Day of Prayer for Islamic Nations

God is doing incredible things in the Islamic world. Consider Iran as an example. Operation World, specialising in researching the demographics and prayer needs of every nation in the world, writes this about Iran. “Massive numbers of Iranians have come to Jesus in recent years! From only 500 Muslim-background believers in 1979, some estimates suggest the number is even greater than 1 million just in Iran alone.” How can a strict Islamic nation, where it proves very hard to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, be growing in Christianity faster than almost every other country on earth? The answer is because of God’s miraculous power! Operation World goes on to write, “This growth is a remarkable move of the Holy Spirit, with many signs and wonders, dreams and visions.”

There are countless testimonies of how people in Iran and other Islamic countries have seen a vision or had a dream where they have encountered the risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Many have had these dreams and visions, not really having any understanding or knowledge of who he is and then go on pursuit to try and find someone who can tell them who this God-Man is! The Church in Iran has increased enormously, not primarily due to talented speakers and professional theologians, but because of the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer! John Wesley famously said, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.”

With this in mind, Flame held a day of prayer for the Islamic nations on Saturday 1st March (the first day of Ramadan). This is the second time Flame has held a prayer event on the first day of Ramadan, and it is something I hope will continue to happen. We had over 20 people come and sacrifice their Saturday to devote themselves to four hours of meeting and prayer at this event. Now four hours could seem like an enormously long time just to sit down in a group and pray – but of course that’s not just what we did! Importantly, an aspect of prayer that you can never really do without is praise! Praise lifts our eyes to the King of Kings, the ruler of the Universe, to the one who has promised that his salvation will reach to the ends of the earth, Isaiah 49:6. When we are praying for lost souls in the Islamic world to come to know the salvation of Jesus Christ, it’s important for us to remember that we are praying from the winning side! God has been doing it, he is doing it, and he will be doing it – and we get to partner with him and know our prayers are answered because they are in line with his will and the answers of these prayers give him glory! Praise and prayer work together. Alongside this we also enjoyed a time of sharing some testimonies from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and encouraging one another of the things the Lord is doing.

In our prayers we want to consider the people we are praying for, their situation and circumstances, and lift their needs before the Lord. So, for a time we broke out into three separate groups, focussing prayers on North Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia. It was in this time that perhaps we met with the Lord’s compassion for these people, as we spent time focussing on specific people groups and nations within these areas of the world.  

Though this was a prayer gathering set-apart for the Islamic world on the first day of Ramadan, I don’t think any of us could ignore the ‘Elephant in the room’! Tensions were rising that weekend in regard to the Ukraine/Russia war, and it would have felt wrong to miss this opportunity to pray into the matter as a larger group of praying people. It appeared that the Lord had more than just one thing for us as a group to carry to him, and after some time spent in prayer for this, it felt good to have released that to the Lord in faith.

With any of these times of intercession that we have it is important to remember that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, Ephesians 2:6. An important part of prayer is to seek to see the situation (however big or scary it may appear), from God’s perspective, rather than our own. Alistair Petrie puts it this way, “Remember – our ‘altitude’ affects our attitude and determines if we are praying negatively under the circumstances with limited vision and perspective – or positively above the circumstances at his (God’s) invitation and divine positioning.” This changes everything in regard to the manner, way and faith of our prayers. So, because we partner with what God the Almighty is doing and promises he will do in the Islamic nations, it was great to be a part of this day of prayer. 

INTERCESSION HUBS Flame are gathering groups of people who have a heart to see the gospel spread throughout the nations. If you’re interested in joining an Intercession Hub please contact Tristan@flameinternational.org or visit flameinternational.org/hubs

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