A Personal Prayer of Dedication!
I was close to death three times in my life –
· First, when I was 17, I ended up quarantined in a hospital for TB patients. I spent 10 horrible days without visitors. My grandmother prayed for me pledging her life for mine, and God miraculously answered her prayers by healing me on the tenth day to the amazement of the doctors who firmly expected me to die. I saw my grandmother living exactly less than a year after my healing. 10 months after my healing, she told me on a Friday morning that Jesus would take her home the following Sunday at 2:00 AM. It was exactly Sunday at 2:00 AM that she went into the arms of Jesus. From Friday to Sunday, until her time of death, she was describing heaven, counting the angels close to her bed, and describing the countenance of Jesus to me who was on her bedside. Her words to me: “My child, if only you could see my Jesus and His shining face, you will never doubt Him anymore. He is here with me. He will take me home Sunday at 2:00 AM!” When she closed her eyes, her face was brilliantly shining! I am glad that I was privileged to witness the last moments of one of God’s precious saints before she went home to be with Jesus!
· Second, when I was 19 I vomited blood four times with bleeding and ruptured ulcers. At that time, I was so critical that the doctors gave me only 10 hours to live. It was the time when my poor mother, a grade schoolteacher was crying out to God in the corner of the room where I was admitted. As much as I knew that my time had come, I also knew that I was not going where my grandmother ended up going a couple of years before. I frantically cried out to God: “Lord God, I never acknowledged You or received You into my life, despite my grandmother’s and my mother’s prayers for me. Please give me a chance to live, and I will live for You. Please have mercy upon me, O Lord, please!” A brilliant light came into my room, and I felt the touch of my Master Jesus, and I was healed completely to the amazement of the Hindu doctors who treated me as though they fully expected me to die.
· Third, most recently when I was in Quito, Ecuador, I was hospitalized with gastroenteritis and severe dehydration on Friday, October 20, 2023. I grew worse on the morning of Friday, October 21 around 3 AM. The time was significant in that every morning around 3 AM, I have been awakened by the Lord for the last 20 years to pray and spend time with Him. That morning, I was critically ill. My heart rate was very fast, and my lungs were filled with so much fluid that I could hardly breathe. I was sinking fast, and I asked the doctor how I was doing. He said, “You are doing very, very poorly!” I asked the doctors to send word to Hema and Rachel who were in Ecuador with me to come immediately. For a moment I thought that God was about to take me home, even though I had no indication and no information from the Lord that it would be the case. I started praying: “Lord, You brought me here as Your servant. I still have work to do and things to complete. I am not finished with Your work yet. Please Lord, please extend my life for Your glory. Please fill my lungs with Your breath and let me breathe. Let me live for You until You will call me home.” Instantly, I felt a cool breeze coming into my body. Until then, I was perspiring so badly, that my heart was beating very fast, and I couldn’t breathe. God touched me to revive me by His grace and mercy and when I opened my eyes, I saw the most two beautiful faces before me looking at me – the faces of Hema and Rachel! I told them that I had come close to death, and they confirmed that they too had been awake since 2 AM with so much restlessness and pain with the indication that something bad was happening to me. They started praying. God strategically alerted and awakened many people, including an army veteran Ray who comes to the Global Prayer Center for prayer and told me later that he too was up with the burden to pray for me that morning, here in the US, while I was struggling there in Ecuador. I was transferred from the critical condition to an ordinary room in just one day and the following day, I was released from the hospital. We flew home from Ecuador as planned without any delay thanking God for my life that was spared from death!
The day after God touched me to spare my life from the critical condition in Quito, Ecuador, I read David’s prayer from Psalm 71. King David prayed for himself in Psalm 71 and for his son, King Solomon, in Psalm 72.
This powerful portion of David’s prayer became my prayer: “O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come” (Psalm 71:17-18).
“O God, You have taught me from My Youth!”
David was a learner from his childhood. While his brothers were in the army of Saul, David was keeping his father Jesse’s flock of sheep in the wilderness and learning skills God had taught him to protect his sheep from the lion and the bear. In my life, the year after I was healed of bleeding ulcers, I graduated at the top of my class with my first degree (Bachelor of Science in Physics Major). Still, I did not pursue my higher education immediately. I had to wait a year for my next degree. In that year of waiting, after being touched by my God, I spent a lot of time in the Word of God. I would walk a few miles every day and go to a wooded area and pray for hours. I was even preaching to the trees and shrubs.
It was God’s sovereign will that I should wait for a year to continue with my studies. It was solely because God changed my interest in studies from Physics to Aerospace Engineering. Studies in Physics required that I stay close to my hometown but studies in Aerospace made me travel 365 miles away from home to the city where I met Hema. After a year of prayer and meditating on the Scriptures, God fulfilled His divine plan in bringing Hema into my life before I graduated with my degree in Aerospace Engineering.
God has been teaching me His wisdom from the Word from my youth, and I am a learner with an insatiable appetite to learn. My time of prayer after my life was spared as a teenager set the tone for me to come into a lifestyle of prayer. It is without exaggeration that I can say that God’s Word is the foundation of my life and God’s Word has set the will of God in motion in my life. It was God’s perfect will that was revealed in my studies and personal life that has brought me thus far by the grace of God!
“To this day I Declare Your Wondrous Works!”
I started preaching in the streets of India. I shared in many churches and prayed for many in the hospitals. I conducted all-night prayer meetings with over 1,000 people attending the meetings. There were many healings and deliverances from demonic oppressions. It was God’s plan and destiny from my mother’s womb that I would be His servant and used around the world.
When I left for the US in 1979, there were about 150 people in the airport crying all over me wanting to see me not leave them, but I assured them that God was with them and that they should keep their eyes on God and God alone.
Since moving to the US, and first to State College, PA, I had declared the works of God in several churches and auditoriums. We were the first to host citywide meetings with pastors and various congregations in the ballroom of Nittany Lion Inn at Pennsylvania State University.
After moving to Daytona Beach, Florida, I resigned from my job at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1990 after the call of God. Since then, we have brought several cities before God together – Daytona Beach, DeLand, FL, State College, PA, and Cartersville, Douglasville, Lafayette, GA. The citywide meetings among the churches from 1990 through 2000 led us to the “Peace for Israel Festival” with Jews and Jews, which began in 2002. Our first gathering brought 900 people - 400 Jews and 500 Christians to a common prayer gathering at Seabreeze High School Auditorium. Subsequent gatherings at the Ocean Center brought 3,000 and 8,000 people for such spiritual gatherings. We averaged about 100 – 140 Christians and Jews traveling together to Israel to visit the Old Testament and the New Testament sites and pray together at the Western Wall. The most important aspect of travel is the spiritual nature of it with Sabbath Services hosted by Rabbi, Rabbi Gary Perras, and Rabbi Barry Altman, and Christian Services hosted by John Jeyaseelan during the 10-day travels. We had traveled as recently as 2018 before COVID-19 stopped our travels. People were touched and transformed in those travels so much that Christians did not want to travel alone without the Jewish people with them and vice versa.
The vision of the Global Prayer Center came in August 2001 and the building was fully built debt-free and launched in 2014. We have also traveled to all the continents for ministry – North and South Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Island nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Caribbean Islands. Several thousands of souls had come into the kingdom of God with transforming testimonies. Some of the leadership meetings in Kenya bring in 2,500-3,500 leaders annually for the conferences in Nairobi. Some of the pastors attending those conferences pastor mega-churches in Africa and elsewhere. In my ministry travels to Australia, here in the US, and Africa, God opened doors to share God’s messages with a few world leaders and encourage them. It has been an awesome privilege to share the Word of God with several nationalities and people with the love of God! While the full-time ministry spans 34 years, we have been in the ministry for over five decades. To God be all the glory!
“Now also When I am Old and Gray-headed, O God, do not Forsake Me!”
I prayed on the day after God spared my life in Quito, Ecuador on Sunday, October 22, 2023, these words of David: “Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me!”
I have been walking with God at least for a few years, especially now more than ever. His thoughts occupy my soul, and they are precious to me. I am conscious of His presence in my life all day long. God is not far away from me but close to me and in my heart. I am sure that countless of you who read this message (or hear it) do understand because you too can identify with what I am experiencing. My prayer continued that morning with the next few words of David!
“Until I Declare Your Strength to this Generation!”
I continued my prayer: “I still have a job to do, my Lord! Help me to continue to declare Your strength to this generation I am living in. People are so lost that they are dying without hope. You are our only hope. You are our only strength in our weaknesses. You are the only Light in the darkness. You are the only Truth that we all need. In You, there is steadfast hope. In You, there is life and life more abundantly. In You, there is health to all the flesh. In You, we look forward to a life in eternity with our loved ones!”
My generation includes my family, my children, my friends, and all those God has brought into my life here and in all my travels. They cover a broad spectrum of ages from the very young to the very old! Ministry is not a burden to me because of the love of God that fills my heart and the love that I have received everywhere I travel. I have a perpetual longing to see the faces of all the loved ones that God has brought into my life especially my close family which includes my prayer partners. I am sure you can understand and identify with me that I am enormously comforted to see the faces of the dear people in my life.
“Declare Your Power to Everyone Who is to Come!”
The conclusion of my prayer: “Lord, You have helped me thus far to be Your witness here and abroad, both to the young and the old, educated and uneducated, rich and famous, and poor and ordinary. Now, please prepare me with my testimony to be Your witness to the generation yet to come. My grandchildren are coming up, and I am still waiting for the future young ones that You alone will bring into our families. I crave Your grace and mercy to spare my life with health, peace, and joy and to represent You in righteousness and holiness for this upcoming generation to be transformed by You and to experience You as I have and more. I am Yours and Yours alone, my Lord. In the Most Wonderful and Precious Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen! Amen!!”
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John Jeyaseelan
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