The Power of Prayer — K.P. Yohannan

Maybe you've heard someone say, or said it yourself, we've done all we can, the only thing we can do now is pray. If we really understood the power of prayer, it would be a first resort rather than a last.

Hey, join us for the road to reality. It's Richard Bews here. I've heard preachers sometimes say, seven days without prayer makes one weak. No guilt trip, friends, but to look back over this past week and examine our daily prayer life, how would we assess it?

We might feel a bit shaky. In the paranoia of life today, the practice of prayer is too often replaced by the practice of blogging. This week, on the road to reality, Brother KP Yohannan is going to dwell on the power of prayer and how prayer can be a daily practice.

Seeking God as the Believer's First Priority

Seeking the Lord and connecting with Him is to be our top priority. Hi, this is KP Yohannan. You know, this is true of me. Every time I come into the studio and sit in front of this microphone, I say to myself, you know what, I really wish I could be with this brother or sister in their car or in their kitchen or wherever and just talk to them face to face.

Obviously, that is not possible. So here is a miracle. Once again, the Lord has provided that we can have this conversation. You know, I don't know, just a few months ago I heard that some study was done by some people in Atlanta, Georgia, about the prayer habit of believers or Christians here in North America.

And I do not know if this is accurate or not, but what I read goes something like this. Average Christians in our country here pray less than eight minutes a day. And ministers or clergy or pastors spend less than 12 minutes a day in prayer.

Now, that kind of tells us maybe how many tens of thousands or millions of Christians actually may not even pray at all. Their prayer habit may be just say, Lord, thank you for this food and make the sign of the cross and go on with life.

How many really understand the seriousness of spending time with the living God on their knees and really interceding for the crisis, the need, or in other words, for the things that God is concerned about.

Now, my objective today is not to criticize you or condemn you or put you down or anything like that. But think about it. What is the one crisis we have in the church today? If you ask me, I'll tell you it is the lack of the knowledge of the living God.

People keep asking me often the same question. Just the other day, somebody was visiting with me and who come from a very well-to-do financial situation. And, you know, he wanted to follow the Lord and asked me a question in the end.

You see, you've been working with God now 40 years and serving God. Tell me one thing that you think is so important and critical in a believer's life. And I didn't have to think much about it. I said, you know, believe it or not, the most important thing is to seek God and know Him.

But I said, the problem is you cannot know the Lord and have this scripture fulfilled in the life of believer. That is, we are not called just to be obeying this and that and not doing a bunch of bad things and doing a bunch of good things.

No, actually, we are called in the new covenant to be partakers of the nature of our Lord. It is no more something objective or outside. Rather, it is the life of the living Christ. Now we are able to experience and have Him incarnate through our earthen vessels and fulfill His plan in the light of eternity.

And I said, this is not possible until and unless we come to the place where we experience the reality of being with Him in prayer, not just five minutes a day, not just 10 minutes, you know, crying out for this need and that need and all those things and make all our plans and say, God, please bless this.

I'm doing this for, you know, but really waiting to hear Him and to know Him. And the scripture says, you will seek me and you will find me when you do so with all your heart. Those who seek me will find me.

And this is exactly what I think we need now in our time with all the crises and problems, everything going on. But, you know, here's a problem, especially people in North America. People are conditioned to think from the childhood.

No, we can make it happen. We are very pragmatic. Don't tell me it cannot be done. It can be done. So we transport this cultural thinking into Christian faith. So you go to the Christian bookstores, what do you find?

Hundreds of titles, how to do this, how to have that, how to achieve it, how to be a good husband, how to be a good wife. And, you know, we are constantly bombarded with things from the pulpit as to all the things we must do to be pleasing to God, to fulfill His plan.

But so little do we hear about being the slaves, the servants who will wait and watch to hear what God had to say. And I think, my brothers and sisters, the answer to whatever we are looking for, it needs to be from the living God.

And we will not know His ways until we come and be with Him. I've been spending quite a bit of time reading the history of the early church, not only the first century, of course, you know, all traditions passed down by the church fathers.

Then, of course, you know, these desert fathers and people who left the limelight and all the busyness of life just seek God, not for something from Him. No, just for God and God Him alone. They went out and spent weeks and months and years seeking God.

And some of their stories and their journey impacted me greatly. Now, in the book of Ezekiel, in the Old Testament, in chapter 22, verse 30, we have this interesting verse, well, rather convicting verse.

God says, I looked for a man among these people who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on the behalf of the land, so I would not have to destroy it. But I found none. Now, if you know the passage, I mean, there are hundreds of prophets and, you know, in our contemporary language, pastors and preachers and evangelists and, you know, and whatever names you want to call these people in so-called full-time ministry, God says, you know, they're everywhere.

But my problem, God says, I'm seeking for one man, one woman who will wait and stand before me on the behalf of the land so that they will not be destroyed. But I am not able to find one person. I talked to a pastor some time ago.

I mean, this kind of conversation usually don't happen, but it was kind of a heart-to-heart conversation, and he opened his heart, asked me about the ways of the Lord and my journey with the Lord and all these things, and he was quite hungry.

And so during the conversation, I had the freedom to ask him the question. I said, you know, brother, if you don't mind, can you tell me how much time you spend to prepare your Bible study for your church, like Sunday morning or midweek Bible study?

And he said, yeah, but the truth of the matter is, I spend eight, nine, ten hours, no less than that. Sometimes, he said, take three days of daily study, several hours. Then I said, how much time did you pray?

I paused. And I said, when was the last time you were on your knees for an hour or half hour? And his face looked kind of blank. I said, please understand, I'm not trying to put you on any kind of trip and make you feel bad.

Then he put his head down and kind of quietly said, yeah, I know what you're saying. It kind of reminds me of one time, you know, this dear pastor friend of mine, who actually passed a very large church in Washington state, and he happened to travel to one of our mission field overseas.

And he was there to teach a whole week in one of our major seminaries. And I was not, you know, staying with him at the house. So there was a young brother assigned to take care of this pastor, you know, bringing tea and food and different things, because it was a full assignment of teaching, and we want to make sure that he's taken care of.

So one day I asked this young brother, who was actually the caretaker for this, you know, pastor who was there in India doing the teaching at the time. And I asked him, so is he doing okay? And this young brother said, you know, one problem.

I said, what? Every morning I make the tea and bring it and I can see the door is kind of open maybe and I look in, but I find him on his knees. And so I didn't want to disturb him. So I put the tea outside hoping that he will come out and take it.

He said, so many times when he tried to bring something to him or whatever, often he find this pastor actually kneeling by the bedside and praying. And one time he said, I heard him crying. Well, I was not surprised by that because I often wondered what actually is the secret of this man's teaching that it's something God uses people's hearts are gripped.

It is not entertainment and oh wonderful teaching, but rather people's lives are transformed and there is fruit that remains. Repentance and transformation was not self-induced or temporary, but year after year, whenever he goes to any of these nations to teach here of how the life's been impacted.

Prayer, Spiritual Power, and Ministry

Now you don't need to be a pastor to have a large congregation built. Really, when you think about it, some politicians draw huge numbers of people. They are very well learned and they can articulate their thoughts well and brilliant orators, but the kingdom of God, it is not in words, but in power.

But none of us in the ministry can truly represent the Lord unless we stand before him, wait before him, pleading, interceding to hear from God. The Lord saying, this is what I wanted to tell my people.

This is what I'm thinking about it. Well, in so many belief systems, God is thought of as unknowable and beyond our communication. Not so with the Bible. His friends can talk to him anywhere and at any time.

Do we use this astounding privilege? We're hoping and praying that the Lord would use today's road to reality to stir many hearts to enter into prayer as a daily way of life. We'll hear more from K .P. Yohannan in just a second.

First, may we give you something today. In Learning to Pray, K .P. shows us in this booklet how we can grow in our daily lives. You can download the PDF free from our website, or if you'd rather have the booklet sent to you, we can do that too.

We suggest £1 .50 plus postage and packaging for Learning to Pray. K .P. also recommends getting a world map. We'd like to send that to you as well. And in this full colour map, we highlight what is called the 1040 window, which represents the most unreached areas of the world.

The suggested donation for a small map is £2 and a large map £5 plus postage and packaging. And to receive emails with up-to-date prayer requests from the mission field, just go to roadtoreality .org .uk to sign up to our prayer team.

Corporate Prayer and the Testimony of 1,800 Worshipers

That's roadtoreality .org .uk or call us on 01904 643 233 01904 643 233. Now here's K .P. with the rest of today's message on the power of prayer. I'm so grateful. Recently, during one of my visits to East Coast in Philadelphia, a dear friend of mine who is passing a huge congregation, I think, you know, seven or eight thousand people or more than that, and he said to me, we are cancelling our Sunday evening service.

That means, I mean, he teaches through the word, verse by verse, and he said, I'm cancelling that. Rather, now we are calling Sunday evenings for prayer meeting. Well, I was delighted to hear that because I knew families are in crisis, the economy is in crisis, and the problems are mounding.

And I know so well, there's no answer except the dad and mom waking up in the middle of the night, praying on their knees for their children, for their future, for their life, and for the nation, and for the society, and the churches coming together, not for entertainment and more knowledge, more this and that, rather crying out to God and weeping before Him.

And when I heard that, oh man, I said, so wonderful. So, after that prayer meeting of the Sunday evening, I called him after a couple of days and said, oh, by the way, I'm just calling to find out how did the prayer meeting go Sunday evening.

He said, oh, wonderful. I said, can you tell me more about it? He said, well, we had 1800 people show up for the Sunday night prayer meeting. Oh, man. Then he began to talk. He said, you just won't believe it.

People are weeping all over the place. People just getting up and going to others, praying with them, repenting and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. And he said, the Lord showed up. And I was so happy.

And he said, oh, we are going to continue to do that. We are not legalists. He said, you know, I mean, the Lord can tell us not to do it. Fine. But right now, we know the most significant thing in life is to seek God and know Him.

Intercession for Nations in Crisis

You know, again, I want to ask you a simple question. Just a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, did you hear what happened in Pakistan? Within a few days, nearly 2000 people lost their lives.

They all died in that flood, nonstop monsoon rain. Did you hear that 70 percent of the entire country's crops completely destroyed? Did you hear several million children are wandering without any hope?

Did you hear about the bomb blast by the Taliban, destroying the schools where they're teaching young girls? Did you hear about the flooding in Sri Lanka? Just a few weeks ago, what happened in Bangladesh?

Do you know what's going on in different parts of the world? You say, what do you mean? Well, this is all over television or magazines and whatever. But the question I want to ask you, what did you do with the information?

Did you say, well, man alive, what am I supposed to do? Or did you say, oh Lord, on the behalf of this world, the people in Afghanistan, in Albania, in Cuba, in Mexico, in Spain, and Haiti, Lord, I want to take this time to plead, to intercede.

It aches, it's painful, our flesh hates it. But you know, prayer, you will never learn by reading books. Yes, E .M. Bowne's books and Arthur Wallace and thousand other books are out there, wonderful. But my brother, my sister, you learn prayer by praying.

Prayer as the Foundation of Gospel for Asia

Some people ask me to tell them about Gospel for Asia, the mission I'm part of and how our life is and how this all began and all these different things. You know, I tell them, you know what, some 32 years ago, when I was pastoring a church, being a clergy of a church in Dallas, Texas, the Lord spoke to my heart about walking away from everything to give my life for the lost world.

And I really didn't know what to do. My wife and I said, okay, we'll just start praying. So Tuesday evenings, we will call some of our friends and we will just pray. We have a world map up there on the wall instead of television set.

And we just pray for different countries of the world. And we say, Lord, whatever you tell us, we will do. And it took weeks and months as we began to pray and seek the Lord, the Lord began to minister to us what we were supposed to do.

That was the beginning of Gospel for Asia today, scattered throughout dozen nations, seeing multiplied millions of people come to know the Lord. Some 60 plus minor seminaries where thousands of young people are trained and in the lost world.

And, you know, Christian, you know, Gospel broadcast in 110 languages, I can go on and tell you a whole bunch of things that's happening, but it all began with prayer. And that is reason, by the way, around the world, even today, we have the tradition, I would say a good tradition.

Every Tuesday evening, every week, we meet from seven o 'clock in the evening to nine in the evening, just praying. And first Friday of every month, we gather our entire staff, some hundred and sixty people here in the US headquarters in Canada and UK and all over the world.

We meet from Friday evening till morning hours, praying all night prayer meeting. I tell you, we finish our Tuesday night prayer or Friday night. We can't cover all the information. I mean, think about the book Operation World that is out there, information about every country in the world, what to pray for, what kind of people live there, what are the things happening every single day that we watch that can become prayer request.

And by the way, for some time, our staff have been talking about maybe opening a prayer meeting for brothers and sisters like you and congregations who want to join us through streaming. And we tested this out, by the way, it's absolutely amazing.

Hundreds and hundreds of families and prayer groups are able to log on and do the streaming. What that means is that they can see actually all our people praying and prayer request are shared. And like, you know, I'm sharing prayer request and I say, look, we are going to pray for Burma.

And we say, you know, this is what happened, this is a need and this is a crisis or prosecution, what is going on in some parts of the world. And this is the prayer request. And all of a sudden, we are now dividing into three or four small groups and kneeling and, you know, and huddled together, praying for these things.

And at the same time, people who are streaming, they are also now praying for this prayer request in their homes. Here among our staff, you'll find a daddy and mommy and two kids, you know, as a family, they're praying together or brothers and sisters praying together.

And there in the homes, people are joining us in prayer. So we have decided that we will open it up for anyone who want to join us for these prayer meetings. It's a revolutionary, fantastic, exhilarating experience.

And if you like to know more about it, and join us in this kind of prayer experience, again, you learn to pray by doing it. And I ask you to go to our website and Gospel for Asia's website and learn about this Tuesday evenings, you can join us also Friday, the all night pray, you don't have to join us for the entire six hours or eight hours, you can join us for an hour or whatever.

Depending on the Holy Spirit Rather Than Human Strength

But here's the thing. God is looking for those whose hearts are completely His. It is not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit, say the Lord, please listen to me. When life on earth is over, God will make sure that whatever that remains as a result of our life on earth will not be things we have done with the power of money, our energy, or influence, or any of those stuff.

He will make sure those things are remains will remain that are of Him. And things that are of Him actually comes about through our absolute dependence on our Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit. But we need to understand this, our flesh always will want to get the credit and make things work.

But as far as God is concerned, He is not looking for majority or huge things, but a mighty minority that know Him, people that He can manifest His glory once again through their lives. So I earnestly request you to consider this and maybe you should get a world map and put it there somewhere in your room and look at the world.

TV and radio and magazines, whatever news that you listen, let not that be just news, let that be prayer request. Get an alarm clock and see if we can use it to wake you up maybe 12 in the night or 1 in the morning and spend that half hour hour before the Lord.

I have a little booklet I wrote, Learning to Pray. It is free for downloading and you can get it or you can ask for it, whatever. Again, one of my dreams, Lord, would you please raise up a few million people who will know you, who will pray on their knees, who will see fasting not as a means to lose weight but rather weeping before you on the behalf of the society, the community, the world.

Remember, 80 ,000 people die every single day having never heard Jesus name, especially in the Asian part of the world and then think about the whole world. Let us be those people who know the Living God, who will do exploits but that happens on our knees.

May the Lord speak to us and draws close to Him. Thank you for listening. That's K .P. Yohannan on the Road to Reality, a ministry of Gospel for Asia. Hey, let me elaborate on a few of the things that he mentioned.

First is booklet, Learning to Pray. As we've heard today, prayer changes things and us. Learning to Pray is a booklet by K .P. You can download the PDF free from our website or we can send it to you for a suggested donation of £1 .50 plus postage and packaging.

K .P. also recommended getting a world map. Remember, we can send you one for a suggested donation of £2 for a small map or £5 for a large map plus postage and packing. Both maps highlight the 1040 window, that most unreached area in the world.

And then, friends, if you want to join our prayer team, go to roadtoreality .org .uk to sign up to receive emails sharing prayer requests from the mission field. Our web address again is roadtoreality .org .uk.

You can also call us on 01904 643 233. That's roadtoreality .org .uk or 01904 643 233. Hey, that'll do for this week. We'll be with you next time on the Road to Reality when K .P. will once again encourage us from the Bible.

In the meantime, a resolution. We are going to be men and women who pray. This is Richard Bews with Gospel for Asia, sharing with listening friends a love for Jesus and a love for even the most unreached in his world.