12 Days of Christmas Prayer Challenge

12 Days of Christmas Prayer Challenge

Starts December 12-23

During a time of seeking God over the past few weeks on the state of the world and problems I see friends and family facing daily, I have been feeling an urgency to seek the Lord in prayer even more and to encourage other believers to gather together in unified prayer. Let’s face it. We’ve heard more people than ever say the words World War III more often than we are comfortable with. Terror is making it’s way into our streets. Entire people groups are being displaced around the world with all the dangerous situations that are unfolding. Immorality is out of control and the current generation seems to have lost it’s soul with discussions of selling baby parts and self-centeredness, suicide, cutting and drug use are out of control. As the holiday season is upon us, many people face depression, discouragement and disillusionment over what Christmas is really about. Deadlines loom, pressure is on to create the “perfect” Christmas experience for little ones, concerts and performances abound and financial pressures seem to douse any “Peace of Earth” we may seem to acquire along the way. What is the answer? Christ-centered prayer! Yes! PRAYER WORKS!

The purpose of this prayer challenge is to encourage believers all around the world to:

1. Seek the refreshment and renewal of repentance.
2.  Join one another in corporate prayer (2 or more people) for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to shake our families, churches, communities, states, nation and world.
3. Unite as one voice before the throne of God to seek his mercy and grace to deliver us from evil.
4. Fight against the unseen powers of darkness with the spiritual weapons of our warfare.
5. Ask The Lord to refocus our eyes to see the sovereign Lord Jesus, Emmanuel, God with Us and to see our families, friends, neighbors, and world through his eyes.
6. Cry out for those who are hurting, lost, injured, sick, alone, poor and in rebellion for The Lord to intervene in their lives and to show us how he wants us to be the hands and feet of Jesus to them.
7. Sit in the presence of The Lord, to wait on him, to listen to him, and to receive from him encouragement, strength and revitalization.
8. Praise the Lord and to lift up his name in holy reverence.
9. Reclaim the holiday season for our families and churches to celebrate the incarnation of Christ, who came to be a mediator between God and man. To focus our hearts and minds on our personal and corporate relationships with The Lord through prayer.

JOIN US! So far we have believers from several nations participating! 
If you are interested in gathering a group of people and encouraging them to participate in this prayer challenge, here is a brief guide. It may be just 1 other person, it may be 20, it depends on which direction God leads you in.

1. Subscribe to my blog for daily emails with focused prayers that will be posted by midnight each day. Each email will have a scripture focused on the incarnation/birth of Jesus and a written prayer guide you can choose to follow, if you would like to.
2. Start reaching out to friends and ask them to join you in prayer. Make sure they know the challenge is an accountability prayer challenge where they will meet every day or pray together on the phone. Assure them they do not need to feel super comfortable praying with people to participate. The scriptural prayer guides will be very helpful to those who feel uncertain. They will gain confidence in prayer the more they pray together with friends.
3. If you choose to do phone prayers, try to set a couple of times during the 12 day challenge to meet together to pray for an hour.
4. If you are a leader/facilitator, begin praying for those you are inviting to pray with you that God will encourage them and ignite their prayer lives with power and the anointing of The Lord. Ask God to give you personal encouragement and that you will not lose heart.
5. On the last day of the challenge, I encourage people who are in groups local to each other to join with other groups to fast and pray together.

My personal prayer testimony is this: Prayer can be difficult. I can get easily distracted. Let’s remember that Jesus said “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He encouraged the disciples to pray together during a time of difficulty, before he went to the cross. Can you not pray together one hour? His directive was for them to pray together so they would not fall into sin. God began to explode my prayer life when I started meeting together with other believers. We began to experience signs, wonders and seeing people coming to Christ on a daily basis. Marriages began to heal, prodigal children began coming home and Jesus’s name was exalted. When you are weak…remember a 3 strand cord is not easily broken! This prayer challenge is for you to get out of your comfort zone and into the zone of God’s presence.