A Great Prayer Conference

Last weekend I went to a prayer conference with a couple of my closest friends that was sponsored by Central Christian Church. We were blessed by the teaching of Dr. James MacDonald, Pastor Cal Jernigan, and Pastor Hervin Fushekati! All three speakers were amazing in the way they allowed God to use them to send out His message. They are each a testimony to what God accomplishes when we are obedient to Him. Each of these men have life stories and experiences that convince me that walking in obedience to God has more than likely not always been easy. I’m sure there have been many times throughout their lives in ministry that they have been ready to throw in the towel, to give up because things get tough….but because of their obedience they are allowing God to work through them and in turn consistently touching and changing the lives of so many people!

If you haven’t heard about Dr. James MacDonald, you have to check out his ministry at www.walkintheword.com. He is the pastor at Harvest Bible Church in the Chicago area and he is the host of the nationally syndicated radio program called “Walk in the Word”.

Even though there were tons of “take-aways” from the conference, I think the two that stood out for me were:

1) The teaching on Jeremiah 33:3 which says “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand).” AMP


This verse just laid it out point blank for me. It says you have got to talk to God if you want to hear Him! Simple, huh? God tells us to talk to Him and He will answer you!” How much more straightforward can it be? If we want to know the things we cannot understand and want help making those choices in our lives, we must call on Him. He says He will then show us “great and mighty things”! Wow!! How can you NOT afford to take time out of every day to call out to God?


Here is that scripture from the Message Bible: “Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own”…I love the ending “things that you could never figure out on your own”. That tells me that if I don’t make praying and worshiping God a huge priority in my life, there are going to be WAAAAAAAAY to many things that I can’t figure out!!!!


2) The passion Pastor Hervin Fushekati has for Christ so totally “oozed” out of him as he shared his story of living in Albania and his conversion from the Muslim to the Christian faith. His sharing was so touching…I think not only because it was simply such an interesting and amazing story, but because of the humbleness with which he presented himself and his story. He told of being a part of a very powerful and strong Muslim family and even being placed in a position by Muslim leaders to infiltrate Christian youth groups and then to conversion to Christianity and church planting and even establishing the International Schoool of Theology and Leadership. Can you even imagine? To me it is so mind boggling. We forget that we, as Christians living in the United States have such freedom to worship….His story is a true reminder of how sad life could be without that freedom and a reminder to never take it for granted…nor to take our relationship with Christ for granted!


I will close with this Bible verse and thought from Pastor Cal Jernigan:

Be still, and know that I am God – Psalm 46:10

God tells us that in that quiet time with Him when we pray; we make a relationship with Him come alive…without prayer we will never experience the person of God.


Makes sense, huh?