In this next year, I will be helping lead and host 3-4 days of prayer. These days of prayer are in combo partnership with TUMI and our Christ the Victor (CTV) church planting movement that we are launching soon here in Wichita. This is the intro letter I wrote for our first day of prayer that happened two weeks ago.
Our next day of prayer will be March 1st, and we would love to invite anybody in the Wichita areas to join us from 7-4 on our campus as we pray for God to move powerfully in our cities.
Greetings Fellow Prayer Warriors,
Welcome to our first CTV/TUMI day of
prayer! I am confident and expecting God
to meet us in a powerful way as we seek His face and offer petitions on behalf
of the city in the strong name of Christ our Victor.
Our World Impact ministry is over the
40-year mark now. No doubt we have seen
God do some dramatic things in our midst.
Yet, the prevailing feeling from our leaders and our new president Efrem
Smith is that our greatest days are ahead.
As we look at the way God has moved, renewed and realigned our ministry
in the past year, it is clear that we are positioned to see God launch a big
movement in the city.
Yet we are very aware that we will need
God to arise in our midst. Our efforts
and strategies won’t be enough. We need
God to show up in power and defeat the enemies that are in the way. What are
those enemies? If you have spent any
time in the city, it is very clear that there are intense strongholds of Satan
that have held people captive for generations.
We know that people are trapped and enslaved by the devil (John 10.10;
Hebrews 2.14-15).
Praise God, that through the triumph of
Jesus Christ, we are assured victory!
Jesus has conquered sin and death.
It is now up to us to engage this battle and lay hold of the victory
that is in Christ. How do we do this?
It starts with prayer. Paul Billheimer,
in his book Destined For The Throne,
says, “Prayer is not begging God to do something that He is loathe to do. It is
not overcoming reluctance in God. It is enforcing Christ’s victory over Satan.
It is implementing upon earth heaven’s decisions concerning the affairs of men.
Calvary legally destroyed Satan and canceled all of his claims. God placed the
enforcement of Calvary’s victory in the hands of the Church (Matthew 18.18 and
Luke 10.17-19).”
This gets to the heart of why we are here
to pray. Christ has given us the
victory. We are going to enforce that victory in plac es of darkness where the
devil has temporary reign.
In September of 1999, God birthed multiple
prayer movements all over the world. Four
months later in 2000, Rev. Dr. Don Davis was given a vision to start a prayer
movement in the spirit of Jonathan Edwards and the great Awakenings called Let God Arise. This would be a movement to see God arise in
the inner cities of America and in the darkest places of our world.
For 14 years, TUMI and many on our staff have
faithfully been praying for the urban poor.
No doubt where we are today is a direct result of those prayers.
Now as Christ the Victor is launching a church-planting movement
among the poor, we firmly believe that this movement will advance
through the fire of God’s presence that we seek in fervent prayer.
CTV Fire is the prayer and revival initiative of the CTV church-planting
movement. Together, let’s be intentional
to pray, seek the Lord and believe that our church-planting movement and a
prayer movement will spread all across our nation among the urban poor.
I want to personally thank Dr. Davis and
all of the TUMI staff for their partnership in our days of prayer. We are glad to join together to “enforce
Christ’s victory over Satan.”
May this be a new season where we see God
arise in the cities.