Please pray with us that the Kingdom of God come!
Jesus said in Matthew 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray: '...your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'" We must let the Holy Spirit teach us how to pray God's Kingdom come.
Why do we need to pray the Kingdom come? Check out this World Missions Update, with many statistics taken from www.goconnect.org, the Christian World Encyclopedia and http://www.joshuaproject.net/:
There are now over 6 billion people in the world (6,000,935,000). 1 out of every 7 is a believer.
2,000,680,000 have heard of Christ but are not believers.
3,000,485,000 have not "adequately" heard of Jesus Christ. This is one-half of the world.
2 billion HAVE NEVER HEARD OF JESUS CHRIST.
There are approximately 24,000 people (ethnic) groups in the world. 10,000 have some indigenous witness of Christianity. 14,000 people groups have NO INDIGENOUS WITNESS of Christianity.
We must note Matthew 24:14, which says "And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all 'nations' (Greek "ethnos" = ethnic groups), and then the end shall come." Remember that Revelation 7:9 reveals a group worshiping in heaven that "was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language..." God is interested in every language and ethnic group and wants the Gospel preached to them all. He loves and cares for them and plans for them to be in heaven with Him. We must agree with God's plan and pray the kingdom of God come to these groups in the earth.
Let's say the world was populated by exactly 100 people. How would the major people groups be broken down?
57 of them are ASIANS.
21 of them are EUROPEANS.
14 are AMERICANS.
8 of them are AFRICANS.
50 of them are under the age of 29.
33 are under the age of 18.
70 of them cannot read.
8 have a college education.
87% of all missions giving goes to areas and people already evangelized.
12% of all missions giving goes to people reached but unconverted.
1% goes to unreached people groups.
So, we are praying God's Kingdom come to a largely young, foreign and lightly-educated world. Do you think of the world this way as you pray? Are you participating financially to help us reach the unreached?
PRAY FOR THE WORLD!
Do you have a global prayer mentality? As we remember that God sent His Son into the world to "save the world" (Jn. 3:17) and He sent Jesus because He "loved the world" (Jn. 3:16), we must learn to see the world as God does. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. When we see the world through God's eyes, we will begin to pray for the world as He desires. One way to develop a "pray-for-the-world" vision is to choose a different part of the world everyday, and pray specifically for that region. Name the countries out loud in God's presence. Thank Him for loving those nations and tribes and tongues and sending Jesus to die for them. For instance, you could use the following format:
Monday - pray for the nations of Europe: France, Italy, Norway, etc.
Tuesday - pray for the nations of South America: Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador,etc.
Wednesday - pray for the countries of North America: Canada, the USA, etc.
Thursday - pray for the people of Asia: China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, etc.
Friday - pray for the nations of Central America: Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.
Saturday - pray for the people of Africa: Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, etc.
Sunday - pray for Anartica and Australia.
Get a world map with the names of the nations and keep it with you in prayer. Name the nations by name; God is interested in each one of them. He loves all the people of every nation.
To help you further develop a world mindset, set aside days to pray for those swept up in the religions of men. On certain days, pray for the Hindus, and on others, pray for Muslims and Buddhists. On others, pray for people blinded by New Age thought. God loves all these people.
There is another thing you can do to expand your vision for the world. Give to a missionary in some country you are burdened for. Give an offering every month for a year, sowing seed into that nation. God will bring about a harvest. When you give financially, your heart is revealed. Don't worry how much your offering is, just begin to give it, and God will show you how to adjust it as you go. Many are so concerned about how much they can or cannot give that they do absolutely nothing. God will not tolerate this from His people. We in the USA are so blessed, so wealthy compared to the rest of the world, that we have no excuse; we must give.
One more thing you can do: pray for un-reached people groups. There are many tribes and peoples who have no known Gospel witness. That is, according to the best estimates we have, there are some groups with not even one Christian living among them and no one is there telling them that Christ even exists. For un-reached people groups you can pray for, check out www.joshuaproject.net.
There is great power in your praying. "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective..." (James 5:16).
Finally, as you pray, ask the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into His harvest field. Pray for believers to share Christ wherever they live in the earth.
Let the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord! May God's people pray!