The book in your hands weighs less than one kilogram, yet if all the desires, requests and goals expressed in it were to be implemented it would radically change the nations of this world. Wars would be ended, ethnic hatreds tamed, politicians become honest, ecological restoration begun, global warming and AIDS halted, poverty reduced. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ would be provided with godly leaders, it would be renewed, revived, united in vision, mobilized for mission and readied for the return of its Head. Jesus would return with the world evangelized and the Church complete! That is the wish. How much of the earthly and how quickly the eternal agendas would be achieved depends on ONE activity – prayer in the name of Jesus to a loving, sovereign Father.

Hans von Staden, the man of God used to instigate and name Operation World, often quoted these words:

When man works, man works;
When man prays, God works.

The Publishers in designing the cover proposed using the latter half of this quote on the cover with good reason. The ministry of the children of God is not doing but praying, not strategizing, but prostrate before God seeking His will, not clever stratagems for manipulating people and events but trusting in God who moves in the hearts of even His most implacable enemies. Through prayer Nebuchadnezzar, and today’s dictators get converted, Manassah’s and today’s persecutors repent and kingdoms of Babylon and Iron Curtains are torn down. We do not engage in ministry and pray for God’s blessing on it, prayer IS the ministry from which all other ministries must flow.

Prayer not only changes people, situations and even the course of history, but also those who pray! It is dangerous for the enemy and also ‘dangerous’ for you. There is a price to pay to be a person who stands in the gap between fallen man and a righteous God. That price may mean becoming an answer to your own prayers in giving time, finances and even going out as a witness in your Jerusalem (where you now live), your Judea (your own country), your Samaria (the other ethnic groups in your own country) or even to the ends of the earth. Our prayer is that many will give their whole lives for this most noble of causes – to obey Jesus’ last command in making disciples of all nations and so ready the Church and the world for the grand climax of His glorious return.

Patrick Johnstone
Operation World, Copyright 2001.