(John 17:21)
One of the most challenging passages of scriptures to me and one that has
shaped my entire ministry, is found in Jesus' words to His disciples just
hours before His death on the cross. In the great prayer found in the 17th
chapter of John, we find a prayer that still has not been totally answered.
Think about this the next time you complain about your prayers not being
answered. Here is a prayer from our Lord and Savior 2000 years ago that has
still not been answered. In that 21st verse, Jesus prays that the church
would be one. A unified body. As we unfortunately know, that has really
never been the case, as since the early days of the first church there have
been divisions in the body of Christ that still exist to this day.
Especially here in the United States, we take for granted the incredible
freedoms we have to worship as we please. Some of our friends in other
countries that we minister to each day can attest to the fact that in many
places
in the world today, unity is imperative for survival. It doesn't matter if
you are Baptist, or Methodist, or if you do or don't believe in speaking in
tongues. Christians must be united just to survive.
As many of you who
have
read my personal testimony know, I spent several years in Federal Prison in
the late 80's for insider trading. It was during that experience that I
rededicated my life to Christ and devoted the balance of whatever time I had
left to serving the Lord. In that prison experience, those who were
believers weren't concerned about denominational affiliation or some of the
fringe doctrinal issues that divide the body today. We were just followers
of Christ who helped and strengthened each other through a difficult time in
our lives.
It was from these experiences that I have made a huge part of my
ministry these last 9 years, the importance of Christians to be unified. We
have been able to do so much as the people of God, yet how much more can we
accomplish when we stand united. If you look at various movements that have
had an impact on our society, like the Promise Keepers movement for example,
their success has been due in large part to the fact that they have been
able
to cut through the denominational and other divisive elements to unite
Christian men to take a stand for God. Here at Liveprayer.com, we are not
concerned about your church affiliation or stand on various doctrinal
issues.
Our goal primarily is to pray for people in their hour of need. If there is
one issue that the body of Christ should be in total unity on, it is the
power of prayer and helping hurting people know that there is hope in Jesus
Christ.
Several weeks ago, I did a series of devotionals on "Spiritual Warfare." In
one of those devotionals, I told you that to win a war you must have a
battle plan. For the last 48 hours, I have spent a lot of time alone with God
praying about His battle plan for Liveprayer.com. I want to share with you
what He has shown me and how you can be part of His plan as Liveprayer.com
prepares to not only get back on the Internet, but have even a greater
impact.
The Lord showed me that the key to success would be in unity and
numbers. America Online has basically done whatever it wanted on the
Internet due to the fact they have a membership base so large they can
dictate what they do and how they do it, with no opposition from anyone.
Liveprayer is a lightning rod for any anti-Christian element on the Internet
because we are actively reaching out to people via the first site on the
Internet to actually broadcast LIVE 24/7 as well as the over 200,000 daily
devotionals that we email to people worldwide 7 days a week. Unlike most
sites, we don't sit passively by, but are actively reaching out to hurting
people, telling them there is hope and there are answers through Christ.
Our
long-term survival and success is going to be from amassing a base of
unified
Christian people from every part of the Body of Christ that won't and can't
be ignored!
As the Lord laid this out to me, He showed me that there were to be several
key people to come forward and take an active part of putting this
infrastructure together. These would be a couple of key people He would
call
forth to take an active roll in amassing this unified army of believers.
First would be a mighty prayer warrior who would oversee the job of
consistently posting to newsgroups and bulletin boards the Liveprayer.com
website to let people know there is a place on the Internet to go, 24/7,
where someone will pray with them and encourage them. The anti-Christian
forces use these posts in newsgroups and bulletin boards effectively to
mobilize their forces, and it is time for God's people to fight back!
Second
is a person who will oversee a continual assault on the chat rooms to let
people in those chat rooms know that if they need prayer they can go to
Liveprayer.com, have a live person there talk to them and pray with them
right on the spot. There is nowhere else in the world someone can go 24
hours a day, 7 days a week to find a Godly, live person that you can see and
hear to pray for you. We need to bombard chat rooms of all kinds and let
them
know if they are hurting, in need, tired of living the way they are, or just
need prayer at that very minute....they can go to Liveprayer.com.
In addition, God has showed me how each one of you can and must have a role
in this important battle we are in.
First is prayer. Keep Liveprayer.com
in your prayers each day. Everything we have accomplished in these first 11
weeks has been because of the prayers of God's people.
Second is to help
promote the site. Use the great creativity God has given you to do your
part
in letting others know about the great spiritual resource on the Internet
Liveprayer.com is. It is a great witnessing tool to let someone you know
who is going through a difficult time, that they can go to Liveprayer.com
for prayer.
Third is to help us get as many people as possible signed up
for
the daily devotional. Our most effective form of impacting lives for Christ
is through the words inspired by the Holy Spirit that we email worldwide
every day. As you know, this daily devotional is not to take the place of
your personal time with God but to enhance it. It is not to take the place
of going to church, but to encourage you to be more active in the fellowship
you belong to. My ultimate goal is to give you sound Biblical direction on
the real life problems we all have to deal with day in and day out. Just as
AOL cannot be ignored because of the tremendous numbers of members they
have,
God showed me that when Liveprayer.com gets to a point where we are sending
a million plus daily devotional worldwide each day, there will be a unified
group of believers whose voice cannot and will not be ignored. One of the
easiest ways to help us add more names to our list is to get people in your
church with email to sign-up. You could put together a list and then email
that list to me and we would add them. If each one would send in a list of
just 50 email addresses from your church, we would have a powerful group
overnight. Of course signing up friends and family members would be a way
also. I would encourage you to pray and get God's direction on the most
effective way you could help make this happen.
Pray, promote the website,
and help us add people to the daily devotional list....those three things
each one of you can do to help us in our fight.
