lord for, it is the fact that He
graciously opened my eyes to the prime importance of a personal prayer life
early in my Christian

journey. The moment I got saved, I had this burning desire to pray and I sought a
small group of brothers praying in our local church then. I joined them and I
started developing my personal prayer life. While we held vigils three nights in a
week, I was practicing personal prayers during the day. I had friends we prayed
together. And I started practicing early morning prayers due to the teachings on
quiet time and books on prayer I came across.

I was always sad when the call to prayer of the Muslims at 5 a.m finds me in
bed. I would cry and pray that God should wake me up early to pray. And when
I read about Jesus asking His disciples why they could not watch in prayer with
Him for one hour, (Matt.26:40). I made up my mind to pray for one hour. It took
me years of rising and falling, but I was determined to make it and God helped
me over the last 29 years of my Christian life. I have tried to work continuously
on my prayer life.

I have adjusted my life around my early morning praying, knowing fully well
that without a personal life of prayer, one cannot really live the victorious
Christian life. It has not been easy and once in a while, I still fail to pray early in
the morning, but largely, God had been helping me in this area.

A close look at the prayer movement of the last several years will reveal that this
is one of the major minus. Corporate gatherings for prayers, intercessions and
fastings have been highly emphasized and private personal prayers have been
abysmally de-emphasised. Gatherings and various meetings for prayers,
deliverance and intercession are regularly organized, but there had been criminal
silence on fruitful personal life of prayer across board. The more reason there is
so much fickleness and shallowness even in the life of those who are
championing the prayer movements!

Christians of today have little or no time to pray or develop a fruitful life of

prayer. Lots of books, articles, school of prayer and teachings about prayer
abound, but personal prayer life is neglected. Corporate prayers in the church,
group prayer meetings and vigils cannot really live have replaced the most
important prayer of all - personal prayer life. Personal prayer life is what I
consider as the foundation, fountain and mother of

Without a personal life of prayer, one

the victorious Christian life.

every other prayers. Without it, every other prayer pales into insignificance.

Yes, prayer is the duty of every Christian and a gift too. It is a duty because
every Christian must pray. It is also a gift because some people are gifted to
pray. They can spend days in prayer and fasting, interceding for others. It is easy
for them to spend hours upon hours in prayers. However, each of us must pray
and build a fruitful life of prayer, whether we are gifted in prayer or not. Prayer
must play a major role in our lives. Our prayers must be result-oriented and
fruitful and testimonies of answers to prayers must be regular experience of our
lives.

We must be careful enough to nurture and build our prayer life to the extent that
our whole living will revolve around the continuous growth and progress of our
prayer life. Until prayer becomes the main business of our life and church, there
can be no growth. A personal and fruitful prayer life is basic to godly living. The
private prayer life is the secret of great growth and useage.

GOD’S ORIGINAL INTENTION

God’s original intention at creation was to fellowship and have intimate

communion with man. (Gen. 3:8). God desires to have fellowship time with His
creatures. His delight is with the sons of men for communion and fellowship.
(Prov. 8:30-31). The fellowship was destroyed by sin, yet it was restored through
Jesus. That need for communion with man is still with God and the avenue of
private prayer is what He has chosen. The call of God now is a call of love, to
come and share in His divine love for us. We cannot really know and enjoy God
if we have no time to commune and fellowship with Him. More than anything
else, God desires intimate communion with His people.

A certain minister was busy organizing a conference for ministers. He was so

taken up with activities and arrangement for the meetings that he did not have
time to pray. He usually sleep by 12 a.m and wakes up by 4a.m to attend to one
need or the other. The meeting was well attended and okay. After the meeting
ended, he then went into private closet to pray and thank the Lord for a
successful meeting. Then he heard the Lord asking him, “son, where have you
been in the last three days?” Surprised, he blurted out, “Lord I have been busy
with the conference”. And the Lord said, “To the extent that you didn’t seek my
face?” He was dumbfounded.

Then the Lord sternly warned him, “Never you be too busy that you don’t seek
my face first”. “The Lord of the work must come first before the work”.
Working for the Lord must never take the place of walking with the Lord. Our
walking with Him in love and communion must always come before working for
Him. Spending time in His presence will inflame and empower you.

All those who walked with God and who amounted to anything in life have
maintained a prayer life. Saints such as: i. Enoch – Gen. 5:22-24
ii, Noah – Gen. 8:20-21
iii. Abraham – Gen. 12:8
iv. Isaac – Gen. 25:20-21
v. Moses – Deut. 9:25
vi. Samuel – I Sam. 25: 11
vii. Elijah – I Kings 17:13
viii. Elisha – II Kings 4:33-35
Ix. Daniel – Dan. 6:9-10
x. Jesus – Mark 1:35; Mark 6:46

They all rose up early and late to pray. They built an altar unto the Lord. They
communed with the Lord privately and personally. They spent time in His
presence and imbibed some of His fire in their souls. These biblical examples
show to us that the key to knowing and enjoying profound relationship with God
lies in the prayer life.

Developing a personal and fruitful prayer life with God is the key to walking
with God and being mightily used of Him. It is only when we see prayer as a
fellowship and communion with the Lord will we see the need to develop and
maintain a fruitful prayer life. We must see prayer as a loving relationship
between God and man.

The key to knowing and enjoying

profound relationship with God lies in the prayer life.

Augustine of Hippo says; “What you love, you worship, true prayer, real prayer
is nothing but loving. What you love, that you pray to”.

NECESSITY OF A PRAYER LIFE

For every Christian and minister, a strong prayer life is foundational and
fundamental to your success.

“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. Blessed is
the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my
doors” - Proverbs 8:17, 34.

Without seeing Him daily and early you can’t be fruitful and useful for Him.
Having a fruitful prayer life is so much important that without it, there will be no
growth of any kind. The progress and development of our personal, public,
family, ministry and business life depend on our prayer life. If you don’t have a
strong, consistent and fruitful prayer life, how can you grow spiritually and be a
blessing to others? All backsliding starts from the closet. Once you cannot pray,
then you cannot live a holy life. Once your prayer life is gone, then your
Christian life is gone.
I have seen ministers who do not have prayer life and their ministries are
backward. I have seen Christians who do not have consistent prayer life and they
always rise and fall in the faith. Without a prayer life, you cannot conquer sin
and Satan daily. Victorious living will be difficult; carnality and flesh will have
the upper hand in your life; guilt and condemnation will rule in your heart; your
life will be shone of His glory; you’ll be touchy, irritating and quarrelsome and
the devil will have a swell time dealing you with bitter blows of life. You can
only grow and thrive in the Lord and in ministry when you spend time in His
presence regularly.

Madame Guyon said; “Prayer is the guide to perfection and delivers us from
every vice, and gives us every virtue; for the one way to become perfect is to
walk in the presence of God”. And J. C. Ryle said; “Prayer has the salutary
effect of purifying, refining and enabling our heart. It banishes evil thoughts, and
thus saves us much pain and sorrow. To be prayerles is to be without God –
without Christ – without grace – without hope and without heaven. It is to be on
the road to hell”. Richard Newton also said; “The principal cause of my leaness
and unfruitfulness is owing to an unaccountable backwardness to pray”.

We can safely conclude then that he that flees from personal prayer flees from
all that is good in life and ministry. Your ministry will never rise more than your
prayer life. Your power to bless and edify others will be commensurate with the
power of your prayer life. Once you are too busy to pray privately, then your
backsliding in ministry have started in earnest.

BENEFITS OF A PRAYER LIFE

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray,
and not to faint” - Luke 18:1

No one should give the answer that it is impossible for a man occupied with
business cares to pray always. You can set up an altar of prayer to God in your
mind. And so it is fitting to pray while walking, driving, at office, shop, journey,
standing at a corner or sitting at your craft.

I remember I used to wake up early to beat serious traffic jam to my office while
I was working as a Sales Supervisor. Getting to office early afforded me the
opportunity to pray for one hour before we open the store for business. And
those times of private prayers were a great blessing to my spiritual life,
ministerial preparation and the company I was working for. The result was that
things went well for the company while I was there. God’s hand and blessing
were on it because of prayers.

You must create time to pray in the morning, afternoon, evening or late at night.
You must spend time alone with God. Without these personal times of
communion with the Lord, you are a failure. Nothing can atone for lack of
private and secret praying. Without it, we lose in many ways. Corporate prayers
and family altars have their place, but they must never take the place of personal
praying.
Personal prayer life is important and beneficial in the following ways:
i. Fresh and daily infusion of grace, mercy, power and

blessings.
ii. God’s guidance and direction.
iii. Fresh fire and burning for the Lord.
iv. Strong bulwalk against temptation and attack of Satan. v. Maintaining first
love and faithfulness to God. vi. Fruitfulness in the Christian life.
vii. Greater infilling of the Holy Spirit
viii. Deeper understanding and knowledge of God. ix. Victorious living and
exemplary conduct.

Martin Luther said; “Private prayer is a powerful thing, for God has bound and
tied Himself thereto. None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is
able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience”.

when we sleep
Do not forget private prayer. Take time or neglect our or a day to pray. Go to a lonely place to
devotions.pray. Take leave from work to pray.

Separate a day in a week, three days in a

month to pray and seek God. Everytime
you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in
it, which will give you fresh courage.

Satan rocks the cradle

E.M. Bounds wrote, “God’s acquitance is not made hurriedly. He does not
bestow His gifts on the casual or hasty comer or goer. To be much alone with
God is the secret of knowing Him and of influence with Him.”
HINDRANCES TO A PRAYER LIFE

The devil is aware of the tremendous benefits of a prayer life that he will do all
he can to hinder its practice. This is the jugular vein that the devil goes for in
every Christian’s life. He knows that if he can stop you from praying, then he
has captured you. Victory for him here is victory everyday and every time.

His first method is to hinder through sin, guilt, condemnation in the heart,
bitterness, anger, annoyance, unforgiving spirit, hatred, doubt, lukewarmness
and wrong motives. If he fails here, then he will come through activities,
labours, tiredness, excuses, visitors, weariness, lack of interest, fear, sleep,
eating, video films, games and television. He strategically uses all these to
hinder and stop our prayer life. And when you battle all these and eventually
kneel down to pray, your mind will be wandering here and there.

However, you must rise above all these hindrances by strong resistance,
discipline and the blood of Jesus plus watchfulness to maintain a prayer life. You
must remember that Satan rocks the cradle when we sleep or neglect our
devotions. Samuel Chadwick said; “The one concern of the devil is to keep the
saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, work and
Christian activities. He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when
we pray”.

You must fight for your prayer life. The devil, flesh and pressures of life and
ministry will want to hinder your prayer life. But you must not allow it. Men of
God in history have realized the importance of the prayer life that they consider
it the number one battle ground to conquer. You must fight and

secure your prayer life from becoming casual, monotonous, weak, spasmodic
and powerless. You must take time to nurture it. Once you discover that the fire
of your personal devotions is going down, stop, wait on God until He renews
you there.

Those great leaders of the Bible were not leaders because of brilliancy of
thought, because they were inexhaustive in resources, magnificient culture or
native endowment, but because, by the power of prayer, they could command
the power of God.

Study yourself and discipline yourself to pray. Don’t let a day pass without
praying. Learn to rise early to pray, or pray at night when everyone has gone to
bed. The heart of man is like a soup – without daily warming, it will stink and
decay. Your personal time of prayer will help you to receive daily manna from
God for your soul, without which you cannot live for Him.

Pray for your prayer life. Ask God for a prayer life and continue to plead for the
grace, strength, enablement and power to pray and maintain a true life of fruitful
praying. Adoniram Judson wrote, “Endeavour seven times a day to withdraw
from business and company and lift up thy soul to God in private prayers”

Finally, brethren, “I have read the lives of many eminent Christians who have
been on earth since the Bible days. Some of them, I see, were rich and poor.
Some were learned, some unlearned. Some of them were Pentecostals and some
Christians of other denominations. Some were Calvinist, and some Armenians.
Some have loved to use a liturgy, and some chose to use none. But one thing I
see, they all had in

common. They all had been men of prayer.”

God will only commit His work to men of strong and personal prayers. Before
you can pray short public prayers that brings miracles, you must have prayed
long and intensive private prayers. What state is your personal prayer life? Your
answer will determine your useage and heaven.

THE ABUSE OF PRAYER

T

he statistics that Africa is where Christianity is growing very fast in the last 30
years is correct. And one of the by-products of that is the high interest in

prayer. In almost every places you could see or hear of one kind of prayer
meeting going on or the other. And due to poverty, self-inflicted problems and
affliction of the devil, people are desperately seeking for solution through
prayers. So, people now attend prayer vigils, miracle nights, deliverance day and
victorious power gatherings in their tens, hundreds, thousands and even millions
here and there. And the high interest in prayer for solution to myriads of
problems have not gone without some glaring abuses. Abuses are common in the
prayer movement that is presently going on. Let me give you a snipet story here.

A ‘preacher’ was preaching in a public bus. He gave a word of revelation to a

lady that she needed urgent prayers of deliverance lest her enemy kill her. She
was afraid and decided to follow him to his prayer centre. There he told her to lie
down and shave off her pubic hair and made serious attempt to sleep with her. It
was then she came to her senses, pushed him off her and reported to the police,
and the preacher was arrested.

Another pastor recently stood up in his church and announced to his people that
his prayers for them will be determined by the money they pay to him. Those
who have not been giving to him will henceforth not receive his prayers! These
are examples of prayer abuses that are common and growing in number today.

WHAT IS PRAYER ABUSE?

The abuse of prayer is the extreme emphasis on prayer to the neglect of other
scriptural truths. It is using prayer to hoodwink and take advantage of people. It
is using prayer to create fear, panic and drain people of their resources. It is the
act of praying, yet doing things that the Lord hates. The Israelites got to this
point in their life.

“Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did
righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the
ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have
we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul,
and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure,
and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite
with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice
to be heard on high.” - Isa. 58:2-4

The purpose of their fasting and prayers were not godly but revenge, destruction
and to inflict wound on others. The Pharisees also abused prayers a lot and Jesus
condemned them for it (Matt. 23:13-15). Today, prayer abuse is very prevalent
across denominations. Pentecostal, Charismatic, Orthodox, African, Apostolic
and prosperity churches are neck deep in it. This is not a figment of my
imagination, but what I have seen first hand, read reports about in electronic and
print media and many of my pastor students who attend our conferences and
institute have also asked questions about it. Allow me to pinpoint the abuses that
are most common today.

1. Prayer Contractors

This is a group of people or individuals who are gifted to pray and they now use
that as means of livelihood. They charge people to pray for them. They visit
people in their houses, give strange prophecies that cause panic and says it is
intensive prayers that will avert the looming crisis. Of course, the victim will
have to pay for those days of prayers. Governors, government ministers, senators
and people in position are paying prayer contractors to pray for them. Prayers are
also being offered for crooks, robbers, wicked people and corrupt government
officials.

A certain governor in one of the South-South areas of Nigeria was complaining

of what the ministers from Pentecostal churches in his state did to him in this
regard. They terrified him with fake prophecies and demanded for money to
pray. He spent quite a large chunk of state treasuries on these prayer contractors.
Charging for prayers and terrifying people with prophecy is a clear abuse of
prayer and God is angry against such ministers. Some ministers are under God’s
judgment already for these abusive tendencies. While it is not wrong to pray for
people in position, it is however ungodly to charge for prayers and terrify people
with visions and revelations.

2. Prayer Intermediaries

Prophets and prayer ministers who serve as intermediaries usually tell people
that they will have to fast on their behalf and go to the spiritual level ordinary
people cannot get to. They speak in strange languages and prophesy strange
visions and therefore ask their victims to do certain things, most of which are
beyond human dignity.

Recently, a pastor gave a strange altar call in a meeting: he asked women who
have been for prayersslept with by prophets and prayer marabouts

in their quest for fruit of the womb to come

out and repent. Over 300 women came out
publicly! In the name of deliverance and setting people free, lots of these evils
are happening and are being swept under the carpet.

It is not wrong to
pray for people in position, it is however ungodly to
charge

Lots of personal and private deliverance sessions have resulted in sexual abuse
and rape of the person being ‘delivered’. Yes, you can pray for people with more
authority, but it is better to teach people to pray personally on their own. It is
better to teach people to war with their own hands.

3. Prayer Against Enemies

This is another major abuse of prayers by churches and leaders today. People are
taught to see everything and everybody as their enemies. If their work, finance,
marriage and day is not going as expected, it is attributed to enemies.
Nightmares or strange dreams are from enemies. And all the prayers are directed
at enemies. All enemies must die by fire! That is the great abuse we have
subjected prayer to today. The attention of the people are directed towards
humans as their enemies and they in turn take their neighbours, friends, co-
workers, relations and even brethren as their perceived enemies and prayers of
death are directed towards them.

In a certain church, the associate pastor had a misunderstanding with his senior
pastor in the office. When they got to the church, the associate pastor led the
congregation in particular dangerous prayers that all those who were opposed to
his well being in the church must die by fire, and the people gullibly prayed.
When the senior pastor mounted the pulpit to preach later, he first of all called
out another prayer point; “I shall not die but live to see the end of my enemies in
this church”. And the people prayed gullibly again. Such scenario are common
place because of the extreme emphasis on enemies. Simply because it is selling
with people doesn’t mean it’s right.

Yes, there are demonic and satanic enemies but they should not be the major
focus of our prayers. Our major focus should be the Lord, pleasing Him and our
characters (Pro. 16:7). When we live to please Him, no enemy can overcome us.
Once in a while, we take authority, resist, renounce and bind the enemy of our
soul and destroy his works by the blood of Jesus and it is settled! Human beings
are not our enemies!

4. Prayer Points

Yes, part of the abuse of the present day prayer ‘revival’ is the issue of prayer
points. Almost every book on prayer have to be prayer points. Majority of prayer
gatherings also have to do with praying dangerous prayer points. It is so
perversive that pastors are even after prayer points in any gathering they found
themselves. Rather than actually pray, they are busy writing down prayer points.
And most of these prayer points are not spirit generated. They are simply taken
from the psychological belief that enemy is responsible for all the afflictions of
man.

Furthermore, people are requested to pray these prayer points in certain postures,
time and in particular ways! While prayer points in itself are not bad, yet when
they don’t give room for the leading of the Holy Spirit again in prayer, then it
has become an abuse. While prayer point is good for new and young Christians
that are trying to develop a prayer life, it is an abuse for matured Christians to
still be seeking after prayer points. It is an abuse for our entire time and season
of prayer to be controlled and regimented by prayer points. Rather, it should be
the Spirit of the Lord guiding, leading and inspiring us to pray as He wills to the
glory of the Lord (Rom. 8:26). Prayer points make people to remain babyish in
their prayer lives and dependent on human help.

5. Prayer Houses and Mountains

Of course there is nothing wrong with having a place dedicated to prayers and
seeking of the Lord. That is why people build houses and dedicate them to
prayer, and some rocky mountains are also made into hallowed place of prayer. I
teach and believe in that. I have also been to a number of such prayer mountains.
However, there is an abuse going on with such places today. Gradually, the
belief is that your prayers can only be speedily answered if you go to a mountain
or a special place dedicated only be speedily to prayer. And in such places, some

people have taken over, prophesying

and controlling the prayers of those
who have come to seek the Lord. Some

answered if you go to a

ministers are even permanently mountain or a stationed on the mountain and theirs
is
to fleece and milk people who come to
pray. Fraud prayers and prophecy are
common place and people are told to
divorce their spouses! As a result, some
ministers have moved away from

special place dedicated to prayer.

The belief is that your

prayers can

home to live permanently on the mountain. Additions to prayer such as

incantations, spiritual baths, special soap, sponge and bathing nakedly are
common place in such places. Women are taken advantage of and broken homes
are the outcome. These are abuses that have not abated and most of our Prayer
Mountains and houses are being desecrated.

While special places can be dedicated to prayers, yet God is everywhere and He
will answer when we call upon Him. The place is not as important as the heart
from which the prayer comes from. You can turn your house, room, heart, office,
even your rest room into a hallowed place of prayer unto the Lord.

6. Prophetic Acts in Prayer

Prophets and deliverance ministers have also been practising lots of abuse in the
prayer ministry today. People are told to assist their prayers with lots of
‘prophetic’ acts. They are either told to pray nakedly, stand with hand akimbo
over their spouses, drink certain concortion, bring a knife, candle, broom, sword
or cutlass to cut their enemies to pieces.

A prophet even asked the people in his church to pray nakedly in a vigil in order
to empower their prayer preparation for their coming convention. Well, the
people did it but weeks later, the spirit of immorality took over the church and
they all slept with each other, from the leader to the least person. These are
abuses that are gaining ground today and common practices in prayer houses,
prophetic churches and with power and deliverance ministers. No wonder little
or nothing is happening spiritually, inspite of numerous people in prayer
gatherings.

These abuses stem from the fact that those prophets and their prophecies are not
based on the undiluted word of God and those prophets hate the true teachings of
the word of God. Small wonder they are abusing people through their prophecies
and prayer offerings.

7. Prayer as Curses

Part of the abuse of prayer is that many leaders are using their God-given
authority in prayer to curse and ruin the lives of people. Once they are offended,
annoyed or hurt by the comments or actions of their people, the next thing is to
rain curses upon the people from the pulpit. Some leaders have pronounced
failure, calamities, accident and financial crash on their people.

A certain bishop is known to publicly use his pulpit to pronounce curse on his
perceived enemies. Some associates have also prayed dangerous prayers against
their leaders in prayer camps. Fellow pastors have also fasted and prayed against
the downfall of other pastors. These are clear abuse of the sacredness of prayers.

Some disgruntled fellow abused the power of prayer and fasting to the extent
that they bound themselves with an oath that they will not eat nor drink, until
they have killed Paul the Apostle. (Acts 23:11-14). Well, they failed even though
the Bible did not tell us what befell them later. We can conclude that their plot
turned against their head. Prayer abuses must be stopped or reduced to the
barerest minimum if we are going to see the true revival that God promised.
Already, these abuses have made many to withdraw from church and the way of
the Lord is being evil spoken of.

Leaders that are reading this must check themselves and refrain from the abuses
that are gradually creeping into our lives, ministries and churches. Simply
because things seem to be working do not mean that they are right, and until we
stop, repent and turn away from them, we might not see the greater
manifestation of God in our midst.

Churches and leaders that abuse their privileges and endowments in Christ
usually nose dive and gradually go down. Very many of those churches, bishops,
pastors and prophets who were popular and well-known some few years back
because of their failure to check the excesses, extremist practices and abusive
tendencies, have all disappeared from the radar screen of God and His kingdom.

What prayer abuses are you involved in? Are you taking advantage of those who
come to you for prayers? Are you stylishly charging for prayers? Your answers
to these probing questions will determine your longevity in ministry and whether
God will continue with you or gradually withdraw His power and presence.

THE PROBLEM OF UNANSWERED PRAYERS

A

certain Deacon and his lovely wife were very fervent and committed in a church.
They were good examples of real commitment to the Lord and the

church. They were in every meeting and nothing was too dear to them to give
away to others and the church. Therefore they were very much loved by the
brethren. The only little problem they had was that after their first child, the
woman could not conceive again. The church was aware of this delay and for
three years, intensive prayers were offered individually and collectively on
behalf of this couple. The pastor took time to specially fast and pray for this
couple so that God will give them another baby, but there was no answer.

After three years, a certain prophet and evangelist were invited to conduct a
meeting in the church. They were

taken to this couples’ house to pray. There the Lord revealed the truth: the
couple had an abortion immediately after their first baby and decided not to let
anyone know. They kept it and that sin was the great barrier to their prayers and
that of the church. Immediately they owned up to the sin, confessed and turned
away from it, the Lord mercifully answered them and the wife conceived again!

Many people are doubting the efficacy and veracity of God’s promises to answer
prayers today simply because they have been experiencing unanswered prayers
in their lives. Too many believers, like the couple in the above story, have
prayed much and the church had prayed for them, but there seems to be no
response from heaven, and this had led them to become cynical about the power
of prayers.

Many have fasted, prayed, went to every kind of prayer gathering and made very
strenous effort to meet great, anointed and powerful men of God to pray for
them, yet there is no answer. This problem of unanswered prayers is defying the
logic of many prayer ministries, deliverance churches and prophetic ministers
today.

Truthfully, does God hear every prayer? Absolutely yes. That is the uniform
testimony of the scripture.
“O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come” (Psalm 65:2).

Does God answer every prayer? A resounding No! Of course, God has promised
to give to all that ask Him. In fact His hand withholds nothing from those who
seek Him. He gave His best and all in Jesus, therefore He will not withhold
anything good from those that come to Him.

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he
not

with him also freely give us all things?” - Rom. 8:32.

In spite of the fact that God is ready, willing and capable of freely giving us all
things, yet, we experience lots of unanswered prayers simply because answer to
your we get involved in things that hinder prayers, but our prayers. When we
experience that will depend unanswered prayers, it is not because on you meeting God doesn’t
want to give, but because

we are the obstacle, somehow and

somewhere. There are conditions we

the scriptural conditions. must meet and qualities we must

possess if God will not only hear but
answer our prayers all the time. It is possible to achieve 100% answer to your
prayers, but that will depend on you meeting the scriptural conditions. Lots of
people today are only achieving 20%, some 40% and majority are only at 50%
success rate in their prayer life. But the mind of God is that we achieve 100%. In
the next few pages, allow me to enumerate the conditions that have served as
effective barriers to prayers. Unanswered prayers come as a result of the
following factors:

It is possible to achieve 100%

1. Sinful Living

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear
heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” - Isa.
59:1-2

When you live in secret or open sin, then your prayers will be greatly hindered.
Covering your sins and thriving in them will tie the hand of God from working
on your behalf. Unconfessed and unrepented sins will always serve as strong
barriers to your prayers. Many that are praying but still living in flagrant sin,
wickedness and iniquity will not receive answers to their prayers. God’s eyes are
too holy to behold iniquity, and once you love your sins, then forget God
answering your prayers.

I was involved in a prayer meeting where we usually pray for people to be

delivered and set free from various afflictions of the devil. We were having a
swell time because many people were being set free, until someone joined us to
pray. A young lady who was demonized was brought to us. We prayed and
prayed, but nothing happened. We commanded and used every prayer method
we knew but the demon would not budge.

Suddenly, the demon in the lady spoke up and said, ‘someone is here that cannot
cast me out. And as long as he is around, I will not go out’. The demon even
started pointing fingers at those that can cast him out. At a stage the demon
pointed at a brother and said, ‘this one cannot cast me out’. Initially, we tried to
command the demon to keep quiet, but when he insisted, we took the brother out
and came back to pray. Immediately, the demon went out and the lady was set
free.

We then brought the brother in for serious interrogation. We even had to go and
call his wife when he was not cooperating. By the time his wife came, the truth
was let out of the bag. The brother committed the sin of adultery overnight with
a lady and came to church to join the deliverance team! We didn’t know, but the
demon knew. He was an Achan in our camp. We were only able to have answers
to our prayers when we removed him. Sin in the heart and life will always hinder
effective answer to our prayers.

2. Despising God’s Word

“Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no
man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my
reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh”
- Proverbs 1:24-30.

Failure to love, hear, obey and heed the word of the Lord will bring barrier to
our prayers. Flagrant disobedience to the word of God will result in unanswered
prayers. Disregarding the word of God concerning your life, marriage, work,
finances and relationships will make God to laugh at your problems. When you
neglect His word, He too will neglect you. When you don’t want to hear His
word and allow it to correct, rebuke and remould your life and work, then God
will turn away from hearing you.

Today, many people love to pray but they hate to hear and live by the word of
God, no wonder God is not answering them. Prayer gatherings that just
concentrate on praying without reading, studying and applying the word of God
to the lives of the people will only record marginal answers. Neglecting and
despising the word of God that rebukes our lives is sure barrier to our prayers.

“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be
abomination.” - Prov. 28:9

When you fail to restitute your ways according to the rebuke of the word of God,
but you kept praying, then you will have lots of unanswered prayers. Your
prayer will become an abomination unto the Lord. Your prayers will only be an
exercise in futility. To pray aright, you must first live aright. You must live
according to the word of God, then you can pray to him and he will hear and
answer you.
The best way to pray is to pray the word of God. Take your prayer points from
the word of God.

3. Disobedience To God

“And Saul asked counsel of God, Shall I go down after the Philistines? wilt thou
deliver them into the hand of Israel? But he answered him not that day.” - 1
Sam.14:37

“And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by
dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” - 1 Sam. 28:6

Saul was a king that was chosen by the Lord. He was to be the ruler under God
for the people. He actually started out well, but he got into disobedience in the
case of the Amalekites. He failed to carry out God’s strict instructions. And God
stopped answering his prayers. He sought the Lord, but he could no longer find
Him.

Disobedience to God’s clear direction regarding your life, marriage, ministry,

work and future will make Him to stop answering your prayers. Many who are
complaining that God is no longer answering their prayers should check deeply
within themselves those areas they have been disobeying the leading of God.
Some have gone ahead to marry whom they were led not to marry and

The best way to pray is to pray the word of God. Take

your prayer points from the word of God.
now they are complaining that God no longer hears them. Why should it be?

When you stop obeying Him, He will stop listening to you. Your disobedience to
your husband will be the stumbling block to your prayers. Your stubborness and
failure to obey the laws of man will also be an hindrance to your prayers. When
you live a lawless, carefree and self-indulgent lives, then your prayers will never
go beyond the roof of your

house. Many people are praying but how many of them are obeying the Lord in
their lives? No wonder God cannot answer them when they call.
4. Wrong Motives

“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon
your lusts.” – James 4:3

I have seen many Christians praying night and day, going to all sorts of prayer
meetings and yet, God would not answer their prayers. Why? They are praying
with wrong motives. The purpose of their prayers are sinful, ungodly and will
never glorify God. Wrong motives in prayer is when you are praying for selfish
and carnal reasons. When the real reason for your prayers is personal glory,
gloating, vendetta, revenge and vengeance, then God will not answer. When the
real motive or secret of your prayers is so that you can glow in pride, then
answers will never come. When you are praying to kill, maim, destroy and ruin
your perceived enemies, so that you can be proved right and righteous, then God
will not answer.

“Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye
shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.” - Isa.
58:4

The underlying motive of your prayers matters much more to God than your
prayers. Why are you praying? What do you want to accomplish by those
prayers? Who do you want to be glorified, self or God? The God who sees the
heart will surely take the motives behind your prayers into consideration before
answering. It is only when your motive is to bring glory to God and blessing to
others that God will answer your prayers. Wrong prayers and praying with
wrong motives are chief barriers to effective prayers.

5. Attitude to Your Spouse

“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour

unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace
of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” - I Peter 3:7

God who sees the heart will surely take the motives

behind your prayers into consideration before answering.

Most men and women have had their prayers hindered as a result of their
attitudes to their spouse. Our attitudes to our spouse will determine the efficacy
of our prayers. You don’t expect God to answer your prayers when you are
mean, wicked, abusive, oppressive, unfaithful and cheating on your spouse. The
implication is that once your spouse is not happy with you as a result of your
ungodly attitudes, then your prayers will no longer be answered.

Now, this is very serious. I know of many people running from pillar to post
today for breakthrough and answered prayers and they could not get it, simply
because they are bad and wicked to their spouses. Your relationship with your
spouse will determine God’s answer to your prayers. If you are the stubborn,
cheating, unfruitful, heartless and wicked type, then your prayers will always be
hindered. Those who are complaining that they are not having answers to their
prayers should look inward and check how they have been dealing with their
spouses. If you are bitter, unforgiving and hateful towards your spouse, how can
you expect God to answer your prayers?

6. Neglect of Mercy

“Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but
shall not be heard.” - Prov. 21:13

The way and manner we relate and deal with the less privileged will also
determine the efficacy of our prayers. Part of effective praying is doing good,
taking care of the needy, fatherless, widows and down-trodden (James 1:26).
Visiting the widows, elderly and fatherless with foodstuffs, giving to the needy
and relieving the oppressed are part and parcel of productive praying. But when
you fail to do these and you never even care for those in need, then your own
voice will not be heard by God. When you refuse to meet the need of those
closest to you and turn your eyes away from those in affliction, then God
Himself will not hear you. When you fail to respond to the cry for help of those
near you, how can God hear your own cry for help from Him?

When you neglect the acts of mercy to those in need, who will have mercy upon
you? When you fail to meet the needs that God brought to your notice, how do
you expect Him to meet your own needs of monies, gifts and treasures? When
you refuse to give out to those in dire need, how do you expect God to open His
storehouse of treasures to you? Neglect of mercy is a strong hinderance to
prayers. Lots of people are experiencing unanswered prayers because they have
not included the acts of mercy in their prayers.
7. Doubt and Double Mindedness

“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave
of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he
shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his
ways.” - James 1:6-8

Doubt, worry, anxiety, unbelief and double mind are strong factors that have
hindered the prayers of very many people. Lots of people pray but how many are
praying in faith. Some don’t even belief in what they are praying about. Doubt
and unbelief in the heart will make prayers to be unanswered. Worry, anxiety
and double mind will never allow God to answer our prayers. Once you don’t
have the confidence and assurance in the word of God that He will answer
according to His promise, then your prayer is as good as dead.

I have seen people who are praying for what they did not believe in. Actually,
they will be greatly surprised if God answers their prayers! A doubtful mind is a
strong barrier to prayers. A faithless prayer will not receive the attention of
heaven. Praying and worrying are strange bedfellows. It is only the prayer of
faith that heaven will honour. When you doubt and worry if God will answer
your prayers or not, then you are inviting unanswered prayers into your life.

If you really desire to receive answers to your prayers, you must then run away
from the seven points mentioned above. Once you can do away with them, you
have solved 80% of the problem of unanswered prayers in your life. And
continuous answers to your prayers demand that you keep yourself from them
and live right.

In my almost 30 years of Christian life, I have prayed some few prayers and God
has graciously answered them. Yes, I have not received answers to all my
prayers, but I can say that majority of my requests have been granted by God as
an act of His infinite mercy. One thing that has greatly helped me is that I tried
to run away from these prayer-hindering factors. I’m truly serious about wanting
to have answers to my prayers and therefore knew that I must keep myself from
these prayer defeating factors. The same thing is true for all those who want
defeating factors. The same thing is true for all those who want 90% answers to
your prayers, then you must run away from those factors.

FOUR WAYS GOD ANSWER PRAYERS

Having read so far, allow me to share with you four ways that God seems to
answer prayers. I got them in my personal walk with the Lord and through the
observation of the life of other saints of God. How does God answer prayers?
Well, God answers by saying:

a. Yes!

God hears and answers the prayers of His people. He says yes to prayers,
petition and requests of His children. He answers instantenously, immediately or
progressively. He performs the miracle of deliverance, healing, signs and
wonders, provisions and protection. He said yes to Abraham concerning the
house of Abimelech. He said yes to Isaac concerning his wife that was barren for
20 years. He said yes to Jacob and changed his name. He heard the cry of the
Israelites and sent a deliverer. He said yes to Moses and parted the Red Sea. And
throughout the centuries, He has been saying yes to the petitions, requests and
supplications of His people in amazing and outstanding ways. He still says yes
today if the requests are according to His will and will bring glory to His holy
name.

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it
shall be done unto you” - John 15:7 b. No!

Astounding but true, God can say no to many prayers. There are lots of prayers
that God answers with NO! In the scripture, God answered Moses with no, when
he pleaded with God to allow him to get to the promised land. He also said no to
David when he fasted and prayed for the healing of the child that Beersheba had
for him (II Sam. 12:11-23). He also said no to Paul when he pleaded for the
thorn in his flesh to be removed (II Cor. 12:8-9).

God says no when our prayers are not in tandem with His will. He says No when
our petitions are selfish and sinful. He says No when our motives are wrong and
self-serving. He says no when we are living in sin and flagrant disobedience to
His word. He says no when we pray with malice, hatred, injustices and
wickedness in our heart and lives. Throughout the ages, He has been saying no
to both big and small. He still says no today to those who are not careful to pray
aright.

c. Wait!
There are lots God also answers prayers by saying wait of prayers that to those who are
seeking Him. To wait God answers means that perseverance, patience and

with NO!

persistency will have to be employed by the seeker. In the sovereignty of God,

He may need to make the conditions right for the answer to the prayers. He may

need to do one thing or the other before the answer will be granted.

However, delay is not denial. Over the years, God has progressively answered
prayers in this way. He delays a little and over time before His answers will
come into manifestation. I have personally observed that this is the method God
uses in answering my prayers. Very many things I have prayed for will not come
to me immediately, but they will eventually come after a year, two years or five
years.

Usually, I seek the Lord for things, both in my personal and ministerial life. And
they don’t always come immediately, yet, after some months, weeks, years, they
will begin to manifest. Many people have also testified that God answered their
prayers through this method too. It is not every prayer that receives instantenous
answers, very many will manifest progressively over a period of time. In fact,
there are prayers I have prayed long ago and had forgotten them, only to see
answers now and God will remind me, and profuse thanks will come out of my
heart.

d. More!

God equally answers prayers by responding that you should pray more. That is,
praying with importunity, persistence and seeking Him over a period of time.
God uses this method when He wants to draw our hearts nearer to Himself or
what we are asking for is too small and will not glorify Him enough.

Importunate and prevailing praying is the key to big achievement from God. To
do great things for the Lord, you will have to pray much and in the course of that
much praying, God will melt your hearts, purify your motives, mellow your
personality and remould your characters. The seeking of the Lord will inflame,
empower and fire you up for Him. He will remove all the dross and dregs from
you, so that you will be able to handle what He is about to deposit in your hand.
To do great things for the Lord, you will have to pray much

I can say that God has also answered my prayers through this method too. There
are things I have been seeking the Lord for over the years, but He has only been
answering them in tit bits. He is asking me to seek Him more so that He can do
much more work in me in order for me to be able to handle what He is about to
do.

Recently, I was in London for our first ‘Church Growth Conference’. It has been
my prayers in the last 10 years to take Church Growth to Europe and equip
pastors with tools that will bring revival and restoration to the church in Europe.
For many years, I did not receive any tangible answer to those prayers, but when
we were there few weeks back, I realized that God was preparing the ground for
me in those years and more praying has now allowed Him to properly equip me
to help those pastors now.
Whenever God answers your prayers by saying you should pray more, then get
ready for great impact. Because the more you pray, the more He will be able to
prepare a great answer for you in due time.

Have you been experiencing unamake amends where necessary. How has God
been answering your prayers? If No, repent now. If yes, then continue. If wait
and more, then take time to seek Him, be persistent and importunate in your
prayers.

PRAYER BOOSTERS
P

rayer is work. True praying is serious work. To pray is not easy. Lazy, indolent
and unserious people cannot truly pray. True praying requires the sacrifice of
many

things. When you are lazy in prayer, then your spiritual life will suffer. In actual
fact, prayerlessness is a sin. When you don’t pray or you pray little in the
morning, then you are committing sin.

Prayerlessness is a sin against God, yourself, your friends, leaders, church,

community, nation and the world. All these people will be unable to receive
blessings from God simply because you refused to pray. Your prayerlessness
will give room to the enemy to work and destroy things. It will make it difficult
for the hand of God to work on your behalf and will allow all manner of evil to
thrive in the

church and community.

Prayer is a duty and responsibility of every Christian. You must pray. You must
develop strength in prayer. You must build a prayer life. When you are too busy
to pray, you will be too busy to live well. You must learn to pray and take time
to stay in the presence of the Lord.

When you are mute, idle and prayerless, then God cannot work for you, in you
or through you. You may suffer, complain or murmur, but things will only
change when you begin to truly pray. God doesn’t respond to murmuring and
complaining of people, but to their sincere and heartfelt prayers. It is only when
you seek the Lord that you will find Him.

PRAYER BOOSTERS

As you pray in the name of Jesus, not in the name of a leader, an angel, idol or
person, coming to the Father through the door of repentance, praise and worship.
How can you make your prayer much more effective? What are those factors
that can boost the power, effectiveness and potency of your prayers?

Prayer boosters are those tangible and intangible things that will further help
your prayers to receive much more answers. Too many prayers are way off
target today and cannot receive answers because these boosters are sadly
neglected by the majority of people. But if you are tired of praying unanswered
prayers and wants your prayers to be much more effective, then take serious note
of these Prayer Boosters:

1. Prayer and Character – I Tim. 1:8

Too many people pray with their mouths, but use their character to hinder their
prayers! The relationship between prayer and character is very strong and deep.
In fact, your character is your prayers! Without good and godly character, your
prayers will always go unanswered. In fact, some have stopped the answers to
their prayers by the characters!

Your character is your attitude, manners, behaviours, value system and

comportments. Negative, critical, sarcastic, quarrelsome, troublesome and
touchy attitudes always drive answer to prayers away. Greedy, stingy, covetous
and malicious characters will never allow God to give you the answers you are
looking for.

A Pastor was helping a member to look for a buyer for her house. The member
had purposed in her heart to give the Pastor a gift of another house if he could
help her to sell this property. But the greedy attitude of the Pastor made him to
inflate the actual prize of the property and prospective buyers were scared away
until the member discovered the truth. She vowed never to give him the
promised house. God had wanted to answer the prayer of the pastor for a
befitting accommodation, but his character did not allow it.

Very many praying men and women have used similar characters to deny
themselves of answers to their prayers. Promotion in the office, provision from
God and protection from the enemy have been denied many people because of
character. Ungodly, cantekerous and negative characters always undo the
prayers of people. The same mouth you used in praying is the same mouth you
are using for lying, deceit, cursing and abusing others. How can God hear you?

Your good characters will open doors for you. Your honest and

sincere attitudes will bring great answers to your prayers. Your attitude of
diligence, hardwork, punctuality, faithfulness and patience will aid and hasten
the answers to your prayers. If you really want more answers to your prayers,
then work on your attitudes and characters. Prayers and good manners go hand
in hand. Prayer and bad characters are strange bed fellows. Truthfully, prayers
are meant to change your characters to good and godly ones. So if your attitude
is wrong, in spite of your prayers, how can God answer you?

2. Prayer and Forgiveness

Lots of people praying today cannot have answers to their prayers because they
have bitterness, unforgiving spirit and hurts in their hearts. Millions are
singing, praying and worshiping in the meant to change sanctuary, but the pain of bitterness is your
characters eating up their hearts. While they are
to good and godly ones.

praying, their hearts are heavy with the memory of the hurts, misdeeds and
injustices that some people close to them had meted out to them.

Truthfully, prayers are

Women are mostly found in this quagmire. They have deep and real hurts and
fail to forgive and release those who have injured them. The more reason their
prayers are going unanswered. Not only that, bitterness and unforgiving spirit
open the door for the enemy to afflict with sicknesses, diseases and calamities.

“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye

have aught against any that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you
your trespasses” - Mark 11:25

Prayer and forgiving spirit go together. God will only answer you when you
forgive others from the heart. Until you do away with bitterness, hurts and
holding of malice with others, your prayers will always be hindered. Until you
truly release those who injure and abuse you, God will not be there to stand by
you. Do you desire more potency in your prayers? Then have no bitterness or
unforgiving spirit lodging in one corner of your heart. Forgive and keep on
forgiving and forbearing with others.

3. Prayer and Good Works

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in the time
of trouble.The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be
blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his
enemies, the Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt
make all his bed in his sickness” - Psalm 41:1-3.

Prayer and good works go together. Yes, you cannot be saved by good works,
but after you are saved by the Lord, you need to do lots of good works as aids to
your prayers.

You must remember the poor, give to them, feed the hungry, relieve the
oppressed and lift up the downtrodden. You cannot afford to be stingy and
tightfisted and still expect God to expressly answer all your prayers. You must
give your talents

and treasures to help and assist others. Your giving to the poor and widows are
loans unto the Lord. As you do good, goodwill also will come to you. When you
close your eyes and hands to the needs of others, how can God hear you in the
day of your own needs? Your financial and material assistance to others will
speak for you in time to come. Your prayers must be accompanied by good
deeds in order to be effective and result-oriented.

4. Prayer and Fastings

“Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” – Matt. 17:21
This is another powerful booster to prayers.
What prayers alone cannot do, fasting will do You must not it. You must often join
your prayer with only pray and fasting. As you pray, make sure you fast also. fast, but you Fasting can be
morning to morning, evening must grow to a to evening or it can be skipping a meal or two level where
you meals. You can fast 2 days, 3 days or one week

with only water or juice. The rule is that do as live a fasted life. you feel led by
the Lord and what will not
injure your health.

Fast regularly and grow in your ability to fast and pray. Consistent prayers and
fasting will open more doors to your life. You must not only pray and fast, but
you must grow to a level where you live a fasted life. That is, deliberately
reducing your food intake to twice or once a day. Elijah ate only twice a day and
he had power with God. You can gradually start it as your health and schedule
will allow. But you should do it if you really want a supernatural ministry. When
you join sincere and deep fastings to your regular prayers, your prayer will
increase hundred fold.

5. Prayer and God’s Word

“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” – Eph.
6:17-18.

Many prayers cannot get answer from God simply because they are way off the
mark. Prayers that are not based on the true and balanced word of God cannot
get answers. The word of God is a powerful aid to prayer. Base your prayers on
the promises of God. Stand upon His promises and pray the word into your life.
That means you must read, meditate, learn, digest and hide the word in your
heart and life. It means your prayer points must come from the word and you
live the word in your daily life.
Let the word of God fill your mind and saturate your heart. The word of God is
the will of God for our lives, so live the word and pray it into your life and
situations. You will get more answers to your prayers by so doing. Praying alone
without the word of God is like a farmer that made heaps but sowed no seed
therein. He will have nothing to harvest. The word is the sword of the Spirit that
will defeat the enemy that wants to pick our prayers.

6. Prayer and Obedience

“And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and
sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast
rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” – I
Sam. 15:22-23

Disobedient, stubborn, heady and self-willed people that are praying are simply
wasting their time. Prayer and obedient living are interwoven. You cannot
divorce them from each other. There is no way you will receive mighty answers
to your prayers if you are the disobedient type. When you are praying, making
requests to God and visiting ministers for prayers here and there, yet you don’t
obey the word of God, the will of God in your life and the directions of God for
you, your petition will never be attended to by the Lord. Obedience is better than
sacrifice. What obedience will do, fasting and prayers will not do it.

I was in a prayer mountain to pray sometime ago. While searching for a secluded
place to pray, someone recognized my face and asked me for prayers. He said
the Lord asked him to go to a place to preach and start a work for the kingdom.
He refused and came to the Prayer Mountain to pray that God should change His
mind! He therefore wanted me to pray for him that God will change His mind
and ask him not to go again. I was amazed and I told him point blank that I don’t
do that kind of prayers. He should obey the Lord, else, he will die praying on
that prayer mountain. Fortunately, he listened and decided to obey.

Very many ministers, leaders and Christians are suffering today due to their
disobedience to God. Some are running away from where God needed them, yet
they are praying. How can He answer? Obedience must be complete, total,
unquestional, prompt and continuous in your life, if you want to have more
power in your prayers.
7. Prayer And God’s Voice

True praying is not a monologue, but also a dialogue. It is a two way road. As
you speak and converse with the Lord you must learn to also listen to His voice.
Don’t only do all the talking, allow the Spirit of God to also speak to you. God’s
voice can come through an inner still small voice, audible voice in your ear, a
sudden strong impression of scriptural passage upon your heart, or a dream,
revelation and vision, either while you are praying or when sleeping.

The truth is that God loves to speak to those who seeks Him earnestly. You must
be able to discern the voice of God and interpret its messages. It will take a
learning process, a matured spirit and seeking for proper counsel, just as Samuel
did before

As you speak and converse with the Lord

Eli, before you can fully comprehend and understand the voice of God speaking
to you. You will have to weed off the voice of Satan and that of your human
spirit and obey only the promptings of the

you must learn voice of the Spirit of God. to also listen to His voice.

The voice of God will never contradict His word and will. It will not lead you to
violate the scriptures nor scatter the church. Neither will it lead you into sin

and ungodly practices. Rather, it will lead you into the word of God and make
you a blessing to others. You will need to constantly test the voices you hear,
whether they are of God, men or that of Satan.

8. Praying In The Spirit

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we
should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered.” - Rom 8:26

Praying in the Spirit is a powerful booster to prayers. Too many prayers cannot
get answers because they are only prayed with human knowledge. But praying in
the Spirit is the expressway to heaven. It is the Spirit of God helping us to pray
and giving us the correct prayer points. It involves praying in your spiritual
prayer language, given by the Holy Spirit. And you can only pray and groan in
the Spirit when you are truly baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit of God. It is
the infilling of the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues – a
language you did not learn – that will help you to pray and intercede in the
Spirit.

When you pray in the Spirit, you are yielding over your tongue to the Holy Spirit
to pray through you. You speak mysteries and pray the very prayers God wants
you to pray. Praying in the Spirit edifies you, builds you up and gives authority
to your prayers. When you pray in the Spirit, you confuse the devils and nothing
can hinder your prayers. The Bible enjoins us to pray in the Spirit,

You can only pray and groan in the Spirit when you are truly baptized and
filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the
Holy
Ghost” - Jude 20

To build up yourself means to charge up your batteries and empower your spirit
man. Sometimes, I want to pray but I don’t know what to pray for, I just ask the
Holy Spirit to give me utterance to pray and I will switch over. Oftentimes after
praying like that for several minutes, the answers and interpretations of what I
have been praying for will be coming to my heart. If you want an effective
prayer life, then be filled with the Holy Spirit and pray in the Spirit often.

9. Prayer Retreats

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and
departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” - Mark 1:35

“And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and
continued all night in prayer to God.” - Luke 6:12

Your prayers will become much more powerful when you make use of prayer
retreats. In prayer retreats, you withdraw from every activity of working, eating,
drinking and conversing, and lock yourself up in a place, a room, a secluded
house or prayer mountain to pray and be in His presence. You withdraw to draw.
You stay in His presence and build acquaintance with Him. You lay bare your
life, heart, plans and future before Him and ask for His will to be done.
Your prayer retreats can be a day in the week, a weekend in a month or a week
in three months. You should do as you are led. But you must do it. It is a time of
refreshing, renewal and reinvigoration. The soul will only thrive in such places
of retreat and spirituality will glow in your life only in such place. Your retreat
time is when God would purge you of all the contaminations of life, sin and
pollutions of living.

Obstacles and barriers, known and unknown will be dealt with and your life will
be a free passage for God again. You will gain new insight and get direction for
your life and work. It is such secret trading that gives power to your public
prayers. Without regular prayer retreats, you will become carnal and disappoint
God and yourself.

10. Prayer of Intercession

For your prayers to be effective and powerful, they must not be selfish, self-
centered and parochial. Lots of prayers of today are too mundane and selfish, the
more reason God cannot quickly answer them. Prayer must grow to become
intercession. Intercessory prayers is coming to God on behalf of others and
pleading until you will be heard. It is praying for others with earnestness and
passion.

Prayer therefore should not be petition only but also intercessory. Our prayers
must focus on praising God, interceding for the church, her leaders, our
communities and nation. Each of us must daily and weekly come to God on
behalf of our nation, communities, leaders, the church and our people. Praying
and interceding in these areas gladden the heart of God.

Many times, you just have to forget your own needs and earnestly intercede for
these greater needs. That was what Daniel did. (Daniel 9:1-32). He took time to
fast, pray and intercede for his country and God heard him and met his own
needs also. When all the reason for your fasting and prayers is yourself alone,
answers will be long in coming.

11. Prayer Partner;

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any
thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in
heaven.” - Matt. 18:19
You should pray, but don’t pray alone all the time. Seek for good prayer
partners. If you want the power of your prayer life to increase double fold, then
get a godly prayer partner to pray with you. Two people praying together in
unity of spirit will accomplish more than one person praying alone. Two people
with unity of heart and spirit will get much more done than one person alone. In
fact, the Lord gave specific promise to do great things to two people praying
together.

Your prayer partner must be carefully sought out. He or she must have the same
value like you. Age or Christian experience doesn’t matter, so long he can pray.
Your time of prayer should be time of seeking God with earnestness not useless
talks or chatter. Having a good prayer partner that you meet to pray weekly will
strengthen, empower and fortify you. It will greatly aid your own prayer life and
give real push to your life.

I had a prayer partner at the early years of my Christian life. We prayed weekly.
He was much more older in the faith than I and he really taught me to pray. He
died in 2004. But I can attribute the growth of my life to those hallowed time of
prayer we had together. Many times in our prayer times, he would prophesy and
relate visions of what God is saying and some of them are still being fulfilled till
today.
If you really want to boost your prayers and prayer life, get a godly brother,
sister or friend to pray with you always. Schedule times of prayer together.
Every leader, no matter your position or title, must get a
prayer partner, or you must maintain powerful weapon your old prayer partners,
inspite of of warfare. your promotion and schedule now.
Old friends they say, are better than
new ones – that’s from the book of
elders!

Praising and worshiping the

Lord in Spirit
and truth is a

12. Praise and Worship

Praising, worshipping, adoration and thanksgiving unto the Lord is another

prayer booster. There is so much power in praise and worship. Praising and
worshiping the Lord in Spirit and truth is a powerful weapon of warfare. It
brings defeat to the enemy and loose the bands of wickedness (Psalm 149:5-9).

The high praises of God must be in your mouth everyday and every time. Praises
should flow out of deep heart of worship, gratitude and appreciation to the Lord
for who He is, and for what He has done throughout the ages. You must always
enter His gate with thanksgiving and praise (Psalm 100:4-5).

Praises should always precede petitions. Praise should be more than asking.
Praise must fill our mouth and we must live a lifestyle of worship. Worshipping
the Lord must flow from our heart and should burst out in continuous praise, in
spite of any adverse circumstance. If you praise Him, He will raise you. God
always inhabits the praises of His people. When everything else fails, try praise
and worship, then you will have answers to long time request and prison doors
will open miraculously.

Though not exhaustive, yet I believe that these factors will always serve as
serious boosters to the prayers of those who are careful enough to observe and
practice them regularly. What remains to be said is that prevailing prayers call
for persistence and tenacity. Sometimes, all you can do is to hold on to the horns
of the altar until the Lord will answer. Once you have done all you need to do,
then pray persistently, perseveringly and wait until you prevail, Until you
prevail, you have not truly prayed!

THE PRAYER-DRIVEN CHURCH

hristian Life Church, pastored by Waywan Rodgers grew up to 500 people in the
first few years but nosedived to 200. The pastor was discouraged and was

looking for another church when the Lord told him that he had given him the key
to the city. He therefore challenged seven deacons to pray with him 1 hour each
day and later people of the congregation agreed to pray regularly for the church.
He started a prayer-chain of 22 hours a day. The church turned around almost
instantly. It grew to 2,000, then to 6,000 and it became the center where 55 new
churches has been planted. When the church is prayer driven, things will begin
to work like never before.

After 25 years of work in India, the Overseas Missionary Society could only
point to twenty five churches comprising of two thousand believers. Frustrated
with that result, the

leaders developed and implemented a plan hopefully to try to see the situation
changed. The plan was simple. They recruited one thousand people in various
homelands from which the missionaries originated, who would be prepared to
pray for fifteen minutes daily for their Indian work.
Within few years, explosive growth When prayer occurred to where the number of
is not
accorded churches reached 550 and the number of believers exceeded 73,000.
They planned and prayed, and obviously God did something He was unable to
do as a result of prayerlessness. It is only by intensive and dedicated prayers that
we can bring the power of God fully into the church like never before.

a high priority in the church, then things will go upside down.

HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE

The scripture refers to the church as the house of prayer.
“…for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people” - Isaiah 56:7
Jesus also emphasized this truth in Matthew 21:13;
“And said unto them, it is written, “My house shall be called the house of
prayer”

More than anything else, the church must be a place of prayer and where people
come to pray and be prayed for. The church must pray and be a place of
effective and powerful prayers. The prayer ministry must be highly developed
and lively if she is to

be healthy and dynamic. Prayer must have a preeminent place in the scheme of
things in the church. When prayer is not accorded a high priority in the church,
then things will go upside down.

We must understand that the sovereign God has established the law of prayer in
the Bible. God desires to do many things, but He will not do them unless or until
Christian people, using their God-given authority, pray and ask Him to do it.

“Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight
and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” - James 4:2.

No one can change God, but our prayers have a direct influence on what God
does or does not do.

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things,
which thou knowest not.” - Jer. 33:3

Prayer is the avenue that God has chosen to work and reveal His mighty power
in our lives and churches. He has limited what He can do to the prayers of His
people.

“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” - Psalm 2:8

John Wesley said; “God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing
prayer. The keeper of Israel neither sleep nor slumber, but He is inactive as if
forgetting us, when He sees

us idle and mute”.

“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no
intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his
righteousness, it sustained him.” - Isaiah 59:16.
Failure to pray, intercede and seek the Lord always makes God to be amazed.
When prayer is made little of and the church is involved much more in activities,
then God is highly surprised. He is amazed that His people are neglecting the
very avenue that He has chosen to display and demonstrate His power on their
behalf.

The Church must pray and be prayer-driven. To be prayer-driven is to do

everything with prayer saturation. It is to elevate prayer to ministry status and to
give strong emphasis to prayer in our scheme of things. The early church made
much of prayer. (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4; 4:23-31; 12:5; 6:4).

The early church was a praying church as well as a working church; and it was a
working church because it was a praying church. As soon as it was born it began
to pray; and it grew in strength and efficiency as her prayer life developed. No
one can deny the prayer factor in the early church.

Apostle Paul was a true prayer giant and it assumed the same high place in his
teaching and practice. (I Tim.2:8; 2:1; Phil. 4:6; I Thes. 5:17-18; Eph. 1:15, 19;
3:14-20). He linked the growth of the church, the spirituality of the converts and
their spiritual enlightenment and upliftment to prayer. We can safely conclude
then that without fervent, importunate, believing prayer, the church cannot truly
experience growth and godly spirituality.

Church health is related to the prayer life of the church. The church with the
least developed prayer ministry records least growth. The decline of any church
is the testimony to the neglect of true prayers.

Without increasing the number of Christian workers or their financial support,

we could see multiplied results if we would only multiply prayers and make the
church to be prayer-driven.

John Maxwell said; “every time I have had breakthrough in the growth and life
of my church, it has been because of intentional prayer.” Sidlow Baxter also
said, “I have pastored only three churches in my more than sixty years of
ministry. We had revival in everyone. And not one of them came as a result of
my preaching. They came as a result of membership entering into a covenant to
pray until revival came. And it did come, every time.”
Case studies upon case studies of truly growing churches have one reoccurring
decimal: prayer. It is only when the church

without fervent, importunate, believing prayer,

becomes prayer-driven that growth, health and vitality will appear. The key for
all growth and health then lies in the prayer life of the church. If the church does
not have a strong prayer emphasis, the planning will just be

the church cannot organizational and routine.

truly experience If we are going to understand what
growth and godly the church is to be and to be driven
spirituality.
by the urgency needed, we must be in constant conversation with the head of the
church. When living churches pray, Satan trembles, that is

why we see too little living churches and genuine praying ground.
PRAYERLESSNESS IN THE CHURCH

A praying church is a real threat to the kingdom of darkness.

Therefore, the devil and his cohorts are doing all they can to render the church
prayerless. The devil fears nothing more than a praying Christian and church.
When the church truly prays, then the works of Satan will be roundly destroyed.
People will be set free, bondage loose and the kingdom of darkness will take a
huge retreat backward. Spirituality will be high and godliness will reign when
the church is truly strong on her knees.

In order for all these not to happen in the church, the devil has perfected
strategies to render the church prayerless or to pray powerless prayers. When the
power and efficacy of prayer has been lost in a church, the demons will have a
field day bringing calamities, sicknesses, diseases, stagnation, oppressive air of
bondage and general fruitlessness.

Lots of evil, ungodliness, carnalities, politics and nominalism in the church come
due to neglect of prayer or praying in sin and evil. Yes, some churches are
praying but their prayers are wrong, selfish, carnal and cannot get the attention
of heaven. Such prayers are done with animosity, hatred, bitterness in the heart
and unforgiving spirit. That is why many churches that pride themselves as
prayer centres today are still filled with all manner of evil happenings, stagnation
and crisis.

The devil and his demons do pollute the prayers of churches by sowing discord,
injustices, lack of love, suspicion and carnality in the midst of leaders and
people. He equally renders churches and Christians prayerless by making them
to be activity conscious; eating too much, playing too much, working too much,
tiredness and weariness about prayer; agitating the mind with secular and
mundane cares and disturbing with all manner of encumbrances. With these he
sends leanness to their soul and they lose their spiritual fervency. And when a
church and her leaders get to such terrible spiritual lowland, then the door is
open for the forces of darkness to operate unhindered in the church.
I have come across numerous leaders
and churches that are in this situation. Warfare prayers They have tried every trick and
must be
done

regularly and consistently by the church and in the church if

method to bring growth to their

churches, without recognising or
knowing that prayerlessness is the
chief weapon the enemy is using to
render them useless. And as long as the
church is prayerless, demons will keep she is to measure on wrecking spiritual and physical

havoc unmolested in the church.

up to her divine potentials. WARFARE PRAYERS

Triumphant, victorious, dynamic and spiritually impactful church calls for real
warfare prayers. Not only must the church pray, she must do warfare too.
Warfare prayers must be done regularly and consistently by the church and in
the church if she is to measure up to her divine potentials. Jesus emphatically
declared that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church in Matthew
16:18. In that statement is the reality of warfare and shout of victory. The gates
of hell will fight, wrestle and work against the growth, health and forward
movement of the church and the church will only prevail when she too marches
against the gates of hell.

In the shrewd strategy of Satan, he loves to build strongholds and gates inside
the church. Gates are seats of power and battle ground. The plan of the enemy is
to build strongholds of gates inside every church so as to render her powerless
from within. And he has succeeded much by dousing the fire of prayers,
infiltrating the rank and file of local churches with his agents who masquerade as
members, assigning demonic spirits to pollute the church with immoralities,
hatred, disunity, infighting, coldness, lukewarmness in spiritual things and
employing humanistic wisdom to handle spiritual matters.

It pains my heart to see that the devil has rendered many churches powerless and
toothless through these shrewd strategies. Too many churches are empty,
lifeless, crisis-ridden and carnal due to these activities of the enemy. The devil
knows the authority of the church to destroy his works and kingdom, the more
reason he wants to corrupt the church from within and render her impotent. But
we must rise up in warfare prayers against these machinations of the enemy. The
church in every locality must renew the fire of prayer and do warfare.

“(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ;” - 2 Cor. 10:4-5.

The weapon of our warfare, which is prayer, Holy Spirit power, praises, Godly
living, blood of Jesus and the name of Jesus must be used repeatedly to wage
serious and effective warfare against the strongholds of the enemy in the church.
Through warfare prayers, we must pull down the evil gates of sin, immorality,
stagnation, disunity and nominalism that are ravaging our churches.

There must be warfare against witchcraft spirits that is bringing untold poverty,
calamilties, break-away and quarrelsomeness inside our churches. The delegated
demons from Satan that operate in your church must be confronted and defeated.
Every local church has a demonic attachment from Satan and their major
assignment is to deceive, dominate and destroy every good and godly thing in
the church. You cannot fold your arms and allow demonic deities to render your
church powerless. You have sat on the defensive posture for too long. It’s time
to rise up in offensive prayers and deal with those demonic agents sent to ruin
your church.

Jack Hayford started a church as led by the Lord. Initially, the church started
growing, but abruptly stopped and plateaud at about 100 members. Out of
concern and prayers, he came to the sanctuary one day and noticed a certain
demonic darkness hovering over his church. He knew that the church was not
growing because of that demonic agent assigned to the church.

In prayers, he felt led to employ praise and worship as a weapon. He therefore

began to come to the church early every day for one year, and took that time to
praise, worship and glorify the Lord above all powers and principalities. Before
the one year ended, the glory fell and the church that has plateaud at about 100,
grew dramatically. And over the years the church continued to grow and today is
more than 15,000 people in regular attendance.

You have sat on the defensive posture for too long. It’s time to rise up in

Warfare inside the church against the strongholds of the enemy is very
paramount to the growth, health, wellbeing and advance movement of the
church. When we fail to do warfare with all seriousness, then the gates of

offensive prayers

the enemy will render the church useless from within. If truly the gate of hell is
not going to prevail against the church, then leaders, ministers,

workers and Christians must engage in personal and corporate warfare in the
church.

Every stronghold must be pulled down, without apology to anyone. That was
what I usually do when I was pastoring and I always get wonderful results. Even
now in our ministry we still do warfare in our offices, homes and conference
locations. If we don’t pray against our spiritual enemies, they will indeed prey
upon us.

“Lest satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his
devices” - II Cor.2:11

The devil will continue to take advantage of our lives and churches as long as we
fail to do warfare against his devices.

PRAYER INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

avid Yonngi Cho of Korea attributed the over 12,000 converts that monthly join
his church to the highly developed prayer ministry of the church. He

said; “My people have not only learned to pray, they have learned to live their
life in prayer”. They have achieved their goal of 1 million members by year
2000 and started over 220 other satellite churches. He continued; “you could
remove the powerful preaching from our church and it would still continue. You
could remove the administration of pastoral care through cell group system and
the church would still continue. But if you remove the prayer life of our church it
would collapse”.

The Wesleyan church plateaud from 1980-1990. However, in 1991 and 1992 the
attendance increased by 10% and they planted more churches than in any year
since the 1960’s. Martin Mull said; “We attribute this breakthrough in 1989

Prayer creates conducive atmosphere and binds the powers of darkness so that
the gospel of Christ can go forward

to the beginning of a yearly emphasis during Lent called, “forty days of prayer
and fasting”. Churches involved in that programme, or some modification of it,
led the way in evangelism and church growth. Prayer and church growth are like
siamense twins. You cannot have one without eventually having the other.
Prayer inside the church is basic, primary and fundamental if our church is truly
going to be a house of prayer. We must organize around various

streams of prayer and bring it to ministry status.

The ministry of prayer is the most important ministry in the church. Prayer
creates conducive atmosphere and binds the powers of darkness so that the
gospel of Christ can go forward and the church can prosper. Sadly, this is the
area that the majority of us talk about the most but practice the least. The church
must pray and give attention to corporate prayers.

Corporate prayers is when the whole church come together for time of seeking
the Lord, in fasting and worship, like it was done in Acts of Apostles chapter 13
verses 1 to 4. Such time of togetherness increases the power, volume, level and
authority of our prayers, makes possible what is impossible to individuals and
makes the church to experience more of the presence and power of the Lord. The
Holy Spirit do speak and work mightily in such atmosphere and amazing
miracles do take place. (Matthew. 18:19; Acts 1:13-14.)
Churches that pray together regularly in corporate way usually are powerhouse
of God’s glory. Corporate prayers make the church too hot for the devil to
handle. During one of my pastorates, we were having 40 days fasting and
prayers for the whole church. We would meet in the sanctuary in the evenings
and pray for an hour. Amazingly, the corporate anointing released brought much
more healings, solutions to chronic problems and amazing miracles to our
members then. I noticed that the atmosphere in the church is always remarkably
different during those seasons of prayer than other times. And the church grew
spiritually and numerically.

Corporate times of prayer always help a church to be in tune with God and clear
obstacles to her spiritual and material progress. From personal experience, I have
learned that greater power is released through corporate prayers in the church.
There had been prayer requests and revelations from the Lord that have been
corporately prayed over and the answers received.

For the church to experience quality and quantity growth, corporate prayers must
be held. It must not be mechanical or monotonous, but full of life. Before and
during services, prayers should be of paramount importance. Prayer requests
should be entertained and jointly prayed over. The answer to these requests will
build up the faith of the people in the power of prayers.
We can start and gradually build a strong prayer ministry inside the church
through the following ways:
a. Personal Life of Prayer

The pastor must lead the way. He must have a personal life of prayer and the
members must be taught the rudiments and importance of personal life of prayer.
Quiet time and devotional time with the Lord must be encouraged and stressed
strongly. Personal life of prayer by members will help the corporate prayer life
of the church. Without a personal life of prayer, corporate prayers will be
monotonous and lifeless.

b. Day of Prayer

The church must have a day in the week dedicated to prayer. It might be a
service day where teaching about prayer is provided and actual praying takes
place. People must be encouraged to come and pray. When people learn to pray
together, the church will never be the same.

c. Early Morning Prayers

Churches that are in City centers must take advantage of having early morning
prayers. This early morning prayers can be for the whole church or groups of
people in the church. This could be held between 5 a.m and 7 a.m. People should
be in the sanctuary, praying everyday of the week. The pastor must have the
habit of coming early to pray in the sanctuary before anyone else. He must use
prayer to saturate the place before anyone arrives. That will bring the glory
down.

d. Prayer Rooms

The church must provide prayer rooms for people to come and pray. These are
special places dedicated to prayers. It may be beside the church or an office. It
may start in a small room somewhere. A prayer room is a must for any church.
In those days we refer to it as ‘powerhouse’. There the brothers come to pray all
night or through the day. Some take leave of absence from work and get to the
prayer room to pray.

Any church without such a specially dedicated place to pray is not yet serious
about building a truly prayer-driven church. A church with a specially reserved
place to pray is sending a strong signal to her people that they must come to
pray.

e. Prayer Week

If we could have Sunday School, Children, Women, Youth and Mission Week,
why not a Prayer Week? In the prayer week, messages on various aspects of
prayer should be preached and times of real praying allowed. The prayer week
can come annually or half–yearly. It will awaken people to pray and seek the
Lord and by that, the church will be spiritually stronger.

f. Prayer School

A school of prayer is of utmost necessity in the church that wants to be prayer-

driven. The school can hold on weekends for say 8 or 10 weeks. The curriculum
should be on various aspects, methods and power of prayers. Experienced prayer
giants should serve as lecturers and it should be opened to all members,
Christians and workers. Practical times of prayers and conducting prayers must
also be stressed.

g. Prayer Warriors

Every church must have groups of people that are specially trained to pray for
the church daily or weekly. They should meet in secret and their job description
is doing warfare for the church. They must function as ‘power boosters’ of the
church. Without such groups, the church will be powerless to march against the
enemy. Prayer warriors are the frontline troops of any church. Any church
without prayer warriors is as good as dead, or dying!

I was a member of the prayer warrior of my church for seven years. That was
where I cut my teeth in prayer. Whao! I really enjoyed those days of praying and
having revelations from the Lord for His church. Our church grew then to over
600 members, but when the house of prayer was pulled down and we were
scattered by those who felt we were not doing anything in the church, the church
went down and is still seriously struggling till today! Witchcraft operations will
always thrive in churches where the prayer warriors are no longer functioning
effectively.

h. Intercessors
Intercessors are full time and paid people who spend their whole time, day and
night to lift up the church in prayer. While prayer warriors are volunteers,
intercessors are full time. They are paid to pray and the results are always there
for all to see. I learnt that The Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria
started with 12 full time intercessors, lifting up the church and her leaders in
prayer and explosive growth has been the outcome. Today, the number of
intercessors in that church has gone up to hundreds.

Prayer-driven churches are not afraid to pay people to pray full time for them.
These intercessors are functioning as Aaron and Hur who were lifting up the
hand of the Prophet and Israel was prevailing in the battle front. (Exod. 17:11-
13).

i. Specialized Prayer Teams

Prayer teams could be carefully selected and organized to pray regularly for
some specialized ministries and meetings of the

church, such as:

* Evangelistic outreach * World missions
* Sunday services
* Bible study meetings * Home fellowship groups * Pastoral leadership *
Ministry of children * Deliverance services

As sustained and fervent prayers are being offered for these meetings, God’s
power will be present to transform and change people. They will not be
powerless and nominal meetings, but avenue for people to meet the Lord and be
edified.

j. 24/7 Prayer Chain

It is possible to have 24/7 prayer in
the church. With proper planning, Prayer watch or preparation and dedication, the
tower is
crucial church can raise volunteers who will
take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour to to drawing down pray and watch over the
church and the mighty hand her leaders. Such prayer watch or of God to work tower is crucial
to drawing down the like never before mighty hand of God to work like in the church. never before in the
church. It is in the
spirit of Isaiah 62:6-7, which says,
“I have set
watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day
nor

night: ye that make mention of the LORD keep not silence, And give him no rest,
till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth”

As a house of prayer for all people, the doors of the sanctuary must not be shut.
Prayers must be going on night and day and people can come and pray and be
prayed for. Our prayers must be persistent, fervent, importunate and from a pure
heart, holy motives and clean hands. It is then we will see God working mightily
in our midst.

PRAYER OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

At the time of the declaration of the People’s Republic of China in October

1949, Christians were numbered to be about 700,000 to 1 million. In 1991, the
estimate varied from conservative twenty million to fifty million. But in June
1993, the State Statistic Bureau Report of the People’s Republic of China
officially declared that there were 63 million prostestant and 12 million Catholic
Christians in China.

Today, reports have it that Christians are over 140 million inspite of threats,
intimidations and serious persecutions. What is of equal interest is that this
phenomenon has occurred without outside assistance and in fact, it is claimed
that apart from prayer, no external help was needed. One of their top pastors
explained; “We have nothing –no pastors, no churches, no Bibles – nothing! We
only have God. Therefore we go to Him in desperation”. “God is our only and
last resort” It is when we become desperate and fervent in prayer, both inside
and outside the church that we can experience true revival and

change.

Every church should be a centre of prayer, not only for the congregation but also
for the community. Revival will surely come when we do not only pray inside
the church but also in the community. While many people have been taught to
pray inside the church, only few knows about praying outside the church.
Mighty changes will come when we seriously pray and do warfare in our
communities.

There are certain demonic deities,

covenants and pacts that bring While many darkness, poverty, violence and people have been
retardation to our communities. And

when the church does nothing about taught to pray them, the community will
continue to inside the church, suffer. There are forces in the only few knows
community that prayer inside the about praying church alone cannot really affect. outside the
church.They will only be weakened and

routed when we take prayer to the

streets, corners, junctions and centers
of the community. Permit me to pinpoint some practical ways to take prayer
outside the church:

1. Share The Vision

You must inform your people about the need to take prayer to your streets and
community. Talk of the importance of prayerfully possessing the place, street
and house.

2. Teach Your People to Pray Round Their Houses

People can pray round their houses, offices, shops and factories, binding the
forces of darkness and releasing the power of God to save, heal and deliver.

3. Prepare People For Warfare

Select some group of people to be trained for community warfare. They will be
prepared by time of fasting, cleansing, repentance and teaching. This can take
two to three weekends. Then they should be divided into two groups. The first
group will continue intercession throughout the duration that the second group
will be engaging in streets and community warfare.

4. Jericho Prayers

This is prayerfully marching round the location and building of the church by the
prayer warriors. Praying against the occultic, witchcraft and demonic powers
militating against the church. Binding every force of evil and commanding open
heaven over the church. It should be done weekly and repeatedly as the Lord
leads and until victory is assured.

5. House To House Warfare:

This is to strategically map the houses and send prayer warriors to pray in every
one of them. Praying in every house to bind the powers that hold people in
bondage to sin, sickness and Satan. This strategy always work and people that
has been

bound for long will be released. Taking prayer to each house over a planned
period of time is an effective evangelism strategy. People have been saved,
healed and liberated and thus became kingdom citizens through this strategy.

6. Street to Street Warfare

This involves moving up and down your streets in silence but effective prayers
to breakdown the evil forces that has been holding people in bondage. People
from the same church or networking churches can do it on regular basis. With
serious fasting and consistent effort, the powers of evil will be broken and the
light of Christ will shine. Taking prayers to your streets have a way of opening
up your community to God and breaking the power of darkness there.

7. Specific Targets

You can specifically target a house, brothels, pagan temples, shrines, occultic
centers and hideouts of criminals in your areas for on the spot warfare prayers.
Marching on those places with intentional warfare prayers will bring victory to
the gospel of our Lord in those areas.

8. Praise Marches

Churches and leaders uniting together in the neighbourhood to praise and glorify
our Lord. Lifting the glory, banner and Lordship of Christ over that of Satan and
demons in the community. It can be done monthly or half-yearly. When it is
done with the seriousness it demands, the forces of evil in the community will
flee.
As we strategically pray and do these warfare outside the four walls of the
church, resistance to the gospel will be broken, crime will be reduced and many
will come to trust the Savior. The cloud of darkness hovering over the
community will be broken and light from heaven will shine through for church
growth and moral justice.

A pastor friend of mine heard me teaching these truths and he decided to put
them into practice in his church. He was newly posted to a church in his
denomination and that church has lost most of her members to the departure of
her former pastor. So my friend virtually have to start from the scratch. He
employed the strategy of house to house prayers during the Christmas period.
People were trained to visit houses, pray and bless people for Christmas. Well,
many houses were visited and lots of people were prayed for. Lo and behold,
attendance increased significantly and miracles happened.
The truth? These prayers work if you do them well.

PRAYER SHIELD FOR LEADERS

“No matter how well you pay your pastor, praise him or work for him, it is only
through earnest, strategic prayer that you can ever really help him be an
effective minister in the hands of the Almighty God” – Willy Bruce.
The truth of this statement was vividly brought home to me in a ministers’
meeting some years back. I was asked to speak to about 200 ministers that had
gathered for a weekly prayer. I chose to speak on prayer shield for leaders. After
the 15 minutes talk, a popular evangelist who had been mightily used by the
Lord in our nation stood up to buttress my message with his personal story.

He narrated how God called him and three wealthy people decided to employ
some prayer intercessors that will be praying for him night and day. The wealthy
brothers took up the responsibility of paying the salary and upkeep of those nine
intercessors. As soon as they started praying, things began to happen. Mighty
anointing came upon him and amazing miracles started to of prayer covering happen.
Doors were opening and

blessings were being released. if he is to be

effective for God. But suddenly, each one of those three

wealthy brothers died mysteriously,

one after the other and in quick
succession. The salaries stopped and the intercessors stopped praying and
negative things started happening to him. I was highly surprised.

No matter how prayerful a servant of the Lord is, yet, he or she will still need
lots

If i had the chance, I could have asked him why he did not retain at least 3 of
those intercessors since God had started blessing him through their prayers, but I
was not given the chance. But I learnt a great lesson about the power of prayer
shield for leaders. Pastors, leaders, prophets, apostles and Bishops need to
always be shielded in prayer. No matter how prayerful a servant of the Lord is,
yet, he or she will still need lots of prayer covering if he is to be effective for
God.

Prayer shield is when pastors and leaders are being covered in intercessory
prayers. People are praying for them as they carry out their God-given
assignments and those prayers serve as shield of protection from the assault and
arrows of the enemy. The prayers also serve as uplifting power and strength
behind their ministry activities.
A good scriptural example is found in Exodus chapter 17 verses 11 to 13. Joshua
was in the battle front. Moses, Aaron and Hur were on the mountain praying for
him. When Moses lifted up his hand to God in prayers, Joshua began to prevail
in the battle down below. But when Moses’ hand became heavy, the enemy
started to prevail. Aaron and Hur had to support Moses the chief intercessor to
steady his hand, it was then the victory was total and comprehensive.

Apostle Paul repeatedly and unashamedly asked for the prayer support of his
people. (I Thes. 5:25; Rom. 15:30; Phil. 1:19; Col. 4:3; II Thes. 3:1-2). He knew
that leaders cannot really survive without the prayer support of their people. He
was not proud to think that he does not need the prayer of anybody simply
because he’s highly anointed and can pray more than them all. No, rather, he
coveted their earnest prayers in every way possible, knowing that the battle
arrayed against him cannot be won by his prayer alone. He would need the
prayer shield of as many as possible to do a great work and have ultimate
victory.

WHY LEADERS NEED PRAYER SHIELD

Today, many pastors and leaders are falling like pack of cards. Pastors are being
spiritually attacked here and there. I know of pastors who lost their voice while
preaching in the church. Others lost their breath and life, right on the pulpit.
Some others are being seduced by demonic agents and churches are in crisis and
break away. Who knows if these leaders have been shielded in prayer, those
things would not have happened?

Allow me to pinpoint some reasons that necessitate prayer shield for pastors:

1. Pastors Are More Targeted By Spiritual Powers:

‘Smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter’ is the eternal strategy of Satan.
He focuses on attacking and rendering pastors impotent. It was widely reported
some years back of Satanists targeting and praying against the homes of top
pastors. And amazingly, pastors’ homes have been breaking since then. Pastors
need protection from the attack of the enemy against their heart, eyes, emotion,
body, life and work. If pastors are not prayerfully shielded, then their falling will
adversely affect their churches. This has been the case in the last several years.

Dear pastor, please protect yourself against the target of the enemy by engaging
and employing intercessors that will constantly shield you in prayers. It is
difficult to survive without it.
2. Pastors Are More Subject To Temptations:

Numerous and insidious temptations are facing pastors that majority of people
know nothing about. These temptations are not what can be discussed on the
pulpit, yet they are real. Today, much people have come to the church and they
are bringing lots of temptation to pastors. Unfortunately, majority of pastors are
weak to resist these temptations, the more reason they are falling here and there.
Pastors will only gain strength to resist these temptations if they are adequately
being shielded in prayer.

3. Pastors Have More Responsibility And Accountability

The burden and spiritual responsibility upon pastors are very great. People
expect much from pastors and lots of people have very high expectation of
pastors. The spiritual nature of the work have placed great burden on pastors.
Pastors’ spiritual life will determine the spirituality of their churches. Without
strong and strategic prayer support, they will be unable to measure up to these
high expectations. Lots of pastors are failing miserably in these areas simply
because they are not shielded by strong prayers of the people.

4. Pastors Have More Influence On Others

People confide and place great trust in pastors. They listen, obey and follow the
life and teachings of pastors because they believe that they are from the Lord. In
counseling, prayers and ministrations, most people take the words of pastors as
law and do everything to comply with their directions without looking back. The
power of pastors to influence for bad or good is enormous, therefore they need
consistent prayer support, else, they will lead many astray. And many have been
led astray because pastors are not lifted up in sustained prayers.

5. The Pastor Must Have Victory If The Church Must Win

Being a pastor is more than a title, it is a life. And the life of the pastor will
influence the church much more than any other person. The pastor can lead the
church up or down. The victory of the pastor is the victory of the church. The
defeat of the pastor is the defeat of the church. What happens to the pastor will
always have bandwagon effect on the church. Therefore, the pastor needs much
more prayers than any other person in the church, if things are to move ahead
rapidly.
BENEFITS OF PRAYER SHIELD

In the light of these salient points, every pastor must be ready to receive the
prayer support and shield from their people. Unfortunately, many are too
ignorant to know this, and others

As a pastor and leader, quality intercession will bring much more effectiveness
to your ministry

are too proud to receive prayer support.

I remember a sad incident when I was still in the prayer group of my church. We
had a guest minister and we the prayer warriors gathered round her to pray and
lift her up in prayers. Unfortunately, she stopped us by saying that she had done
all the prayers she needed and that we should not bother ourselves. Well, her

ministration was not powerful enough in that meeting, compared to when she
received the prayer backing of intercessors.

Ignorance and pride would not allow pastors and leaders to receive quality
intercession from people. However, every pastor must jettison their pride and
ignorance, by embracing this needed tool and means of greater effectiveness in
life and ministry. As a pastor and leader, quality intercession will bring much
more effectiveness to your ministry, supplement and increase your own prayer
life; gives you more godly character and boldness; helps you to avoid many
mistakes and failings; helps you to avoid spiritual dryness and tiredness; brings
clear direction and guidance from God and it also communicates love,
acceptance and assurance of being wanted by your people.

EXAMPLES OF PRAYER SHIELDS

When I was a young Christian and a prayer warrior in our church, my pastor
then usually comes to us for prayer shield. He would humbly kneel down among
us and we would pray for him. Very many times, our intercession will change
the direction of the church and particularly the Sunday services. His preaching
and ministrations changed for the better because of the prayer shield we gave to
him in those days. When I eventually started pastoring too, I have to employ an
intercessor and that was why great things happened during my years of
pastorate. And I still have them now.
It was said that Charles Spurgeon kept an underground room under his church
where 500 people are kneeling to pray for him every week. That was the secret
of his effectiveness and the growth of his church.

Charles Finney had Father Nash praying and laboring in prayers for him
wherever he went. In fact, Father Nash would always go ahead of him to
wherever he would later come to preach and saturate the place with prayers. No
wonder Finney had amazing results in his ministry. D. L. Moody had an invalid
woman as his intercessor. Billy Graham credited the fruitfulness of his ministry
and long years of integrity to the faithful and consistent prayers of Pearl Goodey
and 40 other intercessors. David Yonngi Cho of Korea had over 2,000 people
praying for him daily. John Maxwell had 100 people lifting him up in daily
prayer to God. In fact, he would not make you a leader in his church if you have
not faithfully interceded for him for one year.

This was the lamentation of Jimmy Swaggert. He lamented that he would not
have fallen and make all the terrible mistakes he made if he had been humble
enough to receive intercession and prayer support from others.

LEVEL OF INTERCESSION FOR LEADERS

It must be noted that there are three recognizable levels of prayer support for
leaders. Knowing them will help leaders to properly arrange and enjoy its
benefits.

a. Casual Intercessors:

This is the casual ‘pray for me’ and pastor, we are praying for you, statements
among Christians. They casually pray for the minister once in a while. It is not
regular but spasmodic and fire brigade type.

b. Regular Intercessors:

These people are contacted or led by the Lord to pray for the leader, at least 15
minutes a day. They are not close to the leader but they felt a burden and duty to
continue to lift him or her up in prayer daily.

c. Full time Intercessors:

This is the one that is most crucial. Every leader needs full-time intercessors that
will agree to spend several hours each day to pray for the leader and his ministry.
They could be paid full time to do it or they do it out of their leisure.

Yes, you will not hear all these in leaders’ meetings or school of ministry. But
the truth remains that every minister that desires true effectiveness in ministry
and doesn’t want to fall must have intercessors in level 2 and 3. To keep fresh
and not fall away would require that you find ways to have people that would lift
you up in regular prayers. Your own prayer life alone will never be enough.

HOW TO RAISE PRAYER PARTNERS

Moving into action would demand that you ask from God to give you
intercessors. You must first ask from Him like you ask for every other thing. Ask
your wife or husband to become your intercessors. In fact, the wife of a leader
must start her

Every woman must be the first intercessor for her husband and every husband
must pray for his wife regularly.

support for her husband on her knees. Every woman must be the first intercessor
for her husband and every husband must pray for his wife regularly. Note those
who are willing to pray or have been praying for you regularly and make contact
with them.

However, you must be slow and cautious so as to avoid blatant

mistakes. Look for people with godly qualities of humility, sincerity, close
relationship with God, gift of intercession and hearing from God. Don’t get those
who will manipulate you and milk you dry with fake prayers, visions and
demand for money. If you are able to start with casual intercessors, that will be
fine. They can gradually graduate to full-time ones. Give them prayer points to
pray and ask for what God is saying. Test them and their revelations whether
they are true or not. Watch their lives and find out if they are truly praying or
playing. You may start with one or two people, but make sure they are genuine
and things are done properly. Maintain them by praying for them and
encouraging them in whatever way possible. Cover them in prayers and keep
them from prying eyes and ears.
Conclusively, the difference between effective and ineffective leaders is the
intercession they received. The difference between standing and fallen ministers
is who prays or is praying for them.

POWER OF FASTING AND PRAYER

n 2007, Dr. Bob Rodgers was invited to Dr. Yonngi Cho’s Church Growth
International Conference. There he shared this story:

“The first time I was exposed to fasting, I was in my early 20’s and the pastor of
a little church in Lexington, Kentucky. My father and I went to Seoul, Korea to
visit Dr. Cho, pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church. At that time, his church had
40,000 members.

There are two dynamics that built his 850,000 member church. One, Dr. Cho is a
tremendous man of faith. The faith message was the central core of his ministry.
He spoke the word of God, and believed it would come to pass. His mother-in-
law would lie on her face all night in intercession and fasting. She had a
revelation of intercession and fasting. She made sure everyone received the same
revelation.
Through faith, fasting and prayer, they built the greatest church in the world with
over 850,000 members. My father and I had the opportunity to meet With
Madam Cho.

My father asked her, “What is the secret of building great church?” She pointed
at my dad’s stomach and said, “Fast, fast, fast, and pray, pray, pray.”

My dad thought she didn’t understand. “She can’t understand English so I will
ask her again,” he said. So he asked her again. She got up, walked over to my
dad, stuck her finger in my dad’s stomach and she said, “Fast, fast, fast” Then
she pointed to heaven and said, “Pray, pray, pray.”

While in Seoul, we also visited Prayer Mountain. There were over 1,500 young
people at Prayer Mountain who were fasting for one week. Most of the youth
were between 13 and 18 years old. It so moved me; I decided to begin fasting
when I returned home. I started with one day a week, and for the next five years,
I never missed a week fasting.

Our church grew spiritually and numerically due to fasting and prayer. Our little
church was located in the worst part of town. We had some real challenges but
God sent a revival. People were saved, our church grew. We moved about two
blocks from the University of Kentucky, next to a liquor store.

I began praying for God to close the liquor store. I wanted God to destroy it. But
God has ways of doing things that are not always our ways and aren’t you glad
of that?

The adult daughter of the family that owned the liquor store

was the manager. She had a little girl. Because we had a day care, she enrolled
her daughter in our school. My wife, Margaret, was the administrator and head
teacher. She would read Bible stories to the children and pray with them. Soon
the little girl shared with her mother the things she learned at our day care.
Before eating her meals, she would tell her mom that they must bless the food
before they ate.

At bedtime she would say, “Momma, we’ve got to pray tonight.” That little girl
had such an impact on her mother and grandparents. When she asked to be
baptized at our church, her family agreed. At the service the little girl’s mother
and grandmother asked Jesus to be their Savior.

The manager was so excited about her new faith in God that she ordered a whole
case of Bibles and set them on the counter of the liquor store. As customers
came into the store, she would ask each one if they wanted to buy a Bible.

He said, “What are you doing with Bibles on the counter? This does not help the
sale of liquor.” She began to testify how she and her daughter committed their
life to the Lord. The salesman was a backslidden Pentecostal preacher! Oh, the
conviction of God touched him and she prayed with him. He said, “I am going to
go to church with you.”

The next Sunday, he and his wife, both made a recommitment to the Lord. In
time their grown children came and the entire family became a part of our
church. Our church did not grow by pulling members from the local churches in
our city. But our church grew by people out of the liquor store church. Our
church grew as a direct result of prayer and fasting. Fasting and prayer put that
liquor store out of business!
However, not everything in my life and ministry was quite as exciting. As I
increased my preaching on fasting, I had great opposition from many people
including church leadership. In spite of the negative, I continued to preach,
teach, and participate in the biblical discipline of fasting and prayer. Today our
church has two campuses and nine satellite churches, including four that are
international.”

THE PLACE OF FASTING

Fasting has been largely neglected by the church for too long and she has been
the worse for it. There is no time we are on the victory part and closer to God
than when we are fasting. Church fathers through the ages have recognized the
importance of fasting and paid much attention to it. And no significant impact
will be made if we don’t refer back to this God-given method of loosing bands
of wickedness.

1. Fasting and deliverance in the Old Testament

(a) Moses - He asted on Mount Sinai – Exo. 34:28; Deut. 9:9-17, 25-29. He
received pardon for a wayward race through his fasting.
(b) Jehoshaphat – II Chronicles 20:1-27. They obtained deliverance from the
overwhelming host of the enemy because they first learned to fast.

(c) Nehemiah – Neh. 1:1-4. He got permission and favour and started the
rebuilding of Jerusalem because he was serious enough to fast. (d) Esther –
Esther 4:16. The Jews were delivered as a result of fasting.
(e) Jonah 3:4-10. Nineveh was saved and delivered because they were serious to
fast. 2. Fasting in the New Testament
(a) Jesus fasted and did spiritual warfare before the commencement of His public
Ministry - Luke 4:2.
(b) John the Baptist taught his disciples to fast often - Mark 2: 18; Luke 5:33.
(c) Annah served God in the temple with fasting - Luke 2:36-38.
(d) Paul fasted, following his conversion - Acts 9:9. And later on the ship - Acts
27:3-38, 43-44.
(e) Cornelius fasted and prayed - Acts 10:30-31.
(f) Common practice of the early Church - Acts 13: 1-3; 14:23.
3. Church Fathers

(a) Francis of Assisi

After the period of the dark ages appeared a gospel light ignited by this man. He
constantly and frequently fasted. He started a movement that lasted 100 years
after his death.

(b) Savonarola
God brought another awakening through this man and almost all the city of
Florence, Italy professed salvation as a result of his flaming preaching. He was
an inveterate faster. He often could keep his place in the pulpit due to weakness
from abstaining from food.

(c) Martin Luther

God was able to do all He did through this man because it was stated that he
fasted drastically and permanently as ‘to injure his health. Not recommending
this, but mighty works were wrought through him.

(d) John Calvin

He was deeply rooted in fasting and lived to see his prayer answered in the
conversion of almost a whole city. It is stated that there was not one house in the
city of Geneva that did not have at least a praying person in it.
(e) John Knox
He prayed and fasted until God drove Mary, Queen of Scots into exil and finally
to death. She declared that she “feared John Knox and his prayer more than the
armies of Queen Elizabeth of England”.

(f) John Wesley

He set great store by fasting and God was able to move mightily. It is stated that
his movement saved England from war and invasion by France.

(g) Charles Finney

He said that whenever he detected the dimusion of the Holy Spirit’s presence in
him, he would go and fast for three days and nights and he would invariably be
filled again. What glorious things God did through him!

(h) David Yonngi Cho

The great things God is doing today in Korea is possible through the prayers and
fasting of this man and his people. He said he taught his people to start fasting
immediately they are converted. They usually start with three days complete
fast. Some have even gone as far as forty days.

It goes therefore that if we are to break and loose the evil bands of wickedness
that hinder and disturb the growth of our Church we must fast and pray. The
bands of evil ruling over our nations, cities and communities will not be loosed
without fasting.

4. Fasting to bring down bands of wickedness

(1). We should fast SCRIPTURALLY. Jesus said these are the days we have to
fast (Matt. 9:15). His teaching is not “if”, it is “when thou” fasteth (Matt. 6:16-
18).

(2) We should fast SENSIBLY. Don’t feel that you must fast many days to be
effective. Many Biblical fasts were “until evening” (Judges 20:16; II Sam.3:35;
Acts 10:30). However, you must find the one most appropriate to your system.

(3) We should fast SECRETLY. Jesus cautioned His disciples never to boast
about their times of fasting but rather to keep the times of fasting as personal
commitment (Matt 6: 16-18).

(4) We should fast SENSITIVELY. When Israel fasted before a crucial battle,
the Bible says they “inquired of the Lord”. When we fast we should take special
time to hear God speak.

(5) We should fast SYSTEMATICALLY. When Jesus taught His disciples about
fasting, He began with the words, “When you fast” (Matt 6: 16). He was
suggesting that believers should have regular times of fasting, whether one day a
week or two days a week.

(6) We should fast SACRIFICIALLY. If we normally do not eat breakfast, it is

not really a sacrifice to fast breakfast. A true fast must be a sacrifice.

(7) We should fast SPECIFICALLY. God said to Israel, “Is not this the fast that
I have chosen? (Isaiah 58:6). We must ask God to direct us on the focus of our
fasting.

(8) We should fast SUPERNATURALLY. The very nature of fasting requires

dependence on God’s supernatural power to see us through. When the early
Church fasted before sending see us through. When the early Church fasted
before sending 3). We need God’s Spirit as we fast.

Wherever the Church is growing today in the world, it is the Holy Spirit working
in answer to the prayer and fasting of His people. Without much prayer and
fasting we cannot see the growth we are desiring.

In Korea, the people have learnt how to bind the devil that controls the nation,
city, community and hearts of people through prayers and fasting. Therefore,
mighty growth is being experienced.

In Argentina, Omar Cabrera, one of the leading Evangelists consistently closet

himself in a hotel room between 5-40 days until the power of the spirit
controlling the area is broken and then he would go there and many would be
saved, healed and delivered.

The powers that held our cities, communities and areas in bands of wickedness
today will be loosed and broken and many souls such as Rahab’s will be saved
and delivered. The fastings of the saints will play a prominent role.

If we are to fast:
If not now, when?
If not here, where?
If not you, who?

Keep praying, groaning, growing and glowing until you enter into glory!

BIBLIOGRAPHY
* KJV Bible. * Unpublished Material on Prayer. * Pastor’s Resource Project
Booklet. * Herald of His coming, 1982-1984 Editions. * Praying the Price Book
* Warfare Prayer Conference Resource 1997
INTERNATIONAL
CHURCH GROWTH
MINISTRIES
International Church Growth Ministries was founded in 1994. The vision of the
ministry is to provide current and reliable Church Growth principles in African
context to Leaders, Pastors and Ministers that will lead to better and faster
growth of their churches.

We do these through books, materials, VCD and audio cassettes at relatively low
cost to people engaged in leading the church.

We equally organise seminars and conferences on various aspect of Church

Growth and Health. We also accept invitations from churches to help analyse
them, motivate their people and generally help the growth potentials of churches.

So far we have ministered to over 20,000 Pastors and Christian Workers across
many denominational lines and independent churches. The results have been
tremendous and the testimonies have been wonderful and interesting.

The ministry also saw the need to really raise the growth consciousness in the
Continent and decided to pioneer an Institute on Church Growth. The response
has been overwhelming as so many Pastors, General Overseers, and Church
Leaders have enrolled to learn more about how to practically lead their churches
to growth. The impact of the Institute on these Pastors’ lives have started
manifesting in the phenomenal growth of their churches and expansion of their
ministries.
ICGM RESOURCES
If you found this book to be useful, you may be interested in some of the other
resources available from ICGM.
Listed below are some of our books and resources:

BOOKS:
1. How To Support And Strengthen Your Pastors
2. Leading From The Pulpit
3. Your Growth Is Your Future
4. The Secrets Of Financially Strong Churches
5. Why Churches Breakaway & Lose Members
6. Spiritual Warfare And Church Growth
7. 40 Strategic Ways To Increase Church Attendance
8. Supernatural Power, Miracles, Signs & Wonders Today
9. Our Churches And His Church
10. Strategic Living
11. Leading Your Church To Lasting Growth
12. 22 Dynamic Laws Of Church Growth
13. Strategic Church Planting Today
14. The Place Of Anointing And Administration
15. The Impact Driven Church
16. Grow The Pastor, Grow The Church
17. Personal Growth Today
18. The Loyal Associate
19. Fruitful And Fulfilling Ministry Today
20. Sexual Purity In Leadership
21. Church Change
22. 25 Pillars Of Church Health
23. Quality And Quantity Growth In Churches
24. Healthy Leaders, Healthy Churches
25. Money, Ministers & Ministry Today
26. 101 Ministry Lessons
27. Braking The Barriers Of Small, Middle-size & Mega Churches
28. Healthy Homes
29. Small, Middle-size, Mega Churches
30. How To Follow Well
BOOKLETS
1. Family Growth 2. Prayer Nugget
3. Church Growth 4. Financial Growth 5. The Real Man Today

RESOURCES:
a. Spiritual Warfare for church growth
b. Helping the clergy - leading your church to growth. c. Practical church
planting
d. Winning the society seminar
e. Mobilizing the laity
f. Warfare prayer for Growth
g. Closing the Backdoor of the church
h. Women ministry in church growth
i. Strategic level prayer for breakthrough
j. Signs and Wonders for church growth
k. Research and analysing of the church
l. How to grow a vibrant and Healthy churches
m. Why Churches Lose Members
n. Empowering the Church for 21st Century
o. Healthy Leadership for Healthy Churches
p. Tools for Tremendous and Transforming Ministry. q. New Waves of God’s
Move for End Time Harvest r. Magnetic, Multiplying, Marketable and
Maximum Impact. s. Building a Bigger, Better and Broader Church and many

others.

AUDIO TAPES, CD & VCD

1. Spiritual Warfare Series
2. Effective Ministers Series
3. Women Ministry Series
4. Closing the Backdoor Series
5. Warfare Prayer Series
6. Strategic Level Prayer Series
7. Church Planting Series
8. Healthy Church Series.
JOURNAL:
Church Growth Journal is a quarterly teaching and news magazine that gives
vital and practical information on how to grow the church.

For further information on these and other resources available, please write or
contact us at our office or call the telephone lines provided in this book.

Sharpen your
Ministry Skills
and lead your church/// or ministry to the next level
with

Books and Resources

from
Dr. Francis Bola Akin-John

Grab your copies now!
For wholesale & retail orders, call
INTERNATIONAL CHURCH GROWTH MINISTRIES Block C, FHA Abesan IV Estate, CF Street,
off CA Street, Mosan B/Stop, Ipaja, Lagos. Tel: +234-1-8976100, 08023000714, 08029744296

Church Growth since ‘94 E-mail- akingrow@yahoo.com Website: www.churchgrowthafrica.org

the author
Dr. Francis Bola
AKIN-JOHN
* Started ministry in 1988.

* Pastored five denominational churches in the space of 8 years.

* Started Church Growth Ministry in 1994 after hearing God said “Go and
strengthen pastors and support churches to grow and be healthy”.
* Has held hundreds of conferences across Nigeria, Africa and Europe with
combined attendance of many Thousands of church leaders.
* Has written over 35 books that has sold thousands of copies such as ‘Grow the
Pastor, Grow the Church’, ‘The Impact-Driven Church’, and ‘22 Dynamic Laws
of Church Growth’.
* Founded International Institute of Church Growth that has trained over 5, 000
pastors and leaders with attendant growth testimonies.
* Has written and produced hundreds of materials on various aspects of church
growth, leadership and health that is being used by thousands of church leaders.
* Has mobilized and equipped men to become real men through seminars,
resources and tapes.
* Has sold thousands of tapes - audio, DVD, CDs that continued to bless and
edify thousands of ministers and church leaders.
* Has consulted and helped many denominational and independent churches to
overcome stagnation, crisis and breakaways.
* Has been used by God to raise and grow thousands of ministers, churches and
ministries across the nations.
* He is trying to live his major passion of “Empowering Leaders to Grow
Healthier Churches and Ministries” across the world.