God, in all His infinite wisdom, often chooses to represent Himself as the Father. But we in our human minds, take that and impose upon Him the picture of our own earthly father, or authority figures in our lives. We see their short comings, their failures and weaknesses and without really realizing it, assume that God has those same problems.
God does not get into moods.
God does not have our same emotions, He does not struggle with holding a grudge. He does not see you for your sin and your down falls. He does not get angry.
Because God is Love. He is the fulfillment of all things good. He is Righteousness, Justice, Peace...
We do wrong, and think that God is disappointed with us, that He's angry, and that some how we have to work to get back into His good graces.
But we do not understand God.
Do you know that He loves us with unconditional love? That He will never stop loving us? Do you walk into His presence with confidence? Knowing that you are the apple of His eye? That you were created especially to fill a place in His heart?
Luke 15, the story of the 'Prodigal Son', is not a story about the son. It is a story about the extravagant love of the Father, who meets us in our sin. (Luke 15:11-32)
"But while he was still a long way off..." (vs.20)
Our Father accepts us. Even in our sin.
God is telling us that we don't have to be perfect that He loves us where we are, even in our ugliness.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (vs.20)
All the son had to do, was turn, repent and set out towards his Father. But what verse 20 is telling us, is that although it was the sons choice to head back, the Father was looking for him! How else would He have seen the son while he was still a long ways off!?
God does not turn away, He doesn't give up on us in our sin-He's always looking for us! And the moment we choose to return, He RUNS to us! He is gracious and quick to forgive!
"The son said to the him, 'Father, i have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'" (vs.21)
The son was still stuck in his sin, believing he wasn't worthy of his Father's love. Still too stuck on looking at himself instead of searching the Father. We need to see ourselves the way our heavenly Father sees us.
"But the Father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate." (vs.22-24)
First, the Father is looking, second, He runs to meet his son, third he embraces him, kisses him, clothes him, feeds him and rejoices over him-all while he was still a 'long way off'! While he was still in his sin. Not after he'd gotten his life in order and presented himself as a clean package before his Father, but while he was tattered and dressed in rags. Covered in dirt and full of guilt and shame.
Not only does the Father instantly accept him back and forgive him, but He rejoices like his son was dead and restored to life again! What an amazing description of the extravagant love of our Father!
God will never give up on you. He loves you more deeply than any of us can comprehend. Even when we mess up, which we are prone to do, He is quick to cover over all wrongs with love.
All it takes from us is one glance, one conscious step towards Him and He will run to us!
Beloved, we are not sinners who are trying to love God...We are Lovers who struggle with sin!
Don't forget that God created us, thus He knows the weak tendencies of man. He knows us intimately. He knows that we fail, and are prone to run from Him, especially when we are in sin, but He wants us to turn and run to us even in our sin! He is moody and does not hold a grudge.
Our Father, is not a moody Father.
His love and compassion will never change.
He loves you, even in your ugliness.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Why Night and Day?
Today we finished our class with Allen Hood on night and day prayer. My heart was so stirred by the revelation of the necessity of night and day prayer! It's so important, and yet we don't even have a partial understanding of why!
Many of the things i share here are notes i took in class. I have a whole 30 page packet about all the reasons why we need night and day prayer, but i'm trying to condense it to the main one-this is going to be hard! Alright so here we go;
Person: "So Steph...What do you do at IHOPU?"
Steph: "Well, we pray...A LOT."
Person: "Wow, you pay money to sit in a room with music playing and pray? What a waste."
Steph: "Oh if only you knew how important my job is before God!"
Person: "...What?"
I feel like i have a battle going on in my head. The above conversation is not real (unless inside my head counts) but sometimes i feel so burdened by the lack of understanding that surrounds night and day prayer and how important it is. If you've ever felt nagging doubts about why you spend your time praying, you know what i'm talking about. I hope to shed some light on the subject.
Many have asked, "Why night and day prayer?" Even before we got down here, we faced some opposition and questions about why we would give up security and comfort to sit in a room and pray to someone we couldn't see? And, i really didn't have an answer for them. Besides feeling a pull in my heart that there was more to life than the comforts of this world, i really couldn't give a sound reason why we are doing what we're doing.
Now i can.
Why you ask should we be contending before the throne for Christ to come back and establish His millennial kingdom here on earth? Why you ask should we spend countless hours praying about the ending of abortion and human trafficking? Why you ask should we devote our lives to night and day worship and prayer? Why you ask should our very being revolve around offering God praise and humbling ourselves before Him?
Because unceasing worship is the only worthy response to the greatness and majesty of God and the worthiness of Jesus Christ.
It's that simple.
God is worthy of so much more than the 30 minutes of worship we grudgingly give Him on a Sunday morning.
Just by asking that question proves how little we know of the God we serve. How little we understand of His majesty.
Just look at the four living creatures! Do you know that they stand before the throne night and day and worship Him? (Is. 6:1-3, Rev. 4:7-8)
Why?
Because they can see the holiness of God and understand that He alone is worthy to be praised. They are just responding to the glory of God, no one makes them worship. The unfallen creatures of the heavens never stop worshiping Him. Only fallen creatures stop worshiping or would ever dare to ask if night and day prayer is worth it.
If the seraphim can worship Him night and day without ceasing, why don't we-we who are His image bearers, bought with noble blood?
Worship, is ascribing value to an object. And yet we go our whole day without once even thinking about the God who laid the very foundations of the earth! (Job 38:4) If we could only catch a glimpse of God in all His awesome splendor, His robes filling the temple (Is. 6:10), we might cry out like Isaiah did; "Woe to me! I am ruined! For i am a man of unclean lips, and i live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have sen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Is. 6:5) Isaiah wasn't saying he had a cursing problem, he was crying 'Woe!' because we as a people don't know how to speak about God!
The unspeakable horror throughout history is that we do not understand the glory of God and do not worship Him the way He deserves! There is nothing any of us can give Him that is worthy of His glory except our unceasing prayer and worship of His awesome splendor.
We've gotten so side tracked by everything else. Missions, preaching, exhorting, evangelism, etc! We have put everything that is of lesser importance above that which is most important! Just worshiping and communing with Him! Our churches have it backwards in America today. Worship does not exist so we can preach, preaching exists so we can understand Him better and more worship can go forth!
We spend more time talking about or prayer requests than actually praying about them! We save prayer to the end of our meetings and services like it's some routine thing that we should do because we've always done it that way! No! Prayer should be a lifestyle! It should be central in everything we do! Our very lives should be a sacrifice of praise! (Rom. 12:1+2)
Our question of 'is night and day prayer worth it' is a testimony that we do not know Him and have been stuck in religion too long.
God's nature both elicits and demands worship, but not just any worship, wholehearted adoration of His being. A burning passion so that the flame on the altar would never go out! (Rev. 8:3+4)
When Jesus comes back to earth to prepare the way for the coming of the Father, this will be the way He runs His government-through prayer and worship. All other church callings will at some point fade away. There will be no need for missions, evangelism or feeding the hungry in God's kingdom. But worship is an eternal reality. It's coming to earth to stay.
So if you're bored with it now, you'd better get your heart right! Cause you're going to be doing it for all of eternity!
We need fresh revelation of the glory of God! Because it is out of that revelation that the fire in our souls is set ablaze with zeal for the Lord, and it is out of THAT place that we should go forth and teach, preach, serve, evangelize and save in the name of Jesus.
Prayer and worship need to be forefront in our churches and daily lives again!
Oh Lord, that You would reveal Your glory to us and fascinate our hearts!
You alone are worthy to be praised!
Many of the things i share here are notes i took in class. I have a whole 30 page packet about all the reasons why we need night and day prayer, but i'm trying to condense it to the main one-this is going to be hard! Alright so here we go;
Person: "So Steph...What do you do at IHOPU?"
Steph: "Well, we pray...A LOT."
Person: "Wow, you pay money to sit in a room with music playing and pray? What a waste."
Steph: "Oh if only you knew how important my job is before God!"
Person: "...What?"
I feel like i have a battle going on in my head. The above conversation is not real (unless inside my head counts) but sometimes i feel so burdened by the lack of understanding that surrounds night and day prayer and how important it is. If you've ever felt nagging doubts about why you spend your time praying, you know what i'm talking about. I hope to shed some light on the subject.
Many have asked, "Why night and day prayer?" Even before we got down here, we faced some opposition and questions about why we would give up security and comfort to sit in a room and pray to someone we couldn't see? And, i really didn't have an answer for them. Besides feeling a pull in my heart that there was more to life than the comforts of this world, i really couldn't give a sound reason why we are doing what we're doing.
Now i can.
Why you ask should we be contending before the throne for Christ to come back and establish His millennial kingdom here on earth? Why you ask should we spend countless hours praying about the ending of abortion and human trafficking? Why you ask should we devote our lives to night and day worship and prayer? Why you ask should our very being revolve around offering God praise and humbling ourselves before Him?
Because unceasing worship is the only worthy response to the greatness and majesty of God and the worthiness of Jesus Christ.
It's that simple.
God is worthy of so much more than the 30 minutes of worship we grudgingly give Him on a Sunday morning.
Just by asking that question proves how little we know of the God we serve. How little we understand of His majesty.
Just look at the four living creatures! Do you know that they stand before the throne night and day and worship Him? (Is. 6:1-3, Rev. 4:7-8)
Why?
Because they can see the holiness of God and understand that He alone is worthy to be praised. They are just responding to the glory of God, no one makes them worship. The unfallen creatures of the heavens never stop worshiping Him. Only fallen creatures stop worshiping or would ever dare to ask if night and day prayer is worth it.
If the seraphim can worship Him night and day without ceasing, why don't we-we who are His image bearers, bought with noble blood?
Worship, is ascribing value to an object. And yet we go our whole day without once even thinking about the God who laid the very foundations of the earth! (Job 38:4) If we could only catch a glimpse of God in all His awesome splendor, His robes filling the temple (Is. 6:10), we might cry out like Isaiah did; "Woe to me! I am ruined! For i am a man of unclean lips, and i live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have sen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Is. 6:5) Isaiah wasn't saying he had a cursing problem, he was crying 'Woe!' because we as a people don't know how to speak about God!
The unspeakable horror throughout history is that we do not understand the glory of God and do not worship Him the way He deserves! There is nothing any of us can give Him that is worthy of His glory except our unceasing prayer and worship of His awesome splendor.
We've gotten so side tracked by everything else. Missions, preaching, exhorting, evangelism, etc! We have put everything that is of lesser importance above that which is most important! Just worshiping and communing with Him! Our churches have it backwards in America today. Worship does not exist so we can preach, preaching exists so we can understand Him better and more worship can go forth!
We spend more time talking about or prayer requests than actually praying about them! We save prayer to the end of our meetings and services like it's some routine thing that we should do because we've always done it that way! No! Prayer should be a lifestyle! It should be central in everything we do! Our very lives should be a sacrifice of praise! (Rom. 12:1+2)
Our question of 'is night and day prayer worth it' is a testimony that we do not know Him and have been stuck in religion too long.
God's nature both elicits and demands worship, but not just any worship, wholehearted adoration of His being. A burning passion so that the flame on the altar would never go out! (Rev. 8:3+4)
When Jesus comes back to earth to prepare the way for the coming of the Father, this will be the way He runs His government-through prayer and worship. All other church callings will at some point fade away. There will be no need for missions, evangelism or feeding the hungry in God's kingdom. But worship is an eternal reality. It's coming to earth to stay.
So if you're bored with it now, you'd better get your heart right! Cause you're going to be doing it for all of eternity!
We need fresh revelation of the glory of God! Because it is out of that revelation that the fire in our souls is set ablaze with zeal for the Lord, and it is out of THAT place that we should go forth and teach, preach, serve, evangelize and save in the name of Jesus.
Prayer and worship need to be forefront in our churches and daily lives again!
Oh Lord, that You would reveal Your glory to us and fascinate our hearts!
You alone are worthy to be praised!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Testify of His Goodness
I just have to take a moment to testify to the goodness of God in the land of the living, i think many will be blessed!
Our new friends, DeAnn and Christian gave up they're comfortable lives back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and moved to Kansas city for FMA. After they got here, they realized that they didn't have as much money put away as they thought, and their funds quickly ran out.
We have gotten to know them really well over the past few weeks, and about two weeks ago, they sat with us and told us they literally had no idea where they were going to get the money to pay the rent. So we agreed to pray with them for God's provision.
Well, a few days later, Christian told us that the IHOP kitchens had accepted his application from among 40 others-he got a job! A not only a job, but in an atmosphere where God would be glorified and it would work around our crazy school schedule! They were so thrilled!
So that was break through number one, break through number two came today.
Jeremy was in the prayer room this morning, and felt God pulling him towards Christian, that maybe he needed to talk about something. Christian ended up breaking down, and saying that they needed some serious breakthrough in their finances, though the job was an answer to prayer, he started working on an off week and wouldn't receive a pay check in time to pay his bills. So they went to the back, and Jeremy spoke whatever words God gave him to say over Christian. They prayed, and Christian was set free from relying on himself for money. They both came to the radical realization of how completely God wants control of your life and everything in it.
The main focus this morning in our prayer set, was that 'this is that day for break through, and this is the day for answered prayers'. So with that resonating in our spirits, we headed to our next class.
Not 45 minutes later, we're in our practicum, and Corey Russell is speaking to us just giving us some new announcements, and all of the sudden, he pulls a envelope our of his pocket and asked if Christian would come up front. In total confusion, Christian went forward. Corey told him that someone gave him the envelope, with Christian's name on it, and asked him to pass it along.
I'm not sure how much was in it-but that envelope was THICK!!! Can i just say that God provides for us!?
Even though He lets us be stretched, and waits until the eleventh hour, He will provide.
Just one or many testimonies to come of the goodness of God!
He is so good!
On a personal note, i received a vision today, that i feel is for the church in America.
God put a heavy emphasis in my heart while crying out for California, that 'it's not too late'. If we'd only turn to Him, who knows but that He might not relent and leave a blessing in the place of judgment? (Joel 2:14)
As i was meditating on the word, i saw the U.S. laid out before me. Two hands rose up from either end of the nation, reaching towards heaven. They were covered with blood, with the sins of our nation.
The set continued on, and i cried out for mercy for our nation. And God kept telling me; "it's not too late".
And then i saw as we (the church) raised our hands, repented and turned away from wickedness, God washed ours hands of the sinful blood and covered our clean hands with the blood of the lamb.
There is power in the name of Jesus.
Beloved it's not too late!
Return.
Our new friends, DeAnn and Christian gave up they're comfortable lives back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and moved to Kansas city for FMA. After they got here, they realized that they didn't have as much money put away as they thought, and their funds quickly ran out.
We have gotten to know them really well over the past few weeks, and about two weeks ago, they sat with us and told us they literally had no idea where they were going to get the money to pay the rent. So we agreed to pray with them for God's provision.
Well, a few days later, Christian told us that the IHOP kitchens had accepted his application from among 40 others-he got a job! A not only a job, but in an atmosphere where God would be glorified and it would work around our crazy school schedule! They were so thrilled!
So that was break through number one, break through number two came today.
Jeremy was in the prayer room this morning, and felt God pulling him towards Christian, that maybe he needed to talk about something. Christian ended up breaking down, and saying that they needed some serious breakthrough in their finances, though the job was an answer to prayer, he started working on an off week and wouldn't receive a pay check in time to pay his bills. So they went to the back, and Jeremy spoke whatever words God gave him to say over Christian. They prayed, and Christian was set free from relying on himself for money. They both came to the radical realization of how completely God wants control of your life and everything in it.
The main focus this morning in our prayer set, was that 'this is that day for break through, and this is the day for answered prayers'. So with that resonating in our spirits, we headed to our next class.
Not 45 minutes later, we're in our practicum, and Corey Russell is speaking to us just giving us some new announcements, and all of the sudden, he pulls a envelope our of his pocket and asked if Christian would come up front. In total confusion, Christian went forward. Corey told him that someone gave him the envelope, with Christian's name on it, and asked him to pass it along.
I'm not sure how much was in it-but that envelope was THICK!!! Can i just say that God provides for us!?
Even though He lets us be stretched, and waits until the eleventh hour, He will provide.
Just one or many testimonies to come of the goodness of God!
He is so good!
On a personal note, i received a vision today, that i feel is for the church in America.
God put a heavy emphasis in my heart while crying out for California, that 'it's not too late'. If we'd only turn to Him, who knows but that He might not relent and leave a blessing in the place of judgment? (Joel 2:14)
As i was meditating on the word, i saw the U.S. laid out before me. Two hands rose up from either end of the nation, reaching towards heaven. They were covered with blood, with the sins of our nation.
The set continued on, and i cried out for mercy for our nation. And God kept telling me; "it's not too late".
And then i saw as we (the church) raised our hands, repented and turned away from wickedness, God washed ours hands of the sinful blood and covered our clean hands with the blood of the lamb.
There is power in the name of Jesus.
Beloved it's not too late!
Return.
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