Sat 17 March - Prayer that gets results

Juanita spoke from a book by EM Bounds, and specifically chapter 13 Prayer & Missions 

The success of all real missionary effort is dependent on prayer

An anti-missionary Christian is a contradiction in terms.  We might say that it would be impossible to be an anti-missionary Christian because of the impossibility for the divine and human forces to put men in such a state as not to align them with the missionary cause. Missionary impulse is the heartbeat of our Lord Jesus Christ sending His own vital forces through the whole body of the church.  The spiritual life of God's people rises or falls with the force of those heartbeats. When these life forces cease, then death ensues. Likewise, anti-missionary churches are dead churches, just as anti-missionary Christians are dead Christians.

A praying church (today, praying believers or senders) through Jesus Christ, will gain victory on every battlefield in heathen lands.  It is as true in foreign fields as it is in homelands. The praying church wins the contest. The home church has done but a paltry thing when she has furnished the money to establish missions and support her missionaries.  Money is important, but money without prayer is powerless in the face of the darkness, the wretchedness, and the sin in unchristianized lands.  Prayerless giving breeds barrenness and death. Poor praying at home is the solution for poor results in the foreign field.  Prayerless giving is the secret  of all crises in the  missionary movements of the day and is the occasion of the accumulation of debts in missionary boards.

The people who give will not necessarily pray. Many in our churches are liberal givers who are noted for their prayerlessness. One of the evils of the present-day missionary movement lies just there.  Giving is entirely removed from prayer. Prayer receives scant attention, while giving stands out prominently. Those who truly pray will be moved to give.  Praying creates a giving spirit. The praying ones will give liberally and self-denyingly.  He who enters his closet in prayer to God will also open his purse to God.  But mechanical, reluctant giving kills the very spirit of prayer. Emphasizing the material to the neglect of the spiritual, by an inexorable law, retires and discounts the spiritual.

We then prayed & interceded for our missionaries as well as those the Spirit put on our hearts.  Among others, we prayed specifically for JP and his family abroad as well as at home.  It was the next day that we heard that his mom who had been ill for many months, had peacefully gone to be with the Lord. We are greatful to know that the our prayers moves the Hands that moves the world.