Morning Prayer Summary for Thursday, February 15, 2018

Mary led group in worship…

Erika shared…

We’re going to do the “first of all.” How many remember what the first of all is? First of all, we’re going to pray for those in positions of authority. So we’re going to go right into praying for this nation.

Prayer for nation and leaders…

You said in Your Word we should, first of all, pray for those in positions of authority… we do so… we sense and know the tremendous need we have in this nation to pray for those in authority… In the name of Jesus, we plead the blood over our President Trump and his family… we plead the blood over all his children and grandchildren… over all the staff, advisors, and cabinet… no weapon formed against them shall prosper… no lie, plot, conspiracy of the enemy shall prosper… we ask You would grant unto them wisdom… strengthen then internally… they would not depart from Your way… You would strengthen each one… they continue down the road of reversing every evil way in this nation… strengthen them and cling to righteousness… Your Word have free course in the White House… surround President with people that impart godly counsel… thank You for anointing our President… anointing is working … bringing about changes… he will continue to do so… cause his eyes to see and understand that anointing was given to him for such a time as this… we ask You would cause the way of the wicked to be set to confusion and come to nothing… You deliver us from the traps and snares of the enemy… let the wicked be caught in their own devices and brought to shame… we take authority over every plot, plan, conspiracy the enemy has against this nation… prideful and lying lips to be silenced in Jesus’ name… slanderers will not be established in America… Your wisdom from above for our intelligence agencies… Father, let the wisdom that is from above reign… we exercise our authority that is given to tread down all the power of the enemy… we cast down imaginations and arguments that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God… we bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ… we bind spirits of strife and division… civil wars and tumults… spirits of hostility, lawlessness, and blasphemy, anarchy that have burned across our cities… we speak grace and peace over America… we pray and believe for the voice of truth, salvation, revival, and restoration to be proclaimed and heart across our land… we pray for a mighty outpouring of Your Spirit with signs, and wonders, and miracles… we expect the voice of rejoicing to be heard in our nation…

Prayer for the Florida shooting…

We lift up the community that was rocked by that shooting yesterday… we pray the comfort of the Holy Spirit would go to those families… to that community… wrap Your arms of love around them… Father, we pray for the community of believers that they would arise and take their places to be voices that brings about healing and compassion and Your mercy flow to that community… in this regard, we see the places the church to be brought up into a greater place of prominence so not only things like that be stopped by Father we can bring answers that men are seeking for answers… how to bring an end to this kind of violence… we know the end comes in the knowledge of You in Jesus Christ and men receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior … Father, we know you’ve positioned men and women for such a time as this to step up and to speak into situations… to bring wholeness and healing… bring deliverance … we thank You that we are taking our places in the name of Jesus… and that You are working in Jesus’ name… we believe You for it… Amen…

Erika shared…

2018 is the year of the Holy Ghost and fire. The big “18” for 2018: nine fruits of the Spirit and nine gifts of the Spirit. That time is not just coming. It’s already here. But as His sons and daughters, we’re going to have spiritual explosions going on throughout 2018, particularly in the area of holiness and cleansing.

Brother Copeland delivered that word in November of last year, 2017. So if you’ve been with us, you know we’ve been emphasizing prophecies that remind us to wage a good warfare. They’re to stir us up. Regarding this one, we’ve touched a little bit about the Holy Ghost and fire, but today I want us to look at the part that said we’re going to have spiritual explosions, particularly in the area of holiness and cleansing. I thought that to be interesting. As I was thinking about it, what’s the first part? It’s the Spirit but it’s the “Holy” Spirit. So if we’re going to have spiritual explosions, maybe we need a little more light on what holiness is. I do. So we’re going to talk about that.

In 1st Thessalonians 3:1–11, “Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, 13 so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”

I want you to see two things: establish you in love, increase in love so that you would be blameless in holiness. Isn’t that good?

Then I thought we better figure out what holiness really means according to Strong’s Dictionary. The word holiness is the process, quality, and condition of a holy disposition. And the quality of holiness in personal conduct. It is the principle that separates the believer from the world. It consecrates us to God’s service both in soul and in body, finding fulfillment in moral dedication and a life committed to purity. It causes every component of our character to stand God’s inspection and meet His approval.

1st Peter 1:13–16 says, “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

2 Cor. 7:1 says, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

Just giving three scriptures doesn’t mean we know anything about holiness. So we individually can do a greater study. Today, I’m going to continue along these lines with a reading from Reese Howells Intercessor. This is one man’s experience. The Holy Spirit deals with us individually. He’ll deal with us collectively. But when He deals with you individually, that’s personalized to you. When I read this, I want you to take this in as something that… “I don’t have that experience…” not as condemnation but as the Holy Spirit enlarging our tent so we can be greater vessels.

Rees was in America for a while and he came back and took a job in a coal mine. In his spare time, he was involved in the activity of revival. The people he was working with began to seek more from the Lord. They were hungry. They felt it would be good to go to this convention called the Llandrindod Wells Convention. He said this was to be the most revolutionary event of his life.

The Holy Spirit Takes Possession

Shortly before they were due to go, Rees was in a meeting in Brynamman, where a young woman read Romans 8:26–30. She could only read very slowly, which gave time for each word to sink in: “Predestinated… justified… glorified.” As Rees listened, he said to himself, “I know I am predestinated according to the foreknowledge of God, and justified—but am I glorified?” That puzzled him and the question was constantly in his mind: What does it mean to be glorified?

Two days later in the train on the way to Llandrindod with this thought still before him, a voice spoke to him: “When you return, you will be a new man.” “But I am a new man” he protested. “No,” came the answer, “you are a child.” The others in the carriage were singing the newest song of the Revival, The Glory Son, but Rees never heard it. Instead, he kept pacing the corridor with that voice ringing in his ears: “You will be a new man.”

On the first meeting of the convention, the preacher—who was perhaps the greatest expositor on “the life in the Spirt” that Keswick has produced, the Rev. Evan Hopkins—spoke on Ephesians 2:1–6, “You hath He quickened … and hath raised us up… and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” He pointed out that it was the Risen Lord who had appeared to the disciples after the resurrection; but when the Holy Ghost came down He revealed the exalted Savior at the right hand of the Father. Mr. Hopkins then asked the question, “Have you been quickened by Christ? Have you been raised up to sit with Him in heavenly places?”

In his heart Rees answered, “Yes, I know I have been quickened, but I have not been raised up with Christ to that place of power,” and the moment he said that, he saw the Glorified Lord. “As really as I had seen the Crucified Christ and the Risen Christ, I saw the Glorified Christ, and the same voice I had heard in the train said to me, “Would you like to sit there with Him? There is a place for you.” I saw myself raised up with Him. I knew now what it meant to be glorified. I saw Him as John did in Patmos, and I was dazzled like the apostle Paul. When He reveals a thing, it is exactly as it is; it is not imagination. All that night I was in the presence of God and my glorified savior. There is nothing in nature refined enough to describe it. I saw men as trees walking.

The next morning, Mr. Hopkins spoke about the Holy Spirit. He made it plain that He is a person, with all the faculties of a person, exactly like the Savior. He has intelligence, love and a will of His own; and as a person, before He comes to live in a man, He must be given full possession of his body.

“As he spoke,” Rees said, “the Holy Ghost appeared to me and I knew him to be the One who had spoken to me the day before and shown me that place of splendor and glory into which natural eyes can never look. It never dawned on me before that the Holy Ghost was a person exactly like the Savior, and that He must come and dwell in flesh and blood. In fact, the Church knows more about the Savior, who was only on the earth 33 years, than about the Holy Ghost who has been here 2,000 years. I had only thought of Him as an influence coming on meetings, and that was what most of us in the revival thought. I had never seen that He must live in bodies, as the Savior lived in Hi son earth.”

The meeting with the Holy Ghost was just as real to Rees Howells as his meeting with the Savior those years before. “I saw Him as a person apart from flesh and blood, and He said to me, ‘As the Savior had a body, so I dwell in the cleansed temple of the believer. I am a person. I am God, and I am come to ask you to give your body to Me that I may work through it. I need a body for My temple, but it must belong to Me without reserve, for two persons with different wills can never live in the same body. Will you give me yours? But if I come in, I come as God, and you must go out. I shall not mix Myself with yourself.’

“He made it very plain that He would never share my life. I saw the honor He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me and I knew He wouldn’t keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the cross, and He would bring in His own life and His own nature.”

It was unconditional surrender. From the meeting, Rees went out into a field where he cried his heart out because as he said, “I had received a sentence of death, as really as a prisoner in the dock. I had lived in my body for 26 years, and could I easily give it up? Who could give his life up to another in an hour? Why does a man struggle when death comes, if it is easy to die? I knew that the only place fit for the old nature was on the cross. Paul makes that very plain in Romans 6. But once this is done in reality, it is done forever.

Erika interjected… He goes on to say it took him five days to go through. He continued…

“Nothing is more real to me than the process I went through for that whole week,” he continued. “The Holy Spirit went on dealing with me, exposing the root of my nature which was self, and you can only get out of a thing what is in its root. Sin was canceled, and it wasn’t sin He was dealing with; it was self—that thing which came from the Fall.

“He was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing away until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some purging took place, and I could never touch that thing again. It was not saying I was purged and the thing still having a hold on me; no, it was a breaking, and the Holy Ghost taking control. Day by day the dealing went on. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as a man, and what is permissible to an ordinary man’ He told me, ‘will not be permissible to you.’”

This Llandrindod experience was the crisis, which was followed by the process of sanctification during which the Holy Spirit on the basis of his initial surrender, step by step replaced the self-nature with His own divine nature.

Erika interjected… Then he goes on and talks through several things that he went through that the Lord asked him. He didn’t say “you must” because we’re free moral agents.

By Friday night, each point had been faced. He knew exactly what he was offered: the choice between temporal and eternal gain. The Spirit summed the issue up for him: “On no account will I allow you to cherish a single thought of self, and the life I will live in you will be one hundred per cent for others. You will never be able to save yourself, any more than the Savior could when He was on earth. Now, are you willing?”

Erika interjected… So he’s talking about this personal struggle. Then some of his friends asked him to come over after the meeting. The Spirit challenged him…

“How can you do that? You have seen the position of the overcomers, but you have not entered in. I have been dealing with you for five days; you must give Me your decision by six o’clock tonight and remember, your will must go. On no account will I allow you to bring in a crosscurrent. Where I send you, you will go; what I say to you, you will do.” It was the final blow on the will.

“I asked Him for more time,” Rees continued, “but He said, ‘You will not have a minute after six.’ When I heard that, it was exactly as if a wild beast was roused in me. ‘You gave me a free will,’ I answered, ‘and now You force me to give it up.’ ‘I do not force you,’ He replied, ‘but for three years have you not been saying that you are not your own, and that you wanted to give your life back to the Savior as completely as He gave His for you?’

“I climbed down in a second. The way I had said it was an insult to the Trinity. ‘I am sorry,’ I told Him, ‘I didn’t mean what I said.’ ‘You are not forced to give up your will,’ He said again, ‘but at six o’clock I will take your decision. After that you will never get another chance.’ It was my last offer; my last chance. I saw that throne and all my future for eternity going. I said, ‘Please forgive me, I want to do it.’

Once more the question came, ‘Are you willing?’ It was ten minutes to six. I wanted to do it, but I could not. Your mind is keen when you are tested, and in a flash it came to me, ‘How can self be willing to give up self?’ Five to six came. I was afraid of those last five minutes. I could count the ticks of the clock. Then the Spirit spoke again. ‘If you can’t be willing, would you like Me to help you? Are you willing to be made willing?’

‘Take care’ the enemy whispered. ‘When a stronger person than yourself is on the other side, to be willing to be made willing is just the same as to be willing.’ As I was thinking upon that point I looked at the clock. It was one minute to six. I bowed my head and said, ‘Lord, I am willing.’

Within an hour the third Person of the Godhead had come in. He gave Rees that word in Hebrews 10:19, “Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” “Immediately,” said Rees, “I was transported into another realm, within that sacred veil where the Father, the Savior and the Holy Ghost live. There I heard God speaking to me, and I have lived there ever since. When the Holy Ghost enters, He comes in to ‘abide forever.’ To the blood be the glory!

Erika interjected… Now we fast forward to the visitation of the Spirit.

Visitation of the Spirit

From the time of special dedication on March 29, when so many of the college (both staff and students) laid their lives on the altar as intercessors, the Spirit was at work in the college. The climax and consummation came in the New Year of 1937. It was the Pentecost of the college, from which they emerged, not a loosely-linked company of consecrated individuals, but a body in the full sense of the term—a living, integrated organism, infused with one life and one purpose.

Erika interjected… the head of the college goes on to describe what happened.

“In the Christmas vacation of 1936 much time was given to prayer. As we approached the new year of 1937, there was an increasing consciousness of God’s presence. The first outward sign that He was working in a new way was when one of the staff broke down in prayer, confessing her sense of need and crying to the Holy Spirit to meet her. Then we heard how the Holy Ghost had so manifested Himself in the glory of His Divine Person to some of the girl students that they wept before Him for hours—broken at the corruption of their own hearts revealed it the light of His holiness.

“An awesome sense of God’s nearness began to steal over the whole college. There was a solemn expectancy. We were reminded of the 120 in the Upper Room before the day of Pentecost. Like them, we only wanted to spend our time in prayer and supplication—conscious that God’s hand was upon us—conscious that He was about to do something. God was there; yet we felt we were still waiting for Him to come. And in the days that followed, He came.

“He did not come like a rushing mighty wing. But gradually the person of the Holy Ghost filled all our thoughts, His presence filled all the place, and His light seemed to penetrate all the hidden recesses of our hearts. He was speaking through the Director in every meeting, but it was in the quiet of our own rooms that He revealed Himself to many of us.

“We felt the Holy Spirit had been a real person to us before; as far as we knew, we had received Him; and some of us had known much of His operations in and through our lives. But now the revelation of His person was so tremendous that all our previous experiences seemed as nothing. There was no visible apparition, but He made Himself so real to our spiritual eyes that it was a face to face experience. And when we saw Him, we knew we had never really seen Him before. We said like Job, ‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee; and like him we cried, ‘Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.’

In the light of His purity, it was not so much sin we saw as self. We saw pride and self-motives underlying everything we had ever done. Lust and self-pity were discovered in places where we had never suspected them. And we had to confess we knew nothing of the Holy Ghost as an indwelling Person. That our bodies were meant to be the temples of the Holy Ghost we knew, but when He pressed the question, ‘Who is living in your body?’ we could not say that He was. We would have done so once, but now we had seen Him.

“In His nature, He was just like Jesus—He would never live for self, but always for others. We were people who had left all to follow the Savior, and had forsaken all we had of this world’s goods to enter a life of faith, and as far as we knew, we had surrendered our lives entirely to the One who died for us. But He showed us, ‘There is all the difference in the world between your surrendered life in My hands and Me living My life in your body.’ … All that the Holy Spirit asked of us was our wills and our bodies. … He made it clear that He was not asking for service, but for a sacrifice. ‘Our God is a consuming fire; and if God the Holy Ghost took possession of these bodies, then His life was going to consume all that there was of ours. … Why had He manifested Himself to us in this way? He made that quite clear. It was because there was a work to be done in the world today that only He could do. … Many of us on the previous March 29 had put our all on the altar for the sake of giving the gospel to every creature. We had become willing to be any cog in the machinery that God needed to put that through in our generation. But now the Holy Ghost said as Jehovah had said to Moses, “I am come down to do it.’ And we knew that He was as almighty as He was holy.

As those days of visitation went on, we were just prostrate at His feet. We had thought that there was some virtue in our surrender; that we, with thousands of others, would be the people to evangelize the world in this generation. But now He had come, and we were out of it—except in so far as our bodies would become the temples in which He would dwell and through which He would work. He said, “I have not come to give you joy, or peace, or victory. I have not come to give you any blessing at all. You will find that all you need in Jesus. But I have come to put you to the cross, so that I may live in your body for the sake of a lost world.

Prayed…

Thank You, Jesus, that we can and have a revelation of the power of the Holy Spirit and what He desires for us.

Sister Jeanne Wilkerson prophesied in 1968:

“Yea,” saith the Spirit of the Lord, “Thou shalt become the body that I am. Thou shalt truly become the body prepared for the Lord God, Himself to well Yea thou shalt become the body moving in the earth. And thou art going to shake off every cord and every hindrance that has fastened itself upon thee. The weights are going to be removed, for thou canst not rise with these weights fastened upon thee. And this body that I am in thee shall become like in the Lord. It shall be full of the life of God. And all that is darkness is going to be revealed. And therefore when the light doth shine, darkness doth flee away. When the body doth become truly the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then all darkness will of necessity have vanished away. And this is the hour of the completion of this act of God. Whereby He doth make the body truly the body of life.

And now are ye light in the Lord. And the Spirit is even in the process now of finishing the last act of God in the earth, in a body. Aww, watch Him as He moves from now on. Watch His body! For it is going to be moved with power and great glory and anointing. And spirits will be fearful and tremble. For they have heard of the rising up of the Lord God in the midst of His people. And again as they become the powerful militant body of the Lord. Satan’s forces are going to retract their statements that they have made concerning Me. Yea, they are going to withdraw from the sanctuary of the most high God. They’re going to be driven back and driven out, for they have no place here. And all that is not of My life and My light will be removed, saith the Lord. For this is the hour of it. Look now to it, saith the Spirit of the Lord.

On March 9, 1995, Pastor Lynne Hammond prophesied this in a prayer meeting.

Now you must let the wind of God blow. You must turn your face into the wind where the breath of God is sweeter and where His brightest glory shines. Let us sing that now. Just open your heart to God and really mean that when you sing it. “Spirit of the living God…”

It’s Your presence, Lord. It has always been, Father, Your presence that we have sought and yearned for in our spirits, because, Lord, You have created us that way. When we were born again, the very breath of God that recreated us in Christ Jesus, when that breath was breathed upon us, there was a presence that came with that breath and because of that presence, You made us to still yearn for it and so our spirit man, it does cry out to God for it. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh and renew us. Revive us, O Lord. Revive us through Your plan and Your will, Lord. O Lord, fill us and then use us, Father, because that was always Your great plan. That was it right there. That we would be melted in Your presence and we would be molded by Your touch and by Your hand. That we would be so filled with You, Lord. And that we would move out in Your great plan. That was it, Lord, all along. Thank You, Lord Jesus.

“For have I not spoken unto you plainly, year after year, as My own children? That the very inheritance of Mine, My very inheritance is in you and it is nothing less than the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ coming to live in His fullness. Coming to live in His completeness, so that He would be manifest to the world. The Father’s inheritance shining through You because you have become single-minded to His glory and because You were void of offense.

“Did I not tell you, has it not been written, and you have heard with your ears and know in your heart that you are written epistles to be read by men that even when they didn’t know and the wondering ones that never heard the Word peached or never seen it on written paper before? But they would see you and He would read Me and they would see the Living Christ loosed. And they made free.

And did you not know and did you not read and did you not see when I spoke to Ephesus who stood on the highest pinnacle of knowledge of their day? And I gave them prayers to pray. And those prayers at that hour that they were prayed were registered in heaven. And those prayers spoke of the hope of your calling and of My inheritance in you. Did you not know who that as much as you have inherited the cross, as much as you have inherited redemption in all of its works, as much as you have inherited healing and salvation and prosperity, did you not know that now you have inherited places to walk in? Access to My courts? And all that I have belongs to you.

So whatever shackle or whatever prison would try and hold you and bind you. Whatever tomb of life would try to hold you like it tried to hold Lazarus in a death realm. It could be shaken off right now if you looked unto Me. Because you are a part of a very great move and soon you will realize that you are in such cooperation with Me. Soon you are going to realize that this is a plan much bigger than thee and this, saith the Lord, is not an organization but this is a living, moving organism of God and it has come in the person of Jesus.

For you know, I don’t have any hands, except your hands. I don’t have a voice except your voice. And I don’t have feet except your feet, that is why I said how beautiful they were for you are My body in action. I can hear a ringing in glory now. I hear a ringing of heaven today and there the Spirit of the Lord would say the cross came out of mocking and jeering and sneering and a sip of vinegar and thorns upon a brow, but Pentecost come with a very great cry and I hear the cry and the cry was, it is finished. It is finished rings in all of heaven. It is finished and so now that it is finished, rise in the resurrection power, rise in the mark of the Holy Ghost rise in the catch of My power and go forth to an inhabited world.

A scripture is coming to me. Father, I am praying now that You would grant us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation, of insight into the mysteries, the secrets and deep intimate knowledge of You. O God, You open our eyes, the eyes of our hearts and You flood it, Lord, with light so that we can really know and we can really understand the hope, the hope in You. The hope that is in You which You have called us to and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints. He has set apart ones so that we can know and we can understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of Your power in and for us who believe as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in heavenly places far above all rule and power and dominion in every name that is named. Above every title that can be conferred not only in this age and in the world, but also in the age in the world which is to come and that You, Lord, through Jesus has put all things under His feet and You have appointed Him the universal and supreme head of the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all for in that body lives the full measure of Him who makes everything complete and who fills everything, everywhere with Himself.

And you were put in the earth today to be a fruitful position in God. If you would say, “What is my calling? What am I called to do?” Bear fruit, herein is the Father glorified. For you see, I love to take weak frailty and manifest Myself to them and make an oracle of Myself.

Stop questioning your position. Stop wondering for the disciples were flesh just like you, yet I, saith the Lord, joined them to Myself. Impulsive Peter, what a different spirit. Peculiar Thomas, with His defiant ways. I love it, saith the Lord. I loved it. I loved for heaven to touch them. I loved to be the potter with the clay. I love it because one touch of the Master changes everything. One tough of the Master. One touch of resurrection power changes it all.

And so it is that you are marked by Me and you have been marked all along for a time you see and so the hour has come. So, Jesus, be Jesus is us. Father, help us to so decrease that You can increase. You are the resurrection power and we believe with all of our hearts that You are filling us this hour. Thank You, Father. Don’t let it any longer be me, but just You, Lord. Just You.

Mary led group singing “Jesus, be Jesus in me…”

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