Listening Well Precedes Loving Obedience
So Paul warned them, 10 “Men, I can see that our voyage is
going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own
lives also.” 11 But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the
pilot and of the owner of the ship.-Acts 27
It can be said that listening is more important than doing.
The Apostle Paul was one who exemplified the practice of God’s presence as well
as a desire to listen and obey His voice at all costs.
Intimacy with God is always Plan A to be cultivated and
experienced by those who follow Christ. Extraordinary Prayer in the process of Church Planting Movements occurs not through anemic levels of intercession. Prayer is simply dialogue with the God who is, and was, and always will be. We talk to God, He talks to us. We cultivate intimacy or we remain largely disconnected to ABBA: those are the two choices for the believer. What one does for Christ is to be done
out of the overflow of a daily growth in the practice of intimacy in Christ.
Recommended Study for the Cultivation of Extraordinary Prayer:
- Read the book of Acts
- list out what the followers of Christ did and how/what they prayed. Be amazed at the anticipatory nature of their intercession, predicated upon the promises, purposes, sufficiency and nature of God.
Listen to discern
God’s ways
Several times weekly we search for Persons of Peace (POP) as
delineated by Christ in Luke 10 and Matthew 10. As we walk through our
respective days, we trust the Holy Spirit with anticipation to lead us to
anyone, anywhere, and anytime. In most cases, we are intentionally with our
national partners together in this pursuit.
On one particular day, my husband and I were enroute to an overlook
located at the northwestern part of our island. Usually, we have found loads of
Sumbi, Soli, and other Unreached People Groups as they take in the ocean side
view. On the hour’s drive to this spot, we prayed for however the Father
desired to lead. We listened. We prayed through the 10 essential elements to
trust the Holy Spirit to launch a Church Planting Movement (CPM).
On
this day, no one we met was readied to start a Discovery Bible Study (DBS) with
us but interestingly so, a group of female dentists from Mksr and Mmj areas of
Eastern part of our country were there visiting.
After
we established that we are followers of Isa Al Masih we talked with them about
the reality that many Islamic peoples have not taken the opportunity to explore
the stories from the prophets in the Bible, though the 4th letter of
the Koran (4:136) admonishes Muslims to do so.
These
women were scheduled to return to their area of this country the next day. We
exchanged cell phone numbers and asked if we could contact them on our planned
survey trip to their area and go through some of these stories upon meeting
again.
Our
vision and passion is to continue to train, coach, be practitioners of CPM
among the Sumbi and Soli. In addition, for the past several years, we have been
able to train more indigenous college students as professionals (doctors,
teachers, fisheries specialists, and such) to prepare them to launch CPM teams
among the Unengaged/Unreached People Groups (UUPGs/UPGs) of other parts East in
this country.
The
other Strategy Trainer team we are recruiting is for the area from where these
gals above mentioned originate. In a couple of weeks we plan to meet with a
potential couple whom God may lead to facilitate CPM among UUPGs/UPGs in the
southern area of the Eastern region. (note: we have since taken that survey trip with the said couple. This couple is now settled on being led to this Cluster of UPGs and are raising support)
Prayer focus…
- Ask God to rip the heavens open and come down in provision for those from within this country to be equipped and sent, as well as strategically placed foreign catalysts of cpm.
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