A Match Made in Heaven

Inside Mary’s house, the prayer meeting had come to a halt and a debate was raging. Some said Peter had been delivered. Others said it was just an apparition standing at the door, but all the while Peter continued knocking.

After all the fasting and prayer had been done, there was still something those faithful intercessors needed to do before they could receive the miracle they so earnestly desired. They had to get off their knees and go answer the door. This is a powerful illustration because the truth is that prayer, while powerful and necessary, is not enough.

Prayer must be accompanied by action, just as a gun must be equipped with bullets. James made the connection when he said, “…Faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). Jesus told the disciples to pray for laborers to be sent out into the harvest, and then He turned to those very same men, and said, “…GO into all the world and preach the gospel…” (Mark 16:15 NKJV). The disciples had become the answer to their own prayers!

Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke has asked this question: If every Christian would lock themselves in the prayer closet 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, and do nothing but pray for the salvation of this world, what would happen? The answer is…nothing. Nothing will happen until someone wakes up in the prayer meeting and goes out into the highways and byways to tell a sinner that Jesus saves!

If you could draw close enough to God to lay your head on His chest and listen to His heartbeat, this is what it would sound like: “Sal-va-tion, Sal-va-tion, Sal-va-tion.” God loves the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son who paid the ultimate price to purchase our salvation. Could there be any more ardent explanation of God’s deepest desire? How can a person claim that they are intimate with God and yet have no burden for the lost? And how can a person claim to have a burden for the lost and yet do nothing to reach them? The deduction is simple: True intercessors are also soulwinners.

But the pendulum swings both ways. Any ministry not born out of intimacy is a hoax.God is not looking for hired hands…He is looking for sons and daughters. If prayer is the right leg, the preaching of the Gospel is the left leg. One without the other produces a crippled Church. Since God has given us both, there is no need to hobble about, but we can march down the gates of hell when these two ingredients come together.
It’s amazing that in some circles there is a rivalry between those called to pray and those called to preach.

Those who feel a special calling to pray often think that everyone should be as they are – praying for hours every day and fasting constantly. Those with a special gifting to evangelize think everyone should be standing on street corners with Bibles and bullhorns. But both prejudices are wrong. While it’s true that every intercessor must also be a soulwinner and every soulwinner must also be an intercessor, God gives different gifts to different people and we need each other. Actually, it is absolutely imperative that the evangelists and the intercessors work together if we hope to facilitate this great end-time harvest of souls in our generation.

In one decade (2000-2009), our ministry — Christ for all Nations, founded by Reinhard Bonnke — has seen over 53 million people receive Jesus Christ as their Savior in our massive evangelistic events… but I believe that the greatest days of harvest are still ahead of us! Someone once said, “The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.” In order for us to seize the moment that God has given to our generation, it is going to require a strategic, divine alliance between the soulwinners and the intercessors who will unite around the agenda of Jesus – to seek and to save those who are lost.
I believe with all my heart that the greatest move of God in the history of the world is standing on the front porch, knocking on the door. Together we will answer it for Calvary’s sake.

Evangelist Daniel Kolenda