Prayer Summary for Friday, August 14, 2015

Pastor Ray prayed…

Father, thank You so much for the power of Your Holy Spirit. We welcome You, Holy Spirit, today. We welcome Your presence. You said You’d lead us, direct us, show us the things that are to come. Thank You for the continual direction of Your Holy Spirit, Lord. Thank You, Lord. We humble ourselves before You and we thank You for the anointing You’ve placed within each one of us. We are anointed to do what You’ve called us to do. Things are changing and we believe by faith they are changing in the right way. Thank You for the preparations that are being made now for the harvest to come in, for the glory to be poured out, for the former and the latter rain together. Hallelujah!

Pastor Ray shared…

My wife, Sandy, and I were watching a movie that was set in England in the 1800s. There was a younger man that had a lot of sheep. He was a shepherd. They used sheep dogs to herd the sheep… if they’re trained right. He had an older sheep dog, but then he had a dog that was more of a puppy that came on the scene and he had been training that dog. There was a noise in the night and the young sheep dog went out and started directing the sheep, but the dog was not trained well enough and was spooked by whatever the noise was and started directing the sheep in a way they shouldn’t go and they actually all ran off a cliff. And the dog is still up there. The man lost his whole livelihood. There were 45 sheep down by the water on the shore and they were all dead.

We started talking about the importance of a pastor, a shepherd, that’s directed by the Word, filled with the Holy Ghost and able to lead the sheep in the way the sheep should go. It’s just so important. It works the same way politically in a nation. We go over that all the time when we pray for positions of authority and leaders and kings and presidents so the nation might go in the right way.

A lot of people are not up on what is happening, on current events. Let’s take the United States. Some people are not up on political things and not aware of what is happening or what certain people are doing and saying. So they just follow along. But we as the Church, we’ve been called to not just follow along or sit back and watch things … If we just look at our history recently, some things have not been going in the right direction. Would you agree? We follow after the Word and we can see what is happening in our nation concerning the things of God.

So I said all that to line this up with yesterday. At some point when we were praying… I didn’t read this but in 1st Chronicles 16 after David disturbed his wife when he went wild with his dancing bringing the ark of the covenant and built a tent, or a place, for the presence of God, he instructed people to worship, to honor the presence of the Lord. He said in 1 Chron. 16:10, “Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!” In other words, be filled with joy. Verse 11, “Seek the Lord and His strength…” So in seeking Him, there is strength. “…yearn for and seek His face and to be in His presence continually!” Verse 12, “[Earnestly] remember the marvelous deeds which He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He uttered [as in Egypt]…” then verse 23, “Sing to the Lord, all the earth; show forth from day to day His salvation. 24 Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all peoples. 25 For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He also is to be [reverently] feared above all so-called gods. 26 For all the gods of the people are [lifeless] idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 27 Honor and majesty are [found] in His presence; strength and joy are [found] in His sanctuary. 28 Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, 29 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Bring an offering and come before Him; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness and in holy array. 30 Tremble and reverently fear before Him, all the earth’s peoples; the world also shall be established, so it cannot be moved. 31 Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice; and let men say among the nations, The Lord reigns!”

At this time, things are going in the right way. But if you keep on going through the book of Chronicles, things started going down, one king after another and things really went way down. I want to read in 2 Chronicles what happened. There was a lot of bad trends happening. This is what I wrote down this morning—Reverse the Trend! There are some things, some trends in our own nation that need to be reversed. And sometimes it looks absolutely impossible because we’ve gone so far, spiritually speaking. So it says in 2 Chron. 14:2, “And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. 3 He took away the foreign altars and high places and broke down the idol pillars or obelisks and cut down the Asherim [symbols of the goddess Asherah]. 4 And commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers [to inquire of and for Him and crave Him as a vital necessity], and to obey the law and the commandment. 5 Also Asa took out of all the cities of Judah the idolatrous high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under his reign.”

That’s why we pray for positions of authority, isn’t it? So it would go well with us! So then in 2 Chronicles 15:2, there was a war brewing and so Asa received a word and it said:

“Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him, craving Him as your soul’s first necessity], He will be found by you; but if you [become indifferent and] forsake Him, He will forsake you. 3 Now for a long time Israel was without the true God…” That’s how bad it had gotten. “…without a teaching priest, and without law. 4 But when they in their trouble turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and [in desperation earnestly] sought Him, He was found by them. … 7 Be strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak and slack, for your work shall be rewarded. And when Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage and put away the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim; and he repaired the altar [of burnt offering] of the Lord which was in front of the porch or vestibule [of the house] of the Lord.”

There were a lot of other things he did to clean things up. He actually removed the Queen Mother which was his own mother because she had made an abominable image for the goddess Asherah. Verse 17, “But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was blameless all his days. 18 And he brought into the house of God the things that his father [Abijah] had dedicated and those he himself had dedicated—silver and gold and vessels. 19 And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.”

So I read this, this morning and I thought a lot of times people will say concerning the United States, “We’ve gone so far, we can’t get back to a spiritual place like we had in the beginning.” People look back and glorify the things in the past, but maybe they weren’t so good if you lived during those times. Like the 50s were so cool, but if you were alive in the 50s maybe everything wasn’t so great. People tend to look at the past through rose-colored glasses.

But I thought this was a great example of when the Church rises up… the Church is getting up whether we see it with our natural eyes or not, it is. By faith, we declare it. We believe it. And the Church is rising up to do what the Church has been called to do. Pastors are standing up and speaking out for what the Word has said and for what the Word has said that is true. And we know and have a promise that things will turn, that the glory of God will be poured out not just here, not just in our area, not just in our nation, but in the earth—the whole earth! The whole earth will be filled with the glory of God. There is hope for the future. Things are going to turn. Things will turn and they are turning. But it’s definitely up to us as the body of Christ to do what we’ve been called to do. And our main purpose is to pray continually connected to the Lord above and call things that are not as though they are. Speak words of faith. Direct things that need to be directed. Shut down some things that need to be shut down. But pray and do and reverse the trends.

Do you believe that can happen? Yes! It could happen in one day! It could be when the righteous are in authority. What happens? The people rejoice. It’s a good thing for the people. Today let’s believe that every trend that is going in the wrong way can be turned around and go in the right way. We can call that a paradigm shift—a shift to turn things that need to be turned.

I just saw a list of the most un-religious… This is the way they put it. It was the least religious cities in America and Minneapolis was one of them. But hey! I thought, bless God, we’re not religious. I know what they are talking about. We know there are some bad trends that have been taking place in our own cities.

Dave shared…

I’ve been getting this about the Church; the Church needs to come into the realization of its place and position. Because all this stuff is because of that. If you remember, they would send the ark of the covenant out before the armies of the Lord to prepare the way. The Church needs to be that, to go out ahead. I’ve always said that if the manifestation of God’s power and glory is in the body, you won’t need to advertise. You won’t need to say anything. The power is so great that it will draw all men unto it, and that manifestation is important.

But the thing that needs to happen in the Church is that we need to get comfortable with Him and what He does and the way He does things. And not the way we do things and not the way we want to do things. We like to take the easy route. Sometimes, God says we’re not going that way. We’re going to go this way. Actually, it should be easy as long as the Lord is leading you. Anything God leads you to do should be easy. Now I’m not saying it’s not naturally difficult, but to you it will be easy because of the grace and the anointing on you. If that’s witnessing, sharing the Gospel, laying hands on the sick and stepping out and doing these things will allow God’s manifested glory to be found in the earth. When the glory is found in the earth, all men will be drawn unto that glory. It’s our responsibility as the Church.

I’m talking about the Church in general and praying for the Church in general that she has the desire, just like Ray read this morning, to get rid of the idols and all those things that pull us and draw us to a place where we are separate from God and push those things out the door, put them in the garbage and say, “Those gods don’t live here anymore.” And take God at His Word. That’s where the body of Christ, as a whole, needs to be. When the body is walking in that glory, changes happen. The enemies of God will fear that in the body. There really should be a fear of the body of Christ in this earth. And I don’t mean fear as in we’re afraid of you as much as reverence, a holy awe, a holy reverence… But we see that the earth does not fear that. And it’s not their fault.

We need to get rid of these things we hold onto, things like, “I like this guy because he votes this way… You know, all these special interests.” Or “I like animals so I like the guy who likes animals.” Or “I like trees so I like the guy who likes trees.” We can’t think that way. “Lord, what is your man? What is it that you want to do?” That’s what we want to do. And if you can imagine for a moment if America would just not look and listen to all the outsources of what we need to do politically and all the things going on in the earth, if they just sought the Lord and asked God for the plan to get out of the mess and the muck and everything that this country is in, they would see what the Lord would do. He’s waiting. He’s not withholding one thing from this country.

He had a plan for this country. He birthed this country. The whole reason for this country was for this freedom. And we’re at the point of the spear in this earth in God’s plan. And He’s going to use this nation to take the Gospel to all the world. We need to just hang up those reliances and those things that we have in this system… We need to quit that. That thinking is weird. “What does this man stand for?” We can’t look to man. We have to look to God. Even though we pray for authorities and that’s what God desires for us to do, but they are not our saving grace. That man, whoever we vote for, he is not going to save this nation. And no program he brings is going to save this nation.

Remember, just like the farmer. He can sow the seed but ultimately it is God who brings the rain. It doesn’t matter if that seed is in the ground if there is no rain. And the Bible is explicit about that. The Bible says the Lord laughs and thwarts the plans of the wicked. He laughs at their plans because they are a mere fleeting thought.

Ray shared…

When you said we need to be more comfortable with the presence of God, with the Word of God, with the glory of God, right after that, I heard this in my spirit—we need to be more uncomfortable when we do not have a sense of the presence and the move of the Holy Ghost. And we must be more and more uncomfortable when we’re not seeing spiritual growth or a city that’s voted least religious, or whatever. Uncomfortable with it. The other side of that is we must be more and more drawn by the presence and the touch of the Holy Spirit. When you said that about a man that would lead a nation, I’m just reminded that sister Billye Brim has always said: what do they say and what do they believe about Israel? What a man says and believes about Israel is a key.

Prayed…

It’s a key for our nation as we believe to go in the right way
God’s right way…
Things that need to be dropped off, we’re the ones that drop it off
It’s our responsibility to drop it off, to separate ourselves
To stop a trend and to turn something around, we must make decisions to stop the trend and turn around
It’s by faith—the master’s plan
We draw the line in the name of Jesus
No more! We say that you will not prosper here!
We will not allow you to prosper in this land
We will not allow you to prosper against the Church
In the name of Jesus, we draw that line and you will not cross it
We begin to push against it—we press against that darkness and destruction
In the name of Jesus, we command you to move away, to move back, to get out of the way
How dare you try to prosper against the plan of God!
How dare you try to rise up
That which God has anointed and has appointed will come to pass
We will prosper—His plan will be seen in the earth
And we’ll be completed—not only in the body, not only in this nation, but in every individual
Yes! It’s time to get fed up with the enemy
It’s time to rise up and take your stand in Jesus’ name
Come against those things in the power and authority of the name of Jesus
You call those things to be the way they’re supposed to be
For we stand upon the Rock and we will not be shaken in Jesus’ name
We declare this nation is founded on the Rock of Jesus Christ and it will not be shaken
And a blaze, a fire comes upon this nation—the blaze and the glory and the anointing of God in Your body burning
May Your fire burn among Your people
Flow and flood Your people—open their eyes to see the time that we are in, Father
This is the time and this is the place and we are the people to possess the land in Jesus’ name
We take it back—we will not let the enemy possess this land—we declare it in Jesus’ name
A blood washed, united States, blood washed from sea to shining sea, from the north to the south
Up, up, up, up into the mountains—down into the valleys
Let that anointing flow—the river of God flowing through the nation
The river of God overtaking, and purifying every evil
Yes! It’s devastating to the enemy, the river of God is a devastation that comes to his plan
In the name of Jesus, and those that would try to speak against Your plan, Father, we tell them to “shut your mouth”
Any word that will come forth will be the Word of God and any other word will dissipate in Jesus’ name
We will not allow those words to come out of your mouth
In Jesus’ name, you shut and be shut up
Remove our shame, Father God, remove that shame from this nation
You cause us to rise up in the glory that You intend for us to come into
As the Church rises up, so does the nation
Yes, it is a mandate by the Holy Ghost—we won’t let it slip
Strife and division in the body—you gotta go!
We sound the alarm—enough is enough!
It’s a Holy Ghost air raid coming to the Church seeking out those that have been away
Seeking out those that have gone another way
Seeking out those that thought “oh this is a good way”
Bringing them in—the angels are going forth and arresting those and bringing them in
Appointed—for such a time is this
Come back to your place, come back to the anointing and the glory of God
Come back! Come back! Come back!
Pastors, pastors, pastors…
The resources will be there—the enemy cannot hold it away
We send a Holy Ghost torpedo there
You break up that fallow ground there
The plans of man destroyed
It’s time to shine—it’s time to let the earth to see the glory of God
It’s time for this nation to shine and for the blessings of God to overtake

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