Archive for September, 2006

Only In His Presence

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Recently I asked the Lord to remove all burdens from me except what He would give me. His yoke is easy and His burden light (Matthew 11:30) After seeking the Lord from a heavy burden He gave me, this came to my heart for the body of Christ in every ministry around the world.

If we have everything perfect and do not have "the presence of God" we have failed to produce real Christianity. If the presence of God does not go before us the Holy Spirit is not leading. If we do not become carriers of the presence of God we will not have the Kingdom of God. So in that light, why do we do what we do on our Sunday meetings and prayer meetings, or anything else we do as a corporate body of Christ or a ministry?

If Sunday morning is solely an "appointment with God "then we will not keep Him waiting for any practice or the service. If our times of worship and prayer together are an appointment with God we will come with our best to give to our God the worship due Him. We will come only to bring our service to Him, to make a place, an atmosphere, where the King of glory can come. We will come to seek His person, His manifested presence, the thick presence of God, which is His glory with us. It should be the absolute most critical reason for even coming. We will come to be transformed into His image because He came into our midst. We will come with hearts ready to meet Him. We will come to lose ourselves and to give ourselves, not just to get. (It is about Jesus, others, then you.) To often we only come to be served rather than to serve the Almighty God first. We will come to bring our sacrifice to Him, which is our whole life. (body soul spirit) We will come to join our Spirit with the Holy Spirit, which is true worship.

God seeks a place to inhabit first within us and then with us. If we do not become this it is all in vain. How will the lost, confused, and hurting world know that God is with us and that His mercy and grace abounds if the presence of God does not go before us? How can we as his priest and kings have the authority to carry His presence if God does not meet with us? In His presence only is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to cause us to be a reflection in this world of the glory of Christ.

We must make a consecrated decision in faith that we will not go forward to be a witness or a ministry for Jesus Christ without His presence. Like the children of Israel did in Exodus 32 lets put our self on the Lords side, removing our "Golden Calves" of worship, and stripping our self of any hindering ornaments. Like Moses in Exodus 33: 12-17 let's get serious with God and say, "we do not want to go forward without His presence." Seek Him from the depth of your being and pursue to give to God the worship due Him. True worshippers must worship God in Spirit and Truth.

In a practical sense if we were to set our goal to prepare our hearts on Saturday night with expectancy of meeting with God Sunday and worship with that victory in our heart above all the other cares of life stuff, obstacles, and fleshy attitudes, then the Lord will come in ways we desperately need. He will do the impossible among us and through us. Unusual changes will take place, unusual strength, energy, peace, desires will change and fresh new ideas will come. His favor will be upon us. The Father wants us to be free and the Holy Spirit set free.

If we come to prayer to serve Him in prayer we will meet with Him. We need to come not to petition our desires but to pray His will, pray His word and seek the intercession of the Holy Spirit to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on the earth as it is in heaven." We will then encounter His presence and power. If we come to equipping sessions and come hungry to serve Him first then we will meet with God and hear His voice and be empowered through His word and Spirit. So in all we do we must do first unto Him, to serve Him first.

This is the real place God is calling His church to and we must get here or miss the glory of God that He is pouring out. We must get here or miss the wave of revival and harvest we are to experience. We can turn away our God-given opportunity by just putting ourselves or wrong things up as top priority….Oh God forbid. We can miss our season of great victory if we fail to worship Him first.

Church! Nothing…absolutely nothing can be more important than paying the price for His presence. Not respectability, not people popularity, not power, position, or silver and gold can ever take the place the greatness of His presence. Whatever it cost you, just respond to God, do His will and Worship Him above all. The reward is great grace and power in this life and His eternal Glory.

Church! If we do not answer this call to PURSUE HIS PERSON AND THEREFORE HIS PRESENCE ABOVE ALL, then we lose "His Kingdom come" in us and through us. We just cannot live for "this life alone" and exist outside of its eternal God perspective. Neither can we just live " church life as we know it" alone and totally miss Him. The Eternal God perspective is " He will show me the path of life: In His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand (of power) are pleasures forever more. Psalms 16:11

But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things, which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. I Corinthians 2:9-10

How can we worship Him without the Spirit of God? How can we come to worship our God and stay in our self-righteous attitudes, our fleshy opinions, our own best religious plans and abilities? We must have His Spirit or we have no life. We must seek His person, to serve Him first or we have no manifested presence.

Oh Father, anoint this word. May we, your people, truly repent and be revived in your presence. We will not go forward without your presence. Show us your glory, Come with your presence. Majesty surrounds you Jesus and we do not want to go on with out YOU. . Come again Spirit of God, in great power to your people, and immerse us for such a time as this. We belong immersed in your presence. Amen

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Kingom Praying

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

We often miss the point of prayer. There are several aspects of prayer. First of all, prayer is the door of communion. It is a time to pour out your heart to God and hear the response of His heart to you. That is the fellowship aspect of prayer. It is vitally necessary and all too neglected by us more than we know. We rarely come into fellowship with Him where He can speak whatever He wishes into our hearts. We rarely are still and quiet long enough to hear His voice. We are far too used to noise and far too prone to look for the next big bang rather than the quiet voice of the Father. We have to learn to establish ourselves in communion.

Another aspect of prayer is petition. This is perhaps what we are most familiar with and this is the only type of prayer the lost man typically prays. We need something and so we ask God for it. Even though this is completely legitimate and Jesus includes examples of it in the "Lord's prayer," it is often abused as God is treated like a shopping cart for our desires. Still, He would have us learn to live in the blessedness of His provision and so he desires our petitions even though we tend to try to be self-reliant and offer up petitions only when that fails.

Another aspect of prayer that we probably do not understand is that of exercising Kingdom authority. There is a lot of confusion on why God requires prayer and why He just does not do things and why we are constantly begging. I certainly cannot answer all those questions nor do I have the one answer to all those questions, but there is a key here that may answer some of those questions.

Going back to the beginning, God gave man authority and dominion over the earth. That was never taken away. God never took it back. God instead has continued to affirm that authority. That is the whole reason why Jesus came to earth as a man. He had to take dominion over the devil and the earth as a man because God gave man that authority and has no intentions of taking it away from him in spite of the horrible mess he has made.

In fact, Jesus said the following in John 5:22 (AMP), "Even the Father judges no one, for he has given all judgment (the last judgment and the whole business of judging) entirely into the hands of the Son." Have you ever realized that the entire world is to be judged by a man that is living the way God always intended man to live? The Father hands judgment over to the Son. Now we know the Son is fully God, but I believe it is the fact that He is also fully man that uniquely qualifies Him to execute judgment. God gave the earth over to man, and He will judge it at the end of the age by a man.

The second coming of Jesus is the coming of a man. Have you considered that? God overthrows evil and restores the earth by a man. This should open our eyes to just how serious the call of mankind is. It should not fill us with pride, but rather drive us to dependence on God that we exert the authority over the earth that He desires us to have because the authority we are intended to exercise is simply an extension of the divine authority over all creation.

Paul alludes to this very thing when he makes the comment to the effect of, "Don't you know that you are to judge the angels and you cannot even handles things among yourselves?" (I Corinthians 6:3) God has designed man to carry and exercise His authority particularly on the earth. Just as a king gives princes an opportunity to exercise his global authority in a particular realm, so too God has delegated a portion of His authority to men and He is looking for us to exercise it.

The book Rees Howells Intercessor is one of the best books ever written on intercession and contains the portrait of Rees' life. In it Rees and his group of intercessors are responsible to tearing down the Nazi regime in prayer. God revealed to Rees the authority that they were to exercise on the earth and they exercised it against that evil system. The west celebrates the fact that the "Greatest Generation" pulled themselves together, stood strong, and withstood the Nazi war machine. Now there is no doubt there were some amazing feats by that generation and I don't want to take away the honor that is legitimately there, but at the same time all the human effort in the world could not have held back that evil if Rees and his group did not exercise their authority on the earth in prayer.

One who was with Rees during these years of intercession talks about the difference between prayer and intercession and how Rees came to one of their meetings and said prayer had failed against Hitler and they must enter intercession. In intercession, the intercessor must own the thing to be achieved. They are married from the goal and are not released until the thing is accomplished. Stepping into their authority requires that they take ownership of whatever thing on the earth God is giving them. This is the thing. You cannot arbitrary take ownership of matters, it must be God given. However, once God grants the authority in intercession, you then own that thing and it is up to you to bring it to pass.

Authority without responsibility is one of the prize lies of our time in western culture. In reality, nothing of the sort exists. Authority demands responsibility. True power does not exist without responsibility. One of the great deceptions of our time is the image that is constantly pressed upon us of living in a constant adolescence. The images and pictures we have of men and women are not men and women laying down their lives unselfishly and taking on responsibility and denying themselves. Rather we are given images of men and women frolicking and enjoying themselves, living in a perpetual adolescence where they never really mature.

Men are expected to virtually act like high school teenagers with regards to women, sports, and whatever other pleasure they can thing of. Women are to maintain freedom and not be held down by children. They are rather to pamper themselves and spend all their efforts on their youthful figure and appearance. Our society promotes the very antithesis of the way we were created. It pushes us to simply enjoy life as though we were 16, rather than to live with the responsibility for the earth upon our shoulders.

Prayer is one of the primary realms where that authority is to be exercised. It is a Spiritual authority, not a soulish one or a physical one which is one of the reasons prayer is so critical and is the place that so much takes place. This is yet another reason we are admonished to pray in the Spirit which is more than praying in tongues; it is praying out of our Spirit in the realm of the spirit rather then simply launching petitions out of our minds towards a God that is "somewhere up there."

We are required to come into a place of authority in God and then learn how to pray in that authority. God has given us the earth. It is our job to enforce that authority in the spirit realm through prayer. This fact is also why humans are so prone to a thirst for power and so easily enticed by the occult and other offers of power from the dark side. It is in the human dna to rule and have authority. Because of the fall, this has been twisted and we are constantly trying to rule over other humans. Even if we do not have the chance to rule absolutely like a monarch or an emperor, we try to create little kingdoms where we are the rulers whether it is in our families, workplaces, hobbies, churches, neighborhoods, or other areas where we can rule over others.

We are also easily enticed by the power of the dark side because God designed us to rule and we easily take the bait of authority without the price of the cross. The cross is required to bring us back into proper relationship with God so that we can begin the process of restoration and carry his power and authority again. The dark side offers a quick path to power that does not require the cost of the cross. Because it is in our nature to exercise spiritual power, we are attracted to this offer and many fall for it.

There are so many things that we pray for expecting to God to handle things when God desires that we exercise His authority and bring the answer on the earth. We are offering everything up as petitions to Him and hoping and begging He will answer, when He is desiring that we will come into maturity and step into the authority He desires to give and then begin to exercise that authority in prayer and bring the answer to earth ourselves.

We are begging Him to do something and He is telling us to do it. Remember when Jesus sent the disciples out, He did not say "pray to God and ask that if it is His will they are healed." His instructions to them were heal the sick. In plain English, "You go heal the sick." (Luke 9:1-2, Mark 3:15). How can we heal the sick unless we carry His authority? And if we can carry His authority to heal the sick, which is to destroy a physical manifestation of the curse off an individual while the world itself is still under a curse, then what else does He want us to do? He is giving us the offer here of bringing His authority here now in some measure.

In Daniel 10:1-13, Daniel was seeking God and God sent Daniel's answer immediately but it was opposed for 21 days and had to fight to get through to Daniel. It is no coincidence that Daniel was committed to prayer for that same 21 days. Daniel's fight in prayer was exercising the authority of God for the battle the messenger was fighting. God could easily have blasted the message right to Daniel, but He rarely does that. He is looking for us to take our place and exercise His authority. Our present lives are training grounds where we are to learn how to exercise spiritual authority so that we will be prepared in the next age to do it.

There are things that you may be offering up as petitions to God where He is simply desiring that you learn how to bring kingdom authority into your praying and decree it and bring it down yourself. This is not a presumptuous demanding or commanding of things and this obviously requires a communion with Him and a great fusion of our will to His, or we will be praying and trying to bring things down that are not of God. John tells us in I John that we have our requests only when it is made according to the will of God.

This is where the rubber also meets the road. Making petitions of God comes at little cost. The lost man can petition God for his needs and then it is God's fault when he fails to get the answer he wants. Exercising kingdom authority in prayer comes at a different price. This one requires that we come into a deeper relationship with God and become completely filled with Him rather than with ourselves. We have to pass a maturing process just like Jesus did to carry the full weight of His authority. This means that some answers to prayer are lost because of our lack and not God's; our hesitation at God's full requirements and not His hesitation to meet our needs. Certainly we cannot assume that all "unanswered" prayer fits into this category, but certainly some does.

The thing is that we will not learn prayer and will not learn intercession until we learn to step into this place. We are too focused on learning techniques and methods of prayer when God desires somebody to take Him up on His offer, come into this kind of relationship, and then begin to exercise authority from the place of prayer. Our prayers are not to be begging God to do certain things, they are certain places where God is looking at us and desiring that we do it through the tools He has given us.

How are we going to judge angels and take authority in the age to come, if we do not learn it now? How are we going to execute intercession on the earth if we do not understand what God is desiring for us to do?

Remember nothing is in the pages of Scripture as an accident, or waste or there to just tickle your ears. God is always saying something with a passage of Scripture. Consider what God said in Ezekiel 22:30, "And I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none." This revelation in Ezekiel 22 is an example of the fact that God is looking for men who will enforce His will upon the earth. This idea is not isolated to Ezekiel but is rather repeated and demonstrated throughout Scripture.

Do you remember Abraham's intercession for Sodom in Genesis 18? God changed His purposes towards Sodom as Abraham made His requests. God did not initiate the intercession, Abraham did. God responded to Abraham. He knew the heart of God and that God desires mercy over judgment (James 2:13) and so he made his petitions. Note that God responded favorably to Abraham's intercession. One of the things we learn here is this sort of intercession is not a trivial thing. It demands an intimacy with God and knowing His heart. Man does not step into a place with God to "change His mind" but rather to enforce the will of God through his human authority. Proper intercession requires living close enough to God that you know what His heart is and what to intercede for.

Notice as well here that Abraham petitioned God with a reverence. At times attempts at intercession can end up being simply a shouting match or us attempting to order God around. Abraham knew his place and he knew God and he approached Him appropriately. Yet God did not rebuke Abraham for moving God's heart to change His actions because Abraham was exercising God's heart. God's heart is mercy over judgment and so, though Sodom's time for judgment had come up, He was still willing for a man to stand in his authority and plead Sodom's case for mercy. Abraham's intercession could have altered the course of the city had God found the righteous number Abraham requested.

There is a mystery here as to the purposes of God that hints at the previously mentioned idea that history is not some fixed, linear line but rather an ebb and flow of activity and inactivity as men take their place in God and seek to extend His influence on the earth by choosing to exercise the authority inherent to their humanity for the purposes of God. God is looking for men that will be purified in the crucible of His training and then alter the course of history by taking their place in intercession and exercising the authority of God on the earth.

God is longing for men that become so heavenly minded that the can engage God on the issue of world affairs and even alter the course of history, whether it is in the local vicinity where they live or on a larger level. This requires a heart that becomes absorbed and consumed with God until all of life is viewed from His perspective. Only this kind of vantage point in God will produce the vision necessary to enter into this kind of praying relationship with God.

God longs for these kind of men. Consider the words of E.M. Bounds, the author famous for his writings on prayer: "The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery, or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use – men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods but through men. He does not anoint plans, but men – men mighty in prayer." God's heart longs for men who will put down their fascination with this temporal age and step out into eternity with Him and bring authority on the earth.

Consider Moses who was known as the meekest man on the face of the earth. Read the interchange in Numbers 14:12-20. God has enough confidence in the character of Moses that He can tempt Him with the promise of making a nation directly from Him and eliminating the rebellious Israelites. Moses instead steps into a place of intercession and authority where he secures the redemption of the nation.

Notice the interchange concludes with God telling Moses, "I have pardoned according to your word" (AMP). Sit for a minute and let this statement sink in. This is one of the most amazing sentences that could be recorded in Scripture. The almighty God of the universe replies to a man that He will pardon an entire nation according to a man's word? Every act of intercession with God does not have to be something with these kinds of implications, but God is looking for men who exercise authority in prayer in all areas of their lives.

There is a prerequisite to this kind of prayer and authority and it is character. There must be a process of character development to stand in this kind of place before God. Now, that process is not some insurmountable obstacle to keep all but the best and the brightest out, but rather it is a process to which we must submit which can be, at times, quite painful. In Moses' case, it was 40 years of being a nobody in the desert after having been trained to be a ruler in the mightiest nation on earth.

When God has a man of this kind of character, He can come to him like He came to Moses and declare judgment only to see the man step into His authority and change the course of history over a nation. This is not a trivial or trite thing. God could trust the character in Moses to intercede in this situation and God comes to him to give Moses the opportunity to exercise his authority and secure mercy for the nation. God longs to have us live in a place where He can come to us and give us this chance to secure things for nations and individuals. It is a restoration of the divine authority we were given over the earth that has never been rescinded.

You will notice Moses again standing in this place in Numbers 16:22. Because of Korah's rebellion, God tells Moses and Aaron to step away from the congregation that He might consume them. Moses stands for the congregation and God relents and pardons the congregation and only judges those who led the rebellion. Again, Moses takes a place of authority and secures redemption for the nation.

Elijah was another man that demonstrated, even with his fears at times, carrying the authority of God on the earth. He is a man that was trained by God and appears out of nowhere. Notice how he comes on the scene in I Kings 17:1, "Elijah the Tishbite, of the temporary residents of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before Whom I stand, there shall not be dew or rain these years but according to My Word." What a brash thing this would be coming from the lips of a man that was not broken before God. However, coming from a man that had been prepared and broken before God, it is a revelation of the authority that he carries. He carried the power to dry up the rain and the power to let the rain come because of the place he lived in with God.

Notice that when the period of drought was to be over, Elijah said to Ahab in I Kings 18:41, "Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of abundance of rain." Elijah spoke about rain that was not yet coming because Elijah had learned how to secure the purposes of God upon the earth. Ahab goes up to eat and drink, but now Elijah goes to secure the very rain he just spoke about in verse 42. Notice in verse 43-45 Elijah secures the rain by his place in prayer.

What we are talking about here is not something just for "super heroes" or famous men in the Bible. This is something that God longs to see in every believer. God has simply given us these examples in Scripture to reveal His plans. God is looking for men who can take their places on the earth and bring His purposes to pass. He is asking you today if you will step up into character training with Him and aim towards the maturity of exercises kingdom dominion over the earth rather than living in the adolescence of enjoying His blessing but never taking the place He has called you to that enjoys blessing and responsibility.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Go Into All the World

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

All God created is good. Life is good, and life is God's. All we do as His people should be producing God's life on the earth. We are here to produce fruit that glorifies God and ushers in the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth.

God wants us to live and laugh, cry and love, lean and learn, but through it all to see Him in everything. We have to see God in death, see God in suffering, see God in great joys and excitements, see God in the simple, see God in the mundane, see God in pain, see God in the great opportunities, see God in business, see God in the great sacrifices; in short we must see God in all of it. It is all life and life is our time to become like Him. God is more concerned with "who we are than what we do."

All of life is opportunity to present the pure and simple gospel to whosoever; in whatever way the Holy Spirit leads at the time. "An awakening" is desperately needed in the church to life's mission to take Him into every situation and to every person we meet by who we are and what we do. We have been given the power to demonstrate to the world the testimony of Jesus Christ. We have been given, through Holy Spirit, the ability to carefully hear His voice for the way to reach out personally and uniquely to another.

The point is lets "wake up" to see God in all of life and acknowledge Him in all our ways and then learn to hear His voice on each individual assignment he gives to our personal lives. His anointing will be strong for each assignment that He directs personally for you, and to each task whether common or exceptional, each impulse, each spontaneous request, each responsibility, and each sacrifice and it will always produce fruit. We must learn to listen and hear only HIM.

These life assignments change as the seasons change. What and who is most important at the time will always vary according to what God sees. But in every season or change there is a purpose for you and for the others in your life that will produce Kingdom fruit and therefore glorify God. Some assignments are long range in effect, some are quick, some are hard and require sacrifice, some are easier and full of fun, but all are graced with His presence and that is all we ever need to press on toward the High Call of God in Christ Jesus. This high call is to truly know Him and do His will. In all our ways, all our lives, all our affections, and all our passion we individually answer the call to GO! GO and be! GO and do! GO and speak! GO and live as a witness for Jesus Christ out in the world.

GO is a command to move out for God anywhere He leads you; to every person He places in your life, doing everything He graces your life to do. That mission for each man or women is as uniquely personal and individual as the way God made each individual and the giftings He gave each of us.

I said all that to say: ABOVE ALL JUST OBEY GOD FOR YOUR LIFE AND DO NOT COMPROMISE FOR ANYONE but also do not be condemned by comparison.

We cannot compare our "God and me" with another living soul or thing. Neither can we prioritize our "God and me" beneath another living soul or thing. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in us both to do and to will His good pleasure Philippians 2: 12-13.

Our God is "Faithful" and He will lead you when your will is surrendered to obey Him and your heart wants to glorify only Him. He will help you to GO.

As you GO into all your world, acknowledge Him (make Him known) in all your ways. Has He become the one you live through and the life you witness? Do you choose His way over your way? Do you align all of your life up with His truth as your standard of living? Are you a witness that He is the way, the truth and the life and do you tell them that no one can come to the Father God except through Jesus Christ.

Exalt the one you love in your speech, in your deeds, in your ways with the family, the business, your work, in offense, in persecutions, in sufferings, in losses, in stress and distress.

Church we are His body so Go into the world around you and share your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by who you are in all of life, and what you do with all life brings your way.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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God’s Diet for You

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Let's draw our attention to become more aware of the diet of your spirit man, which is more real than your physical bodies diet for it is eternal. In the light of that statement let me remind you that God has the perfect diet for you in this present season of your life. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says: "To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven." There is a plate set on your table and He wants to choose what you will be eating. Let the Holy Spirit pick your diet and be your chef.

Listen to Isaiah 55:1-2 "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance."

Where God has connected you spiritually is where the Holy Spirit supplies your main diet. You must find the place of spiritual nourishment and be in covenant there. Are you in a place where there is always fresh bread (revelation) hot from the ovens of heaven being served to you regularly? If you are then the gates of hell cannot prevail against you and you will mature into your destined completeness in Christ. (Malachi 3:10; Matthew 16:18)

If you are always going after the diet prepared by another, for another, or in another place you begin to live off the nourishment of others and never what is meant for you and your personal nourishment. It can alter the course God has laid out for you. You never really own any benefit personally and you become complacent and apathetic living off of others and their sustenance. You will have trouble finding your place of rest and inward prosperity.

If you over eat all the time you can get so full of stuff He has not ordered and it will not nourish a good healthy spirit. You will end up ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:7) You become dissatisfied and picky. You will never really change. If you under eat your spirit becomes weak and anemic hindering you from fullness of life in Christ.

Let me explain; the Word of God revealed by the Spirit of God must feed the spirit man within you regularly. (Acts 2:42) We Christians today tend to run after that (food) knowledge here, there, and everywhere, this tape, this CD, this book and etc, when the food God has prepared for us is right in front of us in our daily devotion with Holy Spirit and the Scriptures. But we do not take time to sit down at the table of the Lord and relax with Him to eat what He has prepared for us.

Act 2:42 – "And they (the church) continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart."

Also we seek out many other avenues when God has put our diet right in front of us where we are connected in the body of Christ. The God-appointed church body we are connected to is where God feeds us the right diet in our right season. But we do not go to hear it and partake of what God has prepared. Instead we just don't eat, or we can only take fast food, or we want the varieties of food all at once, we want to find more delightful food, we want the food that tickles our ears and satisfies our senses. Bottom line we want to pick it according to our own desires. Sometimes God orders a diet that takes time to prepare and time to eat it all. It will not be all pizza and ice cream. We live in an hour where the sound doctrine needed to grow is no longer endured, its takes too much time and is harder to eat.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – "You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food–catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They'll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages." (The Message)

God is saying let me choose your diet. Be led of me as to what you eat, and find your food at the table of intimacy with Jesus and in your own corporate storehouse that God has provided for you.

There are times God changes your place of spiritual food supply as He has another plan for you, another table set for you in another place in order to fulfill your destiny. If God is changing your storehouse then obey and go partake of the new diet of a new season of your life. But God never changes His table of intimacy He desires with you…………He draws you to eat of Him, drink of Him every day.

Then Jesus said to them, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. John 6:51 "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:53-54

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Who is Carrying the Ark?

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

II Samuel 6:1-10

David desired to restore worship to Jerusalem and a prime requirement of that was to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem. To accomplish this goal, the scripture said he took 30,000 chosen men and took them to bring the ark back to Jerusalem. He took great care no doubt because David was a man of passionate devotion. The Scripture takes care to note that David put the ark on a new cart. The Hebrew word here means "new, new thing, or fresh." David probably had a special cart made for this occasion. It was probably a cart that had never been used for any more mundane purpose.

No doubt the oxen were also fine animals. David probably spared no effort and expense to make sure he had secured the best animals. Imagine the expense and fanfare as the ark was carefully placed on the cart and finally began to move back towards Jerusalem. This was the most holy symbol God had given the Hebrews. The ark was typically hidden away in the holy of holies, visible only to the priests. Imagine the excitement and the people crowding one another to get a glimpse at the thing that was so significant to the Israelites. Imagine the gleaming beauty of the ark as its gold covering shimmered in the sun.

The Scripture continues that David and the people with him played and celebrated before the Lord with all their might. They put all their effort into raising their voices and raising their instruments in worship. Picture what a sight it must have been. David, one of Scriptures most intense worshipers, was leading the procession. The Scripture indicates they were playing and worshipping with all their might. David was a genuine worshipper so the worship was doubtless genuine and intense. I am quite sure you could hear the worshippers for some distance. David, being the king, would have also had a large procession following along side him. In short there is no doubt that David made this quite an event. He longed to worship and he longed for others to worship and the ark was central to their worship.

Then, in the midst of this glorious procession, something terrible happened. The oxen stumbled and shook the cart as they came to Nacan's threshing floor. Uzzah reached out and touched the ark and died immediately. David became so afraid of the ark and upset at God that he halted the procession to bring the ark into Jerusalem and instead left it at Obed-edom's house and returned to Jerusalem. The key issue here is not just Uzzah's fatal act of touching the ark. The issue, as David later learned, was that the ark was being moved improperly.

God had given very specific rules on how the ark was to be moved and David violated those rules. Even though he had the best of intentions and was trying to advance the worship of God and restore it to the capital city of Israel, he tried to do so using his own best efforts rather than move the ark the way God commanded. In fact, David moved the ark the very way the Philistines had moved it by placing it on a cart. He used the Philistine's method rather than the method that God had ordained to move the ark.

God had specifically given instructions on how the ark was to be moved. It was to only be moved by the Levites and the weight of the ark was to rest on the Levites shoulders by two staffs covered over in gold. The ark was never to be pulled by oxen on a cart. That is the method of flesh. The Philistines used that method to transport the ark. It was a method that represented what mankind could do out of his own ability. It was a method totally devote of the process and requirements of God and rested instead on the abilities of man.

Oxen are beasts of burden. They sweat and work and toil. That is their primary purpose. They are hard workers used to till the cursed ground. The weight of God's dwelling place is not be pulled by something that represents sweat and weight and effort. Remember Jesus said "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Not only was the ark not to be pulled by oxen, its weight was not to be supported by a cart made by man. The weight was to be supported by a priest and a priest alone and that priest could only carry the weight by bearing on his shoulders a staff covered in gold. The weight was to be borne, not by something that man created, but by somebody that only God can create.

The ark was meant to be carried by a man. The symbol of God's presence, power, and glory can be carried only by men. No other creature on earth is fit to carry it. A man, consecrated to God as a priest, is the only being in the universe that is fit to carry God's presence upon the earth. In fact, man was created precisely for this reason. Man was created as the being that could take the glory of God that exists in the spirit and demonstrate that glory and authority in the physical world on the earth. God will not allow anything else on the earth to carry His glory. His glory is carried by men who wield the staff of God that is attached to his glory just as the rods used to support the ark were. They are staffs that are not held upright as the normal staff is, but it is a staff of authority that is laid on its side in submission to God and is shared with another as each staff rested on two men's shoulders.

No single man carries God's glory on the earth, but rather He rests his authority on His body on the earth. His kingdom of priests shares His authority on the earth and they are to use that authority for the purpose of establishing His reign on the earth and bringing His glory to the earth. How do they do this? By consecrating themselves as priests that they might take on the staff, or the authority, of Christ and then using that staff to carry the very presence of Christ to the world. For upon such men's shoulders rests, not only the glory of God, but Jesus Christ Himself.

You see that ark represented Jesus Christ. God's revelation of His power and glory on the earth is found in Jesus Christ and Him alone. Just like Christ, the ark was made of two very distinct natures. It was fashioned first out of lowly wood. It was then covered entirely with gold. Jesus also was fashioned of the dust of the ground that He might be man and yet was also overlaid with the pure gold of His divinity. What shines forth is His divinity. What rests just beneath the surface is His humanity. The two become one inseparable unit fashioned from two natures.

The ark itself is God's witness to the world of what He desires. He desires men, strong men, of character and perseverance and endurance just like the acaia wood. Those same men are to then be fashioned and overlaid with pure gold. The ark is not only the glory of God Himself but it is the offer of God to the world. It is God holding out to men the opportunity to have their dusty frame overlaid with the divine and to have their fallen nature overlaid and supplanted by the divine.

Even the rods the priests bore on their shoulders illustrated this. They did not just bear rods of wood which would resemble a man's staff of authority. They bore the ark with rods of wood that were overlaid with gold. Even the authority inherent to a wooden staff had to be overlaid with gold as the authority it had as a staff was not enough unless that staff also carried the divine authority.

Carrying the ark placed a demand on the priests and God is asking the question today, "Are there men who can carry the ark?" Are there men who can carry the weight of the ark just by themselves with no man-made tools or helps or do we have a better method of carrying the ark? What David did was done with the best intensions and the purest hearts. Not only that, he was one of the most intense worshippers recorded in Scripture. He lived as close to God's heart as he could and he shared his feelings openly with God. His desire in moving the ark was to have the symbol of God's presence as close to him as he could and move the symbol of God's presence back to the center of the nation.

So then David's motives and the attitude of his heart were completely pure. The problem is that the methods used were not according to the Divine requirement. The methods used to accomplish a noble and pure goal were the methods of the flesh. They were methods of man's ability. The lesson here is very significant because using these methods ultimately had a part in causing Uzzah's death.

How often, though, do we try to evangelize or "advance the kingdom" or "fight the culture wars" or "take our cities for Jesus" using the best methods we can come up with? We worship long and loud and we make a display to the world about Jesus and proclaim Him publicly. Yet are trying to carry the glory of God, the presence of Jesus, and the good news of the gospel to the world using our best efforts and our wisdom?

Do we seek to advance the kingdom using only men that have the kind of character to carry the presence of the Lord and His authority on their shoulders only using Divine strategies or are we simply sanctifying the techniques of the flesh? Or, even more dangerous, are we mixing the two? David combined extravagant, loud worship with the attempt to move God's presence with beasts of burden and a man made cart. God will allow such mixture for only a limited period of time.

Christianity will also shake, stumble, and falter when the load is carried by the effort of man. Man's toil cannot sustain the weight of God's glory. God would rather have the very symbol of His power and presence fall to the ground than sustain it by man's ability. This was a fatal and expensive lesson for Uzzah and it has been expensive in our day. How many times does the church stumble? How many scandals does God allow? He does nothing to stop them because he refuses to just sweep things up under the rug. He refuses to build a church upon any foundation other than His Son. He allows the church built upon man to fail and to fail publicly. The only church He covers and protects is the one that is built upon His Son.

He allows men to use His name, but He does not allow them to carry His presence and righteousness so long as they are at the center of the effort. As long as there is sweat, toil, and ingenuity at the center of any effort, no matter how pure the intention, how public the display, or how productive it seems to be.

I am not here to name names or try to tear anyone down, but consider things yourself. How much work is going on today to expand the "kingdom of God," a term I do not even think we could all describe in the same way, that has more basis in human effort, achievement and marketing techniques than it does in the glory of God? I am wondering more and more if the reason that our youth are leaving the church in droves is less because we do not present the intellectual arguments for Christianity decisively and more that the presence of God is not in His temple. They pull back the curtain of the Scriptures with its promises of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit and they can find no visible demonstration of such power and so they cast the thing aside.

The church can and should make intellectual arguments for Christianity and refuse to surrender the marketplace of ideas to her opponents, but all her intellectual arguments mean nothing if the power of God is not in her midst. Paul made a brilliant speak on Mars Hill and the author of Hebrews contains many brilliant arguments to the Jews for the gospel, but if the power of the resurrection is not in our midst then, as Paul said, we of all men are most to be pitied.

How will the redemption of God be taken to the world? The mercy seat is God's mechanism of redemption for mankind. It is here that the blood of Christ was sprinkled that you and I might live. The only way this mercy seat can be taken to the world is for men and women to be in a place with God where they can bear the weight of his authority and let it rest on them. Such individuals are the only mechanism God uses to transport His mercy seat and they will be the only ones that will take His mercy seat to the world.

God is making a call and asking "Who will carry the ark?" Carrying the ark places a great demand on the men who carry the ark. It is not a light thing. It requires the character of God and the purity of a priest. It requires a consecrated life and lifestyle. It is not a light thing to carry the ark and at the same time it is not a task of toil and sweat either. Christianity in this day and hour, particularly in the western world, is stumbling under the weight of our current methods. We have used man made methods as long as we can.

We have used every tool at our disposal to try to bring the presence of God. The amount of television and radio broadcasts, printed material and resources, conferences and teachings, and churches is staggering. I doubt that any country in the world has ever seen a gospel enterprise on the scale of what America has. And I am not here to try to tear it down or attack it, but I have to ask one fundamental question: with all this effort, money, toil, sweat, and activity why is the presence of God so seemingly absent? Why does God not crown this activity with the same glory He rested on the first century church?

I am not attempting to tear down any one institution, but rather ask the question that nobody wants to face. In Herod's temple, there was nothing in the Holy of Holies and yet the worship continued as though there were. The ark was gone and yet worship continued year after year. Likewise, are we willing to face the music and admit that the ark is missing from our houses of worship as well? If someone was to walk in the church and pull back the veil, would He find the glory of God hovering over the mercy seat or would we be ashamed to find that that there is nothing there?

Christianity, or some flavor of it, has long been a bedrock of western civilization. That, however, has changed. We now live in a time where the world is becoming more and more openly hostile to Christianity. In the past men were content to pay lip service to Christianity even if they did not embrace the rulership of Christ in their hearts. However, that is no longer true. Men now openly assault Christianity on every side. The world has changed and this hour in history is quite different from the way the western world has been in times past.

Men no longer are content to submit to at least a portion of the requirements of Christian morality. They now pull back the curtains of our Christianity with reckless abandon and the great tragedy is that they find, more often than not, that the ark is not there. We worship and sound pious and make quite a display and talk about the power and holiness of God, but these things have become abstract concepts, doctrines, and ideologies rather than present realities.

Perhaps the Christian church is losing the next generation, not just because they do not teach a coherent Christian world view, but because the kids know that the presence is not there and they are no longer content to follow the form and adopt the framework of their parents.

We have tried long and hard and thrown a lot of money and effort into rescuing America, and I am not saying it has all been wrong or is a wasted effort. Again, I have no desire to tear down, but to build up. However, we must look at our efforts and examine them carefully. Are we advancing the cause of Christ by carrying His ark upon the shoulders of men that are fit for the task, or are we using every method that is natural to men to attempt to advance the gospel?

God's ways and his requirements are different from ours. He discards money, power, status, talent, and achievements. In short, He ignores everything that creates inequality and division among men. He requires no grand efforts and no expensive campaigns. He makes a requirement that is far more difficult because it is far more personal. The requirement of God in this hour is men.

He can replace everything that we can accomplish with all our worship, music, money, talents, effort, commitments, sweat, and toil with a few men that He possesses that are fit to carry the ark. That is really all He is after and the church will ultimately stumble and falter unless that requirement is met. God's answer to the world is not the success of Christianity; it is the transformation of a fallen man into the image of His Son.

Whenever a fallen man is transformed into the image of Christ by the power and presence of the Spirit of God, God has His answer to the world. All the other efforts have their root in good intentions but they are fundamentally flawed and will never achieve the goal of expanding the kingdom of God. Jesus was very clear that the kingdom was not of this world. It does not use the methods of this world, nor does it find its manifestation in the systems of this world. The two are on a collision course. Paul reminds us that our citizenship is of another realm. Peter calls us "Aliens."

Our strategies to fight the "culture war" in the west must come from above. They may seem foolish to our natural minds, and no doubt will be must simpler and much less grand than what we could come up with. However, there is a decision here with far reaching implications. We can make much sacrifice, effort and fanfare for God and ultimately lose or we can submit to His methods and carry His presence in the way that He intended even though the enemy will fit it with all his vengeance and the world will mock it.

This is the basis of Jesus' commission to the disciples: Go and make disciples. We are not to amass a group of followers or to sign men onto our values. We are to make disciples. We are to make men capable of carrying the ark. The church can no longer be run simply by the men that are the best at business or bring the most financial resources to the table. They may be very good men. They may make many financial sacrifices to push the church forward, but this is not God's requirement. He is looking for disciples that can carry the ark. Such men may be failures in the world's system, but they are precious to God.

Our role as believers then is not just to carry the ark ourselves, but to also to commit our life to building up other believers that they may be disciples that can carry the ark as well. It is our God given commission and we dare not shrink away from it. It is a heavy requirement to be sure and something that does not come easy, but it is the only way to advance the kingdom. It is the only way to meet God's requirements in this hour. It is one thing to create nice men's and women's programs and to have a nice "discipleship program," but quite enough to develop men and women God's way. It is a million times more difficult than running successful programs, but we dare not shrink away from God's requirements unless we are just looking for a successful religion to fill up a small appetite for some kind of spiritual activity. If we long to be possessed by God and if we want His presence in our midst, then there is no other answer but to become a disciple and go and make disciples.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Arise and Advance to the Effectual Fervent Prayer of the Righteous

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

James 5:16

Prayer: What is it?

It is…
connecting with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

• Spirit to Spirit

sharing hearts and minds with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• To know His ways, His desires, His will

an act of love and adoration to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• His pleasure

refueling for the race of life.

• Run and not be weary, walk and not faint

equipping for the battle.

• Offense and defense

a demonstration of your faith in God.

• Seek the Kingdom first

a declaration of your faith in His will.

• I have believed and therefore I speak

a discipline of your faith in His power.

• Pressing on to the high call of God, to know Jesus Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection.

Prayer: What does it do?

• It develops Unity and there is almost nothing is more powerful among a group of believers than the true unity of Spirit.
• It binds the gates of hell, stops the mouths of demons, and ambushes demonic plans.
• It opens gates for the King of Glory to come in with power and dominion.
• It wins wars with the second heaven.
• It takes territories, places, and people for the Kingdom.
• It creates the wind that brings change.
• It adds fuel to God's fires within and without
• It creates a shaking that crumbles man's best plans
• It lays the tracks for the Holy Spirit to come do His work
• It is fertilizes the passion in your heart to live in His presence
• It is builds power to witness in the market place
• It adds peace within that graces you with the fragrance of Christ

God cause your people to arise and advance into prayer!

You the church must come into effectual fervent prayer that decrees the next moves of the Kingdom of God.

You the church must come into effectual fervent prayer that taps into the intercession of heaven. Church, come into effectual fervent prayer that brings the heaven to earth. Church, come into effectual fervent prayer that gets into the vein of God's heart to declare His present will. Arise and advance to the effective prayer that produces the fire of God and accomplishes much fruit for the kingdom of God, now, in our world.

Jesus, we ask you to anoint us to the effectual prayer that will stop famines, wars, pestilence, plagues, flu, terrorist, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, violence and all other manifestations of the kingdom of darkness. Make us the one or the ones who will stand together in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus and united in the Holy Spirit to Kingdom purposes.

The effectual fervent prayer that continues to avail much for the Kingdom of God to come in our world is our most critical work on this earth today. The battle for this nation and our lives is fought in the place of prayer on our knees.

This is an Urgent Call to Us for Corporate Prayer

• "Effectual" means it works and it accomplishes exactly what God desires.
• "Effectual" means it is powerful to demonstrate God's will upon that which Father's eye is on.
• "Fervent" means it comes with the power of fire from the compassion of the Lord Jesus.
• "Fervent" means it consumes like fire, it saves or destroys like fire, it spreads like fire to where the Spirit of the Lord directs it.

We must stand together in oneness, in unity, and in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus to be a group of believers who can "see only God "and His will done in order to see the Father's heart pleased.

God is calling together a group of believers to be united in love and oneness of purpose allowing the Holy Spirit to come and fire our prayers with heaven's intercession?

God is calling us together to be so sensitive to Holy Spirit that He can decree through us the very heart and will of the Father for His Kingdom purposes all around us.

God asks us to drop our own ambitions, gifts, and abilities to let the Holy Spirit come and demonstrate through the effectual fervent prayers that will bind the gates of hell, stop the mouths of demons, ambush the attacks of the enemy, stop evil in schools, save marriages, nurture children, bring God's plan for businesses, bring revival to dead bones in God's house, and stop terrorists, flu, wars, pestilences, abortions, pornography, homosexuality, and everything that opposes God's kingdom. It will not be by our own mental might or our own strengths but by the Spirit of the Lord. God will "set our spirits free" from ourselves to be all He needs us to be in prayer.

Nothing is less attended or has less interest in the church of Jesus Christ then prayer meetings. Nothing is more needed yet more neglected. Nothing is more effective, or more powerful to change, deliver, heal, or redeem lives, communities, homes, or nations than the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous. The Kingdom victory in the market place is won first in the effective fervent prayers of the righteous.

Truly, the turning of this nation around for God will first and foremost happen in the small group prayer closets of America, the groups who will be faithful to come to prayer for doing the work of effectual prayer led by Holy Spirit in His beloved. Let's put our hands to the plow of effective prayer and see God move right here in greater Atlanta.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Parable of the Vineyard

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Scripture references: Mark 12:1-12…Matt. 21:33-46…Luke 20:9-18…Matt 24…Rev 2-3

It's God's vineyard and He is making His last call for the fruit!

God planted His vineyard. He is the owner.
He set a hedge of protection around it: He built in the law and the prophets.
He dug a wine press in it, the nation of Israel.

He made vessels, vats to hold His wine: The promises of Abraham, the patriarchs, the Kingdom of David, from whom the Savior of the world would come and the prophets and apostles
He built a strong tower and gave watchman on the wall, prophets who would intercede.
He sent his servants, the prophets. They killed them. He sent His only begotten son. They crucified Him. The apostles of the early church picked up the task of God's vineyard. They brought the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the whole known world. So was the early rain…

 

He set a hedge of protection around the Kingdom of God with the blood of His son Jesus Christ
He dug a wine press in it…. vessel to hold His wine (His body, the church) Put the Holy Spirit in the vats. He poured in new wine, His word and spirit in full measure.
He built a tower………His name is a strong tower the righteous can run into and be safe.
He gave you watchmen on the wall…apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers. He gave His authority, love and power of intercession to the whole body of Christ.

His servants are among you!

He called his servants (ambassadors, messengers, prophets, etc) and sent them into the vineyard to receive the" much more" fruit and for the greater works of Christ. They beat them, threw them all out………… again and again. God is counting. The Kingdom of God is upon us.

The Father sent His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus, in the days of the early rain, likewise, now in the days of the latter rain He sends His own Spirit, the third person of the Godhead.
As in the parable of the vineyard, last and third time He sends His beloved Holy Spirit, the executor of the Kingdom, to the vineyard to gather the fruit of the latter rain harvest from the earth. Father sends Holy Spirit to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of coming judgment. He moves also through His servants who are humble and fully surrendered. God wants His eternal family.

 

God the owner has sent Holy Spirit, the one who deserves reverence, honor, and full submission to His vineyard. He comes to individuals and to corporate gatherings with outpourings like rain, like wind, like fire. He wants to immerse us in His love and power.

God sends His last! Dare we refuse Him!

The Holy Spirit is God's last move; His very own spirit comes to do the final work on the earth that will usher in the coming of the Lord Jesus. The Father sends a great outpouring of mercy and judgment to gather the fruit of the earth for the last time before the final course of His plan moves into play. It is harvest time! It is the days of latter rains!
Do we dare refuse it…………..kill the move of the H.S. cast it out…. cast out the servants who come to deliver the message and the demonstration that God is here to get His fruit. Do we dare cast out the ones God has raised up for this purpose?
Dare we refuse to beat down, cast aside and kill the move of God's beloved Holy Spirit who desires to gather the Fathers fruit of His vineyard?

The hour is late! Time to fill your vessels not just your lamps!

Individual disciples I appeal to you, can you refuse His move in you to produce His fruit?
Will you refuse the power of the Holy Spirit because others have abused it?
Will you refuse to let Him fill you with His fruit and move His gifts through you?
Will you refuse to step out of your religious box, beyond your abilities, to see your destiny in God become a reality? What about you local churches, who name the name of Christ? What are you doing with Holy Spirit? Will you refuse to become the place God can find rest and can transform lives in His presence and power?

"I know your works! I come for the last time to require your fruit!"

Can we continue to have a form of godliness with no power of the Spirit?
Can we continue to move in performance, show, and appearance and have no substance?
Can we continue to produce plastic man-made fruit and give no God life to anyone?
Can we continue to deny the Holy Spirit full control and say we have the Spirit?
Can we continue to deny all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit?
Can we continue to say we are Christian and live like the rest of the world?
Can we continue to live in our religiously learned traditions that have no Spirit-life?
Will we let the Kingdom of God be given to another? Will we let it be taken from us?

Dare we risk losing the Kingdom of God?

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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God’s Direction – a Missional Community

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Let me say up front that "missional community" has become a buzzword. As such, in this article, the term "missional community" should not be interpreted as equivalent to the current buzzword that is making the rounds. It is simply a term that I heard in one context that seemed to be the best term I have found yet to describe what God wants to do. However, there are others who use the term who do not mean the same thing. In summary, take the article at face value it does not necessarily correlate to other uses of the same term."

God is desiring to setup missional communities of believers all across the earth. Currently the body is organized into churches which are more a collection of people that meet on the basis of common beliefs much like a political party of another group. During the week they live separate lives in isolated worlds and they gather periodically, usually twice a week at most, around their commonly held beliefs. Now I am not trying to say that this is bad or tear the church down. This is not to be construed as an attack on the current church, but rather as a statement of the direction the Lord intends.

Our concept of church is not bad, but it is not what God is now desiring to do. God no longer wants to simply have a group of people that live completely separate lives and gather simply around some weekly meetings and other events. God is looking for a bride. A person, a body, for His Son. A body is not a loosely correlated group of individual parts, it is rather tightly bound unit consisting of different individual parts all so tightly bound together that one cannot exist without the other and that an individual part loses all purpose and meaning apart from the whole. An individual part of the body is individual and has specific characteristics and a personality if you will, but apart from the body that individual part loses all purpose. This is what God is looking to develop.

To often we are looking for leaders that stand aloof and are sufficient in an of themselves, but God describes us as a body. The brain is a powerful leader in the body. Let, if you take out the other parts of the body that deliver blood and oxygen to it, it becomes powerless. Any part in the body, whether it seems to be prominent and powerful, or small and insignificant depends on another part and is in turn a dependency for yet another part.

We can no longer be bound only by a common cause or a common set of beliefs. We are to be bound by a common Spirit. The same Spirit must flow through every member in the community. This means, it is not another to gather around activism, creeds, or ideals. If we are to be bound by a common spirit, then that means we have to pursue and attract the Spirit of God. This means we cannot be content with something man can create, but we are now solely dependent on God's personal involvement and that can be a costly prize to obtain. If one part of the community rejoices; all rejoice. If one part of the community weeps; all weep. Each community will have a unique expression and yet these individual expressions will come together to weave a beautiful tapestry having different patterns and different colors, but all are woven together on the same loom and of the same material.

Such a community does not destroy the individuality of each member, it rather develops it as God intended. God did not design His church to consist of individual cowboys, serving God alone and needing nobody. The community of the church needs the smallest member. One of the biggest tests for church leadership is the ability to hear the voice of God in the most unsuspecting member of the community. God often speaks in through the one we would least suspect. It is a great loss when we are too blind to recognize when He is speaking.

God often uses the least qualified member of a community to speak in order to encourage that individual. What encourages an individual to grow in God more than being used by God? What encourages one to greater depths of the Spirit more than to feel the Spirit flowing through them? We would do well to remember that God often places wisdom on the lips of the babes in the nest to encourage them to fly. It is a test for the more seasoned in God to remain in the place of humility and simplicity and be able to hear God in any way, shape, or form. The young or new Christian also often has a fresh enthusiasm that is infectious and can help those re-fire the more seasoned in God with a fresh love just as a mature marriage can be energized by recalling the days of new love.

In addition, we also have a natural tendency to become like those we are with. We end up talking alike and thinking alike to a great extent. God often needs to use another that is either new or not yet acclimated into our "system" to speak the wisdom of God that is hidden from those who have become established in certain ways.

Again, God's design for this time in history is not a group of great individuals, but rather a prolific church that consists of communities of believers that are bound together in love by the Spirit of God. Such believers are not just a group of believers, they become a community, a people because they share a common culture, common values, and a daily interaction with one another. It is a community that is not exclusive, but is, on the other hand, open ended constantly offering invitation to the poor, lost, and the dying. The face of the community is constantly changing as new members that are old, young, poor, rich, black, white, and all kinds are added to the church daily.

God desires to blend all these individuals into a community where He can dwell. A community where the defining mark is the presence of a Spirit that is from another world. People that are "other worldly" and yet they are perfectly human because they are being formed into the very kind of humans that God designed for from the beginning. Such a community is a beacon to the world because it is the only community which fulfills the lofty ideals the world has searched for since the dawn of time. The mark of the community that God is desiring will not be a creed or statement of faith. Rather it will be a presence. There will be a scent, a fragrance if you will, of another realm. There will be a love that permeates every member. You will be able to talk to each individual member and see the same thing in each member's eyes. It will be as if each member's heart is beating in perfect sync.

This does not take away from the individuality of each member. On the converse, the unity of Spirit among the community is all the more amazing because of the diversity of each individual member. The world cannot bring lasting unity in an scenario, much less among a group consisting of members that are fundamentally different. The expression of the community is different in each member, but the essence is the same. I feel the same spirit talking to a senior in the community that is very traditional but loves Jesus as I do speaking to a twenty something that would not wear a tie to save his life.

The paradox of it all is that the differences among the community fuel the balance that unity needs. We must have the unique expressions of God's personality among us, however much we gravitate towards out preferences and tend to associate only with those whose expression of faith is most similar to ours. The Spirit gives out the gifts, spreading them across the body, but we tend to fellowship most with those whose gifts are similar rather then embracing the Spirit's way of making us dependent on each other by recognizing and valuing different gifts even when they seem in opposition to our own gift.

We need the fiery holiness and reverence of the man obsessed with God's holiness and majesty. We need the love and mercy of the one who is so in awe of the tender love and grace of the Father expressed through Jesus. We need the one who carries the burden of prayer night and day and raises their voice in agony of Spirit that the kingdom might come. We need the one whose heart exists just to sit and worship oblivious to the outside world. We need the passion of the evangelist insistent that we do not ignore the outside world lest it perish.

The extremes of God's expression in each individual bring a tension that creates a unified community that is a miracle of God. It is not a cultist unity that comes from conformance to a single pattern, form or man, but rather it is a Divine beauty that is more akin to a gorgeous field of wildflowers whose beauty is found in the diversity of shapes and colors found in the various members of the field. This tension protects the community from drifting to one extreme and becoming myopic.

So often a ministry drifts towards a particular truth and stays there. Now God often gives ministries a specific "flavor" and that is part of their greater ministry to the body of Christ, but within a body there can be a danger to identify solely with a particular flavor and not operate in balance. The thing that God has laid on your heart I am responsible to support, uplift, develop, and participate in because God is using you to bring that to my attention. Perhaps I don't have the fire of evangelism, but the burden of prayer. The insistent voice of the evangelist to reach the perishing is God's voice to me through His body to reach the perishing. I do not forsake the unique voice and gifting God has given me, but rather become more balanced by submitting to the voice of God through another.

If a community cannot bear this tension, they will not be the kind of community I am talking about. If there is no conflict in the community then I question if God is at work. Now by conflict I do not mean constant dissension and division, but there should be the tension of God working his purpose for the community out through the individual expression of each member. The unity of the Spirit will be tested and developed by just these conflicts.

Now we have already said that God's plan is for a community and not for individuals, but, like everything else, we have to apply the balance of the Word. This certainly does not mean that God may not take someone into isolation and develop them that way for a season. God can develop a man however He wishes and a constant test we face is whether we hold believers to Biblical standards or to our own standard of experiences or our own interpretations of Biblical truth. Let's acknowledge and live by God's patterns, but let's not try to box Him into a corner either.

Also, even within a community God is going to have to do individual works. He is going to have to take each member aside and test them. He is going to have to show them where they stand in Him. He is going to have to bring them to a place where they hammer out their relationship with Him individually so that they can be a full member of His community rather than one that rides the spiritual overflow of the other community members. Again, the power and unity of the community depends on the individual work in each believer, not on adherence to uniformity.

Such a community is required for believer to develop to the maturity that God desires. When an individual is down, they are brought up by another's passion. When one drifts towards compromise, they are re-centered by the fire of the holiness that burns in another's heart. When legalism creeps in one heart, it is melted by the mercy and love shown by another. When fasting becomes too painful, the support of other fasting members spurs us onward. Isolated and alone, a believer would falter unless they are in a unique training place with God, but in a community they flower and develop because of the body.

Such a community is missional because they have come to view life as a mission. A mission has targeted objectives. Everything is geared towards a single goal. They are no longer wandering aimlessly to simply enjoy life but are rather committed in unison to the mission given by Jesus. The unity of the Spirit will draw diverse individuals to a single, focused mission. They are diverse in expression and gifting and yet unified in the mission. A community with no mission is simple a club. The world has enough of those. We need both these words "community" and "missional" to produce what God wants.

Do we see life as a life and death mission? This, I believe, is one of things that really separates our western view of the world from the believers who are in persecuted countries. In those countries, to accept Christ is to force you into a decision of how you will live your life. To be obedient to Christ is to be on a mission for the rest of your life. Our environment is more lax. We have a pseudo-Christian culture, especially in America, which seems to make our Christianity fit in with American culture while it is actually directly opposed to the American way. We are lacking many of the external factors that force persecuted believers into absolute commitment, although this situation will not last forever. Regardless of the environment, we are still called to be true to the one that we love and lay aside the things which so easily entangle us (Hebrews 12:1).

Christianity is to be focused around a mission. Jesus gave a great commission to go make disciples. If you notice, the Christian communities that are thriving are those which are taking that commission seriously. He also told us to not lay up treasures on earth. This further focuses the mission. Raise up disciples and invest in a spiritual kingdom. That is our mission. There are things we are required to do to live in this earth, but where is the focus? Do we do the bare minimum that we need to do? Do we live simply so as to not become entrapped in the age? A simple, focused life can help one to stay on the mission.

I recently spent a day with the Atlanta IHOP community that is raising up 24/7 prayer and worship in Atlanta. They are not there yet, but they almost have prayer and worship going up 24 hours a day on most days of the week. Such an ministry fuels the community I am describing. When a part of the believer's focus is making sure that prayer and worship is going up 24 hours a day, it helps to refocus that efforts of that body. If prayer and worship are important enough to lay aside other pursuits and to suffer the inconvenience that it takes to keep it going 24 hours a day, then the community must be focused on something greater that personal schedules and comfort. A ministry such as this helps to bring a body to the focus of mission that I am describing.

How can you not be missional when you peak in the prayer room one morning and see members worshiping and praying and know that they have been doing that since the late hours of the night? Such a sacrifice and focus fuels that understanding that we are on a mission. We have to catch this sense of mission until like Paul we can say "this one thing I do." Do we do "one thing," or do we prioritize among multiple things that we do? Do we live for the mission or do we live with a list of priorities where "church" is something important but also on a list of priorities including work, play, activities, etc. It is not wrong or secular to work, but it is not a priority. An occupation is necessary to provide for our families, provide for the gospel and should be viewed as our current mission field. Beyond that it is not part of the mission of our lives. Likewise, children are to be raised with focus. We must prepare them for the mission of their lives, not just shuttle them to and from activities so that they can participate in whatever extracurricular activity is the fad of the day.

If we are to nurture and develop such a community, then one thing that we must understand is that the community God is desiring to raise up must be known more for what it is for than what it is against. What it is for must be the defining mission statement and what it is against will flow out of this. A problem throughout history is that people gather around what they are against. A church body cannot gather simply around what they are against and thrive, but this happens more than we know. This is one explanation for why many new, different communities of believers are thriving while many others are having massive problems and not going anywhere.

If the community is built on what the believers are against and what they did not like in another church; they are doomed to failure. However, if the body has come together around the things it wants to see and the vision God has given rather than simply in opposition to the failures and faults it sees in others then that body will thrive. A body cannot stand on criticism. Jesus Himself said that the mark of believers would be that they have an incredible love one for another. This does not mean that the we should not expose errors in the church, but we have to examine our message. What is the essence of our message taken as a whole? If the essence of the message is criticism, then it will not survive.

How do you define your body of believers? Is it simply we are against liberalism, humanism, compromise, etc or is your essence a desire to be like Jesus, live in His holiness, love each other, etc. You see the best and most perfect way to rebuke the wrong is to live for something that is right. If you live for what is true and good and perfect, you will become a rebuke to all that is imperfect and compromised. If you focus solely on what is imperfect and compromised then you are in danger of the Pharisaical mode. Believe what is true, live it, and empower others to do that same.

Can such a body exist again on the earth? It can and it will. God desires it and is placing the seed of desire for it in the hearts of believers across the nation. It will come. It may perhaps be the "city" church that many desire. The "city church" is a concept based on Paul's letters which address the church in a specific city where Paul seems to treat the body in a certain area as a whole whether or not they actually all met together. Many groups have tried to implement a "city church," but the problem is that too often, such groups declare themselves as the city church looking down on all the other bodies that are not a part of their model; missing the other expressions of the body in the city that God has planted as well.

The city church comes from these individual missional communities of believers. Each one is unique and has a unique expression and gifting. However, they are also in relationship with other believers in the city and "cross pollinate" among the other ministries in the city working together to advance the cause of Christ in their city. This is the city church. It is not a single "church," but rather the body in a city consisting of many individual and unique fellowships all recognizing that each individual body is God's gift to the others. Realizing that there is no competition in the body and that when another community of believers is strengthened, the Kingdom is advanced, and if the Kingdom is advanced then our community's mission is being accomplished such a community of believers can rejoice for the successes of another body even if they come at the price of their own increase.

Again, can this exist? Is this goal too high and lofty? No, it is not. It is for such a thing that Jesus died. And so, let us not throw stones and tear down the expressions of the body that exist today even if they are lacking. Let us rather hunger and thirst for this expression of the body of Christ on the earth and let us work towards it in our own personal relationships. Again, the best rebuke to compromised Christianity and to the deterioration of Christianity from a revolutionary movement to a yawn invoking group of people that are all too at home in the world, is to begin to stake our lives on the gospel.

I was recently passed a comment from a missionary friend of mine. A believer in a persecuted country was asked about his freedoms to share the gospel. His reply was that he could do whatever he wanted as long as he was willing to die. That willing to die thing must be first dealt with for the church to rise above where we are now. In a persecuted country, the church is strong because that is dealt with at the genesis of the Christian life. To choose Christ is to make that decision and so once that decision has been made, they go on in the things of God with a sense of mission and dedication. We must make that same decision. We must die to our self life, our desire for ease, prosperity, and comfort and commit ourselves to the mission of Christ. This sounds like rhetoric, but it must become a hearts cry where we truly die to ambition, careers, success, and whatever spurious pursuits are shifting our focus off of the mission that Jesus Christ calls us to.

I was recently in an elevator that had video feeds of the news in the elevator. There was one other person in the elevator and it flashed a story of two would be suicide bombers who had blown themselves up strapping on explosives in Afghanistan. I heard the person mutter "how stupid" as they read the story. I thought to myself, "stupid?" It is only stupid from a western view of life. We seek to maximize life in both experiences and in length in order to maximize the pleasure we can obtain during our brief stay on the earth.

The two individuals that died decided that something greater than momentary pleasure was worth living and dying for. No, the real stupidity belongs with us who can find nothing worth dying for and so spend every day that we have seeking to prolong the physical pleasures that can accompany living. Now, do not get me wrong I am not in favor of suicide bombers and believe that those individuals were bound to another deception that seeks to destroy them in another way. However, I pray that when my life is at its end and I prepare to breathe my last that I will have more in common with the devotion of a suicide bomber than with an American that finds such extreme devotion and sacrifice "stupid." I fear that perhaps presently my life is more tilted towards the American view of life, but let us look forward to the new year and give ourselves in devotion to the one for whom the sacrifice of our lives is truly worthy. And let us learn something from the terrorists: there is a cause and a revolution that is more valuable than the pleasures of living.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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New Year 2006

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

The Lord impressed on me that in the year of 2006 He was going to remove the mixture from His church both individually and corporately. It came like this, "I will remove the mix in 2006." The heart of God is to advance, to enlarge, and to increase His church this year in wonderful ways.

We are to raise our standards and take some hard stands for the purity of the gospel. Jesus endured "the cross" for the joy of seeing us stand in His righteousness. Are we the genuine salt and light in this land for Him? Are we living holy lifestyles and doing whatever we can to promote His righteousness or have many lost their flavor? Has much of our light been darkened by our way of life? Is a great part of our endurance given to the pleasure of this world? How much compromise and tolerance of sin goes unnoticed or ignored until suddenly there is no real relationship left with the Lord, just a form of religious activity. The truth is that without holiness no man will see God. The truth is that not only is there a great apostasy arising in the land but a great falling away from the genuine faith of the gospel.

Not only does the Father want us to climb to much higher levels of spiritual endurance but also wants to increase our spiritual perception as to see time through God's eternal clock. He wants to open our eyes to see where Jesus is walking in order that we may follow closely. God wants to remove traditional blinders, religious clouds, and soulish blurs from our vision so His will is clearly seen and His real move is truly welcomed.

We must know and move in strong communion with Holy Spirit, our Divine Companion, who has the only power that will demonstrate the Kingdom of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ in this world. We cannot live now or forever in the presence of God with a form of godliness that fights against or denies the very power of the Holy Spirit. The church is infiltrated with substitutes. There is a body forming as church but has no real Spirit fellowship and Spirit unity with God and each other. The seducing spirits of the hour are seeking to bring the church to a lower level of Christian lifestyle, to less light and to living without the power of the Spirit. Therefore there is no power within to conquer the onslaughts or to discern the darkness that is increasing in our world. There are many planting a form of church or social Christian groups giving security and a good feeling; making themselves attractive to the peoples desires but not to God's. However, there is no desire to lose their lives in order to find their God-given lives. The desire or works to do the great commission Jesus gave us is lacking, and the lives of many Christians weighed in the balance of God's scales of justice are found wanting.

It is time we, as a people of God, got real honest with ourselves seeking the truth on the inward parts of us to our own hurt or pain. We need to come before God with transparent confessions and ask for forgiveness for forsaking Him in so many ways. We need the power of God in us and through us to approach the days ahead. We will never make it through to the other side, to the reward of being in on the incredible plan of God for us in eternity without our lives becoming worship unto Him in Spirit and truth and in the beauty of His holiness. Holiness without power is a sad legacy for a Christian to leave to this world as well as power without holiness, for which no man will see God. More to come!

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Resurrected Body of Christ on the Earth Now

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

The Father God longs to see the body of Christ arise to its fullness in His Son. The Father longs to see maturity in the body of His Son. It is time for the Bride of Christ to arise. These are the hearts full of love for Him and one another. The number one sign of the true disciples of Jesus Christ is not signs and wonders but rather their pure love for one another. (I John 3:16; John 13:35) It is time for the Sons of God to stand up in all the mature authority that was bought for them through the blood and body of their Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And those of us that walk with Jesus are the Sons of God now. (I Jo.3: 1-3)

It is time to walk with Jesus Christ as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David, who is prevailing for the Kingdom of God now. The whole creation groans waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God, (Romans and for the curse to be lifted off the earth and the King of Kings to come to the earth and reign. The whole creation is groaning in this season of the fullness of sin. The whole creation groans with the birth pains of the Kingdom of God to be established upon the earth.

The Lord is planting churches and bringing dead churches to life again. The Lord is also planting centers of apostolic and prophetic anointing to train disciples and send them into the world with His love and power. He is raising up Special Forces of small-unified bodies who are mature and can go into places of darkness others cannot go. God is birthing as many ministries as the sands in the sea to overcome the darkness and bring the Light of life to many. God is not just after the full time ministers of the Gospel as we have known in the past. God wants the multiplication anointing of fully equipped disciples of Jesus Christ who are making other disciples that will make other disciples.

We need all parts of the body of Christ corporately around the world and in every city and community. We need the large churches that are reaching the masses to turn their people away from complacency and lukewarm lives toward God. We need the small churches; we need the training centers; we need every planted work of the Lord today in all their uniqueness. The body of Christ must forsake all their judgments, their criticalness, their competitiveness, and comparison to join a unified love force for the Kingdom of God on the earth. The enemy of our lives laughs as he sees the church of Jesus Christ devour one another. Our worst enemy is ourselves and all hell rejoices as Pastors keep their distance and remain enemies instead of friends of God who love and encourage and bless one another's churches, seeking not their own but preferring one another. Any new ministries that God raises up for his purpose must meet head on with the religious traditions of man, competitive attitudes and threatened pastors rather than embracing what God is doing.

Why can't we let God have the reins letting Him be God? We will know what is God and what is not if we know the truth and the Spirit of Truth prevails in us. We do not have to fall prey to persecuting the new things God is doing if we stay moving with God in what He is doing. We cannot stand stationary on what we have always done. We must be ever changing with God. He is always progressing, never changing His patterns or principals, but always changing His methods. You stand solid, and unchanging in the River of His Spirit, so far in that you are out of control and then you are just moved along with the flow of the River.

We who have the Spirit of Christ within are all the body of Christ, we all drink of one Spirit, we all eat of the same food, we all follow the Rock; One Lord, One faith, One body. We are uniquely fit together as different members who have different giftings and personalities but all for the profit of the whole body and all for the glory of God. Without the body coming together to give each other its God-given supply the knitting together of the Spirit that causes the body to mature and edify itself in love is lost.

We must become unified as Christ's whole body over a region and work together with Jesus Christ as our one and only foundation. The churches are to build carefully on that foundation through the Apostles and Prophets with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. The whole body of Christ is to be equipped in maturity for the work of ministry. This releases to the whole body of Christ the wisdom of God for the ages of time. We must have the wisdom of God for this age now.

One gift or office in the body is not greater than the other. He who plants is nothing, nor is he that waters, but rather God, who is the only one who can give the increase. Each part of Christ's body is equally important, even to the smallest and seemingly less presentable for the necessary love to work this continual edification process of itself. We church of America are lacking. We are falling short of this unity. We must repent and call upon our God for a divine conviction over our leaders of all churches of Jesus Christ.

We must cleanse ourselves of this destructive " pride of life" before we walk out of this darkness into the glory of God that is available to us.

These following scriptures reveal a message:

• I Corinthians 12
• I Peter 4:7-11
• Romans 12:3-10
• I Corinthians 3: 6-15
• I Corinthians 4:1-5
• Ephesians 2:19-3:5
• Colossians 2:19
• Ephesians 4:1-16..
• Colossians 3:13-17
• John 4:23-24

Church why do we forsake not the assembling of ourselves together so much more as we see this day approaching?

The number one reason is for the body of Christ to be equipped to its fullness and begin to edify itself in love. This work requires the gifts that belong to Jesus that He alone gives. They are apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher. The church must become an equipping center.

Secondly, we must come together to allow the Holy Sprit to distribute His gifts to and through the body of Christ for the profit of all. This will edify, comfort and exhort the whole body of the earth. The Holy Spirit gives the gifts of words of wisdom, words of knowledge, discerning of spirits, gifts of faith, healings, and working of miracles. He gives also gifts of tongues, interpretation of those tongues, and prophecy. They belong to Him and he divides them in a way that will bring loving unity to the whole body.

Thirdly, God loves His family to come together so He can give to them. He wants to be intimate with His family. He wants to plant His nature in us. He wants to make corporate and individual deposits of treasures into the lives of His own image as they come together. Our God is fulfilled in giving His love to us. We need to return it to Him by coming together and just worship Him and no other and no other spiritual things.

The Lord says when my body can walk in the unified love I designed for them and edify itself in my love I am truly worshipped in Spirit and Truth. The Father is seeking such to worship him. We must lay down our lusts of spiritual ambition, our pride of ministry, and our lust of seeing just numbers, seeing just positions, seeing just the popular and being honored by religious standards. The Fathers heart is aching for the whole body of Christ to come alive to be resurrected on the earth. We are the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants to live in His fullness again through His body on the earth before He returns.

ALL OF HEAVEN IS CRYING,
"Church come forth, come up into Him, and worship our Him in Spirit and in the Truth"

Oh God give the ears to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Are You a Message?

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

I sit here listening to sound bytes of the men who have gone before me. Trail blazers for God that lived and died for Christ. Many died martyrs. Some did not. I sit here asking God for a message at the next meeting I need to speak at and I have had an overwhelming revelation come over me. I do not need another message from God. I need to be a message. How many of us ask God for a word or a message when we need one? I do not want to make an extreme statement that we never seek God for a message for a particular engagement, so do not take this wrongly and make it something that it is not, but hear what I am saying.

I think God is calling us to no longer have a message, but to be a message. I can obtain and carry a message for the King, but am I the message? If I carry a message for God only then I am no better than the angels. The word angel really means “messenger.” An angel carries a message. He is a messenger. God has called a human being to be something entirely different and of a different nature. God is looking for a man that will not just carry a message for Him, but will become the message; A man that will own the message.

Do you want to live a prophetic life? Do you want a prophetic anointing? This is what it comes down to. Any man can carry a message. Any man can give a word. There is not inherent greatness in that. Jesus warned of men that even did miracles, but in the end did not know Him and so would ultimately be turned away. Such men carried a message and apparently even carried the power of the message but the message did not consume them. They did not become the message.

A prophet is a picture to his people. A prophet is God’s illustration to the world. A prophet that delivers God’s message but does not live it is not a Biblical prophet. If we are to be a prophetic voice to our generation, we must become the message that we are to carry. We must be a message to the world, not just decree one. No longer are skills of oratory or delivery enough to deliver a message to the world. This generation does not respect the gospel for the gospel’s sake. The powers of human ability and oratory are not enough any more.

In this generation, there is only one power that will accomplish anything. There is only one power which must be behind any word delivered for God or any appeal to bring souls to Christ. That power if the life of the one delivering it. The days of showmanship are over. The days of the professional are over. This generation is demanding authenticity from the church. This generation is God’s tool to reshape His church. Their rejection is the tool in God’s hand to expose His church. He is showing us what He sees.

To deliver a message is one thing. To be the message is another thing. To be instant in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2) is the call of God. Listen to Jesus’ words in Luke 21:14-15 (AMP) “Resolve and settle it in your minds not to meditate and prepare beforehand how you are to make your defense and how you will answer. For I [Myself] will give you a mouth and such utterance and wisdom that all of your foes combined will be unable to stand against or refute.” You do not have to prepare your message ahead of time. If we are in communion with God, we are a message that can be delivered at any moment.

It is not enough anymore to preach repentance, you have to be repentance. It is not enough to preach salvation, a new birth, and a new life, you have to be that thing. You must be the flesh and blood illustration of what you are preaching. You cannot effectively preach the love of God unless the love of God has overwhelmed your heart. Likewise, the judgment of God cannot be preached until you have cleansed your own hands before the Lord.

Let me ask you an honest question. If, while going about your daily duties, you run into someone that needs something from God do you have it? Do you sweat and wring your hands and beg God for something? Or are you the message that person needs? We have to think beyond “lifestyle” evangelism that says we just live Christian lives and people are drawn to the gospel. This goes beyond living “like a Christian.” The damned can do that. Generations of Americans have lived very “good” lives and were eternally lost. You cannot equate high religion and moral living like we have seen in most of American history with a man that is living from another realm and not out of his own discipline.

We have to be the message we declare. Every word that comes from our lips must be backed by our private times in God. The message we proclaim to the world must be the same message that has broken down our hearts and reshaped our lives. If what you are speaking has never touched you; if your words have never broken you down before God and led you into an intimate place with God that how do you think they are going to touch anybody else?

Two men are going recounting the story of World War II. One was alive but was not drafted. He tells you of the events and listening over the radio and can detail every battle and the casualties and the general’s strategies. Another man rises to speak. He does not have the same breadth of technical knowledge as the man before. He does not know how to detail all of the general’s strategies or all of the different campaigns. He however landed and Normandy and went on to fight the battle of the bulge. He walks with a limp because shrapnel ripped up his leg. He tells you what it was like to march ashore with bullets zipping by and ripping up the sand. He recounts soldiers next to him dropping dead. He can still smell the exhaust of the tanks in Belgium. Whose story is more captivating? Who moves you to tears? Is it that man who has studied and can tell you all about the war in great detail or is it the man that lived and war and cannot share every fact but can deliver his life?

We can no longer depend on what we know or the mental training we have. We must deliver what is in us. We have to share with the world what God has shown us. Training is good and learning is excellent, but we must learn by the Spirit. We can no longer learn facts and beliefs and arguments. We have to go to the world with a life. The message of God’s work in us is going to be the message of our effectiveness in the world.

Has this message of Christianity consumed you or is it another thing added to you life? Is it a facet of your being or is it your entire being? What do you think about when you get up in the morning? What drives you? Do you ever weep over the “messages” you share? Life is so very short and we have a choice whether or not we drive deep for what is authentic. We can learn much and obtain much. We can become well respected and “do things for God” or we can be authentic. I would rather be authentic and never get beyond the elementary doctrines of the faith than to write “deep theology,” whatever that is, or conduct massive crusades with thousands of “decisions,” whatever those are.

Ezekiel 3:1-2 (AMP) says, “he said to me, Son of man, eat what you find [in this book]; eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat the scroll.” Again this same event appears in Revelation 10:10-11 (AMP) where it says, “So I took the little book from the angel’s hand and ate and swallowed it; it was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but once I had swallowed it, my stomach was embittered. Then they said to me, You are to make a fresh prophecy concerning many peoples and races and nations and languages and kings.”

Ezekiel and John both had to eat the scroll. It was not enough to have the scroll, read it, and deliver the message. The scroll had to become part of them if they were going to deliver the word. Note that in John’s case the scroll became bitter in his stomach. How sweet a word or revelation from God may be, but once it becomes a part of us the requirements of that word can be bitter.

It is one thing to receive a word or a revelation from heaven, and it is a sweet thing to receive something from the Lord. It is one thing to have a word and to deliver it. It is altogether a different thing for that word to become part of you. To suffer the reproach of a word that is not popular. To preach a balanced message of mercy mixed with judgment. To have to live a life up to the requirement of the word. We cannot just deliver the word and go on, we have a requirement to live a life up to the words that we give. We must meet the requirement of the word, not just the end recipient.

Authenticity must found among us. No man is a prophet unless his life lines up with his message. A man may well deliver a message that is beyond him while he is growing in God, but a man has not reached a prophetic maturity until his message is his life and his life is his message. A message is not words only. Words are a just a part of the message. The prophet taken as a whole is the message. The life and everything surrounding the prophet is the message.

So this leads us to decision time. Are we a message or do we deliver a message? Are we ready anytime, any place to speak for God as His Spirit leads? Are we a message that can be declared at any moment or do we need to know when a message is required and then seek God for it? Now this does not preclude the requirement of seeking God and at times seeking God for a word to a specific people. But, God cannot give the word He wants to give unless our life is an incubator that the word can grow in and be delivered from. A life that is already a breeding ground for the Word of God because it is the Word of God.

Jesus is the Word and He is also the elder brother among the Sons of God. We are to live as the elder brother and as the firstborn of the resurrection. We should then be the Word of God as well. Our lives should be a word to the world. Jesus did not live “lifestyle” evangelism only where He simply lived a life that was so good people came up to him and wanted to be a Christian. One of the primary characteristics of Jesus ministry was that you never knew what He was going to do next. You never knew what may come out of His mouth from moment to moment. He was the Word of God and the Word of God then could verbalize His message at any moment.

When anyone approached Him in need He did not have to seek God for an answer because He was the answer. He could train and teach the disciples at any moment, even going down the road. He lessons were not premeditated. This does not invalidate some preparation and methods of training, but Jesus was the Word and spoke and demonstrated the Word at any time. He did what He saw His Father doing. Any time the Father wanted to do something, it could be done through Jesus, not because Jesus knew how to do what the Father wanted to do, but because Jesus was what the Father wanted to do.

This is what God has called us up to. Jesus called us friends, not slaves. God wants us to be fashioned like Jesus, to be fashioned like Him so that we are what He wants to do on the earth not merely a mouth piece speaking what He wants to do.

We do not realize the privilege that we have been called to. God’s pleasure is in us taking on His own nature and being like Him. He desires us to be filled with His Spirit and living off of His life. He has called us into a relationship that He describes as bride and bridegroom. He drops our maiden name of fallen humanity and we take on a divine name. We come into a unity with the Divine where we can enjoy His character and His attributes and become like Him.

We are not called to be some sort of marketer and promoter of God’s agenda. We are God’s agenda. We can only effectively call the lost into the Kingdom when we are a living example of the agenda of God rather than some sort of Divine secretary delivering a memo from the boss. The angels were created as His messengers, we were created for something altogether different. He are to share in God’s life and become one with Him.

There is something very dangerous that can happen in ministry. It is easy to get caught up in the requirements of ministry. Ministering keeps us in activities that revolve around God and requires that we are prepared to minister. The requirement of ministry can drive us a devotion and spirituality, but it is a spirituality that is based on the needs of the ministry, not our inner man. We can begin obtaining a message from God to deliver, but no longer becoming the message ourselves.

It is a dangerous place to be. It could well lead to Jesus’ terrifying comment, “I never knew you” to those that even did miracles. I remember Mario Murillo saying once that God told him to pray twice a day. Once for the ministry and once just for himself. We absolutely cannot let the demands of ministry drive our relationship with God. Our relationship must be driven because of our personal desire to be transformed into His image.

What would happen if all the ministry were removed? How much time would you be spending with God? How important would your time with God be? Is it the demand of ministry that keeps you close to Him? If so, you’re not as close as you seem. It is time to be real and honest about our spirituality and whether it is real or not and whether or not it is based on a proper foundation. I have experienced this pattern in my own life, so I know it is real and deadly. We have to live in a place where we seek God just for Him and, even if there is no ministry, we still love Him just as must and get as close to Him as we can.

Perhaps it might do us all well to sit before God and not ask Him for a message for the church or that lost loved one, but to ask Him to make us a message to the world. If we are to be a prophetic people, we must be God’s illustration of Himself to the world. We must expect hurt and rejection because that is what rises up to God second by second from His creation. We must also live in perfect love because that is God’s response second by second to His creation.

Let’s put aside the time we might spend trying to get a message to “do something for God” or perhaps advance our own ministry and use that time to allow God to form a message in us. Let’s spend time to allow Him fashion us into a message that can be delivered anytime and any place. This kind of believer is the only kind that will be able to survive in what will shortly be upon the earth. Do not forget. Earthquakes, famines, and I think I could add hurricanes, are just the beginning of sorrows. Let’s set of faces like flint to the wind to be part of God’s glorious demonstration on the earth amidst all the disaster that must come.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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What Small Prayers are you Praying?

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Richard Wurmbrand was a hard, atheistic, Romanian Jew. He had an interest in religion and Christianity, but found the church empty and meaningless. Deep in his heart he wanted to believe in God, but saw no evidence for him and so settled on Atheism after challenging God to reveal Himself. Then one day he ended up in a village high in the mountains of Romania and everything changed.

According to Richard there was not even any real reason to visit the village. There he met an old carpenter whose prayer was, “My God, I have served you on earth and I wish to have my reward on earth as well as in heaven. And my reward should be that I should not die before I bring a Jew to Christ, because Jesus was from the Jewish people. But I am poor, old, and sick. I cannot go around and seek a Jew. In my village there are none. Bring a Jew into my village and I will do my best to bring him to Christ.”

According to Richard, “the carpenter courted me as never a beautiful girl had been courted.” The carpenter, who amazed Richard by being full of a divine love not only wooed him personally, but also gave him a Bible of which Richard wrote, “That Bible he gave me was written not so much in words, but in flames of love fired by his prayers. I could barely read it. I could only weep over it, comparing my bad life with the life of Jesus; my impurity with His righteousness; my hatred with His love and He accepted me as one of His own.”

Years later, Richard went back to that village and preached in a church. He gave his testimony and told what God had been doing. An old man wept the whole time. At the conclusion of the service Richard asked him why he was weeping. He answered, “I led the carpenter to Christ.” Two seemingly insignificant people, each one leading another seemingly insignificant Romainian to Christ had the startling effect of launching a global mission to the persecuted church with untold fruit over the last 50 plus years.

I am sure that you probably pray at times for the big things like world revival and the nation and other large, important events and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is vital. It is critical that God’s people come in unity and express a single voice in prayer to Him for things that He wants done upon the earth. Large prayer gatherings such as The Call that focus on some of the monumental issues in our nation are very significant and very special to God.

It is critical that we raise our voice in unity with other believers for things that are on a large scale because we do not know the day, the hour, or even the minute where one voice may be enough to overflow the vials of heaven and cause our God to act upon the earth in response to the cries of His children.

As important as these prayers are, there can be something almost abstract about them. Large numbers of people are praying for these things so you sometimes feel like just one small cog in the wheel. At times you may lose faith, but there are so many others that have faith in the same direction, that their faith carries you onward. Regardless, as important as prayers like this are, let us direct our attention to another area of prayer.

What small, seemingly insignificant prayers are you praying? It is easy to join in the big prayers. It is easy to feel the burden for the “big things” when there is the enthusiasm of the crown to help you go along. The small prayers are another matter. They rise and fall with your personal commitment which makes them entirely different.

Voice of the Martyrs is now an international organization and one of the leading organizations in the world for ministry to the persecuted church. It equips the persecuted church to evangelize and minister and meets the practical needs of those that suffer for the gospel. They have ministered to untold masses over the years and raised awareness of the treatment of believers on a global level. The entire organization came from Richard’s faithfulness. It began with an attempt to evangelize the Russians and others around him in every conceivable way. It then led to faithfulness in prison and in torture, including years of solitary confinement 30 feet below the ground. The brutal and inhumane treatment is well chronicled in his first book, Tortured for Christ.

All the ministry over the years all came from the faithfulness of that one man who was so soundly converted. Or did it? The faithfulness of Richard is not worth anything if you remove the faithfulness of an old, weak carpenter who prayed one simple prayer. And even his faithful prayer is rendered worthless if you remove the act of another man in effecting his conversion.

Do you see how the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards once you remove just one critical element? This is the way it is with the Lord’s body, His church. God wants to make much of His Son. Jesus is the human incarnation of God and so God will exalt His Son. His Son is the perfection He always desired in humanity.

The sin that runs rampant through the hearts of men is painful for the Father. He sees a twisted, perverted creation. Just as we recoil at a birth defect or a horribly disfigured or mutilated individual, so our God is forced to look upon men who are a twisted version of what He created. A version of what God desired that is mutilated so much farther beyond the original design than we can know. Looking upon man as he is now is a painful thing for the Father.

How different it is as He looks upon Jesus. There He sees the desire of His heart. He sees the one that represents all He originally desired to create. He sees the one that is the picture of His desire for mankind. God loves mankind with an intense love that we cannot understand. He has taken an incredibly personal interest in this unique creation of His. An interest that He has not taken in any other creation. He suffered through the cross to have unity with mankind. The intimacy He desires with man is so unique that the closest picture He can give us in the Scriptures is the picture of an intimate marriage.

His passion for mankind makes the current condition of most of the world unbearable for Him, but then He just looks upon His Son. There His heart is so full of joy unspeakable as He gazes upon the manifestation of the design He had for mankind all along. Make no mistake about it, the Father will make much of the Son. He will lift up the picture of what mankind was designed to be.

The body of Christ upon the earth should be such that as the Father gazes upon it, He sees the Son. The Father only wants to see one thing when He looks at the church and that is the Son. He wants to see that same likeness that so thrills His heart. That likeness is a single body. There is no room for individual stars in the body. There is only one star and that is Christ Himself. There are no little kingdoms with their own rulers, there is one kingdom and one King. There are no sects and divisions within this body; for the Father sees only one body.

To separate a body is mutilation. A body is only beautiful and fully functional as a whole. You cannot dismember it and still have the beauty of the body. Whenever you dismember it you find something ghastly and horrible. So too with the Body of Christ. You cannot dismember even one small piece without damaging the body. There are distinct limbs and distinct parts of the body, and yet each part of the body is attached and dependent on the rest of the body. It is inseperable. You cannot separate the body. Bones, muscles, and blood vessels all interweave and overlap and tie the body together.

To remove a Romanian carpenter is to tear, not only him, but also Richard from the body. Removing his one life does not just destroy him, it destroys a large part of the body. And the same thing goes for the man who led the carpenter to Christ. The body is so intertwined that you cannot remove a piece without damaging the whole.

So let us return to the original question. What small prayers are you praying? The carpenters small prayer to convert just one Jew is a foundation that a worldwide ministry assisting innumerable persecuted believers rests on. Remove his one prayer and the ministry falls to the ground.

In the West we tend to look for the big hit. We impress you with our size and power. We want to build something that will be large and impressive. Our self worth is tied to how visibly impressive our accomplishments are. Unfortunately we have carried those same values over to ministry. Just as the businessman seeks to grow his empire and establish his brand, so we also seek to conquer and promote our little kingdom within Christianity and call it a ministry.

As opposed to seeking to be part of a body, we are really more like a franchise. A small, booming business in our own right that franchises Jesus’ name and many of His benefits from the Father. We have our organization under God’s organization. Whatever our market niche is we try to take it for God and outperform the other franchisees. We have conventions and conferences with the other franchises and swap prayers and training since we are all in the same business, but once that is over and we are back to business we are again building up our own individual franchises in our own individual silos.

We are far more interested in making our particular ministry a success than truly living as a body. Do we ever realize how deadly that one decision in the garden was to go our own way and become our own gods? Ever since the fall we are constantly trying to create our own kingdom we can rule over rather than taking our place as a ruler within the kingdom of our God. Rather than live in our place, like Satan we challenge God’s kingdom by creating our own. And let us be brutally honest, do we not build up our own kingdoms in ministry as well?

The body is critical. It cannot function with any piece removed. It is designed to look just like Jesus, not like a collection of individual performers and franchisees. It is interwoven together in such a way that any attempt to separate and divide produces disfigurement and severely weakens the body.

We see then that the role of the individual believer is to expand the image of Christ on the earth rather than just create a ministry. Our goal is not to build up own own ministry or produce results, but simply to glorify Jesus Christ and extend His dominion on the earth. What a load this removes from our American shoulders that always need to produce and make things happen. There is a subtle poison in the western way. It is never enough. No matter how much you conquer or achieve, there is always one who has achieved more. You either settle into apathy where you are or continue to drive yourself into the ground trying to catch up with the next target.

The kingdom works in an opposite way from the world. We are not here to build big; we are here to find our place within the body and begin letting God’s heart pump His blood through our veins so that we might have the power to simply be Jesus on the earth. Whether what God gives us appears to be big or not is not our concern. This is why the small prayers are so critical.

Do you realize that unless you take your place the body suffers? The body is incomplete with just one member missing. No matter how small and insignificant you think you are, the body will be disfigured in some way if you do not take your place.

Jesus said the following, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29 AMP). The very Son of God lived this way. He was born to a plain girl of no particular social standing. And do not forget that only one tenth of His life was public ministry. The rest was working with his hands as an ordinary man and ministering to God in His private life. Human pride, on the other hand, looks to exalt itself and is always looking for something big. This human tendency is so deeply rooted in us that it can even creep into ministry that we do and our ministry can be a thin veil covering the same human ambition that we always had.

Listen again to Jesus’ words, “I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the Son is able to do nothing of Himself (of His own accord); but He is able to do only what He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does is what the Son does in the same way.” Again, Jesus shrinks back from significance and importance and shifts the focus of the world’s most significant ministry back to the Father. The implications here are profound. I simply do what the Father tells me to do. Notice Jesus is not even driven by human needs and demands. He is driven by the direction of the Father. Now obviously the heart of the Father will drive men to reach out and meet human needs, but the source of the call to ministry is not the demands of men it is the call of the Father.

How often do we miss what God wants to do because we are looking to do something “big” for the kingdom? Now if God has given you a big vision, do not let me steal that from you or discourage you, but let me give you one little secret. The genesis of that large vision will more than likely be small steps of obedience and small responses to God. How often do we miss what God is wanting to do when it is right in front of us simply because it is not big enough? We are always looking for a big hit, so we fail to be faithful in the little things.

Do you realize that Asuza street was a small gathering in a small, dirty mission? Do you realize that a larger, more prominent church had been praying for the outpouring and had some real moves of God’s Spirit, but in the end was not the one chosen for the outpouring? How many alive then rejected that store front move because it was small and took root among insignificant people.

Listen again to the words of Jesus, “He who is faithful in a very little [thing] is faithful also in much, and he who is dishonest and unjust in a very little [thing] is dishonest and unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the [case of] unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not proved faithful in that which belongs to another, who will give you that which is your own?” (Luke 16:10-12 AMP)

How often do we neglect faithfulness in little things and sit around waiting for big responsibilities? Our vision is so fixated on the large things coming on the horizon that our we look right over the small things directly in front of us. In so doing, we forfeit the larger vision that God wanted to accomplish because we did not take the necessary steps in the small things. We are looking for those big moments and big opportunities, but fail to be faithful in the day to day moments of life. It is those day to day moments that Jesus and men like John the Baptist were found faithful and trustworthy. In both cases, powerful ministry flowed from a daily faithfulness in small and obscure things.

Consider the state of the world in the natural. America has the mightiest military machine the world has ever seen. It can invade and occupy a country like Iraq in a very short amount of time. It is a machine that can steam roll almost any army in the world when the full resources of the military are brought to bear. But consider the damage that a few devoted insurgents and suicide bombers can do. A few so dedicated to the cause that they will give their lives have been causing havoc for the American military machine for some time now.

We so often are looking to be a mighty machine for God, full of power and ability that impresses the world and we can steam roll our cities for God in massive demonstrations. God perhaps is looking more for some devoted revolutionaries that will give their lives to the cause. Their day to day obedience and day to day laying down of their lives will cause the enemy more havoc and more upheaval than the big machine does. The problem is that the big machine is impressive and allows the five star general to stand over his conquest proudly. On the other hand, the insurgent is not effective at all until he has made the decision that his life is to be given for the cause. In addition, to be effective he must do what is necessary and then step back out of the picture and lay low drawing no attention to himself. I believe the days of the big machine for God are drawing near a close. There has been some blessing and many men of God that were used of God; however the times are shifting. The world is different. God is calling for a fresh, new believer that has more in common with the apostles walking the dusty roads and losing their lives to the Roman machine that they challenged than they do with a successful American.

What is the whole basis for Heidi and Rolland Baker’s ministry? They are doing something “big” for God with thousands of churches and outreach into many different countries. But what is the primary message? It is “stop for the one.” In Rolland’s words, forget your ministry, forget your plans just come to an absolute stop for the one hurting person in front of you. Now that message is not Africa centric. Everyone of us can apply that every day. The problem is that it is a small vision. It does not look grand and we are afraid it will never lead to the big dreams we have. However, it is more in line with what God wants from us every day than our vision for large ministry. The Kingdom of God is hindered because He cannot find those who will commit to the small vision.

What small thing could you do, or what “small” person could you reach that might impact eternity? God has an incredible way of always using the small and insignificant. His humility is so unlike ours. He does not delight in big, showy things and that is why He hides Himself so often. He does not display His ability and impress the world. He keeps in in hiding. When we take “small” steps for the kingdom, we are delighting the heart of the Father that takes the very same small steps.

In Matthew, Jesus makes the following statement, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Of all the seeds it is the smallest, but when it has grown it is the largest of the garden herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and find shelter in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32). This one statement can teach us more about the kingdom than we ever imagined.

Consider the following comments by John Dominic Crossan from the book “The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant:”

What exactly is the correlation of kingdom and mustard plant?

Pliny the Elder, who lived between 23 and 79 C.E., wrote about the mustard plant in his encyclopedia “Natural History”:

“With its pungent taste and fiery effect, mustard is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand, when it has once been sown, it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.” (Pliny, “Natural History” 19.170-171; Rackham et al. 5.528-529)

There is, in other words, a distinction between the wild mustard and its domesticated counterpart, but even when one deliberately cultivates the latter for its medicinal or culinary properties, there is an ever-present danger that it will destroy the garden….The mustard plant, therefore, is, as domesticated in the garden, dangerous and, as wild in the grain fields, deadly. The point is not just that it starts small and ends big but that its bigness is not exactly a horticultural or agricultural desideratum….I prefer, methodologically, to bracket both Luke and the Mishnah and to conclude that the core image of the parable is of the mustard plant, whether of the deliberately sown but still relatively dangerous domestic variety or of the intrusive and so absolutely dangerous wild variety. “It is hard,” Douglas Oakman rightly concludes, “to escape the conclusion that Jesus deliberately likens the rule of God to a weed.”

The point, in other words, is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbially small seed and grows into a shrub of three or four feet, or even higher, it is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted, that it tends to get out of control, and that it tends to attract birds within cultivated areas where they are not particularly desired. And that, said Jesus, was what the Kingdom was like: not like the mighty cedar of Lebanon and not quite like a common weed, like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties. Something you would want in only small and carefully controlled doses—if you could control it.

Now Crossan himself is hardly what one would call an orthodox believer in Christianity, but he makes some interesting points. By realizing what Jesus was referring to, we can greater grasp his statement about the mustard seed. A mustard plant is more of a small, leafy vegetable-like plant than a tree. This has lead several scholars to believe that Jesus’ comments to the birds lodging in the tree are references to the church becoming a large institution that the enemy’s kingdom would then infiltrate. This is based also on the fact that birds are used as a picture of the enemy’s workers in other parables in the passage.

Regardless, a mustard plant is more of a large leafy plant that can grow several feet tall. Notice some key points. Wherever the seed is dropped, it takes root and spreads. According to Pliny, the seed germinates quickly so it can take root and grow anywhere the seed is dropped whether or not there was an intention to grow the plant. Notice that this fast growing ability also gives the plant the ability to spread quickly. The plant then is a danger in a wheat field or even in a cultivated garden because it will keep spreading whether you like or not. Ask the ruler of any country that has persecuted Christianity whether or not this is an accurate description of the kingdom. The seed falls quickly, germinates and the plant spreads like wild fire even though you try to put it out.

The kingdom then is less like a large monolithic oak tree that takes decades to become a powerful, towering tree and more like a small vegetable like plant that quickly germinates and spreads to another. Whenever we sacrifice time to try to plant and build something large, permanent, and impressive, we are losing the battle because in that same time we could have simply taken the seed of the kingdom that was given to us and spread that to another where it would quickly germinate and then spread to another.

The principle of Christianity is that I give everything I have in Christ to another because that is what Christ did for me, and then that one gives everything they have to another. Is this not what Paul said the apostles did? The early apostles suffered through all sorts of distresses, troubles, and persecutions and why did they do it? To see Christ formed in another. Not to build up their ministries, but to see Christ formed in another. They were this small plant that made sure another plant was germinated and rooted and then that plant rooted and germinated another and Christianity spread uncontrollably across the Roman Empire.

In the time they could have built a towering, monolithic structure, they were conquering the world by this method of quickly, personally spreading the seed from one individual to another. Because we think from a western mindset, we often spend great time and sacrifices to built something monumental, large, and impressive when the time would be better spent simply taking the one in front of you and spreading a seed to let it germinate in them. The kingdom then grows quickly because we are relying, not one one big bang, but on multiplication.

This principle is probably one of the many factors that contributes to the growth of the persecuted church. They do not have the freedom to build big churches and big campaigns like we do, so they instead focus on taking the seed they have and passing it to another one and having it germinate in them. That individual then gives the seed away likewise. Now, this is in no way the “one big secret” to the success of the persecuted church, but it is doubtless a pattern that is very successful for them.

In the future the church in the west, as it is prepared for persecution and the things that are coming upon the earth, will move more and more in this way. The large, impressive structures we have built (do not just think physical buildings) will fall to a more organic Christianity where many little mustard seeds full of fire will germinate and then pass to another one and take over places whether it be the rough “field” of the third-word field, or the more developed “garden” of the west. We have already seen the seeds of this change in the way church is being done with more focus on home churches and small groups meeting in the homes.

Just remember one thing. This seed is worthless if it falls to the ground and does not germinate. The secret to the spread of the mustard plant is that the seed falls and germinates. This is why Jesus said to go and make disciples, not converts. It is not enough to simply throw seed. We have to invest the seed in men and women until we see it germinated and Christ formed in them. In this investing, we give them all that God has done in us and then they are equipped to go germinate this plant of the kingdom in another. This commitment to making sure the seed fully germinates in the one in front of us will be key to the spread of the kingdom that we see.

To return to the place where we began: what small prayers are you praying? Those small prayers that God lays on your heart are the very thing that might be used to plant this fiery little seed in another heart where it can germinate. Like the Romanian carpenter, we do not know what just one seed that we germinate might actually do.

The secret to the explosion of the kingdom is right in front of us. We have to get to the place where it is more important to expand the kingdom and the visibility of the King than it is to “step into our ministries.” As we move the eyes off of ourselves, the chains of pride our loosed and we suddenly find ourselves investing in others to see the kingdom germinate in them. In so doing we may well find that our part in the kingdom was to launch another that will do the next “big” thing for God, all the while our vision is obscured to the fact that the “big” thing God is doing with us is using us to invest in others the way His Son did when He walked the earth. Can you handle the fact that the next big thing God does, He may do it through somebody else and not you? Will you still rejoice to see it even if it is the very thing you have asked the Lord for for years?

When God came to earth, he invested Himself in others and gave them everything He had. He sent them out to preach and cast out evil spirits. He gave them the same power of the Spirit that He had. If we look at the character of God, it is to humble Himself and use all His power and all His ability to increase another. He used all His power on the cross to rescue us from ourselves at great personal cost to Him. Jesus poured out into the twelve, even knowing that one would be lost. For Jesus the “big” thing He did for God was to plant His little leafy, mustard plant kingdom into the hearts of other men that would be used to spread it around the world.

So not only must we pray the small prayers, we must also invest ourselves in the small things. We have to see with the same eyes that God sees through. We need His vision for the small things in the world, for time and time again that is where you will find Him working. We have to put sweat and effort into those prayers which shows that we are actually invested in that small prayer we are praying and not offering lip service to a new idea. The Romanian carpenter did not just pray for a Jew; when God brought one, he wooed that Jew to Christ. The small prayer must be in the heart as well as one the lips.

This is where it gets close and personal. We are so terrified that God will not do anything, that we would rather write a check to some missionary half way around the world and consider that our duty done to God. First of all, we do not placate God by doing our duty; we respond to Him out of a heart in love with Him. We must be motivated by absolute love for Him. We have to forget the fear and go with God. If we fail, we fail but it is better to die humiliated going for the kingdom than to pass safely in the shadows.

We are so scared of putting God on the spot and embarrassing Him. We have so little confidence in His Word. Let us go for it and quit holding back, even in the small, personal things of life where it will be our neck on the line and not some big preacher or missionary in the jungles of Asia that will be embarrassed. Just remember that God does not reward presumption and is not a magic potion. His Word works, but it makes the requirement that the one for whom He acts is a life wholly given to Him. It might not be a life that has reached perfection, but it is a heart that has set its face towards God.

Just one final word. Do not read this and think that this is a message against large ministries or well known ministries. Far from this. God does raise up large operations from time to time as it suits His purposes. Voice of the Martyrs founded by brother Wurmbrand is now a large organization. Simple size is not the litmus test of a ministry. The litmus test is in the heart. Heidi and Rolland Baker have thousands of churches from that simple approach of stopping for the one. I am not hear to try to tear down anything that God does not want torn down. If you have a big organization or a big vision, submit it to God. If He exposes some of the issues mentioned here than repent and go on with Him. If not, then continue going on with God and the vision He has given not forgetting what the Word says, “Who [with reason] despises the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10 AMP)

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Katrina – The Bubble is Bursting

By Samuel Clough
Monday, September 11th, 2006

Hour after hour we have watched footage of Katrina. We have seen the destruction and the damage. We have seen the incredible effort it is taking just to rescue human lives and we are beginning to get a glimpse of what the economic impact might be. The big question is what is God saying? Is there a word from the Lord through this storm? We tend to dodge the fact that the Scriptures clearly indicate that God will use weather to send messages to a nation. In our case one year after once of the worst hurricane seasons ever where storm after storm came ashore, we now have already had two hurricanes with the last one being potentially the worst one in U.S. History. One thing is certain amidst all the uncertainly: as the late Francis Schaeffer said, “God is there and He is not silent.”

America lives in a bubble. This should be patently obvious to anyone that has ever been overseas or who casts more than a passing glance at the international news. All over the world there is civil war, terrorism, disease, and starvation. The world is in terrible shape, and yet America is a fairly secure, stable, prosperous society. There is nothing anywhere in the world like America. The level of prosperity and ease far exceed anything that can be found in most of the world. Only a handful of other western nations can boast anything like it.

The truth is that the nation has been quite isolated and sheltered from much of the suffering in the world. Over time our nation has used its position to grow more and more wealthy and more and more decadent. As we have increased ourselves, we have turned more and more of our time and efforts to pleasures. Where many places in the world have to break their backs just to survive, we are obsessed with leisure. We fill our hours with entertainment, sports, and consumption. We lie down to play and rise up to play. Let us be honest about where America is and even be personally honest about what part we might have played in it.

God is calling America to repent. He is calling us back to Himself. There has been much good in America over her history, but she has crossed a line and set her face towards unprecedented decadence and debauchery. There are many Christians who are trying to stem the tide by campaigning for conservative politicians, and that is important, but we must have a heart change. We must have a move of the Spirit of God that changes lives rather than just a change of lawmakers.

The bubble is bursting. Four years ago almost to the day, we got a rude wake up call. On 9/11 the most brutal act of terrorism occurred on America shores. 9/11 will be forever etched in our memories. America was moved out of her innocence into the world of terror were most of the world has been living for the years. God in His mercy limited both the lives lost and the damage incurred. Far less damage occurred than the terrorists had planned for. We heard story about story of individuals that should have gone to work and did not. As horrific as it was we saw signs of God’s provision all around that terrible moment.

What did we learn from 9/11? Was there a national repentance? There was a temporary rush to the church to see if the church had any answers. Did the church, the one to whom God Himself is betrothed have a word? By the looks of things, she did not. Did people rush into the doors and find a man with a word from God? A man burning with the presence of God ready to deliver a word for just such a desperate hour? I fear that, in most cases, such a man was not found. A good man was in the pulpit I’m sure, but in most cases a man upon whom the presence of the most High dwells was not found. Soon after 9/11, the church attendance abated and things were “back to normal.”

Two primary attitudes came out of the 9/11 experience. The initial response was to declare war on terrorism. And so, we immediately went to war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. We flexed our military might and showed the world that we would not tolerate an attack on our shores and took the battle overseas. The opposing viewpoint was one of peace. One that basically says, stop brandishing America’s might and stay out of these third world areas and leave these people alone and they will leave us alone. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan because it is just costing American lives and resources and is costing the lives of innocence third-world civilians.

Although the two primary attitudes seem completely opposed to each other, they both have a common root: the preservation of the American way of life. Nobody asked after 9/11 whether or not our way of life was in need of change. The nation did not sit down and reexamine her roots and way of life or even quiet herself long enough to hear if God way saying anything.

One camp wants to use the most advanced killing machines in history to wipe out anybody that might be related to terror. They believe America’s might can solve her problems. They take pride in the muscle we can flex and are impressed to watch the damage we can do on CNN. There is an arrogance there that we will preserve our way of life no matter what and we have the power to do it. Immediately after 9/11, one of the most popular bumper stickers was “The Power of Pride.” That one sentence is very revealing. We are a proud people. We are proud of our way of life and do not plan to change it. Rather than seeing pride as a weakness, we look to it as our power.

The other camp wants to live in isolationism. They want the nation to stay out of global hotspots and preserve our way of life at home. They do not care what is happening in our nations, the goal is to preserve our peace and our pleasure and let the rest of the world do whatever it wants. They do not want to see Americans dying on foreign soil for anything and desperately do not want trouble on our own soil.

Now I know that there are alternative viewpoints and many who hold beliefs that are in shades of variation between the two extremes, but we can sum up most public opinion as being in one of the two camps. However, the point is that 9/11 humbled America and brought her a few moments where she was more equal with the rest of the world than she had been in years, just as Katrina did. The result of that, however, was that the nation quickly tried to cover herself and to appeal to her historical strength and pride in order to return back to the “American” way of life. There was no cry to change her ways and plot a new course. God poked a little hole in our bubble, and rather than listen to His voice coming through that hole, we patched it up as quickly as possible.

The average American now lives a life that is either ignorant of the dangers in the world or decidedly oblivious to it. I have been told that one individual with access to classified information said that if the American public really knew what was going on in other nations, they would be in a panic. Well, it does not take that kind of clearance to see that. Have you ever sat down and watched a beheading in Iraq or have we already forgotten those? Just try to watch the brutality. That sort of evil is all over the earth, and there is no shortage of that sort of hatred for America.

Have you considered what will happen when the suicide bombers come to America? What will it be like when the first one blows themselves up in the middle of the mall? Have you considered that a single suitcase bomb could do incalculable damage to a major city? These are very real dangers we face and yet we play on. God Himself is so merciful that His judgments usually start small and are spaced far apart. He gives people the opportunity to experience a judgment and then repent. He is very long suffering. The Apostle Peter writes that God delays the judgment of the earth because he is long suffering waiting for as many men as might come to repentance. God’s delay is not a sign of His pleasure, it is rather an indication of His heart for mercy.

God in all His mercy both contained the destruction on 9/11 and has held back a 9/11 like disaster the last 4 years, giving us time to grow the fruits of our response to 9/11. The fruit of the response, I am afraid to say, is terrifying. America is now more proud and has more confidence in her might than every before. By all economic indicators, our consumption is reaching record levels. Our pursuit of pleasure and leisure has not been abated one bit.

We have not turned our hearts to the more serious pursuits of life like religion, but have increased our focus on the temporal. I fear we are on the path of “eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die.” The national obsession with sex and beauty grows even stronger. The nation god of sport receives more worship now than probably any time in our history. Our housing market is in an unprecedented boom. People are trading properties to make money and to trade up into bigger and bigger houses. We keep building bigger and bigger houses that are more and more expensive using cheap interest rates to buy far more mortgage than we would have in the past. If we cannot pay for the house, that is ok, we just get an interest only loan to keep the party rolling.

We have patched and mended the bubble. Last year was a history breaking year as storm after storm pounded Florida and the gulf coast. Yet, there was no national turning, no turn of the heart towards serious things. And now, I fear the next step has been taken with Katrina. This hurricane thundered ashore doing the kind of damage on a scale that perhaps has never been seen in our nation. It created a different kind of damage. While God was merciful and the storm shifted causing less absolute destruction that it perhaps could have, it is little consolation to the affected areas in the face of the massive damage that it did do.

In a moment, our nation changed. In an instant things turned. At first, the storm came ashore just like any other hurricane. There was wind, water, and damage. A very serious storm to be sure, but not entirely unlike past hurricanes. But then, within a few days, we saw that this storm was unlike past storms. Things were different. The damage after the storm as levees begin to break in New Orleans begin to take on a new and different direction.

Just a few days after the storm, we woke up to a different world. Suddenly there were thousands of people in the streets hungry and thirsty and no way to get to them. Bodies were floating in the water and soon were joined by others as the weak began dying on the streets. Hospitals with no power or water were forced to pile up their dead in stairwells since their morgue was flooded with water. There were people nearly drowning in their own attics. Soon looting started. At first it might have been for water and food, but it soon became much more serious.

Within hours after the hurricane passed the region, the unthinkable happened. Armed bandits began ruling the city. Police were stuck with cars that had no gas and had no communications. Some left the city, some drowned, and a couple committed suicide. The city was helpless before bands of armed thugs. Citizens in the city were suddenly vulnerable and terrified. They were refugees at the mercy of outlaws. Aid and rescue missions were thwarted as rescuers came under fire. The hospital could not even receive aid because the aid came under fire. Police were outnumbered and out gunned and holed up in their own police station during the night.

As if that was not enough, the initial economic impact was felt next. We soon discovered the major oil pipelines to the southeast were down. Panic ensued in Atlanta and people waited hours to buy gas that had now jumped to incredible prices. Even after the pipelines began pumping again at partial strength, the gas prices had already broken new records and settled into new highs.

And do not forget that the price of gas has farther reaching impacts than one may realize. Our economy depends on the price of energy. Rising gas prices can cause enormous problems. Air travel becomes too expensive and airlines can begin to go bankrupt. Items in stores become more and more expensive just because of the cost of transportation. Individuals cannot afford to go out and shop and spend anymore, or they continue to do so on credit only ensuring that things will be even worse when their house of credit cards collapses. Our “goldilocks” economy depends on Americans spending and gas prices can influence that spending more than we know.

Almost overnight, proud, strong America woke up as a third world country. What we thought was unthinkable happened within a few hours. Nobody would have ever thought that there would be American refugees in America. There would be people dying in our streets and the bodies just pushed aside. That a hospital would not be able to take care of patients. That women would be openly raped and brutalized.

Would you have believed that a major city would turn into a war zone within a few days? Do you realize we had to send the military into an American city just to regain control of the city? No one would have believed such a scenario even weeks ago, but it has happened. It was one more blow to our innocence. God poked another hole in our bubble and showed us that in an instant our safe little haven in the world can be afflicted with the same kind of anarchy and suffering that is so common in other parts of the world.

God is long suffering and merciful, but He is also warning us. He is showing us how fast things can change. He is allowing us to feel some of the suffering and the pain that the rest of the world deals with day after day. He is gradually unraveling some of the shields that have kept us isolated. And what is our response? Rather than repentance and refocusing our lives, we dig ourselves further and further in. We hang on to our materialistic lifestyles.

Do you realize that the hurricane hit just days before the “Southern Decadence Festival” was set to begin in New Orleans? This is a gay oriented festival that truly is decadent. Men and women arrayed in outfits that are designed only for lust and sexual fantasy. Open sex acts on the streets. This is what the city was planning to celebrate. Will anyone sit back and repent? No, according to the website, they are planning a festival for the die-hards in Lafayette and encouraging everyone to donate their attendance fees to create a better festival next year.

Now it’s easy to pick on that kind of event and it would be easy to simply declare that Katrina was God’s judgment on that event or the numerous other vices that are promoted in this part of the country. Well, there is plenty in America to judge beyond one simple event. More than anything I think that event reveals the American reaction to each wake up call God has sent. We plan to live on in our decadence. If something disrupts our decadence, we do what we can to reschedule it and plan again for the future. We never sit down and stop and examine our lives. We just keep plunging forward. The voices in our head push us forward. The various lusts in our hearts push us forward. The constant media from public television monitors, televisions in our homes, headsets, and radios in our cars constantly push us to pursue our American lifestyle.

Nobody just stops and says, WAIT! Nobody stops for even a day to examine life and see where this road is heading. Those that are at the end of the road are pushed off into eternity from the constant pressure of the masses behind them. When individuals get near death, we drug them to make them comfortable and then put them under medicines and turn off the machines so that they can “die with dignity.” The face eternity in a blind, dumb, and stupored state and we go on with our pursuits. We do not face death and examine our lives.

If nothing else, Katrina exposed just how fragile our world is. The world in New Orleans fell apart in just a few days. The transition was terrifying. Remember, these are not the pictures from the third word that we are so desensitized to. This did not happen in some place that we cannot pronounce under some unstable government. There are your people and my people. These were our people that are now refugees. These are our people dying. There are our daughters and wives being raped. These are our cities turned into instant war zones where the policy terrify to tread. This was our military that had to take control of our city.

Do not think this is limited to New Orleans. That city is just the picture, or the illustration for the rest of the country of what could happen in an instant. Our oil supply and our economy operate on such an edge that just a few days interruption can cause widespread panic. If you hear nothing else, hear this: our economy is fragile. We are not some giant impenetrable fortress. God can break this economy in an instant.

Do you realize that recently we have recorded negative savings rates? This means we effectively spend more than we make. At whatever cost, we are keeping the party going as long as we can. We throw caution and the future (never mind eternity) through the wind for the present.

If this is a wake up call for anyone, it is for the church first. God is looking for His people. Are there a people who are sober and see things as they in fact are or is the church caught in the same rat race as the rest of the country? Are we as ignorant as the rest of the country? We should be the ones with an answer and crying out to God for his grace amidst His judgments, but do we even have the clarity to see the signs of the times?

Jesus foretold and increase in natural disasters that would be the beginning of sorrows. Look at the global statistics for the past 10-20 years and particularly insurance company statistics. Natural disasters are on the rise and they are more costly than ever. This is the beginning of birth pains. We have to shift our thinking from a “rapture mentality” where we huddle down and prepare to leave as soon as trouble hits, to realizing that these are signs of a birth pain. They are not the sign of the earth dying, but of rather being reborn as the kingdom of our God prepares for its physical manifestation on the earth.

If we can truly see the times than we should be assisting the birthing process, eager to see the kingdom come upon the earth. We are aware of disaster and trouble on every side, but we look beyond the pain of the birth process to the thing which will come forth. Or, are we as the young woman so desperately in love with her figure that we cannot bear to think of the disfigurement of the process of pregnancy and then finally, delivery? We, the church, need to decide whether our affections are set on the temporal beauty of this earth, or if we are fixed on that which our God wishes to birth which will require the disfigurement and the pain of this earth which we have perhaps come to love too much.

The church must understand what God is trying to do before she can ever give the message to the world. We are entering a Jeremiah time. We are going to see destruction among our own people as we probably never have before. But God, in His mercy, is going to use this time to give America her final revival. I have believed that for years and believe it more and more with every coming day.

These final days for America will be the greatest days in terms of what God is going to do. However, for those that are not in Him, they will be some of the most terrifying days to ever come upon the earth. And preacher, can I plead with you, to examine your message. The prosperity message as it has been preached in this nation will crumble in the days to come. What will your people do who are being prepared, not to be the grace of God among the judgments of God, but to be rich, powerful, and insulated from trouble do when trouble falls among them? If you are a leader in the church are you building the kinds of people that can stand during the beginning of sorrows, let alone the height of sorrows? Will your people be able to stand in God and be what He needs in these times of trouble, or will their faith crumble even as their possessions crumble?

People, we must be ready and we must be sure that we are building believers around us that can endure in the times to come. I am not trying to spread fear or panic, and I do not believe in doom and gloom, but we must be aware of the times that we are in. We must be prepared for what is coming that we must come through these times as pure vessels that are fit for the Master’s use in the midst of great calamity. As bad as it can be, the third world is far more prepared to handle calamity than we are because they are used to living a much harder life. We are used to a very soft existence and we must prepare ourselves that we can minister to those around us as their soft worlds are blown apart.

Do not forget that Jeremiah was a weeping prophet. Yes, we must have a word of repentance to the nation. Yes, we must call the nation back to God and we must have the word of God in the midst of these calamities. We must be able to discern the judgments of God. However, Jeremiah wept. Just take a minute and digest those two words, “Jeremiah wept.”

We must have tears in our eyes for the sufferings our own people will endure. New Orleans was just a snapshot. It was a postcard of suffering, but what happens when your city becomes the postcard of suffering to the nation? We must weep over what is coming. The church must be the first one to deliver mercy and kindness and compassion to the people, for the great revival everyone is looking for will be found in the midst of the suffering, not aloof from it in an ivory tower. God is on the ground among the people in mercy, not afar off as the Deists proclaim.

Though we have the recognition of the times and of judgment, we must extend the mercy of our God to all who will listen. Do not forget that the same Jesus who told the disciples to shake the dust off their feet when they were rejected in a town, also told them that they did not know of what kind they were when they wanted to call down fire on those that rejected His message. Judgment is in the hands of our God and he carries it with mercy is His other hand. Our God delights in mercy. As I said before, according to Peter the world keeps spinning because God is so long suffering that He is waiting for as many as possible to come to repentance.

New Orleans is an especially easy target, and it is quite possible that God choose that city because of the way it flaunts its wickedness. There are few cities so openly wicked and with such a mix of wickedness. Still, the judgments of our God are God’s alone. Our job is to carry His word and be an oracle to this generation. We must speak the word of God and walk in the very grace and mercy of our God as well.

Do you Remember when the people tried to talk to Jesus about the judgment on another people? Jesus response was simply, “Repent or you too will perish.” We must stand true to God and understand and declare His judgments, but we must also realize that each one of us deserves the wrath of God unless we also repent. We will perish without His mercy. As we see ourselves properly, we can then extend that mercy to others in the time of great judgment. We do not soften our message, but we must preach the entire message and include the grace and love of God towards those who will repent. Even in the midst of His judgments, God desires to give mercy right up to the end.

And so the biggest question is not did God destroy the city because of “Southern Decadence” or the city’s history or the cooperation with the Palestinians in driving Israel of Gaza. There are plenty of reasons for God to allow such a judgment. The biggest question right now is does the church see the signs of the times? Does the church recognize what is going on and is the church in step with God concerning what He is doing and wants to do on the earth? And does the church also carry the heart of God through the crisis’s?

Jesus rebuked Jerusalem for her rejection of the prophets, but He did is as He wept. He could well rebuke the nation in the midst of this hurricane as He wept among the refugees suffering under the load of sin that is on the nation. God desires to see His creation pure and free from the load of sin and so His heart delays judgment time and time again and then weeps as the people suffer under the load of their own iniquity.

It is time that we personally began to own the iniquity of the nation and ask God for His heart for the nation and an understanding of the times. The problem is not the wicked man alone, it also becomes the righteous man when he becomes aloof and allows pride to fill his heart. Do not forget that pride is what cost Lucifer his position in the beginning. As the body of Christ let us not then be ignorant of what we see around us. Let us recognize the judgments of our God, declare the Word of the Lord truthfully and in full measure to the world and then be living pictures of the mercy and grace of God as we minister in weeping, love, and compassion.

Friend, the bubble is bursting and when a bubble bursts, everything falls to the ground in pieces. A few streaks are all that are left of what was a beautiful shape floating elegantly through the air. The question is what is your life? Is it going to vaporize like the bubble, or our you building on something solid that will endure throw the storm looking forward to the permanent habitation of God among His people?

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Kept in the Power of God by Faith

By Janee Hawks
Monday, September 11th, 2006

We are "kept" by the power of God through Faith. We are not kept by ourselves, not by our religion, not by any arm of flesh, or man's ability but rather through FAITH. We are kept by just believing; relying on becoming utterly dependent to respond to every Word He speaks.

For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the "power of God". For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the "power of God" toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4-5)

In our weakness, necessities, distresses and persecutions we rejoice and glory that the power of Christ will rest upon us. For herein is our strength made perfect through His grace. So in our relationships, and all our weaknesses we live by the power of God toward one another. Our faith in the Word releases us to live and to love, in freedom and transparency, not using our freedom as an avenue for the flesh but to serve and love one another with fervent love, letting love cover and conquer all; for faith is the victory that conquers all.

God's word says examine yourselves; whether you are in the faith, prove your own selves.

So since "the just will live by faith" and we will all be "kept by the power of God through our faith," and since we "cannot please God without faith," then we must make sure our "faith is real and alive."

Faith without the real fruit of the Spirit in it has no life in it to grow in you or to give away. Only real fruit has a seed in it that can reproduce. You cannot separate faith from the Spirit of God.

Faith without the real works of obedience has no power in it, so without works, Jesus cannot work through you and the Kingdom is not made manifest. You cannot separate works from the Spirit of God or you will just have law and tradition.

Faith must have substance and evidence. It is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. Therefore the things God speaks or shows us we must hope for in His love knowing they are real whether we see them in the natural or not. That is tested faith. And through this tested faith and patience we will inherit the promises of God. Only then will you own it as a living word in you with seed that will grow and reproduce for others. We must remember that it also takes hopeful patience.

Genuine faith really works by love. The Holy Spirit puts love in us. Our love relationship with Jesus causes us to want to know Him. To know Him is to love Him more. The Spirit of truth then seeds faith in us. Faith then begins to grow in the womb of our hope in “all God says and shows us.” Then faith is born into substance and evidence when we act in obedient works. Faith is alive! This must be a constant lifetime process going on in us. We were destined by God to multiply and be fruitful in the Kingdom of God.

Even the devils believe in God and tremble…………….so there must be something here that goes beyond this stagnant belief. We must believe God so completely that it begins to get in our DNA and it becomes part of our nature, and therefore becomes our attitudes, actions, habits, and lifestyle. The devil believes but he has no works of obedience toward God. He is dead. Our body without the spirit is dead. Our faith without the works of obedience is dead. God, let the fruit of our faith blossom and hang on our lives to reveal Jesus Christ. Let the works of our faith tell the world what Jesus Christ came to do.

Today there is dangerous move among Christians to have a form of godliness without the power of the Spirit. The main goal is to attract people and then hope God will be attracted. The main goal is to be relational with people and hope that helps our relationship with God. We use all the gimmicks of the world to draw people but then when you have drawn them there is no power to change them. Something is so backwards here and God’s spirit will not move here to supernaturally transform a life that can live by genuine faith. It creates a veneer of a lukewarm kind of faith with no real substance or power to it. The person and presence of Jesus Christ must be the center of all. He must be the most exalted one. He must become the engrafted living word in us and that can only happen where the Spirit of God is free and moving in power.

Oh God let the dead bones live again. Let the Spirits wind blow and quicken our faith to great measures of the miraculous power of God that will transform and ignite lives with your fire.

Let all that is dead come alive …………Let all who are dead come alive.

Oh God, our cry is "Make us whole again as your people with real faith that we might be kept through this time by the power of God and able to release it to the world"

Scripture References: 2 Corinthians.13:4-5; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10; Hebrew 11:1; Hebrew 6:12; Galatians.5:5; Romans 5:1-5; James 2:14-26; I John 5:4-5

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Church! What do we really need?

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

What we need more than anything else is not more mega-ministries, but mega-disciples who know the one true God and do His will. We don’t need more professors, colleges, or universities but Word-based training centers that empower Christ-like disciples for a Spirit-led lifestyle of Godliness and love, fully equipped to powerfully touch the lives of all people around the world.

We do not need more individualistic Christians who divide up into denominations or non-denominations. We need many more corporate bodies of Christ who are matured in the Spirit and rich in love deeds not just possessions. We don't need more selfish ambitions to rise to their own desires of success in ministry. We need a body of Christ who have become lives laid down, disciples who do not desire to escape this world but whose passion is great to love it as Christ loved it.

We need a corporate body of Christ throughout our cities that live in holiness and unity of spirit able to stand in equality not competition. We desperately need churches to work together and pastors to form prayer meetings together for the whole city. Pastors need to take down all their success plagues off the wall of their hearts and cast their failures out that keep them in fear and insecurity. We need a fellowship that separates from being “of” the world but does not separate from being "in" it. We need corporate people of God who will take a God life into every area of life in this world and love people like Christ has loved us.

We need the body of Christ who will lay down their desires to be fed and go feed others. We need a body of Christ who will give their bank accounts and their pocket books to God and lay up their treasures in heaven, which is coming to earth. We need more disciples who will not just run to and fro for the fire of God but will be the fire of God. We need churches that want more than a form but hunger for the power of God. We need people who will press through the work of the cross dropping all their baggage and besetting sins so they can "go into the world with the power and love to destroy the works of the devil and establish the Kingdom of God which Jesus died to give us."

We need many more apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers that will come down off themselves to be the humble servants of all, the stewards of God's mysteries, and the prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need these men and women to train and travail until Christ is formed in the body of Christ. We need these leaders called of God to forget the religion that always divides and come together in unity for the Kingdom of God that cannot be shaken. We need the ministry leaders to shake off the Absalom spirit that wants to draw all men unto their own kingdom and instead draw all hearts to Jesus Christ the King of God's Kingdom. Churches that name the name of Christ must stop this trying to attract people with all kinds of ornaments and attract the Holy Spirit of God who alone draws people to Christ and the Father God.

We need more than anything else a people of God who just love God for who He is and not for what He does. We need a people of God who will not worship spiritual gifts and blessings, spiritual positions, personalities, movements or all the spiritual ornaments of today but will just love God alone, the person of Jesus Christ alone. We need lovers of God who worship Him only, purely and totally.

If the cross of Christ alone was all that was ever given from our God…it is totally enough for all eternity.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Hard After the Agape

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

We desperately need a love that never fails. The love that never fails is “agape love.” It is found only in the nature of God himself. God cannot be anything toward us but agape for He is agape. Agape love is the greatest force in all God’s kingdom. What a demonstration we were given in the cross of Christ as He chooses the lowest place of all for our gain. He gives himself in a great suffering sacrifice unconditionally for all the undeserved and unworthy among mankind.

Agape is built on sacrifice, willing to pay the price to give itself away for love’s sake. It is willing to be hurt, to risk, to be vulnerable, to lose for love’s sake. In all our relationships in life agape is so characterized by rushing to the needs of others without conditions, without demands, and without expectations. It never fails to display God likeness. The agape relationship is just love without reason. It will last forever, for it is eternal, it is absolute, and it will never fail.

We are given “this agape” by constantly giving our hearts to God in all the issues of life and He in turn gives us His heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. So this is the greatest goal of our life, ultimate in our marriages, and all our relationships, especially the household of God. God will measure our lives by our hearts motives, our works of faith and our hopeful patience, which is all produced from this “agape love” being shed abroad in our hearts. Selah! Through “faith and patience” the saints of old inherited the promises of God and so will we. Faith, hope and love abide forever but the greatest of these is agape.

Agape love is the greatest force to destroy our own innate selfish nature, and destroy the fleshy works of another. When agape is surrendered to or exercised it will kill pride, anger, and selfishness. It will wrap its arms around fear and insecurities and see them fade away. It will never keep track of any wrongs done toward it. It is the greatest force to destroy the works of the devil, as it kills his plans instantly and will destroy his current fortress. As agape love is given away from a heart it becomes a weapon to destroy the lustful system of our world. It will endure and persevere above and beyond any other power. It will lay down a cover over sin of mercy and forgiveness with power to restore. When agape love is yielded to, it begins to erase the unbelief from our hearts. Then the Spirit of God begins to write on our hearts “trust and belief “which prepares the rich soil for miracles to spring forth.

If we know our God then agape love is a debt that is never paid. We always owe agape love to others as it lives in us by the power of the Spirit of God. We owe agape to our marriage mate, we owe agape to all the body of Christ, we owe agape to the world, and we owe it in “equality to all.” Agape never respects one person above another for all the worldly or religious reasons.

Agape love can only rejoice when truth wins out so it is not blind love. It is the love that will hold holy ground, seek wisdom, and courageously keep the banner of truth held up high for all to see. The fight is to live by faith, which is seeded by truth. Faith finds its womb in the shelter of “hope” underneath the shadow of the Almighty. Faith works through or is empowered by this great agape love. Faith, hope and love abide forever but the greatest of these is agape.

To grow in this “agape” is to become God-like, in our heart, our ways, our thoughts, our works. Nothing will affect our lives more, our marriages more, our families more, our church more, and our world more. This word is to encourage us all to keep pressing upward to obtain this godliness with contentment, which is our greatness prosperity and gain. Could we make it our greatest pursuit to be hard after Agape?

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Empowered For Prophetic Evangelism

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

In 2 Timothy 4, Paul the apostle knowing he would soon depart from this world had a charge in the Spirit for the disciples of Christ. He charged them to endure sound doctrine, to endure the constant preaching of the word, to endure the charge to rebuke and to exhort. He charged them to endure afflictions and to do the work of an evangelist. He charged them to fulfill their ministry. What an insight on the balance of ministry, and endurance was a key to release the power of genuine ministry that would glorify Jesus Christ and establish the kingdom of God.

We know the Bible teaches us (I Corinthians Chapters 12-14) that we are to desire spiritual gifts, to covet earnestly, especially prophecy and to not be ignorant of them, but the more excellent way is love. If we do not have love all else is in vain and works will be burned up. So in our seeking to reach the world we must seek Jesus Christ. We must know our God and His unconditional love relationship before we can ever touch the world as Jesus would. Many are seekers, many are hungry for demonstration, but it cannot come if the cart is before the horse, for you will end up with a prophetic wild fire and a soul-powered religion that gives no life. The church has failed in the area of teaching prophetic purity and balance, which has opened the door for the enemy to do much damage to the body of Christ. Wrong teaching can do great damage to a good heart for God. We, the church have also done much damage to the world with a lot of our evangelistic formulas or programs that lack love and the power of God. The heart of God aches to co-labor with His people for the harvest of the earth.

Prophetic evangelism patterned after Jesus Christ is first becoming a disciple who denies himself, loses his life in this world and follows hard after Christ. Seekers, first seek His person, stay in His fresh revealed word, and then go to the world. Know the scriptures that reveal who Jesus is and you will know the witness of the spirit of truth. Know His loving touch and His voice and then you can give to the world what comes from Him.

Jesus Christ is our best example of a prophetic evangelist. He first of all did only what He saw the Father do (Jo.5:19) which means he lived and walked in intimate communion with the Spirit and the Father. Galatians 5 tells us that if you will live in the Spirit, then you will also walk in the Spirit. Lesson number one, do not expect to go out and be an effective prophetic evangelist who can see and hear what the Spirit is saying and doing if you do not live there every day. You must first enter a sacrificial abandonment to Him that will open the door to his heart and mind and develop a circumcised ear to hear what the Spirit is saying. If Jesus did it, can we get away with less? You say well, Jesus is perfect and we are not. Yes, you are right. Are we talking about being squeaky clean and doing everything perfect all the time? NO! But we are talking about a loving relationship that is constantly after the heart of God and will surrender to the cleansing power of the blood and the work of the cross on a daily basis so that walking in the light of His fellowship is not broken. In Him we live and move and have our very being. (Acts 17:28) If we don't move in Him we might as well not move at all.

Jesus Christ lived and moved in the Spirit of God with full access to all the gifts and anointing of God. He lived in His Fathers love and could move in supernatural power as it flowed from the compassionate heart of God. When He left this world he gave gifts unto men to equip the believers and gave to all believers the Holy Spirit without measure to live in us and with us. However the release of that requires choosing to walk in His love and obedience. We can be prophetic evangelists seeing any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate through us as the Spirit gives and wills. We are not the gift; He the Holy Spirit is the gift. Surrendered obedience, reverence and respect for his presence, complete submission to let the Spirit have his way is how we live and walk with a full measure of Christ in us. We can go to the world around us as Jesus did touching lives with the supernatural love and power of God. It is called reverently submitting to co-labor with the Holy Spirit in honor and respect of who He is and what He wants to say or do. It is not commanding the Holy Spirit to go with you and do what you want to do.

Jesus as a prophetic evangelist went from city to city, from place to place, from person to person preaching, teaching and healing all that came to him. You say, we cannot go out there preaching to them. Listen, Jesus went giving them the message of another Kingdom, the good news of the Kingdom of God, not dead religion. He spoke to the distortion of the religious sect of the day. He went teaching them the difference in lifeless man-made forms of religion and the Fathers Kingdom of love that starts in the transformation of a heart. From that revelation of the Kingdom of God the supernatural power of God flowed to build His church and to destroy the works of darkness. It became an encounter of light in the darkness that stripped the veil of unbelief from their eyes and let the love of God shine into their hearts and lost lives. How can we do any less?

Church of Jesus Christ can you hear the Spirit?

"We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed in to the same image form glory to glory." 2 Corinthians 3:17

If we can find a life in His presence, beholding His face, then the veil of our unbelief and all our insufficiencies are lost and stripped away by His image. Listen, only then in the revelation of who Jesus is and was, and ever shall be can we, his body, become enough light to go to the world and see the enemies blinding veil of unbelief stripped off their minds long enough for the face of Jesus Christ to shine in their hearts. Hear what the spirit says here:

"Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God should shine unto them."

I ask you, " Are you spending quality time with " the light of the world," to become bright enough light to dissipate the darkness in the minds of those who do not believe?" His word gives entrance to His light. You will need the revelation of who Jesus is and wants to be to shine bright enough to destroy darkness. We are the ambassadors of that light so it is so much more than just practicing and learning how to give a word of personal prophecy to someone, although that is a necessary part of it. It is not just about a gift; it is about a prophetic life that all the gifts and mature measure of Christ can flow through.

Revelation 19: 10 reveals that we are not to worship the earthen vessels who hold the light. We are just fellow servants and brothers that have the testimony of Jesus and who worship God; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. A prophetic life is one who worships God alone, a servant of God whose life testifies, (witnesses, manifests, reveals, demonstrates) in every way of Jesus Christ our Lord and King.

It is about a life that can touch God, find His heart, find His mind, and let their sight be fused with His, which is vision and then speak it as He wills. When the voice is saturated with the God of the universe there is an encounter and a creative power that goes forth. It is about a life that flows in Jesus' compassion, in Jesus' authority, and in Jesus' intercession for he alone knows the mind of the Spirit.

Let me side track a little for just a brief paragraph. We need not enter this dimension of God to pray and move in intercession against the darkness with any fear. We must have the fear of the Lord and know our God in His perfect love. He has given to us, the believers, the keys of the kingdom of God, which is the key to open the revelations of heaven that will build His church, to bind up all demonic powers of the second heaven, and to destroy the works of the devil. I do not believe he singled that out to a few but to all who would live and move and have their very being in Jesus Christ. When Jesus, or Paul, or Peter, etc, met up with the devil they just dealt with it in the Spirit of God who was revealing their way and leading their lives. It did not fit any formula.

Prophetic evangelism is about a fruitful life through which any of the gifts can be exercised as the Spirit wills. This prophetic evangelistic life is a huge combine for the harvest if both the knowledge and the love are there to access a true revelation of God in the unique form or fashion that will crack open a closed and damaged heart, remove a veil of pride, destroy a desire for lust, see a body healed and see a soul redeemed back to its creator God. Touching people for God is found in people who are touching God. And the methods will always change and always be found in the complete surrender to be a co-worker with the Holy Spirit of God who is above all gods, all-powerful and awesome.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Power Between Faith and Works Is Revalation

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

The power of gospel of the Kingdom of God will never lose its power. "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it PLEASED GOD, through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe". (I Corinthians)

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." (Romans. 1:16) Do we really believe this personally? Do you really believe that for those who will believe the power is still in the gospel of Christ which is the good news of the Kingdom of God? God chose for the Gospel to be preached and taught through His revelation truth and from that His power and demonstration will flow as He desires.

The gospel is more than the Scriptures alone; it is what the scriptures reveal and who they reveal that we should love. It is the unveiling to us of "Who Jesus Christ was, is and ever shall be." that is as precious to us as the Word. I love the person of Jesus Christ that I find in the Word and the empowerment I receive from what He reveals to me. Whenever the Kingdom of God is preached and taught there is an encounter with the living God, not just mental knowledge or information being disseminated. Consider the following verses.

• Jesus said, "Upon this rock (the revelation of who I am) I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
• Two immutable things that are one: God and His Word (Hebrews 6:13-18)
• The worlds were framed by the word of God: "God said and it was" and "the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11:3)
• We must first hear the word of God to have faith come, and without faith we cannot please God or live, for the just shall live by faith. (Romans 10:17;1:17 Hebrews 11:6)
• Jesus' parables in Matthew 13 teach us the Kingdom of God is like seed planted in soil. That is the Word which is planted in the soil of the heart and then grows and produces fruit or works.
• We cannot have new life without the Word of God. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, which by the gospel is preached unto you." I Peter 1:23-25.
• "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14)
• Paul said in I Corinthians 2, "…when I came to you I came with fear and trembling and…my speech and my preaching were in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God"
• The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us, which are saved, it is the power of God. I Corinthians 1:18
• "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." (Mark 1:22) "As He was preaching the power of the Lord was present to heal them." (Luke 5:17) "He preached deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." (Luke 4:18)
• "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth." And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons. (Mark 1:38-39)
• "And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, 'where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands?'" Mark 6:2
• "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He himself wanted and they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons." (Mark 3:13-15)
• "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." (Mark 16:20)
• "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." (Matt.4:23)
• "Jesus called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devil, and to cure disease, And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick…they went through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing every where." (Luke 9)

Jesus came preaching, teaching and healing to establish Kingdom and He continued it His entire ministry speaking to distortion as He encountered it. Along the way, as He encountered different situations, His life was rich with all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit and all throughout Acts this pattern was followed as the disciples simply continued to do what Jesus had done.

We must know God's word will never lose its power. The blood and the cross will never lose its power. Jesus Christ and Him crucified will never lose its power.

• "Jesus sighed deeply in His spirit and said, 'why doth this generation seek after a sign?'" (Mark 7:12) "Jesus said, 'It is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeks after signs. Beware of this doctrine, for it is the leaven.'" (Matthew 16)
• Satan is capable of power, signs and lying wonders according to Scripture, (I Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:14; Matthew 24:24) but at the same time we must not confuse his attempt to pervert and counterfeit what God is doing to keep the believer from God's power and blessing.
• The anointed Word from the Spirit should be preached first and then signs and wonders will come to confirm it. We cannot follow signs and wonders and forsake the fountain of living water which flows from the revelation of Jesus Christ in us.We must seek Him to become the living Word and be able to speak His Word in due season and see the signs and wonders He will perform to confirm it.
• We do not have to worry about receiving something of the devil when we are seeking Jesus by the Spirit and Word of God and are rooted in love. He will not give us a serpent. (Luke 11:11-13)

TAKE HEED THAT NO MAN DECIEVE YOU! Deception is the number one sign of the end of the age. The increase of it, the confusion it causes, and the falling away from sound doctrine to that which tickles our ears are all indicators that we are in the last days. We must have the endurance and eye to see the deception and how attractive it appears. The famine of hearing the Word of the Lord that Amos talked about is upon us. (Amos 8:11) We must be good listeners and we must be able to continue in the apostle's doctrine and endure sound doctrine. (I Tim 4:1-5)

Note the result of Peter's preaching on Pentecost: "and they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000." (Acts 2:41) And now notice what Luke tells us in Acts 2:42: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and sign were done by the apostles." The pattern of the preaching and teaching of the Word as the basis and then the signs following that revelation is Biblical and was a pattern for the early church.

In Acts 6, you also see that Stephen, who was chosen as an elder or deacon in the early church, "was a man full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people." and They were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke." He spoke the Word given by the Spirit of God and God confirmed it though miracles.

Go preach the gospel to all the world and signs shall follow them that believe. (Mark 16)

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Go To The World With the Power of God

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

God is about to perform His word. He is putting His standards in the mouths of His prophets. He is speaking with His plumb line that measures the crooked lines of our lives to make them straight. It is time to make the mixture pure. It is time to tolerate no more sin or conformity to ways of the world. We the people of God must mature into the full measure of Christ with purity so we have a full measure of the Sprit of God flowing through our lives. The vision of “His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven” will not tarry. The people need to know a mighty God of love and truth and live there so they will be the power of God on the earth.

The world must see the power of God in us, the people of God. The world needs to see that the God of the Bible is the one true God and there is none other or none greater. The devil is a real power in this world daily deceiving and sending people to destruction as he counterfeits the real move of God perverting, contaminating, and making wrong seem right. We, the church have allowed our enemy to do the same to our lives, to our gospel message and faith. When God sees the fruit of evil is ripe on the earth He will tarry no longer. He will be all-powerful in judgment and mercy. It is time for us, God’s people, to show the world the power of God. Micah the prophet spoke in a day of decline in the nation of Israel. He brought a case against the prophets who spoke err to the people saying peace is coming. Micah speaks “But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel.

If we will focus on complete obedience to all we know and to His voice in our deep then we will continually live with access to His power. In our relationships, in disciplines, in all life’s issues, the little and the big things, we must seek Him for His heart to flow to ours and ours back to Him for then is the power source of His love available to flow from us. We can receive His power daily from an intimate relationship with our faithful Holy Spirit companion. We daily make it a practice to stay in a peaceful trust. We must position ourselves in His presence; in the river of the Holy Spirit, deep enough to let the river take control and move us into the middle of God’s perfect will. Then the power of God will flow to us, in us and thru us.

Becoming a constant and consistent conqueror in Christ will give us His power and authority. It will increases in us every time we conquer the flesh. It will increase in us as we destroy the works of the devil, and not compromise with the pride and lust system of this world. Nothing can separate us from His love. We have been made MORE than conquerors through Christ that we might have the power of God through conquering all that stands in opposition to really knowing our God and becoming like Him.

Beloved draw nigh to your Holy friend, coworker, source of truth, source of love, and source of power who lives in you. He is the person, the Holy Spirit, who been sent from the Fathers heart to your heart so there is a constant flow of God life for you in all the issues of life. Reverence Him and His presence, respect His desires and will, do not quench him with control, do not grieve him with your speaking wrong, or living wrong. He is to have your honor, your constant ear. Watch to see what form He is speaking in to you and you will learn to hear His language. We must develop more communion with Him. He corrects us, warns us, and carries the heart of the Father God to us. He is heaven sent to the earth……….He is earth bound to live in us, Gods people. Now listen to the words of Jesus: John 16:8-11

It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And He will reprove the world of sin because they do not believe, and of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

The Holy Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth; He will glorify Christ on the earth through His people. He will receive from the Father and from Christ and give it to the believers. Wow! He will do the work if you make yourself available to co-labor with Him, respecting Him, and giving Him all reverence and honor in your life. Making Jesus alive to this world has to be a lifestyle. We must become a lighthouse for the lost. We must become a healing balm to the sick. We must become a compassionate lover of God who can love the unlovable and the unloved. We, the people of God desperately need an “awakening” to be Jesus with skin on all the time, wherever, whenever God points to a need, a place to be, or to a single person who just seems to light up to you. Then step out…go for it.

THE WORLD NEEDS ONE MESSAGE: JESUS CHRIST IS THE ANSWER

The world needs to know the one answer for their lives is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The world needs to know someone cares enough to reach out to them. The world needs to hear that many have died for their freedom, but only one has died for their souls. And all that matters at death is what did you do with Jesus Christ the one and only way God made for the salvation of all mankind alike. They need to hear that they are lost without coming to God through Jesus Christ. They need to hear that they must believe on Jesus Christ who suffered and died the death of the cross for them to be free from sin, death and hell or they will eternally exist in place of evil misery and suffering. To live and die now without Jesus Christ as your Lord and life will result in an eternal hell that is very real. They need to know that at the cross all their sin were taken on Him, all their past was dealt with, the power of evil was stripped, and this evil run system we live under was rendered powerless. They need to know that they do not have to be what they are because of the cross. At the cross a complete transformation was made possible.

At the cross a new creation could happen in anyone who would turn from their own way and believe on Jesus Christ. At the cross all the law lost it power to condemn them. At the cross power flowed from the Christ that hung there to impart divine nature and righteousness to whosoever would believe on Him. Tell the world that Jesus Christ only, gave personally to them 100% of his love and life and we must come to Him the same, giving him all of our life so he can give us real life for the first time. Make it clear they must come to Him willing to deny their old life, willing to suffer for Him and willing to leave all else to follow Him. He wants to give them a drink of water of life from his heart that will cause them to never thirst again for things that never satisfy the eternal quest and empty void in every life not filled with Jesus Christ.

Tell them He will heal their past, their minds, their emotions, their abuses, their wounds, their bodies because He took all that on himself. He was the substitute in their place. Healing now belongs to them through faith in Christ and him crucified. Tell them His shed blood was for them so they could receive a new royal, holy, transfusion of His blood that will always be their antidote for sin, disease and death. It flows with God’s DNA for them to receive and will be the protection over their life from all enemy plans. Jesus Christ did a finished and complete work on the cross.

The world needs to know that Jesus Christ will redeem their lost time, redeem their lost lives, restore marriages, restore jobs, restore minds, and do what is humanly impossible for them if they will just believe and receive and walk with Him in the light He gives them. Tell them Jesus wants to make them more than they can become alone. Tell them to come to Jesus and give Him a lifestyle of forgiveness and repentance and they will stay whole and free. Tell them Jesus Christ wants to come to them and submerge them completely into the Holy Spirit, another atmosphere, and another realm to give them the supernatural power of God. He will take them under His fire until they are saturated with a burning passion of love that will give them the power of God and constrain them to compassion for others to know Jesus Christ as well.

Tell them Jesus is not about religion. Jesus Christ is the King of all creation, who died to give us the Kingdom of God on the earth. He died so many could be born again by the word of God and the Spirit of God and be translated into His Kingdom of light. He died to give them back their destiny, which is to replenish the earth with the knowledge of the Lord, to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth for the Kingdom of God, to take dominion over the kingdoms of this world establishing God’s kingdom and destroying the works of the devil. He died to make many sons and daughters kings and priests who have access to all the “one true God of all galaxies” has created.

NOW YOU ARE READY TO GO TO THE WORLD. KEEP IT SIMPLE!

The power of God is flowing freely to you, free to work in you and will be moving thru you. You are soaked in His presence. And you are positioned in His will. Your message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the power of God. Your plan is not programs, formulas, or cultural wisdom of words. You are in close communion with Holy Spirit so he can give you any gift needed at any time for a miracle, a deliverance, a healing, a word of prophecy that pierces the heart to salvation seed; a breaking to receive Jesus. He is more ready to give them than you are to receive them. We live in His power only by faith and please God by our living active faith……………….so jump in! God is with you!

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Hearing God’s Voice or Knowing His Will?

By Samuel Clough
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

So many times we ask God for a word or for direction. We ask God what we should do in a particular situation or with a particular person. We ask for His guidance in decisions. We want to know what His will is. This is all perfectly valid and we should expect God to speak to us. However, there is a higher place that God wants us to go to. The primary purpose of Christ’s suffering and His coming to earth was to open the door for a man to be a new creation. He made it possible for a fallen man to be born again, or created again, filled with the Spirit of God.

God is desiring a people that do not always have to hear His voice. Does that shock you that I should say such a thing? I really believe that God is wanting to build a people that do not always have to ask Him for direction. I believe He wants a people that are in such communion and fellowship with Him that they know within them what He would because the Holy Spirit has so transformed their nature that they now carry the very nature of God. They no longer think and live as from a fleshly perspective.

There is no longer a separation from a sinful, fallen me down here and holy, pure God up there. I have put myself before God and allowed Him to come and transform me to the point that His nature has be-come my nature. I no longer live and act as a fallen man, but rather live as one that has been redeemed by Him. I no longer think like a fallen man. I do not need to ask God how He feels about something; I know deep inside how He feels instantly because I have traded put my fallen nature to death that His di-vine nature may live in me.

This is the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do within each of us. He does not just want to be a bridge between us and God, a spiritual telephone line if you will. He is longing to create a man after God’s own heart. An individual that is truly in the likeness of Jesus. It is time we allowed the Holy Spirit to do His work and not just use Him for His gifts. He desires to do a work of deep transformation within each of us.

He desires to take you and uproot your entire nature. Why do you think it is called a new birth? It is called a new birth because it is a new birth and this new nature is born, not of flesh, but of the Spirit of the living God. If it is born of the Spirit of God then it should live as the Spirit of God lives. It should have the same heart and character that the Spirit of God has. God is longing for a people that will see this and open up to Him and allow Him to do it.

We cannot afford anymore to just live some sort of sub par Christian life. We cannot continue to be still-born Christians that experience salvation and then continue to live soulish lives under our own power try-ing to approach God and trying to be better. God has called us to something higher. God will not be able to use that type of believer at the end of the age to accomplish His purposes. And I dare say that kind of believer is going to find it well nye impossible to stand in what is coming up on the earth.

We must be people of another realm. Paul said His citizenship was in heaven; not in the future, but now. This is not a retirement plan, it is where we live now. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It is not a far off distant thing, it is at hand now. He said the Kingdom was within us. The pure, faultless King-dom of God dwells within us mortals.

How can we continue to live as mere mortals, so similar to the other fallen men around us if the very Kingdom of the perfect, eternal God dwells within us? If the Spirit of the living God truly dwells within us, than how can we continue at such a low level of living? I believe the answer that comes back from heaven, if we have ears to hear, is that we cannot.

The end of the age is upon us. Perilous times are all around us. We must become the kind of believers that Christ died for. We must possess what has been made available to us. We must be His witnesses upon the earth. There is no shortcut, no “technique” and no “method” that is going to transform us into that. It is the person of the Holy Spirit.

We have to open up our lives completely to Him and give Him the reins. We have to give Him the free-dom to do exactly as He wishes, even if it is painful. He so longs to create believers on the earth that live just as Jesus did. That is what He is longing to do. Are we longing for Him to do it?

Revelation declares as it closes that the Spirit and the Bride say “Come” to the Lord Jesus. Do we hon-estly say come? Does our inward man desire His coming as a bride desires her wedding day, or is it simply a retirement plan or an inevitable cosmic event to us? The bride is never going to say come until the Kingdom of Heaven has been planted within her heart. Until we become people that have the King-dom living within us, we will not cry come with the Spirit.

In order to cry come, we must desire what He brings. We cannot desire what He brings unless we know it in part. We must have a measure of heaven living within us now if we are to desire that the entire earth is filled with that sort of rule and kingdom. A bride desires the consummation of her wedding night because she has know the taste of her bethrothed’s measured affections up to that point.

We desire the consummation of history, because we know something of intimacy with the King. If we have allowed Him to plant the Kingdom in our hearts, then we will desire to see the entire earth filled with such a Kingdom. If the Kingdom is within us, then we will not constantly have to ask the Lord for advice because we will know what the Kingdom answer is.

This certainly does not mean that we never ask Him for advice and do not seek advice from Him. Please do not misunderstand that. Nor does it mean we do not hear His voice and long to hear it. We will al-ways seek to have a Word from the Lord and need a Word from the Lord, but there are places where, if we had His nature within us, we would know His desires. It we have been reborn in His image than we will think as He thinks and feel as He feels. There are times when a wife needs to know her husband’s words and seek his counsel. There are plenty of other times where she knows His answer without ask-ing. She lives in intimacy with Him and as such knows some things without saying a word.

It is no accident that the Word says the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!” for the bride cannot say come without the Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that must bring the transformation necessary that we may have the very nature of God within us. He brings about the new birth and begins to form Christ within us.

We need to take a very long look at what we have considered about the Holy Spirit. Have we just looked to Him for guidance and gifts or have we committed our entire being into His care? Have we thrown our self abilities out the window and submitted our lives to the teaching of the Holy Spirit so that He can per-form this work? He longs to be the helper that Jesus declared Him to be. He longs to form Christ in you until the world cannot tell the difference between Jesus Christ and you.

This is the primary work He was given for and it is the work that will endure until the end of the age. Gifts, prophecy, tongues will all cease but what will not cease is the measure of Christ formed in you by the Holy Spirit. Become jealous for a relationship with God where so many things are not a matter of ques-tioning some Being that might as well be on the end of a telephone line, but are rather known instantly because the nature of the One who created you has been formed in you.

Pause and reflect back to one lonely, gruesome day outside Jerusalem when God locked Himself up in a box called a human body and suffered an excruciating death because of a love for you and me that He could not hold back. That suffering was for this purpose. It was not just to get you answers to questions, it was to make you an answer. He longs for you to be remade after His image that this would be the place where you live. Buy this fine gold of His (Revelation 3:18).

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Testimony of Jesus Christ

By Samuel Clough
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

In our Christian experience, we often hear the term “testimony” and it is used to refer to the story of our salvation or a story of a particular event where God really did something for us. People “testify” of what God has done in their lives. We then read in the Scriptures about the testimony of Jesus Christ and we automatically take the context of our experience and apply it to the Scripture. If we read Scripture care-fully we will find much more meaning to the word Testimony. We will find that in the Scriptures that some will possess the testimony of Jesus Christ. If we are to go on to all God has for us, it is not enough just to make sure we have been “saved” or have a “testimony” in the modern sense of the word. We want to make sure we posses the testimony of Jesus Christ. Let us walk through the Scriptures and see how this term is used.

Luke 21:13-15
Jesus is here warning his disciples about the persecution that they will face. They are warned that even family members will hand them over to death. This will lead to the individual’s testi-mony. Notice then that in verse 14, Jesus specifically tells them not to have a premeditated answer. When the are called upon to give testimony, they are not to give a story of their conversion, but rather Jesus Himself will give utterance and speak up to their foes.

John 3:31-33 – John is speaking of Jesus and how He came from heaven down to earth and therefore His words are higher than a mere Man’s. His thoughts are from a heavenly perspective and not merely an earthly perspective. He speaks or witnesses of the things that He has actually seen and heard and nobody has received His testimony. Yet those that do receive His testimony have set a seal on the fact that God is true. Receiving His testimony does not mean to hear His story, but it rather means to pos-ses something that is received from Jesus Christ. The word here in the Greek means to take some-thing, to receive something, to associate with something.

John 5:31-47
Jesus speaks about the testimony which comes from God. Jesus’ testimony is not valid if it is merely something that comes from Himself (vs 31). Rather, it is valid because there is another one that is testifying and that is God Himself. It is God’s evidence, or testimony, on Jesus’ behalf that declares to the world that Jesus is true and valid (vs 32). Should Jesus’ followers in this day not still have that witness of the Father that Jesus is true? People had sent for John’s witness on Jesus behalf (vs 33), but Jesus refused any witness of man (vs 34); even the man he had said was the greatest man born. The works of the Father done on the earth are a witness in and of themselves (vs 36). Jesus came in the witness of the Father. The Father testified on His behalf, but the religious leaders were ac-customed only to the witness of man and so, even though they knew the Scriptures, they would only re-ceive one with the witness or testimony of man upon him and could not recognize one with the testi-mony or witness of heaven on him. Jesus Himself refused to lower Himself to earthly ways and re-jected the validation of the testimony of man. Because He rejected the testimony of man, they rejected him. Pilate’s timeless question “what is truth?” is demonstrated here. To accept that witness of man puts man in the place of determining what is the truth. It is a declaration that man’s wisdom and his in-herent faculties are capable of determining truth. He is in the place of discerning and declaring truth. Jesus declared that truth comes only from God Himself and that it proceeds from heaven. Therefore, He refused to accept the witness of man which would allow the man giving witness to put himself in the place of being able to discern and declare truth. Jesus rather declared that truth proceeds from the Fa-ther and to determine truth we need His witness and testimony. Men would give heed to each other because they were used to being in the place of determining truth and would receive another individual living in that same manner. Men receive honor and glory from one another, but do not pursue honor and glory straight from God (vs 44). Any time a man tries to promote and prove himself, he has sunk to the witness of man and has forfeited the witness of God. Even in ministry, men promote themselves and show their stats and what God has done through them and what God can do for you through them. It is the witness of below. The witness of the earth. Their colleages provides little sound bytes and quotes to promote their ministries. Stooping to the witness of man, they are operating under an earthbound system that is no different than what Jesus was describing here. Again, it is the witness of below and the witness of the earth. The man that is going to have the witness of heaven on him de-pends on God for his honor and glory not man. Receiving honor and glory from man and the witness of man is yet another way we enthrone man rather than enthroning God in our hearts. The proverbs wisely say that when going to a banquet, one ought to sit at the end of the table and allow the host to promote him and honor him rather than sitting at the head of the table and being publicly humiliated as the host asks him to move down for another. The issue is do we seek promotion from men or God. Are we confident in God or do we need the approval of man? Do we promote ourselves? Anytime we be-come familiar with the witness of man and give it any credence we enter a dangerous place where we risk, like the leaders of Jesus’ day, losing the ability to discern the witness of heaven and could very well end up men who know the Scriptures and yet are unable to recognize the God of the Scriptures. Surely in these last days, we will see many fall into this trap. There is a blindness that comes from ac-cepting and valuing the witness of man and it leads to the rejection of Jesus Himself.

Acts 1:8
Jesus’ last description of what His disciples were to be upon the earth was His witnesses. They were to tarry until they were endued with power and then be His witnesses or evidence upon the earth. The word witnesses here is a decedent of the word testimony. The believers, once endued with power, were to become His witness or testimony upon the earth.

I Corinthians 2:1-2, 4
When Paul came to Corinth, he noted that he did not proclaim the testimony and mystery or secret of God with eloquence or wisdom. He rather resolved to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul gave testimony, but not with words of eloquence. Note also that Paul said he knew nothing among them except Jesus, so the testimony he gave must have been the testimony of Jesus, not the testimony of Paul and this testimony was presented, not in words, but in the demonstration of the Spirit.

I John 5:6-12
The Holy Spirit is the one who bears witness to Jesus because the Holy Spirit is the Truth. There are three witnesses on earth and three witnesses in heaven. Between the two, there is one common witness. The Holy Spirit is the witness of heaven that is also the witness upon the earth. The testimony of God regarding His Son is greater than any testimony of man and God has given the testimony or witness of His Son by the Spirit who is Truth (vs 6) and who is the common witness be-tween heaven and earth. He is the heavenly witness that is also upon the earth witnessing or giving testimony even now of Jesus Christ. Did not Jesus say that the Spirit shall convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment? He is the one upon the earth giving the testimony of the Father concern-ing Jesus Christ. Any man who commits his life to Jesus Christ, possesses the Divine testimony within himself. If a man does not believe God, coming to Him through Jesus Christ, He has declared God to be a liar and rejected the testimony, or evidence that God has given regarding His Son; that testimony being the Spirit of God. The testimony God has given us is eternal life and that eternal life is in His Son and to posses the Son is to have that life. Jesus declared in John 17 that eternal life was to know God and Himself. Receiving God’s testimony concerning Jesus Christ, which is His Spirit, inside yourself then leads to possessing Christ which is the revelation of God communicated through man and in such a communion with God is eternal life.

III John 1:12
John mentions that Demitrius has a commendation or testimony from, not only the be-lievers, but also from the Truth itself. He carries a testimony from the Truth which is the Spirit of God.

Revelation 1:2, 9
John testifies or vouches for two three things in the book of Revelation: the visions that he saw, the Word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ (vs 2). Notice that John declared Him-self as a fellow companion of the church in three things: tribulation, kingdom, and patient endurance (vs 9). Those are three things that should be characteristic of the church in any age. The church will al-ways have tribulation. Jesus Himself promised it. In fact, if tribulation is missing then the church needs to seriously examine herself to see if she has maintained the purity of the gospel which is at such odds with the worldly system that it cannot coexist peaceably with it. Tribulation is a characteristic of the church and the lives of believers. Secondly, the kingdom should be the place where believers live. Je-sus declared the kingdom when He was upon the earth. It is not a kingdom of the earthly realm, but one of the heavenly realm. If we are to be true Christians now, then we must be living in the kingdom even now. We must have our citizenship in heaven as Paul did and be active participants in the king-dom now rather than waiting for it at some unspecified time in the future. Any finally the church should be characterized by patient endurance. Endurance indicates that the church is experiencing something unpleasant that must be passed through in order to get to a desired goal. The church must be living in a place of patent endurance with regard to the coming of the Lord. In other words, they church should be enduring the world that it lives in, not enjoying it. We are to be participants in another kingdom, en-during this world while we are waiting for our joy which is the second coming of Christ and living in this place invites the first characteristic John mentioned which is tribulation from a world that would elimi-nate the witness of the church against it. A real question we must ask ourselves is whether we are treating our current life on earth as a patient endurance for our heart’s true desire which would be His coming and His kingdom, or are we enjoying our life here on earth with little desire to see it pass away and His Kingdom come upon the earth. There are two things that placed John on Patmos according to him and they are the Word of God and the testimony of or for Jesus Christ. The testimony that he pos-sesses was such that it led to his exile.

Revelation 6:9
At the foot of the altar are the souls of those who had been killed for adhering to the Word of God and for the testimony they had carried. This was more than a religious experience they talked about it was something they owned and carried. The Greek word here for borne indicates some-thing you posses or something you own. It can be used in the context of external things or in the pos-session of something of great intimacy as in a marriage relationship. It can also mean to lay hold of something or be closely joined to it. There was a testimony of God that these had borne. They had been willing to carry and possess something that was weighty and was intimate. It was something that they owned themselves but also carried in great intimacy. It was something that came from heaven and earth and hell are in such rebellion against God, that anyone who is going to possess the testimony which comes from heaven has made themselves eligible for martyrdom. Such a man is targeted for destruction by the forces of hell.

Revelation 12:11, 17
They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the utterance of their testimony. So the words or utterance that came forth from their testimony was part of the means of their overcom-ing (vs 11). In Luke 21, Jesus told the disciples to not worry about what they would say because when the opportunity came for them to be a testimony, He Himself would become their utterance and give them words to speak. The dragon in his fury wages war on the woman’s descendants who are those who obey God’s commandments and who have or possess the testimony of Jesus Christ (vs 17).

Revelation 15:5-8
John saw the sanctuary of the tent of the testimony in heaven. There is a tent of the testimony in heaven and seven incredible angels came out of it and it was filled with God’s glory as they poured out His wrath upon the earth.

Revelation 19:10
The angel rebukes John for his worship and then declares that he is another servant along with all those who carry the testimony that Jesus carried. The word here is the same word as in Revelation 6:9. Notice here that the same testimony that Jesus carried is the testimony that is upon believers.

We have often made getting saved such a focal point in the church, that we fail to realize just how much more there is in God. We fail to realize how deep and wide is the Christian experience and the natural progression what what should happen in a believer’s life once he has passed through the gate of the new birth. I remember the late Leonard Ravenhill saying, “You see it’s not so simple to be a Christian. It’s a majestic thing.”

There is a testimony of Jesus Christ that is to be on the earth. God does not leave the lost world without a testimony that Jesus Christ was His one and only Son. He has testified to that fact through His Word and through the conscience in men’s hearts, but there is another method which I believe is His primary method of testimony. It is the believer. The believer is to be a living, unrefutable testimony that Jesus was who He was.

What is the mystery of Jesus Christ? Among other things, the mystery of Christ is God becoming man. It is an intermingling of man with God. God forever joined Himself to man in a way that we cannot even comprehend. The creator became part of the creation. It is His ultimate declaration of the love and burn-ing passion He has for this creation called man. The way Jesus lived His life was an example to the world of how God intended a man to live.

In our modern days, men scoff at this idea that Jesus was God. The modern cults like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s witnesses strip Him of His Biblical deity while the rest of the religious world drag Him down to be a “good teacher” if they even acknowledge Him at all. Others now seek to present Him as a mere fairy tale. Often the Christian answer has been to pour over historical facts and prove historically that Je-sus was true and legitimate and present the evidence that shows Jesus was who He said He was. There is certainly nothing wrong with this and I believe God intends us to defend the faith on intellectual and historical grounds; however, there is another testimony that I believe God wishes to release upon the earth.

The individual believer is to be God’s testimony to the world that Jesus Christ is true. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was the firstborn among many brethren and that we were destined to be molded according to His image (Romans 8:29). In other words, we are to be upon the earth as Jesus was. If Jesus is the firstborn, then He is the first of many more that are to come and be in the same essence as He was. Now, we have to set this one theological ground rule lest you believe I am promoting heresy: Jesus was totally unique in that He was God Himself born of a virgin. None of us can or ever will ascend to His place of deity. Let us make that completely clear before we go on lest there be any misunderstanding.

Now taking into account that Jesus’ inherent Deity proved out by His life and demonstrated in His virgin birth is unique, other than that distinction we are to follow His as Sons of the same kind as He was. Did Romans not just tell us that He was the firstborn of many? Not the cousin, leader, or step brother, but the elder brother to us. Did not Romans also declare that we should be molded to His image? That did not mean we followed some rules and principles that Jesus lived by. Just as man was made in God’s image, His very essence reflects the God who created Him, so the believer’s very essence is the image of Him who purchased His redemption. God intends that just as Jesus was a mingling of man and God that we cannot comprehend, so the believer should be a mingling of man and God.

Have we not always heard that God lives in us? We have been taught that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us and more often than not we probably think of it as some sort of organ transplant, or some unique being that lives inside of us in some sort of room or container. I believer God wants us to see that the Spirit should permeate our being. He does not come to live in some “room” we keep for Him, He comes to possess our entire being if we are to live up to the standard of Christianity.

The believer is then to become a unique mingling of man and God. He is unique in His humanity and the way God has created Him with a unique body and personality. He then is designed to be infused with the presence of almighty God. God comes in and gives a new personality and nature that comes from heaven. The act of the new birth simply gives God a new creation to work with. Man had put himself in a rebellious, sinful state that God could not reform. God cannot work with and reform a man, He needs something new to work with that has the nature of heaven, not earth. Jesus suffered an awful death to give us the ability to obtain the new nature.

What a tragedy it is to obtain a new nature and yet not receive the very thing that new nature was given for! How many have experienced a new birth and never gotten much further? After the new birth gives God something He can work with in a man, the man should then be infused with the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is not just for power to work miracles or speak in tongues. It is the divine presence of God within a man for the purpose of creating another son that is of the same essence as Jesus was. Another unique mingling of man and God.

Such a man then becomes God’s testimony on the earth. Such a man carries such a presence of God upon the earth, that though he is hated by worldly, fleshly men; it is undeniable that the essence of God is upon Him. His very life presents both the uniqueness of his human personality and the faculties God has given him and the Divine nature of the Holy Spirit that is permeating his life. When the Holy Spirit is given the right to rule a life, He can then create another individual that is after the likeness of Jesus Christ just as Paul wrote in Romans 8. That individual then becomes a prima fascia evidence to the world that Jesus Christ is alive and who He said He was.

The world will hate such a man, but such a man makes it impossible to deny who Jesus Christ is. That man becomes God’s testimony of His Son to the earth. It is the evidence that God puts forth. The world cannot deny that Jesus was and the He was both God and man because they see in front of them in flesh and blood another that is a mingling of God and man. That man is not entirely the same as Jesus Christ because of Christ’s unique deity, but Jesus Christ walked the earth as a man empowered by God. A man born again and filled with the Holy Ghost is walking the earth in exactly the same was that Jesus Christ did and as such validates and demonstrates the life of Jesus Christ to the world and is God’s flesh and blood evidence in whatever place and moment in time he lives.

Yes the world will hate and persecute any man who is filled with God just as it did Jesus Christ. The tragic story of mankind, both in the world and in the church, is that far more often that not when con-fronted with the reality of God and the reality of His sin and low living, He seeks to destroy and eliminate the thing that exposes him and blows the whistle on him rather than repenting and walking out of dark-ness into the light. Jesus Himself told Nicodemus in John 3 that the Light had come into the world but men loved the darkness.

Yet, even though such a man will not be accepted by the world, he is still the evidence of Jesus Christ upon the earth. He is God’s parable and living flesh and blood illustration to the world of Jesus Christ. While we are seeking better methods and techniques to “prove Jesus,” God is looking for better men through which to demonstrate the uniqueness of His Son. Forget trying to make Jesus palatable to the world. He never has been and never will be.

If any church leader wants to reach his community with the gospel in a Biblical way, he needs to stop eve-rything and examine the church. Purge it with a fine tooth comb. Throw out methods of presentation and outreach that are tainted with the wisdom of man. Disregard anything that leans upon the witness of man to prove the Christian life. Jesus would not accept it and neither should we. Leaders please, for God’s sake, do not stoop to worldly methods. Once you’ve purged your church of all man’s methods and all man’s programs, make it your aim and focus to develop your flock into disciples that are full of the Holy Ghost. I am not just talking about people who can pray in tongues or are bolder to share their faith or pray for the sick. Develop church members that are possessed by God. Develop a flock whose very nature has become like Jesus Christ. Raise up sons that resemble the firstborn Son.

If you are a church leader and you make it your business to develop this kind of Christian, then the com-munity will be presented with the witness of Jesus Christ that God has designed. It will not be as popular as some of your programs. It will not get you the crowds that man’s techniques might stir up at times and you will probably lose some people along the way that do not want to go this far in God. But, let me ask you this, what do you want? Why are you in the ministry anyway? Is it a profession or do you have God’s heart to see what He wants to see upon the earth? Are you willing to do it His way, or do you think you know better with man made techniques and methods and control?

Let us lay aside these weights that so easily encumber us like Paul said. The “good things” that we have developed out of our attempts to advance God’s purpose. Let us throw those aside and go on in God into the depths of this marvelous thing we call Christianity. Let us come out of the desert of man made religion into the wide open, green pastures of communion with the living God.

God longs for men that will be his testimony on the earth. Particularly here at the end of the age as the scoffers abound and even those that claim the name of Jesus live in heresies and teachings that are in opposition to the Word of God, God desires that men should arise to demonstrate Him again on the earth. Again, I remember the late Leonard Ravenhill saying, “The world is not waiting on a new definition of Christianity, it needs a new demonstration of Christianity.” You and I are the testimony and demonstra-tion on the earth that God desires. As more and more believers move into this place in God where the only explanation for the life that they are living is God Himself, the world will have an evidence upon it that Jesus was who the Scriptures declare Him to be. It would do well to ask yourself this question “Is Jesus Christ the only possible explanation for the life that you live?”

This evidence upon the earth will lead us into a great tribulation as evil men seek to put down the God given reminder of His purity and their rebellion. Yet, many also will come into the kingdom upon seeing the testimony of Jesus in the flesh. And, perhaps even greater, Jesus will receive the reward of His suf-fering as men step into the very manner of living He made available to them. The Father’s heart also will be thrilled as men live the life He designed for them and demonstrate it to the world so that as many as will repent may come. Yes, these kind of men will bring upon the earth the travail and suffering of the end times as lucifer seeks to destroy this testimony of God. But, as surely as they will bring the end of days upon the earth they will also usher in the Kingdom of God upon the earth. They will be a foretaste, a pic-ture, a preview of what is the come upon the earth and will help even accelerate its coming to earth.

Those who are going to be God’s testimony on the earth must have His testimony upon them. They must possess the testimony of Jesus as described in Revelation. What is this testimony of Jesus? It is the Spirit of Truth or the Holy Spirit. Our testimony is not something we say, it is something we possess. Something that we hold in great intimacy as our marriage relationship. This is the testimony that we must have. It is not enough to just say we have been born again, we must have the affirmation of heaven up on us that we are God’s and that affirmation is His Spirit. We possess the testimony of Jesus as our lives begin to be so infused with the Holy Spirit that we become the testimony in the earth that the Father desires.

Romans 8:16 tells us that the Spirit testifies (or gives testimony) with our spirit that we are a child of God. Luke told us that when there was an opportunity for our testimony that Jesus Himself would give utter-ance through our testimony. So many have come to Christ and been born again, but never pressed in to receive the testimony of Jesus on their life. It is sad to say, but in the days to come a believer that does not possess the testimony of Jesus on their life, or in other words is not walking in intimacy with the Holy Spirit is going to find it virtually impossible to stand. Notice that the believers in the book of Revelation that endured the martyrdom and the persecution of the end of days were believers that possessed the testimony of Jesus on their lives.

In Revelation 19:10, the angel tells John that the essence of what Jesus revealed, or the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. The Spirit of God is then both the testimony that Jesus carried and re-vealed, but also the Spirit of all prophecy. If we are to be a prophetic people in these last days, then we must get before the Lord and possess His Spirit in great intimacy. There is no way to be truly prophetic without possessing the Spirit of prophesy. All prophecy goes forth from the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God which takes a man and fills him with the substance of God. The man, when yielded to the Spirit of God is then capable of living prophetically as the Spirit of God leads him out into a prophetic walk.

A prophetic walk is simply a walk that has its source in God. It does not find its source in man. Its walk is grounded, not only in the Holy Scriptures, but it also found on the Word of God presently emanating from the throne of God. It is one thing to live within the principles of the written Scriptures, which is our basic discipline, it is another thing to become one with the Spirit that wrote the Scriptures until the Scriptures themselves become a part of our nature. To be a prophetic people, the testimony or revelation that Jesus gave must be upon us and in us.

At the end of the days, God is restoring the high call of the Apostolic life as lived in the New Testament. He is looking again for those on the earth who will carry that call. Those who will be willing, as the first apostles were, to forsake all and follow Him, putting their hands to the plow and not looking back at their worldly lives. Times are coming up on the earth such as will fill men’s hearts with terror. If we are not prepared now in the calm before the storm, the storm coming upon the earth will begin to separate those who are willing to endure persecution in order to carry the weight or His presence from those who revert to their own sensuality and the pursuit of the pleasures of a purely earthly existence.

This life is not a game. We have lived in a bubble particularly here in America. That is soon to end. We must decide now whether or citizenship is to be on the earth or in heaven. As I heard Art Katz say, “There are two people at the end of the age: the earth dwellers and the heavenly minded.” We must set our face now that we will carry the testimony of Jesus. We might invite and woo that testimony and make way for Him. We must remove the obstacles on our lives that have held Him back. We must welcome Him and be willing to let Him take His place in our lives. This is the only way to live apostolically or prophetically upon the earth in these last days.

Jesus even now is calling out to those on the earth, “Who will carry my testimony?” Let us put aside and forsake past failures and past encumbrances and look forward with eyes like flint to the path upon which He would have us walk. Let us drop the dead weights of our man made religions and take up a life lived in His testimony and become the type of believers that could walk right off the pages of the Scriptures. Let us live lives dripping with the fragrance of the one whose love compelled Him to sacrifice all for us.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Wake Up Call

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

I was listening to a special with Hal Lindsey who is one of the best and most proven correct on Bible Prophecy that is known. As I really listened it was so evident that this was truth, so what I sensed must be shared the best I can with you all as it is a “wake up call” to America and to the American church.

I sense a trembling within, I sense a rumbling like a thunder in the distance, and I sense that I will be held accountable to God if I do not warn others what God fires in me. According to Ezekiel if we do not warn what we see, if we do not blow the trumpet God puts in our mouth then we are held accountable for the blood of others. Ezekiel 33 explains this.

Hal Lindsey stated all the reasons why, using world history that has continuously repeated itself, America could not stand much longer as it is today. He gave all the critical reasons why and how great nations have fallen in the past and we have all of those things going on today in America. Just the abortions, homosexuality, the demonic, sexual and violent entertainment, the greed of power and materialism, and the great pride in us are all enough to take us down without serious godly repentance. We cannot be deceived to think because we have a Christian president that God has winked at our continual wickedness of forsaking Him. We have only been a great nation because we were blessed of God and under His grace. He also stated that America would not stay the world power it is now according to the Scriptures. He says America is not even mentioned in the Bible prophecies anywhere.

He listed several things that could easily happen to us and says the top officials of our country know it. They are:

1. Nuclear “near holocaust.”
2. Economic collapse because our Federal Reserve who controls it all is controlled by foreign banks. And we have built our great economy on a debt principal because we are mostly a materialistic nation.
3. We could be so severely crippled and taken over from terrorist attacks, as they have many things planned. He states how the Middle East nations are ready for war with hatred toward westerner’s as well as by other so called ally’s who are feeding weapons to them daily.

And it could all be very sudden. As in the days of Noah they were busy going on with life (eating and drinking, marrying, buying and selling, planting and building) when suddenly the destruction came. It was the same in the days of Lot and it will be just like that again in the day of Jesus return. Luke 17:20-37 Read it. We are just like the nation of Israel so many years ago that thought they were so special that nothing would ever happen to them They thought that God would never allow the destruction and captivity that happened to them. We just must wake up! The Fathers heart is grieved at the constant wickedness and the evil fruit is nearly ripe. The assigned judgment will come whether we are ready or not.

The scripture says “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with too much excess, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap, for it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36. We can just get so intoxicated and weighed down by all the stuff in this world and all the good life that our senses are dulled to the voice and “wake up call “of the Lord in our lives.

There will not be another chance to get prepared, the time is right now to know God and know you are living holy and righteous acknowledging Him in all your ways. Time is running out. We do not have another generation for our country to live in the freedom it has now. Lives need to be transformed, hearts need to forgive and be healed, and whole families need to change their directions and lifestyles. Children must have selfless sacrificial parents to show them how to love God and live for Him in a world that rejects Him. Marriages must prevent shipwreck by selfless love and commitment to each other. We must live ready to meet the Lord everyday.

We are on the threshold of such darkness and such light coming at the same time. Jesus said there would be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea, Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. (Luke 21:25-26) Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body.” Matthew 10:28

So that doesn’t mean we will not have a harvest of souls come into the Kingdom. It does not mean that there is not a faithful remnant church who has kept their garments unspotted, holding forth the word of God as they shine as lights in a crooked and perverse world. It does not mean that we will not all suffer some in this judgment, but we must be found secure in the ark of Christ Jesus. The door is wide open now, but it will soon shut leaving no more chance to change our plight.

But it does mean that a big percentage of the American church is so much like the world that they are not ready for this. We must prepare ourselves with an all out 100% commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ in holiness and consecrated lives that love Him more than life. We must prepare by our daily focus on our soon coming King and on Kingdom living now in the power of His might, seeking the lost, hurting, desperate and wounded that we can help on into safety.

Just a messenger, crying in the wilderness, “Do not be lulled to sleep, worn down, and deceived, wake up and know the season of God.” The time and present standing is likely to be short for America. We must pray and weep and repent as a people of God. We must cry and weep over the abominations in our country unto God, and make sure that we know and the Lord knows we are among the ones He marks as belonging to Him.

With the fear of the Lord in me, His love in my heart, and the terror of the Lord over lost souls, all constrains me to go bear His fruit wherever He leads me. God help us hear! And do!

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Operation “Let My People Go”

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

Open the eyes of our hearts Lord and allow your people to see what is happening now on this earth. Awaken us to the light of your truth and let us hear what the spirit of the Lord says.
The Word says “Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” See then that you walk carefully, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. (Ephesians 4: 14-15)

IT IS WAR!
It has always been a good fight of faith for the now generation of believers. We have always had to learn to use our weapons of warfare, which are not of the flesh. All of our lives we have been training for what is taking place in the spirit world today. We are in war with the last day spirits of darkness and rulers of this world. They know there time is short and have called out their weapons of mass destruction on our society today.

BOOT CAMP IS OVER FOR MANY OF US
We have been exhorted through the Word that we are soldiers of the Kingdom of God and cannot be entangled with the affairs of this world. We have been in training for this hour for a long time. The Holy Spirit has been working in our lives to bring us into full submission to our Commander in Chief. The discipline and commitment to build our spiritual strength is critical for this hour of darkness. All the foundational truths and all of the basic disciplines we have learned are to be our skilled weapons and must be accompanied by impeccable obedience and faithfulness. (2 Timothy 2:1-13)

KEEP YOURSELF IN THE LOVE OF GOD
Great measures of gifting, revelations, or sacrifice profits us nothing without the number one weapon: the love of Our God. We must have within us a love that flows from a genuine faith, a pure heart, and a good conscience. We must love one another with a die for love and commitment. We must put our differences and personal opinions aside and stand in unity of mind and heart. We must close our ranks in a marching grace and power that will see all the enemies of the Kingdom fall to the ground. The love of God flowing from our lives into this present darkness will be a light that will snatch many out of the fire. God calls us to come to Him and let Him make us the warrior worshipper that is empowered with weapons of wisdom and power by the love and passion of Jesus Christ our Lord and King. (Jude 20-25)

THE MASTER OF EVIL FEARS OUR OBEDIENCE
We approach an enemy of high demonic subtlety, deception, and evil ruthless strategies with relentless terror and no mercy. The dark forces of evil surmisings, evil imaginations, evil propaganda, and evil demonstrations are upon us in a greater measure. The master of evil knows how to play the game. He works nothing of any substance; just show. He can only lie, distorting and twisting the truth to oppose and silence what is real. His goal is to make genuine believers and other people believe the wrong thing. It is what we believe that counts in this war of the age. All that will endure is what God says and does. Our safety and victory are in doing exactly what He says to do.

THE BASICS ARE OUR STRONGHOLDS
We must be so devoted to the basic disciplines of the faith that they become the strongholds in our life. Maybe you are reading this and feeling they are not there in you. If so, you must ask your Redeemer, Jesus Christ for grace and mercy to do an accelerated work in you now. He can and will redeem all of the time you have lost. He can and will work at a rapid pace to place the strongholds of the faith within you. All He needs is a full surrender of your heart and life. The basics of our faith will support us in times of great spiritual warfare when we must endure what seems to be a greater measure of evil strategies and weapons against us. We have been enlisted in the greatest army of all and now it is time to show the power and authority that was placed in us. We have been placed into Christ and given the Kingdom of God. The immersion of the Holy Spirit for the latter rain is there for the asking and it will endue you with power to win the war of the ages; and this war is a war for souls.

• “Awake you who sleep, arise form the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Ephesians 5:13-15)
• “It is the day of the Lord approaching…” (I Thessalonians 5)
• “Cast out works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-14)

These are critical days to hear the voice of God and not the feelings of our own flesh. The voice of God will resound in your spirit as you become selfless, seeking Him and receiving from His Word. These are critical days to make God’s purpose and will the absolute most important. These are critical days to put every word of God we know into reality in our lives. We must stand faithful in every small thing, every hard thing, every relationship, leaving no cracks for the enemy to get his evil foot in the door. These are critical days to stand faithful in what God said do in the first place until he gives you another absolute certain assignment. These are critical days to know who you are in Christ and where we stand in His authority and do not back down from it when you are up against the attacks of the enemy. We must contend for the faith. Our weapons are much more, our angelic forces to assist us are much more, and the power within us is much more.

Now the end of all things as we know them is on the horizon, it is at hand, God’s finale will soon start, the curtain will soon open for the final act of this church age. Awake you that sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. It is a war we are in it now. As sure as we see the war of our natural world-taking place now so likewise it is taking place even as we speak in the spiritual world. I am tempted to fear, but I refuse to fear anything except my God. “God enable us to walk on your incredible balance, help us walk the fine lines of your Wisdom. Enable us to walk the edge of danger, all without fear of man, change, or the unknown. Holy Spirit we ask you to place the fear of the Lord in us and the perfect love of the Father in us so we will be fearless, and powerful to see your people saved and set free in great numbers. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon us.”

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Last Generation of Another Realm

By Janee Hawks
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

As Jesus reveals the coming of His Kingdom to his disciples, He tells them that in His day He will shine from one part and light up the whole like lightening that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven. He continues to remind them that His Kingdom is within, not of this world. He refers to many signs that the world will begin to produce as fruit from rejecting the light of Christ. And says that when you see this happening know that this generation will not pass away before I come. We know not the hour or day but we see the season. Bible prophecy for His coming is being fulfilled every day. Right now God is transforming on this earth a last generation that will be His flashing light. It will not look like any before even though through the scriptures the quality traits of this generation are revealed.

It is a generation of eagles, who will wait on the Lord to find a renewed strength, enabling them to mount up with wings like eagles so they can run with the gospel of the Kingdom of God without weariness and walk through all circumstances without fainting. Isa.40:31 They have their mouth open to receive His good things that will renew their youth like the eagles. (Who are renewed by God to live long lives) Psalms 103:5; Psalms 50:5, 16; 81:10 They have a faith that lives high in the secret place under the shadow of the Almighty, anchored in the chambers of the Lord. They have a faith that soars above in another kingdom, not of this world, a faith that soars through the darkness of judgment and the storms of renovation. They have a faith that sees beyond the natural realm and is as unstoppable as the mighty fire of God. They are the eagles, the last generation. They are abandoned in His love and baptized in His fire to carry His healing in their wings. They have the sharp two-edged sword in their mouths to bring mercy and judgment. They carry the glory of His presence to draw hearts to the great redemptive love and compassion of Jesus Christ and His power to bind and destroy the works of the devil. They are the embodiment of the justice of God releasing the will of the Father from heaven to the earth.

It is a Joshua generation with a different spirit. They walk with the Lion of Judah. They will conquer the destiny of spiritual inheritance for this season and their lives. Not only will they take their own but many will take on the inheritances that have went to the grave with those who never walked in them. This is His offspring that will arise with power over the flesh, the world system, and the devil. The presence of God will go before them as they walk in complete obedience and all they put their hand to will prosper. They will have the courage of Joshua to claim lands, cities, schools, and nations for the Kingdom of God. There is no end to the wonders and great exploits God will do through them. The fear of the Lord will come and many will find salvation. Like Noah, they will do what has never been done before, in the face of great persecution, not by sight but by faith. They will live by the bread of life and be lead by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Like Abraham, they will go beyond their natural abilities to see God’s will done on the earth. They are looking for a city not made with hands that dwells in the heavens and that is home. Like Isaac, there is a cross of sacrifice they carry because of love and the struggle has ceased. Like Jacob, transformation has come through tests and trails, but the heavens have opened over for them with His glory presence for great fruitfulness. Like Joseph they have a dream and the anointing is upon them to walk through sufferings, to remain faithful in dark places, for the fulfillment of saving souls and nations. Like Daniel, faithful even unto death, they will step into influential places displaying the greatness of God’s wisdom and power to large territories that will enlarge the Kingdom of God. Like John the Baptist they are preparing the way of His coming, caught between two different dispensations of God’s plan.

They will see and obey the voice beyond what is written, as Peter did seeing through a vision that God had opened a door to the Gentiles. Leaning on the heart of Jesus, as John did, they walk in intimate love receiving great revelations of the future from their King. Like Paul, they experience sudden encounters with God, heavenly visions, and angelic accompaniment and are sent out with His power. Like Enoch they walk with God until one day they are gone to be with Him. The mission of this last generation is totally the work of God, not man. It cannot be done with methods of man or religious activity. It will only be imparted to those who are seeking Him for intimate relationship, longing for His return, hungry for righteousness and thirsty for the new wine of His glory. The courage and revelation of this company must be caught by the spirit and not learned by the mental capacity. The breath of God will sustain them. This is a heart work of purity and divine character from the depth of the inner man. It is making your life a sacrifice unto Jesus and surrendering to the fire of God to burn up all that is not of God in you. All your experiences of the past, all your training and teachings, all your environment must be given over to the transforming wind of the Sprit to shake whatever life has placed in your being so that all that remains is the word and work of the Kingdom of God.

This is the now generation that is not of gender, race, age, culture, or country. You could say they have jumped out of their generation just to flow with the move of God. They have stepped out of their age limitations with its hindering generational and religious traditions to find His fresh wine skin and are filled with new wine. They have leaped out of world culture, out of class, out of race, out of country to walk in their destined spiritual inheritance in the Kingdom of God. They are a company of young and old alike who have left their personal pasts under the blood of Christ to cross over to a whole new world. They have forsaken the prideful disqualifying of gender realizing that all are equal in Christ to the grace and gifts of God. Male and female are working side by side in holiness as one. There is no class or color for the hearts are all flowing with the blood of Christ, reigning as royal kings and priests. Their culture is not of this world but of the one to come. They do not conform to normality’s, natural securities, natural preferences, fears or desires. This is a company of believers who are consumed with the mind of Christ and the heart of their heavenly Father. They burn with desire to please the Father and do His will. Their loyalty is to God and His Kingdom. They lay down their lives to serve all mankind, honor all men, love all nations and to die for the love and exaltation of their King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.

There is upon us, especially in America, a great divide happening. Jesus said, “Do you think I came to give peace on the earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.” (Luke 12:49-53) He also said, as he looked at the church of “no need” in Revelation 3:14-2, ” So then, because you are lukewarm and are neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” There is a great separating going on in the unseen hearts and lives of men and women. Spiritual hunger, spiritual confusion, but also a moral collapse is everywhere. We stand on the threshold of a mighty judgment and transformation of this whole world by the awesome sovereign hand of God. God is aligning His plumb line to His people and they have been found wanting. The door has been wide open for repentance and transformation of lives.

We read of eagles in Luke 17:37. A separation happens, some are taken, and some are left, some are taken up into His chambers and some are left in their wilderness. Some are living in the presence of the Lord in daily communion and some are being given to the affliction of their own selfish ambitions and gratifications. Then the body, the remnant church is gathered and the eagles are gathered to the body. The eagles have been carrying the fire of mercy and judgment. They are gathering the body. They have been preparing the way of the Lord. This is the day of the Lord returning to the earth. Refer to Luke 21, Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 17:20-37.

God is releasing mysteries of His kingdom now into the hearts of His people by His Spirit. When He comes, soon, He will establish this kingdom on the earth. It will fill the whole earth with His glory. We have not seen or heard or has it entered into the hearts what God has prepared for those who love Him but He has revealed them to us through His Spirit. The Spirit of God searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. Refer to I Corinthians 2.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Father is Jealous for His Son

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

There is a godly jealousy that belongs to the Lord God Almighty. He is jealous to be the one true God of His people. He is jealous over His church, His Zion, His Jerusalem. Today, among some His own people, God is jealous over His Son for He is not given the exalted place, of all honor and all glory. One day the knowledge and light of who He is will fill the whole earth and the Lord Jesus Christ will reign on the earth as who He is, the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords. Then we will stand before Him in His light to reveal all the works of our lives and motives of our hearts. Then it will be clearly seen what place we, His blood bought ones, gave to Him in this life.

The Lord Jesus Christ paid the price of sin, rebellion, and death for all mankind with His lifeblood and body. He broke the power of sin and conquered death for eternity. He did a finished and complete work. His sacrifice will always be enough to reconcile man to God, to redeem all creation, and to restore it all back to its original purpose and the perfect harmony He intended. Isaiah 53 tells us that in all his suffering God the Father looked upon him, marred more than any man, and was satisfied that the travail of his soul would pay the sin debt of all mankind.

Wow! How the Father loves that He would give His only Son and how He loves those who make Christ their whole life and holy habitation. How could the Father not be jealous over His only son, the savior of the world? Today, Jesus Christ is distorted, substituted, ignored, eclipsed, and forsaken as the fountain of living water by the very ones who name the name of Christ?

• “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns; broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

God is weary with our religious activity to attract men but not God, and our own manipulating methods of spirituality, which are mostly the selfish ambitions of our soul. He is weighed down with our conformity to the ways of the world, when He died to make us holy, as He is holy.

• “Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down.” Amos 2:13

It is the cross, the blood, and, His resurrected life that makes us free from sin, from generational curses, and from diseases. He is all that saves us from the destructive system of this world ruled by lust and greed, and from the devil himself. Nothing else but the blood can make me guiltless, clean, whole, and free to love even the unlovable. Nothing but the cross can render powerless all that is stacked against my life past, present and future. Nothing but the resurrection of our Lord can give unto me the power of the Holy Spirit to live a life worthy of the Kingdom of God, bearing much fruit.

So why are there church services where His name is never mentioned other than to pray in Jesus name. Why are there messages claiming to be the gospel that do nothing but encourage you to a modified behavior and mental assent, leading you into a humanistic way of life, when the missing key is deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ losing your own life in this world to find real life. The real transformation of Christianity is found in an abandoned life of humility that surrenders all to the death of self. The believer must choose to believe in the power of the cross, suffer its reproach in this world, and live their life “in who Christ is” through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

• Listen! “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness: but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” I Corinthians 1:18
• 2 Timothy 3:1-5 describes the perilous day when those who are called Christian will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof: from such turn away.”
• Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Galatians 3:3

The Bible says examine your faith and judge yourselves. What place does He have in you? Is He the most exalted in your life? Is He your life? Is He ultimate? Is He your first love? Does He fill your vacuum for inner peace? Are you holy? Are you a pleasure to Him? Is He your greatest affection? Do you give Him your highest attentions? Do your attitudes and actions reflect the testimony of Jesus Christ, that He is alive in this world today? Are you one of the many who call themselves Christian, but can’t be distinguished from the world? Do you have a form of godliness with no power? You see, love with out power is sad and love with no real fruit is sad. Can we be brave enough to ask the Holy Spirit to come and examine our lives changing what needs changed for His glory? Can we be honest enough to see genuine revival?

Oh Father, that those who call your name would know “Jesus Christ is enough.” We do not need all the substitutes, philosophies, and methods. We just need the power of God. Jesus Christ did a complete and finished work.

• Paul said “I am determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” I Corinthians 2:2
• “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” Vrs.4-5
• “Beware lest anyone spoil you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principals of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily: and you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.” Colossians 2:8-10

Jesus alone is worthy of all our worship, all our hearts, all our lives and all glory and honor. No one else paid the sin debt of all mankind. Help us to believe with all our heart, soul, mind and strength that we lack nothing because of your cross and your blood. Give us grace and mercy to apply it to our everyday lives through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us and with us forever.

Those who name the name of Christ must take heed, and depart from their evil ways of turning away from the very power that gives them resurrection life. Please hear! If you are a part of a place of worship that does not honor the cross, that never speaks of identifying with the cross, that does not preach and teach the power of the blood and cross of Christ Jesus our Lord, then get as far away from it as you can.

Run and do not look back for the Lord is jealous over His Son.

“The Lord is jealous (zealously moved, provoked to anger, to envy) over His Son.”

• “For the Lord whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” Exodus 34:14
• “For the Lord God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” Deuteronomy 4:24

Oh Father, Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach.” Let us rend our hearts for You are a merciful God and will send us new wine and oil.

References: Jeremiah 2:13; I Corinthians 10:22; Exodus 34:12-26; Dueteronomy 4:23-24;6:13-15; Amos 2:13; Nahum 1:2; Joel 2:12-19; Joshua 24:19; I Corinthians 1:17-19; 2:1-5; I Corinthians 3:11-15; 11:31-33; Galatians 5:24-25; 6:14; Colossians 2:9-10; 2 Timothy 2:19-21; 3:1-5

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Warfare in the Kingdom of God

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

First, let’s deal with strongholds. Strongholds are something we allow to happen within us. The strongholds that become our greatest hindrances come from the unbridled flesh that wants to always be satisfied. They start with wrong thoughts that get planted in the mind and heart from various places such as our environments, our teaching, and our experiences in life. If the path of repentance is not taken to turn away from them and cast down imaginations and all that conflicts with what God thinks and says in His scriptures then soon a harmful attitude is developed. If the wrong attitudes are not cast down through the blood of Christ, they will become actions. If the bad actions are allowed to continue, habits are formed and therefore strongholds.

Believers must learn to take all thoughts into a captive place of obedience to Christ. There is a desperate need to surrender to the fire of the Holy Spirit burning up the flesh, and to submit to the sword of God’s word cutting out the bad roots living within our hearts.
The devil can sit back and relax when we stay in the strongholds of our own flesh. They become the greatest hindrances to the divine nature in the believer. To repent, believe and receive is to break down those strongholds that hinder Christ in us.

There is no good flesh in anyone. It all is filthy rags to God. (Isaiah.64:6) It was nailed to the cross of Christ and looses its power to rage for everyone who will continue to believe and the blood is always enough to erase completely the sin of the flesh for the repentant heart. (See Romans 6)

There must come an awakening to rise up and speak to the giants that hide in the mountains of our hearts “come forth and be cast out of this temple of God forever. Believers have been given everything that will ever be needed through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The complete and finished work was done for all who would believe and continue to believe.

Secondly, go to the whole armor of God placed on every believer. Eph.6: 10-18. The helmet of a great salvation protects our mind, the main battlefield. The believer wears the eternal saving shield of the mind of Christ upon his head. The breastplate of righteousness covering the main organs is protecting the functions of godly wholeness in all the activities of his life leaving no cracks for the enemy to shoot his fiery darts. The belt of truth is the Spirit of truth secured around our whole structure to hold tight all we have been clothed with and enables us to move swiftly at any time. It also supports the sword, which is the proceeding word of God destroying the works of the devil. The feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, so there is a willing and ready heart to go anywhere taking the good news of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom come. His peace will guide our steps and toughen our walk so we will be unstoppable to do His will. His shield of faith is always before the believer hiding himfrom all the attacks and protecting his life in Christ, for the just shall live by faith. Gal.3:11

Believers arise and take your stand for you have been made more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. His blood has been sprinkled on the doorposts of your heart and life by faith.

The past is wiped away, the generational curses of your fathers and their sins are exchanged on the cross of Christ for His righteous blood, His divine DNA and joint inheritance with Him. Rebellion, sin, and sickness are put down. Believers, you have His absolute and unchangeable Word. (See Colossians 2:14-15; Deuteronomy 5:9 and 21:23)

You have been given His Name that is above any other for authority and provision. You have access to wisdom from on High whenever we ask. (See Ephesians 1:8 and 1: 20-23; James 1:5)

You can touch the throne room with prayer releasing a real demonstration of His power and a real manifestation of His presence.

I have said all that to say this. Hear this with your heart. The only fight you have is the good fight of faith. ………. You are complete and lack nothing in this life.

Repent, believe, and receive that you may possess in you all God has for you.

Therefore since faith is our good fight here in this life, I ask you, “are we the real army in the Kingdom of God?” We are to be like soldiers but who are we? Did not Jesus make us all kings and priests with Him? Are we not more than conquerors? Are we the citizens of this Kingdom who are protected and kept by the power of God and His ministering angels? Did not Christ Jesus do a finished work on the cross and our only real fight is faith. This truth will cause us to enter into the rest of God, the peace of the Kingdom.

Open our eyes Lord to see our good fight of faith. Then Lord, like Elisha asked for his servant, (2 Kings 6:13-17) let your people see those who are with us, who fight for us and are more than all our enemies. The army of the Kingdom of God, which Christ Jesus our Lord is the Commander in Chief (Joshua 5:13-15) is the multitudes of angelic beings sent to minister to the body of Christ in this world. (Hebrew 1:14;Psalms 103:20) It reveals a needed truth to read of an angel coming to Peter loosing him from jail as the church prayed in Acts 12.

Stop, look, and really listen here: we, the believers, allow the ministers of fire to come to us as we lay the tracks of prayer. We allow them to be released to work in our behalf through our good fight of faith. We employ their mission by the testimony of our hearts in word and deeds. God open our eyes and hearts!

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Count All What Loss?

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

We as believers in Christ Jesus our Lord are called to lose, but I ask you today, “What are we losing?” Maybe it is time to examine our faith and check our vital signs in the Lord.

What we refuse to give up…………..that and more will be taken away.
What we refuse to change……………..will turn to afflict and chastise us.
What we refuse to surrender to………….will rob our destiny
What we refuse to see………….will blind us from the truth.
What we refuse to speak………will cause us to loose His grace and favor.
What we refuse to believe in fear and doubt………….will keep us from knowing Him.

There is a tree of life to eat from now. The rich fruit will give us our best life…God life. There is also a tree with two kinds of fruit for us to eat from now. The one fruit will give us knowledge and desire for the pleasures of sin. The other fruit will give us knowledge and desire for self-gratification and comfort, the good life without God.

We who believe and are seeking the Lord are tempted most with the fruit of good. This fruit is pleasant to our bodies, emotions, minds and wills. It feels good, it looks good, it makes me seem happy and fulfilled. It is legitimate, religious, and even justified and esteemed among society. It satisfies and supplies everything but my spirit, my eternal being. The spirit of man becomes malnourished, weak, unexercised and open to the wiles of the enemy. This fruit has no real life in it until God’s fruit is put first.

Now, if you know God, you also know He is the light of life period. You should know you were born with a purpose to worship Him and become like Him. Now, if this is you, then God has set you apart and called your life to a destiny chosen by Him. The critical thing though is that you must choose to live entirely from the fruit of the tree of life. Many are called, few are chosen. Many are called to surrender to the “tree of life” and forsake all else. Jesus said it like this; unless you lose your life you will not find it. The greatest stealer of destiny and fulfillment in God is the good life and all it offers. Many great callings and gifts go to the grave having never been experienced by the individual or this world because of the fruit of the “good life.”

Just as satan entered the garden of Eden in the beginning with his tree, so he enters our world as believers with the same tempting two fruits; either the immediate pleasure of sin that later pays evil wages, or self-seeking comforts of just the good life without God. Jesus said that if you will seek the Kingdom of God first, all the rest will be added unto you. Many genuine believers keep putting the good life before the God life and it just will not produce the will of God or a personal destiny.

We are to know life at its fullest and best……….”the God life.”

It is found only by living fully separated and alive within the person of Jesus Christ.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Keep the Horse Before the Cart

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

Being Christ centered before church (or people) centered.

Know Who Christ is in us before we know who we are in Him.

Know He has been given all authority before His authority can be in us.

All of Jesus’ teaching made disciples before church was born.

Jesus became the sacrifice before the God’s Holy fire came.

Jesus became the will of God before He did the will of God.

Jesus changed hearts before He changed lifestyles.

We behold the face of Jesus before others behold Him on our face.

Jesus was all the gifts before he gave them to the church: Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher

Know Jesus as the King before you know any keys of the kingdom.

Exalt Jesus and exhibit Jesus the King before Kingdom works come on the earth.

Eat all the Passover Lamb before you go into the land of promise.

We, His people, must keep all our focus on the King for He is Lord of all or not Lord at all. Keep our focus on Jesus Christ, the person, first and the rest will follow. He alone is worthy of all our love, our attention and our affections. He is the perfect fit of our eternal being. We can only find our exact identity and our reason for being as we fit into Him. All we are uniquely created for is found in Him. We must live in who He is …knowing He only is our life and truth, He alone is our way. We must move in the power of His strength and His mighty works…giving all glory to Him We must keep our being (who we are and what we are about) in His divine will and purpose. We fit into Him; we fit into His compassion; we fit into His love; we fit into His gifts; we fit into His anointing; we fit into His plan; we fit into His works on the earth; we fit into His lead. Each one of us different, each one special, and each one holds a golden piece of His divine plan in our life.

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Who are We the Church?

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

We are the church: a living organism, a body, living stones, a holy habitation, royal priesthood, a holy nation, the individual and corporate working parts of His body equipped to do the greater works of Jesus Christ on the earth today until He returns to set up His Kingdom in person. As His corporate body on all seven continents we are all are equal, with equal grace and inheritance, without gender, race, age, culture or country. We are kindred spirits.

We are given many different gifts in many different measures and operations, but all are by the Spirit of God and measured by God as equal. God measures not by performance, perfection, or position, but by the resurrection power that produces great fruit of the Kingdom on the earth. We are stronger together in unity and have a full measure of all His parts, yet as an individual we are unique, specially made, and complete in Him.

From the Jews and Gentiles he made one new man: “the church”, all one in Christ Jesus: Jew, Gentile, male, female, bond, and free. That means in the Kingdom of God there is one race, one culture, one class, and one gender in Christ. The gospel of the kingdom of God is our message and our mission is to exalt and exhibit only the King, Jesus Christ, establishing Him in the hearts of others.

THE CHURCH IS:

The church is not a literal building, a denomination, or a membership into an organization. The church is not a social standard of ethics or philosophy, not doctrinal concepts that modify behavior or man-made religious traditions.

The church is born into the Kingdom of God. You are born by the Spirit of God and His Holy Word . The Kingdom of God was not born out of the church. The church was born out of Zion the dwelling place of God, His Kingdom. You are translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died for a Kingdom not for a religion.

You are baptized into Christ: both His death and His resurrection.

You are baptized into the Holy Spirit and Fire as He, Christ, submerges you.

You are the people of God, sealed, adopted, and kept by the Spirit of God, into the inheritance of the King of Kings.

You are His body meant to know Him and live in intimate communion with God the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. You are the habitation of God.

You are empowered to be a vessel of honor that carries the power and treasures of a King; His ambassadors; His messengers.

You are a vehicle on earth alive with His Spirit, like as the wheel within a wheel moving in high activity only as His Spirit moves to bring the presence and power of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

You are an instrument of righteousness, peace and joy, instruments of reconciliation, of restoration, and of His redemptive power.

You are a mighty weapon to destroy the works of the devil and to bring divine reversal to the injustices of this world.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE PLACED INTO CHRIST:

You have been placed into the Redeemer of all creation:
Redeemed out of sin, rebellion, death and the control of a fallen nature by the blood and body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You have been placed into new blood line:
You, in Christ, have the DNA of God through His blood, His word, His Spirit. His blood remits all sin washing us white like snow, antidotes all rebellion and sickness. Cleanses and creates His nature in us.

You have been placed into immortality: body, soul, and spirit:
In Christ you are given hope of the final redemption of a new immortal body. You are a new spirit alive to God, and can attain a transformed soul for God’s use only. You have eternity in your hearts.

You are placed into resurrection power now:
You have been given the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead to live in you now. As a power within to quicken, heal, strengthen, our mortality now and a power to be released out of you for the Kingdom of God.

You are placed into a Name above all others:
You, in Christ, have been given His name, by birth, which is above in power any other name that is named or exists, you are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places because you carry His name.

You have been put into a place where you sit, stand and walk:
You sit with Him now where He sits, stand in the grace of His life, you can live and walk in the benefits, the royalty, and the power of His kingdom, carrying His countenance and glory. You can do His works producing much fruit to glorify your Father in heaven.

You, placed into another Family:
You have changed Fathers; you are adopted into His home, into the household of God, into His great love, care and presence. You are given the family inheritance, joint heir with Christ, to all the Father has.

You are placed into another Kingdom:
You are citizen of His Kingdom, with access to His throne, His River, His Mountain, and His city. His mighty army of angels protects you. You are under His authority, His laws, His covenants, and His promises.

You are placed into His authority:
You, in Christ are being transformed into Kings and priests of the Kingdom of God who rule and reign with Him above all other powers. You are to be a peculiar people in this world, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood who live as more than conquerors.

What a place God has put the church. He has placed us into Christ, so he could always love us, see us in righteousness, let us near His presence, walk and talk with us, and give us all He has. He has placed us into Christ Jesus so we could daily be intimate with the Father knowing His heart, daily have a relationship with the Lord Jesus and commune daily with the Holy Spirit. In this place in Christ, He will give us revelation to know Him, to see the Kingdom, to manifest His great love, and to move in His demonstration of power, against the gates of hell.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE IN HIM:

You individually are complete when you step into Christ by faith and obedience, which works by love. There is no one else just like you or special to God in the way you are. You alone can do best what He gave you to do.

You came from his heart and in Christ he wants you to find his heart again and live there, knowing how much he loves you. You are imprinted on the Fathers hand. (Isa.49:16) You have a destiny and purpose in this life on the earth.

You have been given a measure of faith to believe unto salvation and the measure of grace for your gift and calling in life, and into eternity.

You have a vacuum inside made only for Him to fill. Your heart is made to be His home. You were created to worship God, to know Him intimately, to be filled with His love.

You were created in His image and for living His Kingdom on the earth. Your life here is to find Him. You are given this time as a gift from God. And when you find Him you are to give him 100% of you, as He loves you 100%. When you find Him and see Him as He is then all that you are or are not, all you have or have not, all your pain, experiences, emotions, all your environmental influences, all your good or bad learning experiences, all your good, all your mental crutches or strengths can be totally lost in Christ Jesus.

You can be lost in Him and found as a new creature. You can be lost in His perfect love, where there is no fear and where He makes all things new. When you find Him, He gently puts you on His potters’ wheel and with a loving hand reshapes you into a golden image of Him fit for your purpose in the Kingdom of God. You find in Him fulfillment of destiny and are enabled to live in your true inheritance as God’s son.

You are the church. Male or female you are the Bride of Christ, the Sons of God led by the Spirit of God

Scripture References: I Corinthians 12:1-20; I Peter 2:4-5. 2:9; Ephesians 2:13-22; John 14:12; Galatians 3:26-29; John 1:12-13; John 3:5-8; Col. 1: 13; Romans 6:3-8; I Peter 2:10; Ephesians 1; John 17:20-26; John 14:16-17; Romans 14:17; Ezekiel 1:15-21; I John.3:8;
Matthew 16:16-20; Colossians 2:9-10

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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The Fathers heart aches to give His church His Kingdom

By Janee Hawks
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

Jesus Christ is truth and sets us apart for God's use only by the spirit of truth revealed through the words of life, the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Hear a small nugget from His truth.

Jesus Christ is alive and well now all over the earth. He stands at many church doors knocking to come in and be free to transform His people into Kingdom disciples. We, His body should be as alive and well and as sent into the world as He was. We, the church need to come away with the Lord and be transformed again from our soul powered traditions of religion. We need to surrender our control of church to the Holy Spirit who is the only one who knows how to build it God's way. God is not after a successful church according to the methods of man on the earth or the culture of the day in which we live. He is after an apostolic church that is focused on the whole body of Christ being matured into His stature, downloaded from heaven with His power and saturated with His love to reach the world with the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

He now rides, in the spirit realm, the white horse of Revelation 19, across this world as the mighty warrior but soon coming visible, conquering King of Kings, Lord of Lords. So we, His body, must mount up with Him and ride now letting Him hold all the reins. We, His body, are to hold only the sword of His redemption, as the words of God are alive in us and in our mouth. As Revelation 5 reveals the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the books of the final act on the earth and the Kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord. Likewise we, the church are to walk with the Lion and prevail against the gates of hell. As the Kingdom of God is revealed in us and given to us we are to arise and shine bringing all glory, honor and power unto the King of Kings. We are to know and to encounter the very presence of His throne.

We, the entire body of Christ, are to reign with Him in His authority as kings and priests. As Jesus ascended to heaven He gave gifts to the church for one purpose and with one mission; they are to mature the whole body to be ministers and disciples of the Kingdom of God. These gifts are the leaders designated by God to build the foundation of the church on Jesus Christ alone. These are teams of men and women who lead from the heart, not as Christians in another class or as Kings and Queens in the Kingdom. There is no class in the Kingdom of God, as all are equal in worth. They are to be honored for their works sake as it is a great work with much travail to mature the body until Christ be formed in them. Jesus Christ has washed us in his blood and made us (all) kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever (Rev.1:5).

Oh so sweet is the executor of the Kingdom who lives in us. He the person of the Holy Spirit directs our steps and empowers our lives for the greater works of Christ, to bring forth 30, 60, and 100 fold fruit of the Kingdom and glorify our Father. The Holy Spirit of God in you, the church, woos you to live and decree before your Father in heaven whose name is hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Oh how the Father's heart aches to give His Kingdom now to His remnant people on the earth. It is an undiscovered country to most of His church. We, the church, have lived in the religious system so long we cannot see the Kingdom. In this undiscovered country of the Kingdom of God on the earth are many inheritances for His people. Inheritances that were not pressed into and not taken by force and went to the grave unclaimed and are now falling from heaven for this generation of Kingdom disciples who will pay the price, press, and persevere until there is a breakthrough to destiny on this earth and beyond. The Father has many new inheritances to give as well. Prophesy to the inheritances that have gone to the grave to be resurrected in His living body today and receive them. In my Father's house are many mansions, mansions of spiritual and natural goods, the King's riches, inheritance's, abundant refuge places, and deep communion. There is a tangible ache of the Father's heart to give the Kingdom to His children.

The Father's heart aches to see the church come out of the religious activity, which actually kills the very life and move of His Kingdom on the earth. The Kingdom of God is about real God-life on the earth, not just good life, not just about the weekly professional successful services, great programs, writing books and marketing messages, or even the cultural methods of an institution that we call church. The church is to be the Kingdom of God in the kingdoms of this world and be passionately in love with the King of Kings. The Kingdom is about knowing the King and doing His will; it's about turning the injustices of this world to justices, destroying the works of the devil and bringing the equality of a full measure of the stature of Christ into His whole body on the earth. It is not about setting up kingdoms of religious activity ruled by a few. It can almost be audibly heard, as the Lord says, "prophesy to the wind that these dead bones of my church will arise again to my Kingdom." Prophesy that dead works and inheritances that have gone to the grave will be resurrected to His greater works now in His disciples on the earth. Prophecy that dry bones will be restored, that all the body will be put together on these resurrected bones and my glorious church will arise to usher in His soon coming. The spirit and the bride say "Come, Lord Jesus".

The battle is great for the Kingdom of God to come in His church. The church was born out of the Kingdom. The devil will rage much more over Kingdom activity than he rages over regular church attendance, or religious activities. The religious spirit will war against the Kingdom of God and many are the adversaries, but this revelation imparted into His church is a great effective door that has been opened to us from heaven. Our prayers now for one another daily and our exhortation for one another daily are critical.

Scripture:

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place, which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Hebrews 11:8-10

If we see the promise of the Kingdom then as they did in Abraham's day (verse 13) we must embrace the promises of the Kingdom, and confess them, and live like we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

"For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country, And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they come out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is and heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11:14-16

We must daily remind ourselves and decree what is truth, the gospel of the Kingdom, as our spirit needs to develop its hearing by our words of faith. He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying and decree it!

Pray with me if you can,
"Father help me to seek first and foremost, with all my heart, soul, and strength the King, the person of Jesus Christ. Give me grace to seek earnestly to live and move and have my very being only in Christ, and to cast far from me all fear of man, for it is Your good pleasure to give me the Kingdom. "

So be it!

Posted in Prophetic Messages

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Abortion Mill

By
Friday, September 1st, 2006

We stand for hours watching women walk into the Abortion Mill to kill the life that's in them. And we see the women walking out of the clinic…hurting, limping, struggling. A few hours earlier, the young baby, who can actually feel pain, was struggling to get away from the instrument….the instrument that would eventually kill it. We play worship music on the loudspeaker. We hold signs saying "Jesus Offers Hope", "Abortion is Not the Solution", "Abortion is Murder", and "Please Don't Do This". We hand out tracts to all who will take them. We preach until the words don't come anymore. We pray for breakthrough, for God's heart, for conviction, for salvation. The fruit is few and far between in Western Church standards. And then…..

There's the couple that stays in the car and reads the tract and hears the music and preaching. And they weep and talk it through and eventually decide to have the child. And all of heaven rejoices for the one. Are the dozens that don't turn around a deterrent for the one that does? Not on your life! God gives us these treasures and we keep coming back because He did the same for us. He's proven Himself faithful to stop for the one…for us, and we will do the same for those who have no voice.

Posted in Local Outreach

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The Marketplace and the Byways

By
Friday, September 1st, 2006

We go to malls and outside the hospital because Jesus didn't say "stay until they come to you". He said "Go, and proclaim the kingdom of God is at hand and heal the sick". So we do. The teenager at the mall 2 weeks ago with Spina Bifida, was weeping and shaking as we prayed and exclaiming with hands raised that she "could feel her body". Or the woman in front of Grady Hospital, who's knees were so painful she could barely walk….screaming to her friend that the pain was gone!. Something man cannot manufacture. Something only God can do, where He gets all the glory. We will continue until we can say "they were all healed".

Posted in Local Outreach

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Our Jerusalem and Samaria

By
Friday, September 1st, 2006

To the poor in local neighborhoods we go. Not just to preach, but to offer a cold cup of water or help them clean out their trailer or patch their roof. We host cookouts and pray for healings and salvations and play games with the kids. We knock on doors and pray for the sick. Lucy limped because she had bursitis and really didn't want us to pray for her. Her trailer was hot and she had just gotten off work at a local hotel. After prayer she said she could feel something happening in her hip. I told her not to tell us a story, we didn't need the TV preacher confirmation . She said she was serious and that they pain had left her and she was able to walk immediately with no limp. May His Name, Jesus, be praised as we delight in undoing all that the devil has done. His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Posted in Local Outreach

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