Prayer Summary for April 21

Scripture focus…

Staying at Our Post
(1-10) Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us,

I heard your call in the nick of time;
The day you needed me, I was there to help.

Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing. Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right; when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.

(11-13) Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! 2 Corinthians 6 (MSG)

The following excerpt was taken from A Larger Christian Life by A.B. Simpson:

THE LARGER LIFE
“Be ye also enlarged” (2 Cor. 6: 13).

THE law of growth is a fundamental principle of all nature and redemption. Whatever ceases to grow begins to die; stagnancy brings corruption; the corpse belongs to the worm; a self-contained pool becomes a malarious swamp. Vegetation springs from a seed, the seed grows into a tree, and the tree into a forest. Human life commences in infancy and develops to maturity. The word of God has all unfolded from a single promise. The great plan of redemption has been a ceaseless progression, and will be through the ages upon ages that are yet to come.

The experience of the soul is a growth. True, it must have a starting point. We cannot grow into Christianity; we must be born from above and then grow. And so sanctification is progressive, and yet it has a definite beginning. Christ is completely formed within us, but He is the infant Christ, and grows up to the maturity of the perfect man in us just as He did in His earthly life.

It is here that the enlargement of our text meets us. It is only the truly consecrated Christian that grows.
The other treads the ceaseless circle of the Wilderness. But he has crossed the Jordan and begun the conquest of the land and the progressive experience of which it was the beautiful pattern and symbol. No book in the Bible has more progress in it than the book of Joshua, and yet from the very beginning it is the life of one who has wholly died to self and sin and has taken Christ for full salvation and is walking in the heavenly places in Him.

And even the book of Joshua only begins its highest advance when it is almost ended. It is after the whole land is subdued, that the call comes, “How long are ye slack to go to possess the land?… There remainith yet very much land to be possessed.” And then it is that old Caleb, who has the weight of eighty-four years on his honored head, steps forth and claims the privilege of entering upon the boldest and hardest campaign of his life, the conquest of Hebron and the Anakim. IT is to us then, who know the Lord Jesus in His fullness, that He is saying, “Be ye also enlarged.”

1. We need a larger vision. All great movements begin in great ideas. There is no progress without a new thought as its embryo. China has remained the same for three thousand years because China has not accepted a new idea. Her teacher is a man who lived long before Christ, and for nearly thirty centuries she has followed the ideas of Confucius and is just the same today as she was thirty centuries ago. Let China receive the American idea or the Christian idea and she will be revolutionized at once.

So the first step in our advance must be a new conception of the truth as it is in Jesus and a larger view of His word and will for us. We do not need a new Bible, but we need new eyes to read our Bible and brighter light to shine upon its deep and pregnant pages. We need to see, not simply a system of exegesis or a system of Biblical exposition and criticism; a thorough knowledge of the letter and its wondrous framework of history, geography, antiquities and ancient languages; but a vivid, large and spiritual conception of what it means for us and what God’s thought in it for each of us is. We want to take it as the message of heaven to the twentieth century and our generation, nay, the living voice of the Son of God to us this very hour, and to see in it the very idea which He Himself has for our life and work; to take in the promises as He understands them, the commandments as He intends them to be obeyed, and the hopes of the future as He unfolds them, upon the near horizon of their approaching fulfillment.] How little have we grasped the length and breadth, depth and height of this heavenly message! How little have we realized its authority and its personal directness to us! “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law!” “I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.” That ye may be filled with “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” May the Lord grant it to each of us in the largest possible measure in accordance with His will!

2. We need a larger faith. What is the use of light if we DO not use it? We need a faith that will personally appropriate all that we understand, and a faith so large that it will reach the fullness of God’s great promises; so large that it will rise to the level of each emergency as it comes into our life. Do we not often feel that a promise has been brought to us with a light and power that we have been unable to claim and a need has arisen that we are persuaded God is able to meet, but for which we are conscious our faith is not grasping the victory, at least according to the full measure of the exigency? This ought not be. If all things are possible to him that believeth we ought to have all things in His will for every moment of life’s need. The divine pattern of faith is the faith of God. Oh, let us be enlarged to this high measure!

3. We need a larger Love. We need a love that will meet God’s claim of perfect love, as He has said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” We need a love that will love one another “even as He has loved us.” We need a love that will love our enemies and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. We need a love that will love the lost as He loves them, overcoming our repugnance to every personal condition, and delighting to suffer or sacrifice for their salvation with the joy that counts it no sacrifice. We need a love that will take our brother’s need and pain as if it were our own, and “remember those in bonds as bound with them, and them that suffer adversity as being also in the body.” We need that love of which Paul writes, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, believeth all things.”

4. We need a larger joy. We need a joy that will not only rejoice in the gifts of God, but will rejoice in God Himself and find in Him our portion and our boundless and everlasting delight. We need a joy that will not only rejoice in the sunshine but in the hour of darkness and apparent desertion, when men misunderstand us, when circumstances are against us and when even God seems to have forgotten us. We need a joy that will not only rejoice in all things, but rejoice evermore. We need a joy that even when we do not feel the joy, will “count it all joy,” and rejoice by faith. We need a joy so large, so deep, so divine that it will not feel its sacrifices, will not talk about its trials, but will “endure the cross despising the shame, for the joy set before us.”

5. We need a larger experience. We do not mean by this any mere state of emotional feeling, but larger range of Christian living, a bringing of Christ more into everything; an experience that will prove Him in all situations, amid secular business, exasperating circumstance, baffling perplexities, extreme vicissitudes; and, going all round the circle of human life, will be able to say, “not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” That is a large experience. That is a degree in the school of Christ that will out-weigh all the D.D.’s of all the college.

6. We need a larger work. We do not mean by this that we need a larger sphere. That may not be. That certainly is not the case if we are not filling our present; but we need a better quality of work. We need to finish our unfinished work. We need to do the things we have thought of doing, intended to do, talked about doing and are abundantly able to do. We need to do the work that can be done in that can be done in the intervals and interstices of life, the work that can be done on the way and on the wing, between times as well as in times of special service and appointment; the word that can be spoken as we casually meet people; the work that can be done by the wayside and on the crossroads of life, where souls meet that never meet again. Sometimes the ministry can be performed at such a moment becomes the pivot for hundreds of souls and eternal ages to turn upon. We need a work that is larger in its upward direction, more wholly for God, more singly devoted to His glory, and more satisfied with His approval whether men are pleased or not. And we need a larger conception and realization of the work that He expects of us in the special line in which He has been developing our Christian life. Most of those who read these lines or hear these words have been called to know Christ in a measure unknown to the great mass of the people of God, and we have not yet realized what God expects of us in spreading these special truths and extending this blessed movement, of which Christ is the center and substance, over all the land and over all the world. God is calling us at this time to a larger faith for this special work-the testimony of Jesus in all His fullness to all the world.

7. We need a larger hope. We need to realize more vividly, more personally, more definitely, what the coming or the Lord means, and means to us, until the future shall become alive with the actual expectation and ever immanent prospect of His Kingdom and His reward. Oh how little this great hope has been to the hearts and lives of most of us until within a few years! How utterly blind the majority of Christians are to it as an actual experience! How much inspiration is it fitted to lend to the heart that truly realizes it! May the Lord enlarge our hopes and intensify them until this becomes, next to the love of Jesus, the most inspiring, stimulating, quickening motive of our Christian life and work!

8. We need a larger baptism of the Holy Spirit, for this is the true summing up of all we have said. It is one thing, not many things, that we need; and filled with the Spirit in still larger measure, the fruit of the Spirit shall expand and increase in proportion. We need more room for His indwelling, more scope for His expanding, more channels for His outflow. We are not straitened in Him, we are straitened in ourselves. “He giveth not the Spirit by measure,” but we receive Him in very confined and small capacities. He wants more room; He wants our entire being, and He wants so to fill it that we shall be expanded into larger possibilities for His inworking and His outflowing.

Beloved, “be ye enlarged.” And not only in all these senses and directions, which, no doubt, have searched us and made us realize the limitations of our present lives, but we want to be enlarged in the quality of our life; we want not only more breadth and length, but we want depth and height, a more spiritual, a more mellow, a more mature fruition, and a more established, settled and immovable standing in and for Him.

Prayed…

Hungering for Your body to be enlarged
Every believer coming into greater and being enlarged
Straightened and enlarged by the unlimited possibilities of God
Throwing off limitations – exposed by the word of God
Anything that would limit You being seen and experienced on this earth!
You desire it more than we do Father
It’s about harvest!
Our life must increase for them – in demonstration and in power
Transformations by a new vison, hope, joy, and work!
Transformations in the Church of the Living God
Increase all around in every dimension – That we would come out from among them
Discerning who is and who isn’t
Tangible, discernable marks the Christian
Not hearer only but doers of the Word!
We will sit in Your presence and meditate – receiving fresh vision
Being about the Master’s business – more work that produces lasting change
You are a good Father!
Father, enlarge every one of us!
We do not want to be the cesspool but filled with the life giving flow of the Spirit
Actions and activities ordained by You!
That which You speak we will obey
Let us see it by revelation – the Glorious Church
Unlimited! Unlimited! Unlimited!
By Your mercy and Your grace
We lean into You more than ever before
Apart from You we can do nothing
We are not looking for any other way – Father have Your way
Only You have the words of eternal life
Desiring the increase of our parts, our members
Yielding unto members more and more
Eyes to see and ears to hear
Operations of the Spirit – manifestations
How to flow and how to work with Your Spirit and one another
We seek more of You in every way
Abundance to be had – don’t be satisfied
There is more to be tasted!
Bringing joy and there is love
Faith worketh by love!

Pastor Ray shared…

When we began to pray I saw a yellow line down the center of the highway and it was two lanes going one way and two lanes going the other way. We are taught; we know what the rules of the road are. Do not cross the yellow line. I saw it this way… you know there was a song that was very popular, “Jesus Take the Wheel” and it’s true that we want Him to be leading, leading us by His Spirit. We don’t want to be leading but we want Him to be leading us. But when we yield to Him, He shows us and give us the wheel so to speak and He has given us authority, a voice, the eyes of our spirit to see and I saw that we were in a way, concerning expansion, the vision, the call, the future, we were bound to one side by the yellow line.

But He said, “Cross over.” What? We were moving at highway speed but there was more if we would just cross over the line that was holding us in…I am sorry to say this but status quo. It’s a good flow and we are comfortable in this flow but He is calling us to go ahead and take the wheel, He has given us authority to take the wheel. We gave Him the wheel but He gave us the wheel and to take a turn and cross over into greater. What I saw was there was no one coming this way on the other side. There was a greater access for more on the other side. So it wasn’t a yellow line on the highway, it was just something we had manufactured in our own thoughts and minds.

We started out with Ms. Erica talking about being hungrier for the Word. The Bible gives us instruction on what to do in the days in which we are living in and that is expansion. If we pull back, we will start walking in lack. If we pull back, we start re-receiving the chains that bound us in the past ways.

No, no, no in the name of Jesus we lay out that blood before us. We apply it, we plead it, we believe through the blood, we know that we have been given access to heaven itself and every supply has already been made, been sent. So, today we see ourselves through Your eyes Father. We are bigger than what we thought we were. We are moving faster than what we thought we were moving. There are other lanes so to speak, other highways to walk out into and each and every one of them are expanding into the future days.

Continued praying…

Laying out the blood before us
Reaching out by faith over the earth
Each one of us matter!
Called to be the living body of Christ walking in love
Pressing ahead and calling up other members and position in the body
Yes you can! Yes you will!
Pick up the pace – expand the vision and cross over into greater
Calling it forth today
Those things we have not seen – we see them with the eyes of our faith
They are! They are here now!
We worship You Lord – thank You for the touch of Your Spirit now
Open up those ways!
Expansion and revelation to cross over into the new ways
Don’t quit! Don’t stop! Don’t pull over!
Taking our place of rest in You only – not on the side of the road
You are so good and beautiful too
Leave those old ways behind
Cleave only to Me, Your Father!
Leave and cleave!

Word came forth…

Leave the old steps too. Leave the old rooms also. For on the other side of those old rooms and steps there are new doors and steps that will take the Church higher than it has ever been before. Yes, (ha, ha, ha) The Church is called to go higher. The Church is called to be higher, higher in its action, higher in its expansion, higher in its momentum, higher in the way it walks, higher in the way it talks. Greater illumination is just on the other side so cross on over into it.

By faith we do Lord. By faith we touch it, we expect it. We begin that expansion. We take it. It’s good. It’s lifting. It’s not the same old way and plans. Not that those ways were not good and those plans were not great but this is a new day, another day.

All of the elements, we hold them up. Things need to be lined up in time, step by step by step. One, two, three, four, you know lined up. The master plan…

Ms. Jeri led us in a spiritual song…

We wade out a little bit deeper
We wade out a little bit deeper
We wade out a little bit deeper
Into the River of Life
(Repeat)

Step by step we will go deeper
Step by step we will go deeper
Step by step we will go deeper
Into Your River Oh God

When the waters they come up higher
Your waters they come up higher
As we wade out a little bit deeper
Into Your river

And we are not afraid to go over our head Lord
And we are not afraid to go over our head Lord
As we wade out a little bit deeper out into Your river

Oh we swim in Your river of Living Waters
We will swim in the river of Living Waters
By the power of Your Spirit we will swim in the Living Waters
Of Your River

We will see things we have never seen before
We will see things we have never seen before
And we’ll utter words that never have been spoken before
In Your River

The new things we will grasp oh Lord
The new things we will grasp oh Lord
We will apprehend those things we have never seen before
In Your river Lord

Oh we are not afraid to go over our head Lord (when we are with You, Lord)
And we are not afraid to go over our head Lord
And we are not afraid to go over our head Lord
When we are with You in the River

Pastor Ray shared…

That song just summed up the whole hour of service – expansion out into the new
I hope you enjoyed your swim today
Progressively taking the steps into deeper and deeper until we are over our head
When you are over your head, you don’t know what to do but He does and He takes us through
We thank You Lord

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