Interesting Quote to Ponder

"Ignoring God while pretending to serve Him is a serious violation of relationship." - Bill Johnson

Confidence before God

How often do you have this lurking sense of not quite measuring up before God? You "know" your sins have been forgiven through Jesus Christ. You "know" that He accepts you and loves you. Yet, you feel this vague, undefined, subtle, can't quite shake it, sense of condemnation. You can quote Romans 8, "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," yet it feels more like words than reality. Let's face it, with little effort, I could rattle off several areas in my life that are not where they should be.

So let me ask you this question. Whose voice are you listening to? I have always been intrigued by 1 John 3:18-24. To quote just part of it, "We will know by this [our willingness to follow God's instructions] that we are of the truth, and will persuade our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God." To live in this place would be absolute bliss to me. I am sure there are many opinions on what John meant....so here is my take. There are many voices speaking to us. Some are bad, some are good but not perfect, and there is One that is both good and perfect. The devil and his hoard speak. Always bad! He is called the accuser of the brethren and even when he mixes in some truth, he is still a liar! Then there is our conscience; something the Lord Himself gave us. And although we need to pay attention to our conscience, we also need to recognize that it is not perfect. It has been defiled, and in really extreme situations, seared. This may seem like a strange statement, but there are times when your conscience (or your heart) will condemn you when the Lord Himself does not. This is why John says that God is greater than our hearts. As important as our conscience is, the Lord is greater. If our conscience condemns us, we must take it before the Lord to see what He says. For He is good and perfect. If we desire to follow God and His instruction then even if our heart condemns us, we can come against this condemnation with the assurance that we are right with God. And our hearts will no longer condemn us.

The bottom line is this: if you desire to follow the Lord and are willing to follow His commands, your heart need not condemn you. God can and will guide you and transform you into the image of Jesus. You will make mistakes and sin will occasionally get the better of you. But God sees and knows the entirety of your heart and is quick to forgive and move on. You can be confident before Him and know that you will receive what you ask for. However, if your life is currently in a pattern of not fully following the Lord and you are resisting following His instruction and persist in living according to what is right in your own eyes, then you will not have peace with God, no matter how much you ask for forgiveness and quote Scripture. Only the peace of God that comes by being at peace with God will silence the devil and your own imperfect conscience!

Heaven

Heaven is not a reward for those who are good, rather it is a dwelling place for those who have eternal life.

To A Thousand Generations!

I have heard it said that the 5th commandment (Honor your father and mother) is the only commandment with a promise. The promise is that "your days may be prolonged and that it will go well with you." This is an amazing promise. However, it is not the only commandment with a promise. The 2nd commandment also contains a promise. The Lord promises that He will show lovingkindness to a thousand generations for those who worship and serve Him only. Proverbs 13:22 says that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. What better inheritance could we leave our descendants than the lovingkindness of God? When Moses was giving the Israelites some of his final words of encouragement, guidance and instructions, he recalls with amazement how the Lord chose the Hebrew people to deliver out of slavery, to create a new nation based on knowing and having the presence, voice, and commandments of God. This new nation was destined to be a light to the whole world. Why would the Lord choose the Hebrew people out of all the people in the world? Because He loved Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deut 4:37). Men who loved, worshipped and served the Lord. It has been around 4,000 years since Abraham lived on this earth and the Lord is still showing His lovingkindness to the Jewish people and His greatest act of lovingkindness is coming soon...the salvation of the Jewish people as a group! Now that is faithfulness!! What the Lord has done for Abraham, He will do for you!

How important is it to you?

I once heard someone ask, "if it is not important to you, why should it be important to God?" As I was meditating on this the other day, I sensed the Lord ask me a question. "What if the intensity of My answer was directly proportional to the intensity of your prayer?" I knew He was not referring to the volume of my prayer, but to the intensity of passion in my heart to seek after Him in prayer and cooperate with Him in the answer. "For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." Luke 6:38

Greatness before God

I was thinking about King David this morning and what a great man he was. I was asking the Lord about what it means to be a great man and how to become one. He began to speak to me about how true greatness comes as we desire to be great before Him, privately, as He defines greatness. The Lord exalts and the Lord brings down. He can exalt in a day and He can bring down in a day. David developed greatness before the Lord before anybody really knew who He was. David's mighty men attained to this stature while with David in his exile in the wilderness. The Lord spoke to my heart, "Become a great man before Me and then you can be a great man for Me."

Get Your Own Oil

Matt 25:8-13 “The foolish said to the prudent, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' "But the prudent answered, 'No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' "And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. "Later the other virgins also came, saying, ' Lord, lord, open up for us.' "But he answered, 'Truly I say to you, I do not know you.' "Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”

Knowing God Personally

This is a season that we must have our own relationship with God. We must hear Him for ourselves, we can not live on someone else’s relationship or knowledge of God. There have been prophetic warnings from recognized prophets within the Body of Christ about trials, tribulations, and difficulties coming to America and the world in terms of natural disasters, economic distress, political turmoil, and religious persecution.
Many of the recognized prophetic voices of the church body as well as people in our church are sensing a great urgency to develop this personal relationship and intimacy with God so that we will be prepared for the times ahead.
The following dreams were given to some in the congregation and I believe they are important.
Dream #1: there were a large number of people waiting in line outside the church to get their furnaces checked.
Dream #2: A man specializing in disaster relief was speaking at our church. He told us that winter was coming and that it would be very cold and that we needed to make sure that our furnaces were working and that we had enough fuel to last the season.
Dream #3: I am in a furnace room in the basement. On the floor is a sleeping bag with a body in it. It was a woman who had died 2 months earlier. Her name was Debbie. It was just a skeleton as the rest of the body had decayed. As we looked upon the skeleton all the flesh came back on and life came back into her. She opened her eyes and got up very excited.

I believe the furnace represents passion for the Lord. I believe this is a warning that we are not quite ready for the season that is now beginning. The lack of readiness has primarily to do with our lack of passion for intimacy with the Lord. The dream assures us that if we attend to this now we will experience both the resurrection power of Jesus and the awakening of the church in Ezek 47. I find it interesting that 5 families in the church have recently replaced their furnaces. Five is the number of grace. I believe the Lord is prophetically saying NOW is the time of grace to fix our spiritual furnaces and kindle passion and zeal for the Lord by knowing Him personally. But there is also a warning that the time is VERY SHORT and passivity will have serious consequences.

The Coming of the Lord

I believe that even more important than the warnings about trials and tribulations are the many prophetic promises about the coming of the Lord. This is far more important and should be our primary focus. We want to be ready so we do not miss the day of our visitation.
The Lord tells us to be sober and alert for the following purposes:
· To be ready for His visitation (Matt 24:42 – 25:13, Mark 13:33-37)
· To Pray (Col 4:2, 1 Peter 4:17)
· To overcome evil with good (Rom 13, 1 Cor 15:34, Eph 5:14, Eph 6:18, 1 Peter 5:8)
· To be prepared for difficulties (Luke 21:36, 1 Thess 5:6, Rev 16:15)
· To take action (1 Cor 16:13, 1 Peter 1:13)

Shift Happens

We are in the midst of possibly the most significant shift in the history of the Church. It is the shift in our thinking and attitude. The church is about to mature.
· From just knowing about God to knowing God personally
· From asking God to fix our problems to asking Him to fix us through the problems
· From praying for the answers to praying with the answers (decree)
· From asking God to do our will to surrendering our will to Him
· From looking to “professional” ministers to do the work to all the saints as ministers
· From waiting for the glory of God to come down upon us to allowing the glory of Christ to arise out of us
· From asking God to do for us to properly exercising the authority He has given us
· From an ownership attitude to a stewardship attitude
· From works of the flesh to works of the Spirit
· From preaching the gospel of salvation to the gospel of the kingdom of God


Recommended Reading for more details:
http://www.morningstarministries.org/ Rick Joyner’s Word of the Week
http://www.brilliantbookhouse.com/ Graham Cooke
http://www.streamsministries.com/ John Paul Jackson prophetic bulletin http://www.elijahlist.com/ Prophetic words by Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce & others