by Dr. David Yonggi Cho
Did you miss part 2? Read it here: http://wp.me/p8fWJl-2x
Principle #2
Have an extraordinary burning desire and zeal to have Church Growth
One should have extraordinary zeal to have Church Growth. People are all having a desire to see the goal accomplished in their lives but to have successful Church Growth, you must have extraordinary desire- burning desire. The desire should be burning in you through and through. Many people have a lukewarm desire. They say, "Well, God, if you want me to have this, OK. If you don't, that's fine with me."
Well, if you have that kind of desire, you can't accomplish. You must have a burning desire, extraordinary desire in your heart. Then you are pressured by your desire to kneel down and pray. If you have extraordinary desire, you are going to pray day in day out.
Those days I would pray for five hours every day. This desire was driving me and forcing me to kneel down before God and pray for an answer, for His intervention and so I'd pray hours and hours.
Many people are asking questions, "And so now how many hours do you pray?".
Well, now I'm quite busier than those days but still try to pray from one to three hours every day. So, stronger vision you have, stronger desire you have, then you will spend more time praying. Prayer is the foundation of Church Growth.
Through prayer, you can go into the spiritual realm and you can really receive God's grace and blessings in your life. So prayer is very important.
In Korea, we are having revival across denominations because the Korean Church is a praying Church. We have early morning prayer meetings; people get up at 4:30 in the morning and they come to Church and pray and then they go to their job. We have all-night prayer meetings every Friday. Then throughout Korea we have prayer mountains. Any high mountain there, you'll find a prayer mountain.
People go to the prayer mountain and fast and pray. We have one of the largest prayer mountains in Seoul area and every day more than 3,000 of our members are praying on the prayer mountain. Many of them are praying and fasting for more than 40 days. So prayer really shapes the heavens and it breaks the power of Satan. We are constantly engaged in a spiritual warfare because the devil with the hosts of demon spirits are against God's work and we must overcome these unseen enemies; the presence of the demons and the host of demonic spirits. Through prayer we can overcome.
For example, Japan is very near to Korea but Japan has a lot of idols. They have 6 million idols and it's very hard to preach to Japan. I spent more than 10 years preaching Jesus Christ from the northern part of Japan to the southern part of Japan and I could only establish 50 Churches; I was not very successful. It was so difficult.
I preached to the Japanese people but they had such a foggy mind and they asked, "Why should we accept Western religion? We are Oriental. Christianity is a Western religion. Why should we accept a Western religion?"
And I said, "This is not a Western religion. This is the unique Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
They said, "We have our own religion and our own God so we don't need the Son of God, Jesus."
They are very confused.
So one time I had great courage and I chartered an airplane and took all of those leaders- those unbelieving business leaders in Korea.
As soon as they arrived in Korea, their mind cleared and one by one they began to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour.
In Japan I could not help them. They had such a foggy mind but in Korea their mind became clear and they accepted Jesus. They asked me a question: "How come that in Japan we could not understand Jesus but as soon as we came to Korea, we understand Jesus very clearly?"
In Japan, they were occupied by the oppression of the demonic spirits and so they were confused, but the Korean sky is very clear because of the praying Christian. The demonic power is broken.
One American chaplin came to Korea and he stationed an American military base in Seoul and he was having tremendous success. Thousands of the military personnel were coming every Sunday and they were giving their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ but he was transferred from Germany to Korea and he would come to my Church and share his experience. He said, "Pastor, while I was staying in Germany I was preaching to the same American soldiers but the response was very little and they would not listen to me but I canned up all of my sermons and brought them to Korea and refreshed the sermons and preached the same sermons to the military people here in Korea and they gave their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. How come? What's different?"
So I laughed, "You are taking benefit from the Korean prayer." Because in Germany, due to the new theology there, many Christians in Germany are not praying very much and so the power in the air is very strong but in Korea, because of all of these prayers, the power in the air is broken. We have overcome the resistance of the devil. And you are getting benefit of the Korean prayer.
That Chaplin had tremendous success!
If you have extraordinary desire to see Church growth, you must engage in spiritual warfare because the power in the air is there to fight God's movement and the devil with demonic spirits would not like to see God's Church flourish. So first if you don't bind the strong enemy, you cannot really rob the house of the enemy and bring the unbelieving soul to Jesus.
That's the reason I'll pray very very much before I preach because I should break the spiritual power in the heaven and when I get rid of the resistance, then the power of the Holy Spirit will be unleashed and we can have tremendous results.
That's the reason in Korea we have great revival in our country regardless of denomination, whether Protestant, Anglican, or Catholic, we're all having great revival because we're all praying tremendously.
I'll tell you one thing: my late mother-in-law was a great prayer warrior. She was praying day in day out and I actually learnt how to pray by her.
In the cold winter morning, I would not like to get up out of bed and come to Church but she would come with a towel drenched in icy water and put it on my face and I'd jump out of the bed, sit on the edge of the bed and say, "Mother, kill me. Kill me."
One day I was fast asleep and the telephone rang. In that drowsy condition, I picked up the phone and heard my mother-in-law's voice. I jumped out of bed; I'm most afraid of God and my mother-in-law.
She said, "Son, what are you doing?"
I said, "Mother, I am sleeping."
"We are waiting here now. It's 30 minutes past 5 am. Are you still a Christian?"
I was so frightened; I jumped out of bed and brushed my teeth, took a hold of my Bible and rushed to Church and ran on the platform and the people were all laughing and rolling. When I looked at myself, I was in my pajamas.
So you should pray to have revival. This icy cold atmosphere in Church will not permit the warm working of the Holy Spirit so remember that your extraordinary desire drives you to pray and prayer breaks the power of Satan and brings the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
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Dr. David Yonggi Cho is the senior pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea. He shared the seven.principles of Church Growth at a Church Growth Conference in London some years ago.
God wants to reach more people with the Gospel, and retain them.
You will learn, as you follow this series, these seven principles of Church Growth.
Dr. Yonggi Cho also has to his credit several bestselling books including Successful Home Cells and The Holy Spirit, my Senior Partner.
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