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Answered Prayers from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Today I want to talk about Answered Prayers and how they come about. We hear a lot about “unanswered prayers” and I think those are great, but for me, I love the answered ones. I want to take a complex, multi-layered subject and try to make it as simple as possible.

Picture in your mind the army of God, with Jesus being the General, and the Holy Spirit as your commanding officer. You are disciplined. You have trained for this all your life. You take orders and you do what you are told, and things run like a well oiled machine in His army. You don’t understand every detail about the masterplan, but you are given what you need to know at this point in time. Troops on the other side of the world are working on their own campaign. When there is a shortage somewhere in supplies or troops, the requests are made and the General may move things around the battlefield. He may send out troops to bring fresh supplies.

We are God’s hands and feet on Earth for we are the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12) and He works primarily through His people. Most of the time when a blessing comes to you, it will come through His people. You send up your requests by praying, the General orders it to happen, and then one of His troops brings it to you. Let’s take a moment to look at the chain of command by examining a moment in the life of the deacon Philip. He had left Samaria and was traveling down the road when the Holy Spirit told him to catch up with a chariot that was ahead of him. Acts 8:29:

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Acts 8:29–31 NASB

The Holy Spirit placed Philip on that road, at that moment, and told him to go to the chariot. Philip had no idea that the man was a very important court official in Ethiopia, who answered directly to the Queen and was over the treasury department. The eunuch had questions about scripture and that led Philip to have a conversation with him about Jesus. They came to some water and Philip baptized him. Because of Philip obeying the Holy Spirit, that Ethiopian eunuch took Christianity to the continent of Africa. 

Everything was timed perfectly. The man in the chariot was traveling along the road. The Holy Spirit had Philip in place. The man was reading a scripture that he did not understand, and the Holy Spirit gave Philip the right answers. The Holy Spirit was completely invisible, but completely in charge, and all Philip had to do was what he was told.

I want to share a testimony from our life. In December 2014, the Holy Spirit began speaking to us about starting an Internet Church. We saw hundreds of people who were connected with us through our devotional, but didn’t have a church or Christian friends. Many were disabled and homebound and we would often get a hundred prayer requests a day through email. The Lord began to show us that He had already put the abilities in our life to connect these people together with other Christians without having to leave their homes. An interactive online church with a prayer network, and live meetings. A safe environment where Christians could make friends. That vision began to grow within us.

That January, my wife Sylvia and I sat down and calculated what it would take to get started. We made a spreadsheet of the expenses and things that we would need to buy. The list of things that we came up with totaled $2500. At the time, we were the only tithers at Refreshing Hope Ministries and that was more money than we had. We prayed about it and felt that it was what the Lord wanted us to do, so I pulled an old computer server out of the closet that we had left from our business, and I began to format it on the kitchen table and get it ready.

Within thirty minutes, someone came to our website and donated exactly $2500. We had not told a single soul but had only prayed about it a few minutes before. We were both blown away. At the time, the average donation at RHM was around $5. We prayed, and God sent one of His troops to help us. In the same way, there have been many times when He has used us to be a blessing to others. Do you see how interconnected we are? We depend on each other listening to the Holy Spirit. I need you to obey the Holy Spirit, and you need me to. When everyone does their part, the Body of Christ is made strong.

We each have our own gifts, and those are given to build up the body of Christ. It’s not what God can do for you. What can you do for God? Ask not what your church can do for you, but what can you do for your church? Listen for those gentle promptings, like when He tells you to give someone something. Your flesh does not want to give anything away, so you know it’s Him. Obey Him and you become the answer to their prayer. When you feel the urge to pray for someone, do it. Your prayer may be the one that brings the breakthrough in their life. When you feel like you should encourage someone, take a moment and do that. Return that phone call, send that email, make that post, follow the General’s orders. There will be more answered prayers when God’s people start listening to Him.

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please speak to me in a way that I understand. I want to be a part of what You are doing on the Earth. I want You to work through me. Show me who I can be a blessing to and give me words to encourage those around me today, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.