Summary for Morning Prayer Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Annie led group in worship…

Pastor Ray shared…

I want to share something with you. It’s from Andrew Wommack’s book entitled, “Excellence: How to Pursue an Excellent Spirit.” I read this about true humility. I want to read you a page or two.

True Humility Is God Dependent

People can be very proud of their “humility.” But the true humility is not this idea of “I am nothing; I can do nothing.” True humility doesn’t exalt self. True humility doesn’t debase self. True humility isn’t about self at all. Self is pride. Highlighting your accomplishments is pride. The need to share your opinion is pride. Slandering or gossiping about someone to improve your reputation is pride. Avoiding criticism is pride. Worrying about what other people think is pride.

True humility doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other. True humility just says what is true. Numbers 12:3 says that “Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” This might not seem that important a statement, but Moses is the one who wrote that! Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he said, “I am the meekest man on the face of the whole earth.” According to religion’s definition of humility, that statement would have disqualified Moses from being considered truly humble.

I once heard a story about a church that wanted to honor humility. They decided to bring the most humble man in their congregation to the front of the church and present him with a special prize. To determine who was the meekest member of their church, they took a vote. It was nearly a unanimous decision. So, the next Sunday, they brought “dear old brother so-and-so” to the front of the sanctuary and presented him with a large “humble” button. “Dear old brother so-and-so” accepted their button with thanks, and everyone was shocked because they felt that a truly humble person would never have accepted a button that advertised their strengths or abilities. They thought that “dear old brother so-and-so” couldn’t have been truly humble, so they ended up taking his button away. But their perspective was wrong. “Dear old brother so-and-so” hadn’t declared himself the most humble. The church had—by a nearly unanimous vote!

True humility is saying about yourself what God says about you. True humility agrees with God. If God says you are the meekest person on the planet, it would be pride for you to disagree with that. If God says you are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21), then you are. To say otherwise would be exalting your own opinion above God’s opinion.

Good things happen when we stop and acknowledge what God has done in our lives. Philemon 6 says that thankfulness—acknowledging what God has done—makes our faith effective. We need to know it is “Christ in [us], the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27, brackets added). We need to know that we can “do all things through Christ (Phil. 4:13). But we have to keep that in balance with the truth that “without [Christ we] can do nothing” (John 15:5, brackets added).

I live in the mountains, and the road to my house is a dirt road with drainage ditches on both sides. I can’t swerve on that road to avoid wandering rabbits and squirrels without ending up in one of those ditches. I have to stay in the middle of the road. The Word of God is like that road. It contains verses and concepts that appear to contradict themselves. These apparent contradictions are like ditches that, if taken alone, will derail a person’s life. (By the way, God’s Word never contradicts itself; taken as a whole, the Word actually complements and agrees with itself). We have to stay balanced in the Word of God, just like I have to stay in the middle of my dirt road to make it home.

I can’t take a verse like Philippians 4:3, “I can do all things through Christ,” and become arrogant in my successes, thinking I don’t need God. Neither can I take a verse like John 15:5, “Without Christ I can do nothing” and constantly live in a state of indecision. While it is true that I can’t do anything without Christ, it is also true that I am never without Christ (Heb. 13:5). To stay out of the ditch, I have to stay balanced. I have to maintain a holy dissatisfaction with myself and my own abilities, while nurturing great satisfaction and contentment with who I am in Christ Jesus.

Humility knows that every good thing is a result of the grace of God. Without the grace of God—without His supernatural ability and empowerment—we can do nothing. The grace of God gave us Christ. It gave us the opportunity to have a relationship with God apart from the rules and regulations of the Law. However when some people hear about the grace of God, they get so excited about not having to be perfect that they begin leading self-indulgent lives. These people have taken one concept from the Word out of context and have swerved into a ditch or error.

While it is true that grace has released us from the fear of punishment, grace also teaches us to “live soberly, righteously, and godly” in the midst of a self-indulgent society (Titus 2:12). Grace teaches us to be humble and to recognize that our position is only ours through Christ. This is the difference between an excellent spirit and one of perfectionism.

The Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Electronic Dictionary defines perfectionism as “a tendency to set extremely high standards and to be dissatisfied with anything less” (s.v. “perfectionism”). Perfectionism is proud and arrogant. It is critical and judgmental of people, ideas, and work that doesn’t meet its standard. But an excellent spirit is humble. Excellence still has high standards, but it recognizes the roles that others—especially God—play in meeting those standards. True humility doesn’t deny what God has done. True humility just denies that “self” had anything to do with it.

I like that. It’s not us. It’s Him. Without Him, what can we do? What can we do about anything? Nothing without Him.

Annie led group in worship…

Prayed…

We lift up those in positions of authority, beginning with our President
We pray for wisdom and understanding
America must be revived and awakened to Your plan and purpose and will
Those who would try to take our moral compass away, we declare “be stopped in Jesus’ name”
We’re declaring this is the way it shall be—one nation under God, indivisible
We lift up the body of Christ… the Church… come up… get up… rise in the goodness of God… rise in the authority of God

Pastor Ray interjected…

Just yield to the Holy Ghost and pray out what He’s showing you in your spirit. What I’m hearing is “a shaking.” A shaking in the church, an awakening in the church. In other words, a revival in the church and an awakening across the nation.

Continued praying…

We call these things forth and say “you’re coming forth… we see it by faith”
We trust in You and Your Word
Openings in the nations… turns… shifts
Limitations, get out of the way
Steps that we’ve been preordained to take… plans we’ve been preordained to walk out
It’s not our ability and strength… it’s Your ability and strength within us
Separating ourselves unto You

For God so loved the world and that love is in each and every one in here
The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts
The love of God constrains us in these last days to be about our Father’s business
We look at the world with a different lens and work the works of God in these last days
Father, we thank You for boldness from heaven to do everything the Holy Spirit asks us to do
The wisdom of God to do what the Holy Ghost tells us to do
The timing, we hear His voice and we move at the impulse of the Spirit
Father, we thank You that we get to give our supply in prayer
We give our supply as the Holy Spirit leads us
Sometimes it’s finances, somethings it’s service, sometimes it’s going to foreign nations
We do it with joy
We have a good, good Father
We tell the world about this good, good Father
Thank You, Father, for the multiplied millions of people that are coming out of Islam
In the name of Jesus, right now, saints! It is happening… multiplied millions of people are coming out of different religions and into the kingdom of God… Jesus Himself is revealing Himself to them
We bring the Pulse event before You, Father
Churches working together and united like never before… giving their supply, their financial supply, manpower supply
The US Stadium will be filled to capacity… minimum 66 thousand people
Minnesota will be shaken by the power of God… it will propel us to the end of days

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