Global Prayer And Fasting: Praying For The Nations by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

God's World and Our Assignment

This is God's world. He created it. He made it. The Bible says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all that is in it. All belongs to God, and our work is to carry out the will of the Father in the earth. But there is a way that God wants to do it.

When you receive the Holy Spirit to live in you, the Bible says, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." So the Holy Spirit becomes one with your spirit in such a way that your body is not housing two spirits. And that changes everything.

2 Corinthians 5:19 — "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and had committed unto us the word of reconciliation."

This is remarkable. When God had Jesus on the cross, it was actually God working through Jesus Christ. He says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This is a completely different language from simply saying Jesus is God. He is not referring to the deity of Christ in this moment — he is referring to the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was in Christ Jesus.

And like that, when you receive the Holy Spirit to live in you, he becomes one with your spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. Jesus himself said, "My Father that dwells in me, he performs the miracles. He does the works." Same thing with us.

Think about it — when we pray in tongues, which the Bible refers to as praying in the spirit, who gives us the utterance? The Holy Ghost. The Bible says we pray as the Spirit gives us the utterance. So those words of the spirit come from him.

Perfected in Every Good Work

Hebrews 13:20-21 — "Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

God himself is working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight. The Holy Spirit will not authorize such a prayer if it were not the will of the Father to make it so in your life. You can be perfect in every good work.

Philippians 2:13 — "For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

He makes you willing, and he makes you to do it. Some people get willing to do something but never do it. But because God is working in you to will and to do, the doing happens.

Praying for the Nations

This is the will of the Father regarding prayer. 1 Timothy 2:1-4 — "I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."

This is the will of the Father. When we pray like this, it is God who is working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. God is working through us. When we pray in the spirit, when we pray inspired prayers, the Holy Spirit is projecting his will through us, inspiring us with the right words that please him. It means God surely will answer.

If we are not praying for the nations and somehow expecting peace, that makes no sense.

God wants us to pray for nations and their leaders and to recognize that there are satanic characters, agents of the devil, who work against the will and purpose of God in the nations. Chaos destroys men's lives, misleads leaders, misinforms them, misdirects them, and inspires them to do evil things. They take the wrong steps and destroy their own country — sometimes against their own will, unable to control themselves because forces more powerful than themselves have taken over them. But when we pray, those powers are broken and their influence is destroyed.

That is why God has us as his agents of goodness, righteousness, and justice — to pray for the nations.