From Debbie . . .

The last newsletter was the first in a series of newsletters designed to convey a sense of what the prophetic is seeing and hearing about this next season. If ever we needed to be a people of prayer, now is the time. Not only do we need to be a praying people, but God also desires for our fellowship and fellowships everywhere to be houses of prayer. 

Watchman Nee says that God will not fulfill His will alone. He will perform only after His people show their sympathy in prayers. (Let Us Pray) If this statement is true, and I believe it is, then we need to become a praying people who truly want His kingdom to come and His will to be done in our lives, in our homes, in our fellowship, in our city and country, and throughout the world.

This next season may not be pretty or easy, but with prayer and a resolute faith in God who is always good, we will stand amazed at the handiwork of God.

A Prophetic Message - Part 2
From Michael . . .

Matthew 6: 10 is probably one of the most powerful verses in all scripture, even though most of us probably don't even realize how powerful it is. 

When we pray this verse, we're asking God to establish what He's doing in heaven here on earth. We're asking God that the will that's at work in heaven be brought forth, established, poured out, sent out here in our time and space.      

Usually when we pray this verse, we pray it quickly like it's a song, skipping right over it without really thinking about what we're asking. However, we're asking that God through us, because we're the mediators He works through, establish His kingdom rule here on earth as it is in heaven. How cool is that? 

He trusts us with the keys to the kingdom. That's a spooky thought! Would you trust each other with the keys to God's kingdom? It's cool that He would trust us and let us play a part in establishing His rule here on earth.

We believers who make up the church have been entrusted with certain powers as the proclaimers, the ambassadors of God's kingdom. (2 Cor. 5: 20) God makes His appeal through us. 

What does an ambassador do? He represents a governmental head in a foreign country. He says and does only what his authority says to do or say. He carries out the dictates of his leader ignoring his own opinion and beliefs.

So, as Jesus' ambassadors here on this planet, we are to carry out only what He's telling us to do. A lot of times we run around trying to help Jesus. It's like we think He's really tired since He's been doing this for hundreds of years and needs a break.  Who better than us to do the job because we know the territory since we live here in it?  We have the "skinny" on everything that's going on. Unfortunately, we skinny ourselves into all kinds of messes and get into trouble. The whole idea of doing the stuff is learning how to hear God so that we know what He is doing and won't find ourselves in the middle of a big mess that we alone created.

A lot of times we run around trying to help Jesus. It's like we think He's really tired since He's been doing this for hundreds of years and needs a break.

The church has been given some keys and the power to use them. What are they? We've been given the keys of proclamation and have been commanded to proclaim the whole gospel. This gospel is not just about the salvation of some smoky, wispy, ethereal thing called the soul or the spirit. This salvation is a redemption of the total package - spirit, body, and soul. It's the redemption of the physical, mental, and emotional - the whole deal. It's a whole salvation package. 

The quicker we learn that, the better off we'll be because as Western-thinking Americans, we have this really narrow view of what we consider salvation. Unfortunately, many believe that salvation is just so they can wait until Jesus comes back and get out of hell. There's more than that, so much more.      

When we are saved, we are made legal and are given a legal right to go chase God and learn His stuff. How cool is that? Salvation could be compared to a marriage.  When someone is married, the ceremony is not all there is to being married. We don't go to the ceremony and say, "Well now, I've got it all down pat." All the marriage ceremony does is make people legally married, and then they have to learn how to be married. All salvation does is make us legal to chase God, and then we have to learn  how to be saved and do the stuff. 

Unfortunately, the church perpetrates the idea that once someone is saved, he becomes a super-Christian and has all the answers and knows everything eventually becoming a Bible answerman.  However, most of my answers usually run along the lines of, "I don't know. What do you think? Beats me!" Honestly, those are most of my answers.      

However, this I do know. I do know a living God who will come and demonstrate Himself in power to people. That's the weird part. God says He chose me to confound the wise. Don't laugh. He chose you too. When we look around our fellowship, would you trust the keys of the kingdom to us? Probably not, but in the spirit, we'd probably say, "Ain't this God cool? He let's us participate." 

God says He chose me to confound the wise. Don't laugh. He chose you too. When we look around our fellowship, would you trust the keys of the kingdom to us?

Listen, I never got picked for anything from first grade through twelfth grade. I was always the guy about whom people would say, "Okay, we'll take Mike." I was the guy in football who was always told to go long. "We'll fake it to you."

So, for God to trust me with the keys of the kingdom, well that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Not only that, He didn't just give me the keys, He backs me with power because it's not about me. It's about Him. I'm just a conduit, something that He pours His energy and glory through.

We've also been given the keys of revelation. The Holy Spirit longs to reveal things to us. Hopefully, we'll learn how to discern these things as we talk to people and pray for people. These revelations are not going to be like God saying, "Pay attention. This is God." These revelations are going to cause us to stand there saying, "Oh God, is this you?" Then when we finally throw the idea out there, guess what? It hits and that person's eyes get big and then our eyes get big and we're thinking, "Dude, I got one." This is the most amazing thing in the world when it happens.

These revelations are not relegated only to people who have the title of pastor or preacher; they are for anyone who is a child of the living God. That's the cool part.     

Another power we have is the key of excommunication. This is something most of us don't really like to think about. We have the power to cast from our midst believers who in rebellion or in pride refuse to repent of their sin and turn back to the living God. This is not something that we enjoy exercising, but I believe that the church needs to own the fact that we are accountable to each other.     

We're also empowered with the key of reconciliation. I don't think we fully realize that we can enter a place and leave the peace of God there. Is that not cool?      

As believers we must demonstrate and model the presence of the kingdom. We are a people living simultaneously in two ages. When God shows up in our ministry, worship, and meetings, there's a splashing over from the age to come. However, at the same time, we're living out these kingdom experiences here in this present evil age. God's fullness just spills out all over us while we're stuck here in this evil world.

Every day His kingdom rule, the dynamic reign of God, is being carried out. Every day darkness is being pushed back.

That's why it's about His kingdom come, His will be done. Every day His kingdom rule, the dynamic reign of God, is being carried out. Every day darkness is being pushed back. We don't pray in the streets against the darkness and the principalities; we bring light out into the street.     

How do we bring God's light to this world? We give away cold water. We mow grass. We pray for people. We give our last five dollars to somebody. We pick someone up and give him a ride. We love on people. We call on them. We sit in hospital rooms even though we don't want to. That's called bringing the kingdom of God into the darkness.              

We defeat darkness by being the people we're called to be. Our message should be that the age to come has become real here and now, that God's fullness is splashing all over us right now. His kingdom becomes a manifested reality when we demonstrate and model right here the quality of life that is expressed in the fullness of His kingdom.      

How many of us want to go back to our old lives? Anybody? Not me! Why? Because what I have now is so much better. What we have right now is just a taste of the whole shebang. Yes, the journey's hard, and we wrestle with our flesh. Yes, we whine and moan and want to quit, but we don't quit and can't figure out why we don't quit because we used to quit all the time when we were lost. 

We don't quit because His Spirit won't let us quit. His Spirit will let us sit down for a little while, but He will not let us quit.     

So be encouraged. God has a job for us to do, and we have not been left alone to figure out all of this. He has given us His Spirit and His presence and His love and His power. What more could we ask for?

"Unless we are completely weaned from ourselves, having not the slightest interest of our own but living absolutely for the Lord and seeking only His glory, we will not like what He likes, nor seek what He seeks, nor pray what He wants us to pray. . . to work for God with no self-interest is very difficult; but to pray for Him without any self-interest is even harder." - Let Us Pray

Within any given moment, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are having an ongoing conversation with the Father. When we pray, we are, in essence, entering into this cyclic dialogue. Jesus is interceding to the Father, the Holy Spirit is taking what the Father says back down to earth where it strikes our hearts and we pray it. The Holy Spirit then takes our prayer back to Jesus who takes it to the Father who then acts on it. That's the way real prayer works. It's a cycle. Watchman Nee says that prayer is to God's will as rails are to a train.

"The locomotive is full of power; it is capable of running a thousand miles a day. But if there are no rails, it cannot move forward a single inch. If it dares to move without them, it will soon sink into the earth. It may be able to travel over great distances, yet it cannot go to any place where no rails have been laid. Such is the relation between prayer and God's work." -Let Us Pray    

Concerning prayer, we have a task similar to that of John the Baptist's who prepared the way for the Lord Jesus. Our prayers prepare the way for God's will to be done right here, right now. 

"Many are the things which God wills to do and would like to do, but His hands are bound because His children do not sympathize with Him and prepare the way."  -Let Us Pray     

When we learn to hear God and pray His will back to Him, our prayers will shake up hell and affect Satan. Prayer that comes from God is always effective against the darkness. For this reason, we may find hindrances to prayer. After all, we are in the middle of a war between two kingdoms: God's and Satan's.     

When we begin to pray in this manner, Satan will do anything to discourage us. Watchman Nee has identified several ways that Satan may use to discourage us from praying. He may attack our trust in the Lord, making us feel unworthy or unable to pray. He may even make us think that God isn't listening or doesn't care. Sometimes, he may attack us physically or mentally.  When we are tired or sick, we often do not pray. Often, he attacks our designated time to pray, fillling our life with unexpected happenings or visitors. Another possible hindrance is by attacking our constant fellowship with the Lord, making us feel as if there is an invisible, oppressive barrier alienating us from God. Finally, he distracts us from the darkness by turning our attention toward other things.

If Satan cannot discourage us in the above ways, he may try to wear us down with little things.  After all, it's the sneaky little foxes that often do the most damage. We may push ourselves too much physically or not eat correctly or sleep enough. Before too long, we're too tired to pray. Maybe we put off reading our Bible or worshipping or spending time with Him until later which becomes tomorrow which may eventually become next week or next month. How can we pray if we're not fellowshipping with Him? Maybe our emotions are a little unsettled. We may be a little restless today, a little unhappy tomorrow, and a little depressed the day after. Eventually, we lose our peace and joy and forget the task that we were assigned to do.     

Somewhere these cycles have to stop so that we can jump into the divine prayer cycle of our Father. To be effective in prayer, we must be alert and available to God. We must be able to hear Him.  The cycle begins and ends with Him.  He births the desire and sends it our way by the Holy Spirit. We pray. The Spirit conveys it to Jesus, our mediator who ever lives to intercede on our behalf before the throne of God. Jesus then hands it to the Father who then performs His work.     

Prayer isn't some mysterious something, somewhere out there.  It is simply breathing back to God what He wants to do. The scriptures say that He knows our needs before we even ask.

Then why do we have to ask? Asking builds our faith and plants us firmly in this powerful, interactive relationship with the living God. Now, how cool is that?

~ dhandy and mbynum