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August 27: How Far
Have You Travelled?
1 Timothy 2:1 (NIV)
1 I urge, then, first of
all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for
everyone--
Has anyone ever
asked you how many countries you have been to? Have you ever read about the
world travelers and think to yourself, "I wish I could be one of
them?" Well today I want to share with you just how you can join their
ranks and even go beyond just being a world traveler.
Today I want to
talk to you about being a world wide intercessor. Now I know some have said
that I talk too much about this subject of prayer but I make no apology about
this because the Lord has given us the directions we are to follow and his
directions are clear that we are to make intercession for everyone.
I did some study on
this word, "everyone" and after exhausting all the dictionaries in
my study and then checking the context and consulting several commentaries to
make sure I was at least in the ball park concerning the definition of the
word "p??t??." After checking all the commentaries and
language works I have arrived at the conclusion as to what this word p??t??
(everyone) means. It means everyone, not just some and not just most, but
everyone.
To fulfill this
directive given by our King I at first thought there is simply no way I can
meet this requirement. But as often is the case, when the Lord gives his
commands he also provides a way for us to obey those commands. According to
the United Nations Country list there are 192 nations in the world at
present. In 1900 the number was only 57. Since 1900 we have seen an increase
in civil wars inside national boundaries and as a result we now have almost
200 nations.
Now if you are good
at math you can see that the number of days in a year are 365 days and the
number of nations in the world are 192 give or take a few due to civil unrest
or economic or ethnic wars. So now that we have the number of nations in the
world and we have the number of days in a year we can easily divide the
number of days by the number of nations and instantly see that if we only
prayed for one nation a day we could pray for every nation almost twice a
year.
How about becoming
a world traveler and intercessor with me as we set about the obeying of the
command closest to the heart of our God, reaching the nations with the
gospel? O what a joy to see that every command God gives us he also provides
a way for us to obey it.
Some on line links
to help you in your journey to become a world wide intercessor: www.worldprayermap.org; www.operationworld.org; www.imb.org.
Taking God's
command seriously to reach every nation and tribe and tongue with his
glorious gospel,
Pastor Phil
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