I hope and pray that as I share these information and resources, it will give you an urgency to pray and fast for our children and grandchildren. Before I was led by the Holy Spirit to start the prayer groups in 2016 at church, I didn’t know how bad the situation was. I’ve been praying with great urgency and much tears ever since. I think my heart will continue to ache and hurt until I see a revival in our midst and our country. I believe this heart ache is from the Lord and so I use my emotions to help me in intercession. There are times when I am led to pray with fasting.
1. TSC just released great sermons about fasting and praying. Please listen to them for your education. I listened to them while making dinner after receiving a bad report that afternoon. It truly saved me from diving deep into anxiety which can quickly become unbelief if left unattended. The devil truly knows when to share bad reports with me – right before I need to make dinner. (I don’t enjoy cooking.) He’s sly, clever and nasty.
Please read and listen to these messages about fasting, and pray about doing this with TSC or your church community if they are organizing a corporate fast. If it’s your first time fasting, I recommend you join a fast that a church community is doing. It is harder to fast alone especially if it’s your first time doing it.
Whenever I fast and pray, I noticed that my prayers are more focused/strategic. Moreover, I have greater faith in believing that my petitions have been heard in God’s throne room in Heaven.
2. Here are free ebooks for Christians on fighting porn addiction. Porn websites are the most visited websites in the World Wide Web. It is everywhere. Porn has infiltrated the church communities too. These ebooks have compelling research reports and may convince a Christian family or friend on how horrible porn is to one’s brain and relationships. Even if you don’t struggle with pornography, please read it as a FYI so you can have compassion for those who have porn addiction. Just like alcohol and drug addictions; it’ll be a hard and long recovery process and they will need your patience, prayers and encouragement along the way. Since porn is so accepted as normal these days, I would not bother informing nonbelievers unless they are desperate for help and see their porn viewing as an addiction and destructive. Let’s pray for and clean up our church communities first.
Your brain on porn:
Porn stats in church and country:
More ebooks on porn:
3. On a happier note, here are 3 free bible studies about God, Jesus and Holy Spirit. If you want to do just one study, I recommend you do the study about God. I’ve noticed that many modern church theologies taught about God have skewed Him to be docile, lovingly passive, non-involved and equal to Satan. Fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom. Once I understood better who God is according to the scriptures, then obeying Him and following His commands became easier. In addition, I understood better the why’s, the what’s and the how’s. https://www.gotquestions.org/free-Bible-study.html
The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome] is the beginning and the preeminent part of wisdom [its starting point and its essence], And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding and spiritual insight. -Proverbs 9:10 (AMP)
3. Recently, Nabeel Qureshi kept coming up in my conversations with ministry friends. If you haven’t heard about him please check out his website. He was a rising Christian apologetic speaker until his untimely passing from stomach cancer in 2017. All who were praying for him were deeply saddened including me. I don’t know why God didn’t heal him but I know that he was living very dangerously for God as a public Christian figure who came out of a religious Muslim family and sharing very openly the gaping holes of Islam and their revered prophet Muhammad. Perhaps he and his family members were in great danger of kidnapping. I don’t know. But I know that I learned a lot about Islam from him.
By the way, he is the only ex-Muslim person that I have heard from who came to believe in Jesus Christ without a miracle or a divine encounter with Jesus Christ. It took one Christian friend whom he met in college and around ten years of friendship to bring Nabeel to salvation. I’ve noticed that direct seeds of Abraham (the Jews and Muslims) generally need a miracle and/or divine encounters with Jesus Christ to become believers. Or in Nabeel’s case, a very good Christian friend who invested ten years into their friendship.
Please be a friend first to the Jews and Muslims while also praying for a miracle and divine encounter for them. Once they believe I’ve noticed that they usually become fearless evangelists and the body of Christ definitely needs more people who are gifted with evangelism. Here is his ministry website and his older messages are available on YouTube.
4. I recently found their podcast and enjoy listening to them. Johnson brothers are Charismatic/Pentecostal pastors, dads, and one is a certified, trained therapist too. It is interesting to hear the blend of these two viewpoints together. This podcast is about family, marriage and broken marriages. Their guest is another pastor friend who experienced a great family loss ten years ago and how their family survived this tragedy. Please listen and pray about sharing this podcast with your believing husband, or sons and brothers who are raising their own families now. These three men share a lot of good wisdom and testimonies too. Currently, 80% of children in the USA raised by Christian parents in a church community will depart from their faith once they leave for college or move out. Please use the 18 years with your children very wisely. I still think parents have until age 12 or 13 to make the most impact. After that they don’t want to hear from you until much later. Read Mark Twain’s thoughts below. I hope and pray that this podcast will help you in raising your young children and grandchildren.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marked-for-eternity/id1617114424
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years.” – Mark Twain
5. Monkeypox –
Please pray about the monkeypox that is currently spreading. I recently had my annual well-visit with my local doctor and we were talking about various things. What she shared with me is disturbing. She said she was treating a patient with Monkeypox from our area and she fears how this virus may spread quickly in our country once colleges are back in session. Our prayers and fasting can help in preventing the spread of Monkeypox. I read that there is only one manufacturer in the world who makes vaccines for Monkeypox. The thought of more isolation for infected individuals is horrifying, especially in college settings. Please pray proactively for your children and grandchildren and their peers. As I am ready to drop off my daughter to college soon, I’ll be praying and fasting for her safety and protection.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another [your false steps, your offenses], and pray for one another, that you may be healed and restored. The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) can accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God—it is dynamic and can have tremendous power]. – James 5:16 (AMP)
Thank you for reading these prayer needs in the body of Christ, our youth, families and country. Let’s keep praying with great expectation that God will hear our prayers, and deliver us as we humble ourselves before Him with repentance and fasting. With love and prayers from your “librarian”
Journal of Faith 