Ms. Annie led in song…
Come to Me you weary ones and I will give you rest, I will give you rest
Come to Me you weary ones and I will give you rest, I will give you rest
My yoke is easy and My burden is light
Take Me upon you and I will give you rest
So come to Me, come to Me, come to Me
I have been waiting for you here
Come to Me You troubled ones and I will give You peace, I will give you peace
Come to Me You troubled ones and I will give You peace, I will give you peace
I will calm the waters, I will whisper peace be still
So take Me upon you and I will give you peace
So come to Me, come to Me, come to Me
I have been waiting for You here
Come to me you weakened ones and I will give you joy, I will give You joy
Come to me you weakened ones and I will give you joy I will give you joy
You will rise like eagles and My joy will be your strength
So take Me upon you and I will give You joy
So come to Me, come to Me, come to Me
I have been waiting for You here
I am so freely waiting for you, Jesus is waiting for You here
So we come, Lord we come, oh we come, Jesus, we come to You
We come because You said come and we come
And we receive Your rest, we receive Your peace, we receive Your joy
It give us strength, we say to every storm, peace be still
Joy unspeakable and full of glory, living water we will drink
(spontaneous laughter came forth)
Ms. Florence shared…
The Lord was just reminding me about what happened on Sunday. I would say I was depressed. I was just so discouraged. I had lost my joy. I really had and so I got my joy back. After I was prayed for I get righteousness. She was singing about the blood of Jesus and that’s how we get our righteousness. It is not of anything we did, not at all. It’s all about Him. He gives us our righteousness. It is imputed unto us. So we are righteous because we believe in Christ. And then the other thing was peace. I had lost my peace completely but I did recover my peace. Because He was chastised for our peace so we just receive it. You just believe and receive and that’s what I did. I believe and received my peace back. But the other one was the joy. And I don’t know why I was laughing but I am telling you it does not come from in you. It does not come from out there. It comes from Him and I started laughing and I laughed and I laughed. I turned this way and I was laughing and I turned that way and I was laughing. So you know I was laughing. And I was with Cindy and she started laughing right with me.
So I think this thing can be spread. It can be spread by love right. I stood here after I stood up from where I was on the floor. Ms. Annie was coming this way. And what did you do, Ms. Annie? You put your hands to me and I held her hands and our foreheads came together (ha, ha, ha). I was like what’s happening to her? She just started laughing. Before we left there was one other girl on the floor and she was totally out of here. When she opened her eyes she wasn’t seeing me. I don’t know what she was seeing but you can see that faraway look in someone eyes… she couldn’t see me. She was totally somewhere else. And she didn’t know what was happening to her. I just put my hand on her belly and I started laughing. She came out of it and she started laughing with me and she stood up. So you know what we could come into this sanctuary and we could really want the presence of God and we could be going through so many other things but I tell you there is a time to pray and there is a time to rejoice in His presence. And I feel today that we just need to rejoice in His presence because that’s what He wants.
This morning I was just listening to somebody who was talking about prayer and he said to him prayer is envisioning the Father like a three- or four-year-old. Envision Him. Close your eyes and envision Him as your Father. You are a three-year-old and you want to come and get His attention. He is there. He is waiting for you. What do you do? Do you hold His head? Do you sit on His lap? Do you put your head on his bosom? What do you do? He allows you to do whatever you want to do in His presence. He knows all about our needs before we even speak. But what does He want. He wants that relationship. He wants you to know that He is a Father who so cares about you but what He want is, He wants His character to be in you. He just wants His DNA to be growing in you. So He wants you to come and just relax in His presence. I couldn’t help it. I was just thinking about that, that I am in my Father’s presence and He kind of helped me kick the Devil out of my life (ha, ha, ha). He helped me do that. So what do you do in such a case? You rejoice in Him. You rejoice in Him. Don’t be too technical. Don’t think about the other person beside you. Just think of why you came here so early in the morning (ha, ha, ha) to meet your Father. You know before you even speak anything He knows. How awesome is our Father. How awesome is He that you don’t have to speak. He knows exactly what’s in your heart. But what does He want? What would you want from your three-year-old child or grandchild? You want them to be happy in your presence. You want them to be happy in your presence.
Ms. Annie shared…
I just have to share this because of the thing about joy and about your Father wanting… you know He wants us to just be happy and be like little children and I saw this one time in a service where… it was one of the first times I saw someone just plastered on the floor. She just couldn’t stop laughing. It was up in Toronto. She could not stop laughing and she was rolling around and rolling around. I came back the next day and she was still in the same spot laughing. But the Lord opened my eyes. I saw Him like a Father tickling her.
My grandchildren love to be tickled. They actually go and hide and peek and say “Grandma chase me and tickle me.” They just like to be tickled. I was thinking about that. Why is it fun for me to tickle them? Because it is just fun to hear them laugh. It’s just fun to see them giggle for no reason. Why? Well it’s got to be the Father God’s nature in us. He feels the same way about us. It just makes Him happy to see us laugh but especially when the enemy is coming against us. I think about sometimes if the mood is getting somber or the two of them are in strife about something or whatever, you can lighten it up by giving them a tickle (ha, ha, ha). They will forget what they are upset about and they will just start laughing. So I was just thinking about how our Father, He just likes to see us happy and especially when the Devil is trying to pull some kind of nasty thing that is going to make you get down in the dumps. Whatever it is we all have stuff that he throws at us every day but He just wants to give us His joy like that and it just lifts the burden doesn’t it. Tickling, He tickles us. That’s a very unreligious, theological concept.
Pastor Ray shared…
We are not going to have a tickle group, so relax! I am not going to tickle you. That might be a little too fleshy (ha, ha, ha). But God can do it. He does it! (ha, ha, ha).
That reminded me of one time in a prayer conference we had several years ago in our old building. Pastor Lynne was leading this particular meeting and she had Erica and me and it seemed like there was one other person and Pastor Lynne, we locked arms together and we were walking back and forth praying in the Spirit across the front of the sanctuary. She probably had the microphone but we were right in there going back and forth. Pastor Lynne when things are moving one way or another if she says “amen, amen,” that’s a sign to end it. I think Pastor Lynne unhooked her arm and went up on the stage. Well, I had hold of Erica’s arm and she couldn’t get her arm out of there. We were kind of locked. She was locked and we were praying. Okay, so finally she got loose and we heard Pastor Lynne, “amen, amen.” Then she called Pastor Tim Amstutz up and by that time I was way over on the side of the sanctuary in front and he came up the other aisle way over on the other side. Neither one of us know how that happened but we started praying and laughing and I came from one side and he came from the other and our foreheads went together in front of the whole church. Here was two men with their foreheads together praying and laughing. Okay and one thing leads to another and that was over.
There was some talk about it because there were some visitors that were there from other churches. So the next morning was a question-and-answer meeting and Pastor Mac was doing the answers. The first was, “Why did those two men come together and their foreheads seemed to be locked?” There was just a silence in there and he goes “I have no idea. Next question please.” (ha, ha, ha) Ahh… I just kind of slid low in my chair. Something you just don’t forget. You can’t make it up.
I am so thankful that we have His Word that we can trust in and rely on. Ms. Annie when you started singing here this morning, “Come, Come unto Me,” I wanted to just answer that and I think you did when you laughed, that was the answer to the come unto Me. Bring it all. Lay it on Me. Let go of it. Loose it and give it to Me, saith the Lord. I wanted to just sing or say or something “I am coming. I am coming. I want more.” You know like a little bird in a nest.
These are times and days that we have to be in the joy of the Lord and have that be our strength. Nothing else but Him will strengthen us, help us. His word yesterday, we were talking about His Word. Ms. Annie said she was an addict, a Word addict. And you know His
Word brings light. It’s all in His Word. Our help comes through the word. Hallelujah.
Ms. Annie shared…
It’s interesting you brought that up because I was feeling kind of bad about that afterwards. I hoped that didn’t sound like works because it’s not works. There is a ditch you can get in of saying the word is the answer so I am just going to just “word, word, word, word…” It’s a rest. I was thinking about something Gloria Copeland said “You let the Word go in your heart.” You put it in your eyes and your ears. It’s active in that you are reading it but it’s passive in that you are just allowing it to do its work. It’s a rest. You spend time in the Word but you are letting Him wash you with it. So I don’t want that to turn into a works thing but if you let Him wash you with it, the more you let it go down in your heart and go in your eyes and ears, eventually then it starts coming up on its own. That’s what I was trying to say is that it comes up on its own. It does its own work. You don’t have to do it.
Prayed…
Thank you for Your Word
The light and illumination that comes through Your precious holy Word
For Your presence in our lives today – everything we need
Words we need to speak, places that we need to walk
People we need to come in contact with and make a difference in their lives
Thank You, Holy Spirit
Scripture focus…
(1-2) The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.
(3-5) Everything was created through him nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.
(6-8) There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
(9-13) The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
He was in the world the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.
(14) The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
(15) John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”
(16-18) We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding—all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. John 10:1-18 (Message)
Continued praying…
Father, we lift up Your plans and purpose for this ministry
Lifting up our pastors – lifting and declaring the blood over them
Because You put it in Your Word, we declare
We have every need met according to Your riches in Christ
Every resource, we speak increase to in the name of Jesus
Any kind of touch of poverty, we take authority and hold blood against it
Every touch of it has to go
We have overcome by the blood and the word of our testimony
We are up and not down under
Thank You more than enough for what You have called us to do
Overabundance as You said in Your Word—gift after gift after gifts
Thank You for multiplication
For every person that calls place their home
Businesses are prospering and homes are filled with Your glory
More and more and more of Your precious glory
That JOY that You have put in us has given us all of the strength necessary to go forward and never quit
Contended for what You said—Your glory, Your mighty presence
We come up and into that in Jesus’ name
Looking up from where all of our help has come from – it will continue to come
Ms. Sharon led us in song…
You’re more than enough, You’re more than enough
You’re my peace, You’re my joy, You’re my help, You’re my wealth
You’re more than enough, You’re more than enough
I am strong in You, made an overcomer in You because You are more than enough
In Your presence is fullness of Joy
Whatever we need we find there, we have there
Because You’re more than enough, You’re more than enough
Whatever we need whenever we need it
You are there, You are there, You’re more than enough
In You we have all that we need in You (singing in tongues)
Whatever we need, whenever we need it, You are more than enough
Joy, strength, healing, protection, wisdom, guidance, answers
You’re our provision, everything we need
More than enough, more than enough
You’re my peace, You’re my joy, You’re my strength
I can do all things, and we can do all things, we can do all things in You
You are so gracious, so gracious, we exalt You, we lift You up
You are the great and mighty all sufficient One
We are strong in You and in the power of Your might
Every provision for us, for our church, our nation whatever it is Lord
We have it because You’re more than enough
Ms. Sharon led us singing “We Exalt You”
Pastor Ray shared…
One of the ways we answer that call to come unto Him is to just exalt and lift Him up. Look up and look up and look up and lift, glorify and magnify that name. Our Father in heaven, the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus the Savior that went all the way for us as if it was just for us alone. He went for us to the cross. This morning we are grateful Lord, and thankful, so humbled and at peace with You. You are our God of peace, our help all the time. Our needs are met above and beyond and like You said “gift after gift after gift.” You are un-wrapping them. You are opening them. You put them in us.
Thank You for what You have done. For Your grace, Your covering, Your mercy that is new today
This is the day that You have made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Amen.
