Pray for the Entire World

The Dare challenge no. 1: Over the next year, I will pray for the entire world.

I’m going to pray for the entire world? Yeah, right. “God, bless the world.” There, that was easy.

Obviously Jesus wants us to get more serious about sharing his love with the world. He does tell us to pray, “thy kingdom come…” And Jesus specifically instructs us to pray for workers to go share the good news.

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:35-38)

We have incredible resources now to help us pray for the world, in a systematic, comprehensive way.

OperationWorld.org has an excellent collection of prayer material, including a prayer calendar, covering all the nations of the world. You can begin with their 60 prayer challenge, to receive daily prayer reminders. After 60 days, they will send you a daily reminder based on their 365 day prayer calendar. http://www.operationworld.org/prayer-movement-sign-up. I signed up for the emails yesterday and have already begun praying.

The International Mission Board maps hundreds (thousands?) of unreached people groups around the world, showing each group’s information. http://gettingthere.imbresources.org/ When you click on the link, you will find a map with many dots on it. As you zoom in to a particular region, you will see that lots of the dots overlap. Click on a dot to learn about the people group at that location. All of these people groups need to hear the gospel.

Prayercast.com has videos that inspire prayer for peoples who need to hear the gospel. You will see the skylines of cities, landscapes of regions and faces of people in all different areas of the world. When you put a face to prayer, it gets much more personal.

I hope that you will make daily prayer for the world part of your life routine.

The Dare starts on April 1.