Ekklesia worship Network

02/12/2025

30/11/2025

IGNORANT PRAYERS (Dr Abel Damina)

1CORINTHIANS 2:12
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. (KJV)

Prayer is a very important spiritual exercise in the life of the believer. In prayer, we exercise our authority in Christ. In prayer, we develop boldness to do the work of ministry.

In prayer, we receive instructions and directions about life and ministry. When we pray, we are fellowshipping with one another in the spirit.

There are dimensions of influence that you cannot have in the work of ministry if you are not given to consistent and heartfelt prayer life.

Jesus had moments of prayer and the apostles also had times of prayer. The fervency to work the works of the spirit and the endurance to face persecution is achieved by prayer.

This is because in prayer we are strengthened by the spirit in our inner man. We are to pray as much as we study God’s word. We are to pray more in tongues for much edification and strengthening in the Spirit.

As much as prayer is important, ignorance of God’s word can make you pray the wrong prayers.

It is wrong to pray for God to give you power because all the power a believer will need for everything has already been given at the time of salvation.

In prayer, we make use of the power already in us. From our opening text, there are things already given to us freely in Christ.

These things are already for us and in us. It is received in full at the time of salvation. It is therefore not a prayer topic.

Prayer for God to make you righteous, for God to forgive your sins, for God to give you his Spirit, for God’s presence, for God to love you are all ignorant prayers.

Praying to God not to miss rapture or heaven or for your name to be written in the book of life are all ignorant prayers.

These are all available for us in Christ. We can never pray to be forgiven or righteous than the day we received Christ.

Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesians church in Ephesians 1:18 that “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what the hope of his calling is, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”. What we are to pray for is that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened that we may KNOW what we already have in Christ.

The problem is not about God but in our ignorance. We are to know our inheritance in Christ to enjoy them. We are not to pray for God to give them to us.

God has already given them; we are to know by revelation knowledge to enjoy them. We study and pray to know what God has already given to us in Christ Jesus.

I refuse to pray ignorant prayers. I don’t pray to have what I have already in Christ.

Ephesians 1:3-21,
Philemon 1:6,
Colossians 1:12-14

GLORY TO GOD!

15/09/2025

Tremendous truth

12/08/2025

TRAVAIL AND GROANINGS.
When a woman gives birth to a child (an illustration which both Isaiah and Paul used) she travails in birth. She groans. The reason that too few people are being saved and that a lot of conversions never amount to anything is that God doesn't want conversions; He wants births. As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. If there is no travail, there are no children.
Do we know anything about travail, groanings? Some of us know a little about it. But many know nothing. In some churches if believers would begin to groan and cry at the altar, it would disturb people. They would say, "We're not going to have any of that around here." Then they are not going to have any births,
either.
Some of the greatest things that have happened to me in my ministry came as I prayed this way with spiritual intercession. It
will work now just as it did in days past. God's Word doesn't change. And just as surely as we travail in prayer, we will give birth to babes in Christ.
Now we can also make intercession for the saints in this way. Remember Paul told the Galatians, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you"
(Gal. 4:19). In other words, he travailed in prayer for them until they grew up to be stalwart Christians rather than baby
Christians.

In a meeting I was holding in Dallas, Texas, a young woman came forward and gave her heart to the Lord. She had a glorious experience, but in a short time she fell away from the church and I later heard she was backslidden. When I heard that, something
on the inside of me seemed to say, "This church is responsible."
At the time I didn't understand how the church could be responsible for the girl's backsliding. However, later as this Scripture was made real to me, I saw how the church was responsible to "travail in birth again until Christ be formed" (v. 19) in this new convert. Until Christ has been formed in the new believer, he will naturally keep doing some things that are wrong, even though he has been saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible teaches there is a similarity between spiritual growth and physical growth. No one is born a full-grown human.
We are born babies and we grow up. Neither is one born a full-grown Christian. He is born a baby and then grows up. As ministers and teachers we are responsible to teach new
Christians. Peter said, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
On the other hand, the Word of God teaches that we must pray for baby Christians. Paul taught the Galatians and prayed for them, too. His letter to them was full of teaching and
instruction. But he also said there must be prayer—travail—for them.

While holding a revival in a small church in Oklahoma in 1950, I told the people one night that the Lord had impressed me to tell them something. I told them that if they, as believers,
would give themselves to spiritual travail and intercessory prayer, they would take that town for Christ. At that time their Sunday School attendance was about 135.
A few men and women in that congregation took that to heart and began to give themselves to interceding—groaning and
praying for that town as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit.
Less than two years later I returned to that church to see a dramatic change. Originally, the members had met in an old frame building. But now they had the only brick church in town.
They were located right downtown, across the street from the bank. They had a two-story Sunday School annex, an auditorium that would seat 500-600 people comfortably, and they were averaging 400 in Sunday school. Theirs was the largest church in town, and this was accomplished by prayer.

Sometimes you can do things with a church program, but that doesn't necessarily mean you are bringing people to birth. We can have all kinds of programs to get people to church, but
that doesn't mean we will get them saved. We can get them to join the church, but that doesn't mean they are born again.

I know from experience that when I have a burden of prayer for a lost person, I feel the same as they do. I am taking their place. I feel that same burden of sin on my own conscience, it seems.

People have said to me, "I know I'm saved, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, and I'm walking in all the light I have. But many times when the altar call is given, such a burden comes on me I
feel as if I'm lost. I don't understand."
They never have been taught along these lines. I tell them to sit quietly during the altar call when they feel such a burden, and to make intercession for the lost. God is wanting them to intercede for the unsaved. Because certain people have been young in spiritual things, the devil has made them believe in
their natural mind that perhaps they weren't saved. They could not understand why they had such an overwhelming feeling at times.
We need more of this kind of praying, and when we have it we will get more people saved; for when Zion travailed, she brought forth children.

Therefore, don't draw back if the Holy
Spirit moves upon you in groanings; respond to Him.
With this kind of praying we won't need all the elaborate methods used by some churches to attract people. Some put on every kind of program imaginable and use numerous gimmicks,
thinking this is the way to reach people. They use every kind of weapon except spiritual weapons.

- Kenneth E Hagin (The Interceding Christian)
- JESUS SAVES TV

13/07/2022

SATAN. HIS CHARACTER

We can best understand Satan's nature in the same way that we understand God's, that is by his Names.
The whole series of revelations of God in the Old Testament are revelations through the Names that He gives. Therefore, we will study the names of our great Adversary, Satan, in order to discover his character.
"When any one heareth the word of the kingdom and under- standeth it not, then cometh the Evil One, and snatcheth away that which bath been sown in the heart." Matt. 13:19.
Here he is called the Evil One of the earth.
Verses 38-39 of the same chapter. "And the field is the world: and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the Evil One; and the Enemy that sowed them is the Devil: and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels."
Here he is called the Devil and the Father of the tares.
He not only steals away the good seed that is sown in the hearts of men, but he also sows tares and wickedness in the world.
His name "Devil" means "Accuser," "Defamer," "Calumniator," "Slanderer."
These are titles that describe his character.
The very word "Devil" has enwrap within it all the significance of these four synonyms.

HE IS THE ACCUSER

He accuses the brethren day and night before God.
He is the Defamer; he is defaming the Church, and the character of God; and the integrity of Jesus continually.
He is the Calumniator; he is ever bringing railing accusations, vile, unclean accusations against the human.
He is the Slanderer; he retails all that is vile and unclean.
He stirs up dissensions; bitter awful scandals are the delight of this archfiend.
It would be well for us to stop here and notice this fact: neither God nor Satan can minister to or destroy the human but through the human.

HE USES MAN

Satan must use human lips or pen to do his dirty work for him.
He has no power to defile, to destroy, or to lead astray, except as he has a human instrument.
God has no power to bless, to inspire, to lift, to save men except through a human instrument.
It seems a crowning pity that man should lend himself to the Devil as a medium through which he can work to destroy the human race, but he does it.
In 2 Cor. 11:3 he is called the Corrupter, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity that is toward Christ."
Here Satan is the corrupter, the defiler, the robber of virtue and the purity of the heart.

Satan has always delighted in being the instructor of youth.
He uses some vile man or woman to defile a boy or girl and then sends that boy or girl out as a missionary into our public schools and colleges to defile the minds of the innocent.
How often our sweet baby boys and girls are corrupted and robbed of their purity of heart before they reach the high school grades; nothing is left holy or pure to them.
The holy secrets of life are all dragged into the filth and mire of vile conversation and suggestions, and our sweet babies come back to us scarred forever by Satan's defilement.
I Thess. 3:5, "For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the Tempter had tempted you and our labor should be in vain."
Here he assumes a new guise, the Tempter.
He is the sly serpent, tempting Eve from her purity; and Paul fears that the virgin Church of Thessalonica shall be tempted from her love and fidelity to her Lord.
He is called the Seducer.
No name is so vile in our English as that, and Satan is known as the Seducer of the virtue and purity of the Church of Jesus Christ.
He is vile, sly, and cruel, the old serpent.
In Rev. 20:2 is a constellation of names that are hideous to contemplate, "the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan."

PASSION DANCE

Perhaps the name of all names here is "the old serpent."
The word "serpent" really means the fascinator, and how truly Satan has fascinated men and women of all ages since the Fall.
He has given to us the ball-room with its fascinating body-gripping passion music, imported to us from the South Sea islands, from Cuba, and the Negroes of the South, music that throbs and pulsates with a passion that stirs all that is worst in fallen man.
It is no wonder that 90 per cent of the girls today in the houses of ill fame in this country went there through the public dance hall.
There is nothing that so un-mans a man and a woman and throws them open to the God of Lust as this subtle passion music of today.
Satan has reached his highest point of fascination in this subtle, dangerous type of music.
He could only reach a few through the so-called classical music, but passion music is based on one of nature's perverted fundamental laws.
However, the dance hall is not the only place where he fascinates.
There is the card table over which $80,000,000 pass daily, where men blow their brains out, where they throw manhood and character to the winds, where they barter love and home.
And not only does he fascinate with cards and the dance-hall but also with the theater and moving pictures, and today they are holding out a fascination that is emptying our Churches, wrecking the students in our schools, and destroying the boyhood and the girlhood of the nation.

Oh, Satan is a fascinator!
As the bird is fascinated by the serpent, so is the girl and the boy, the man and the woman fascinated by the "old serpent" today, and they walk with closed eyes and benumbed sensibilities into his very jaws.
In Col. 1:13 he is called the "Power of Darkness" out of which we are "translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love."
Darkness stands for ignorance; ignorance has ever been Satan's choicest weapon to keep in bo***ge the great hordes of humanity.
He has held the hosts of the earth's great family in bitter, soul- blighting ignorance.
Not only has he bound with ignorance, but he also has given them a fear of light so that they fight the force that would set them free.
The light hurts their eyes.
The battle between Light and Darkness has gone on down through the ages.
The darkness tried to overcome the light during the days of the Incarnation.
Oh, the bitter sins of darkness, the unnumbered sins of darkness!
Darkness is really the realm of Satan.
But I want you to look once more at the hideous constellation of horror in Rev. 12.

Here he is called the Dragon, the Devil, the father of hatred, the father of murder, the Adversary, the Old Serpent whose deadly coils have crushed the life out of nation after nation and proud city after proud city, until tonight their only monument is the wreckage of their past glory that we see in the piles of their mighty ruins.
Having studied all this, we must constantly remember that we are not under his dominion, because we were translated out of his kingdom of Darkness and translate into the kingdom of light under the new lordship of a new LOVE-LORD who has all authority over Heaven, Earth and the underworld; who together with us, is seated far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come, and that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth; We who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life over Satanic influence through the One, Jesus Christ; this very Love-Lord.

This new Love-Lord is our Shepherd, provider, caretaker, ever present helper and the head of the new creation. The World’s lords through Satan lead to misery, pain and slavery, but our Lord lead us the path of righteousness for His namesake; this mean a life of joy, peace and satisfaction. John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Carefully study the following verses; Colossians 3:15
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
2 Timothy 1:7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
John 16:24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

The Father and His Family

24/06/2022

At the end of 1961, a young exchange student studying at the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, was on his way home, when he decided to take an unguided sightseeing tour of London.

As he walked in the London streets, he came across a house with a nameplate on the front that said “George Jeffreys”. He wondered if it could be the “great George Jeffreys who had founded the Elim Pentecostal churches in Ireland and England” and whom he had read so much about.”

This is how he tells the rest of the story:
_
“There I rang the bell. A lady opened the door. ‘Pardon my intrusion, ma’am. Does George Jeffreys live here who was the famous firebrand evangelist I have heard so much about?’ ‘Yes, he does’.
‘May I see him?’
‘No. Under no circumstances.’
She had hardly said no when I heard a deep voice from within the house say, ‘Let the young man come in.’..I stepped forward, took his hand and introduced myself. I told him I had a call of God on my life to be an evangelist and to preach the gospel in Africa. That I had been to college in Swansea (Bible College in Wales) and was now returning to Germany.

What happened next was extraordinary. All of a sudden, he took me by my shoulders and fell to his knees, pulling me to the floor with him. He placed his hands on my head and began to bless me as a father blesses a son, as Abraham blessed Isaac, who blessed Jacob, and on and on. The room seemed to light up with the glory of God as he poured out his prayer over me. I do not remember the words with which he blessed me, but I do remember their effect. My body felt electrified, tingling with divine energy.

After about half an hour he finished. I stood up and helped him to his feet. He seemed very frail. We said goodbye. The lady came and escorted me away. He could hardly stand. Nor could I, for different reasons.”
_
That young man went on to become one of the greatest healing evangelists of his generation.

His name was Reinhard Bonnke.
(when he got off the train in Germany, Bonnke was told by his dad that G.Jeffreys had just died).

Credit: healing_revival_tidbits