Jerre led in worship…
♪ Lord, the glory of Your presence… Oh that the world would see… O God, the glory of Your presence… O Lord, it is our heart’s desire… You are our heart’s desire… Just to know and to hear Your voice… The glory of Your presence, O Lord… Oh the wonders of Your great love and mercy… Lord, this is our heart’s desire… Holy Spirit, You are welcome here… Come flood this place and fill this atmosphere… Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for, to be overcome by Your presence ♪
Jerre shared…
This morning I made up my mind that I was not going to be a pray-er “down under.” I’m not referring to Australia. I have determined that I was going to be a person of prayer “above.” Above! You see, the darkness is getting darker, but we can’t stay in that darkness. We’ve got to look to the Light and not stop “swinging the hammer.” Amen? This scripture that I found was so beautiful. It lifted me up and placed me on the Rock again. It says, “But my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will not be abolished” (Isa. 51:6). That means “ever.” No matter what the Devil is doing, His righteousness will not be abolished. So that just sets you back up there again. I don’t care what the Devil does or says, His righteousness will not be abolished. Ever! Forever and ever and ever. And He said His righteousness will be forever and ever and ever. That’s the kingdom that we live in. Amen. And we pray from that place—above and not beneath, the head and not the tail. Because His kingdom and His righteousness, His holiness will never, ever, ever be abolished. Because He promised.
Mary led in song…
♪ I need You, Lord, more than yesterday… I need You, Lord, more than words can say… I need You, Lord, more than ever before… I need You, Lord, I need You, Lord… ♪
Pastor Ray shared…
More. That’s what we need. That’s my word for today… and yesterday and tomorrow! There is more. I woke up with that on my heart this morning. There is more. I’ve experienced things personally to show me that there is more! There is a whole lot more of Him, more of His presence, more that we’ve been called to do, more joy, more power.
I wanted to quote something from yesterday. You can read it from yesterday’s GPAN or from brother Hagin’s book, “Tongues Beyond the Upper Room.” At the end of the book is a prayer that he prayed over the Church. It’s anointed. He quoted Smith Wigglesworth and there was something about that. Cindy sent me an email yesterday after morning prayer, and I want her to read this. Come up here.
Cindy read…
Here’s a quote that went out from my spirit from the reading today at morning prayer: “May we be like Smith Wigglesworth of old who said I’m satisfied only with the dissatisfaction that has to be satisfied again and again. It’s a clarion call to a deeper and fuller walk with God and to enter into the sufferings that we are called to and told to count as all joy. James 1:3. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed, putting on the new spiritual self which is ever in the process of being renewed and remolded into fuller and more perfect knowledge upon knowledge after the image, the likeness of Him who created it. Colossians 3:10. Steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition. Colossians 1:10. This keeps us from getting bored and going back because there is always more. The infinite cycle of interacting with our Father, communion, purchased with the precious blood. We should seek to respond to the Lord’s Spirit. This is the one necessary thing in our lives. We must nevertheless continue to work at it. Why? Because not to advance in the spiritual life is to go back. Not to advance is to retreat. But those who feel the strong wind of the Holy Spirit go forward even in their sleep.” That is an excerpt from “Practicing His Presence.”
Pastor Ray continued…
In your sleep! I love that. This keeps us from getting bored. Who wants to be bored? Who wants to stay status quo? The infinite cycle of interacting with our Father, or communion, purchased with the precious blood… Thank You for the blood. I’m going to read this last paragraph. “We should seek to respond to the Lord’s Spirit. This is the one necessary thing in our lives. Responding to the Spirit of God, to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We must nevertheless continue to work at it. Why? Because not to advance in the spiritual life is to go back.”
Yesterday in our noon prayer, I had this come to me. When we look back at the past, we can be blessed and encouraged to know that He is faithful, but if we’re always looking back, we can be tempted to stop looking ahead and looking to Him. Always looking back will cause you to just look at what He could do and what He did. But we need to also look forward to Him, to commune with Him, yield to Him. That’s what He’s called us to do. Because not to advance in the spiritual life is to go back, not to advance is to retreat, but those who feel the strong wind of the Holy Spirit… what do they do? They go forward… And I like this… even in their sleep!
Jerre shared…
About sleep, this came to my remembrance as you were talking. I was in children’s church and the Lord spoke to me during praise and worship and said to ask the children, “How many of you have had a bad dream?” All the hands went up. The Holy Ghost said that, that is a kingdom. And that kingdom when we sleep should be under the dominion of the kingdom of God. So we bound the Devil in the name of Jesus and we declared that, that kingdom would be a kingdom of light. That’s something that we adults need to do in our own lives. We need to take dominion over our sleep at night. Why should the Devil be able to mess with us while we’re sleeping? We concentrate during the day-time hours to not let the Devil mess with us, so let’s take dominion in that area too.
Pastor Ray continued…
That’s why it’s good to plead the blood morning, noon, and night. When you were sharing that, I remembered a testimony that was shared yesterday. She said her little grandson was playing in the yard with her husband. The grandson stepped on a soccer ball kind of awkwardly. He fell over and started crying like crazy. Her husband reached down and picked him up. As soon as he picked him up, he stopped crying. He thought it must not have been as bad as it seemed. But they thought, “Maybe we should go ahead and take him in to have him X-rayed to be sure.” They took him to the doctor and the doctor looked at the X-ray and said, “This leg has been reset. Did you reset his leg? Are you a medical person?” No. “What did you do?” He said, “I just picked him up.” The doctor said his leg was severed, broken way up here and it was reset perfectly where it was to be. I love that! I believe there is so much more to the Holy Spirit that should be taking place every day for each one of us as His kids. Maybe we don’t expect it. We need to reread the book of Acts and see what took place there and know that there is more to be had here, because it’s still being written. We are in the book of Acts. The Church. I know He did everything that He’s going to do, but I know there is more for us to do to yield to “the more.” We can never just do it in our flesh.
Thank You, Holy Spirit, for Your presence. When You come like You said, when we join together just even a couple of us in Your name, You said You’d be there in our midst. So we welcome You this morning. He’s calling us to more. He’s so faithful that He sent His only Son for each one of us and did what He did on the cross so we could do what we need to do today in 2015. We yield ourselves to You.
Worship…
♪ We yield ourselves to You, Lord… We are Your vessels… Have Your way… We are Yours, O Lord… You’ve called, anointed, and appointed us… To hear Your voice… And to speak and declare by the Spirit of seeing and knowing… And by Your precious Word, O Lord, rhemas from heaven… We wait upon You, Lord… ♪
Prayed…
We yearn for and open our hearts to You—yielding
To cooperate more and more and more
Yearning for a greater burning, for fire from on high to burn brighter than it’s ever burned till now
Increase
We pray, O God, we come before you and humble ourselves
Burn out of us complacency and apathy—burn it up
The deep calls the deep
Entering into more, a greater cooperation
In our abode and in our hearts
To run the race we’ve been commanded to run
(Let’s pray for Australia)
We lift up that nation—revival and renewing and an outpouring
There’s a revival there
We water that seed
Raise up those leaders
We bring those positions of authority to You, Lord
We pray for the foundation
A prayer foundation—there can be no other foundation
All the houses, all the souls of men, eyes to see, seeing eye to eye
To open that revelation of the power of the resurrection, Father
By Your Spirit to be spread, divine revelation to show the way
Take it to the fullness—the way, the truth, and the light
To shine brighter and brighter even as the noon day
To nation to nation to nation—lit up—that’s the Church, the gentle giant rising up and shaking off the debris
Pastor Ray shared…
That’s the way it will be. The dark will become darker but the light will be brighter and brighter. Even in the darkness, the light will shine.
Continued praying…
Help and assistance on earth as it is in heaven
Heaven’s ways and plans
Reach, reach, reach
The people, the people
Cities rising up, getting up—who knew it would be that way?
Dressed up with different clothes and looks on their faces—shining brightly
Revival, restoration, assignments being carried out, pleasing to the Father
Fruit-bearing fruit
The harvest is ripe
We watch over the harvest fields
Jerre shared…
Isaiah said, “Awake, put on strength O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the ancient days in the generations of old.” Father, we thank You for that, that You do awaken us.
