Jackson Senyonga

I heard a great sermon this past Sunday. We had a missionary from Uganda, Jackson Senyonga, come and speak to us about prayer. Here follows some things that he preached:


Does God answer prayer? What kind of prayer does God answer?

He preached from the Scripture :

2 Chronicles 20

Here are some quotes from Jackson:

"God has no credibility problem in the area of answered prayer."

"It's impossible to seek the Lord and not find him."

"When you stand on your knees, you are taller than your enemies."

His Message:

There are 5 kinds of prayers that God answers:

1) Desperate Prayers:

a) Casual prayers: America loves this one

b) Crisis prayers: (9/11) its a good prayer, but it dies quickly after the crisis is over

c) Committed prayers: This prayer causes real change

-2 Chr 20:12 - "we don't know what to do Lord, but our eyes are on you...."

- in humility - ex. Moses, Jacob

"Prayerlessness is an exhibit for Pride."

Jackson believes right now, that "Prayer is the missing ingredient in the American Church."

2) God likes to answer the Big Picture prayers

- Kingdom Minded prayer

3) Pray for Other People:

-"It starts with you, but doesn't end with you."

-"We are so much in our own way"

- "It's not about me, it's about the Kingdom."

4) Act/Walk out your prayers: everyone has a part to play

"Prayer is harder on our knees"

"Some of us want to hide in prayer to disobey God"

-"We want to spiritualize our disobedience.----that's witchcraft."

-"What ever you don't do, it goes undone."

-"If you don't go and touch those(non-believers) people [you just prayed for], they will go untouched and go to hell."

5) Pray sacrificially

"Not out of liking, but out of obedience.

Ex. from Scripture:

Matt 16:21-23

21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." 23But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

As soon as Jesus began to speak on sacrifice and death, Satan [through Peter] interrupted because ----

"Sacrifice produces power"

"Fires from heaven (Power) don't fall on nothing, they fall on sacrifice"

what are we living for? (Part 1)

Today, I went to a funeral. A friend of mine's mother-in-law went to be home with the Lord and today was the memorial service. I had never met this woman before, but after the service I felt as though I did. And what a wonderful woman of God she was.

A friend of hers' was a man that I greatly respect, David, who spoke during the service. He was a professor of mine at Bible College and he is a wise man and has a deep love of God. There was something he said about this woman that spoke volumes to me. He said the reason she was such a cheerful person was that she "knew she was deeply loved by Jesus." That is what gave her great joy. She experienced the unending and abounding love poured down from above on her. This caused her to return that love back to her Savior and to all those around her.

This is such a simple, yet profound thing.

As I am preparing for this weekend's services, this celebration of a life well lived brings me to think about the Love of Christ. And to John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

And to Isaiah 53:5:

"But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

This causes me to raise a question: What is it about Christ's love (agape) as opposed to the other types of love, namely brotherly love (phileo) or romantic love (eros), that can save the whole world and bring peace to a lost soul?

I saw a couple movies recently. One of my favorites is The Fifth Element (Sci-Fi). In it, the antagonist is literally "pure evil". It consumes everything in its path and it threatens to consume Earth. The protagonist is another alien in the form of a beautiful woman. She is the key to stopping evil from winning. In the process of the movie, Bruce Willis' character falls in love with the perfect woman. Long story short (it's still a great movie), Love, the love between two people, is enough to stop the evil force and even to completely destroy it.

So, can romantic love (eros) save the world from evil and bring peace to all? Hmmm...