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COLLEGIATE DAY OF PRAYER FEBRUARY 27
John R. Mott called a generation of students to pray for their campuses, believing that if students prayed for the Lord would send forth laborers, the students themselves would get caught up in both the intercession and sending of missionaries. A new generation of students is joining in intercession and missions. Students are meeting to pray, pooling finances to support missionaries, and answering the call. February 27, 2014 is the Collegiate Day of Prayer. Whether you're a student or not, you can participate in two ways.
- Go to CollegiateDayOfPrayer.com and adopt a campus to pray for. Let students know you stand with them!
- Join us on a prayer conference call, 12:15 PM to 12:45 PM on February 27, 2014 on behalf of our colleges. We will be joined by Collegiate Day of Prayer operations coordinator Thai Lam. Call 712-432-0075 and enter participant code 1412452#.
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IRAN PREDICTS NUKE TALK FAILURE
The Obama administration will open a fresh round of six-nation talks Tuesday aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, but Iran's top leader predicted on the eve of negotiations that diplomacy will fail.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday that he accepted the talks at the urging of other Iranian leaders but added that Washington will be to blame when the negotiations collapse.
Ask God for spiritual discernment that you and fellow intercessors pray according to the will of God. Intercession is spiritual warfare, not against flesh and blood but against forces of spiritual darkness. Iran's people are not our enemies. Offer thanks for the many Christian believers in Iran who have been called out of sin's darkness to Christ by God's grace. However, Iran's leaders are virulently anti-Israel, wishing (planning?) for its destruction. Therefore, we pray those plans will fail, that God preserve His covenant people, and for the peace of Jerusalem, that its divisions be resolved. Pray that our nation's negotiators have divine wisdom not to be misled.
"Jesus answered [Pilate], 'My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.' Pilate therefore said to Him, 'Are You a king then?' Jesus answered, 'You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.'" (John 18:36-37)
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: 'May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, prosperity within your palaces.' For the sake of my brethren and companions,I will now say, 'Peace be within you.' Because of the house of the
Lord our GodI will seek your good."(Psalm 122:6-9)
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JONG-UN FORCES MOTHERS TO DROWN THEIR BABIES
North Korea forces women to undergo abortions and young mothers to drown their newborn babies, and has starved and executed hundreds of thousands of detainees at secret prison camps - atrocities that the chairman of a U.N. panel that documented the abuses compares to those of Nazi Germany.
"The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," the U.N. Commission on Inquiry said in a 372-page report released Monday on North Korea's atrocities. These crimes are ongoing because "the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place."
Will we, as intercessors, be honest and courageous enough to avoid self-righteous anger at Korea's Kim Jong-un? Instead, let us compare him with American abortionist Kenneth Gosnell (et al.). While Kim forced mothers to drown their babies, Dr. Gosnell did the job himself, killing live-born infants in his Philadelphia "clinic" by snipping their spinal cords with scissors. Give thanks that Gosnell has been deposed and is in prison for murder. Pray the U.N. will deal with Kim similarly. Pray, too, for a return to moral sanity in the U.S. and that the growing movement to overturn Roe v. Wade succeed.
"But we [Christians] have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." (2 Cor. 4:2-4)
"So when [the Pharisees] continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, 'He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.' And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last...." (John 8:7-9)
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POPE: SEX AND DIVORCE ARE ON THE AGENDA
Meetings this week between Pope Francis and his cardinals will deal with some of the thorniest issues facing the church, including the rejection by most Catholics of some of its core teaching on premarital sex, contraception, gays and divorce.
German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who has called for "changes and openings" in the church's treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics, will give the keynote speech Thursday to the pope and cardinals attending a preparatory meeting for an October summit on family issues.
For intercessors, this is not only a Roman Catholic issue but a God-given call for widespread "house cleaning" within the Christian Church, which is in decline globally, with very low scores in positive influence. The Catholic Church of the 21st century still deals with the papacy scandals of the Middle Ages as well as the horrific pedophile sex crimes against children in modern times. The Church needs healing before it can dispense healing and freedom before it can minister freedom to its constituents. Pray accordingly, and include your own group or denomination. May God's mercy impart to all Christians a heart of repentance. Let intercessors pull down strongholds in the name of Jesus Christ. (Note: The Isaiah passage was spoken to God's covenant people, though rebellious and disobedient.)
"For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?"(1 Peter 4:17-18)
"'Come now, and let us reason together,' says the Lord, 'though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword.' For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 1:18-20)
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NAVY TO DEPLOY LASER SYSTEM THIS SUMMER
Some of the Navy's futuristic weapons sound like something out of "Star Wars," with lasers designed to shoot down aerial drones and electric guns that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds.
That future is now.
The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two years.
Are we to pray for better weapons or for the cessation of warfare? "It fundamentally changes the way we fight," says the program manager, which may be a positive thing if the war is just. Pray for our nation to experience revival with widespread conversions to Christ that will enable our national leaders to weigh global options carefully and to seek justice with godly wisdom at the negotiating table before committing our troops to combat. Psalm 20 is an example of how a righteous nation, with a righteous cause, may call upon the Lord. For intercessors, we are to cry out for spiritual victory.
"May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; may the name of the God of Jacob defend you; may He send you help ... We will rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners! ... He will answer him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." (Psalm 20:1-2, 5-7)
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)
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STATES BANNING SEX-ORIENTATION THERAPY
The push to ban sexual-orientation "change" therapy for children is growing as lawmakers in at least eight states have introduced bills to outlaw the practice and gay-rights advocates expect at least a few to become law this year.
In Maryland, Delegate Jon S. Cardin, a Democrat who is running for state attorney general, has filed legislation that would ban such therapy. He said leading medical and psychological organizations have declared that "being gay is not a disease or a choice."
Lawmakers in Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia also have introduced bills to ban sexual-orientation change efforts for minors.
IFA's prayer points in these alerts are suggestions only. Intercessors are individuals, not "one size fits all." Yet we achieve unity when we pray,
not from the news or human commentary but by the unchanging Word of God. What does Scripture clearly teach? Answer: mankind was created in God's image, distinctly as "male and female." The result was a man and a woman told to be "fruitful and multiply after their own kind." Every baby since has been either a boy or a girl, both in God's image. From that perspective, we may pray with compassion for individuals and families with any confusion in the matter. Knowing God's design, we pray for freedom for all through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it....'" (Gen. 1:26-28)
"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." (1 Cor. 15:45-47)
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