Wednesday, August 22, 2012

24/7 PRAYER

Isaiah 59:19, "So shall they fear the Name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun.  When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him."

I was given this verse at the close of 2009 in preparation for 2010.  I am led back to it now for our time together in prayer 24 hours, 7 days a week.  What has happened, in my mind, is that the poor response of the church to pray as left the doors and gates wide open for the devil and hell to come forth and multiply its efforts in our world, and especially in the United States. 

God looked for a man to stand in the gap and pray against this evil, "He saw that there was no intercessor".  You and I have responded to that call and obeyed in undertaking this task of praying without ceasing.  It is no light thing to enter to be responsible for an hour a day in prayer.  A prayer time designed to pray against the darkness, the destruction, the devil and the dying.  And literally to answer the question, 'if we don't pray, who will?'  But because no one has been praying, that we are aware of, then we know that God has spoken to us.  He has said, 'Will you pray?'  And we must answer, 'Yes, Lord.' 

Let us look at a few things to consider for our hour.  Each one of us is developed in our prayer life, or I feel you never would have been interested or signed up for such a huge task as this.  WE are in different places, and under different circumstances.  Some are alloted more time than others to invest.  And others are only able to help in filling in empty hour slots, unable to commit to each day.  It is taken shape right now as we continue to develop and grow in this.

1.  When we stand before God, this is how God sees us: vile, offensive, wicked, sinful, evil, blighted, corrupt, perverse, disobedient, unclean, wretched, filthy; 
"And he shewed me Joshua the high prieststanding before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.  v. 2 And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O satan; even teh Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem reubke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? v. 3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel."
And then the Lord proceeds to undo all his unrighteousenss and exchange them for righteous garments and coverings.  No man can proceed before the Lord without the acces to God through Christ.  All these attributes of our sinful nature and choices are an offense unto God.  WE must be made 'presentable' to come before the Lord.  Christ is our robe of righteousness; Christ is our way; Christ is our covering by His atoning blood. 
Too many, I feel, come before the Lord with no thoughts of how God sees them.  They proceed on in prayers, not knowing where iniquity is, God is not.  He does not hear the prayers because the soul has not dealt with the issues at hand.  'If I regard iniqutiy in my heart, the Lord wil not hear me.'

Understanding how God sees us, make us humbled in His Presence.  To know how wretched we are in the presence of Him keeps a soul from coming with pride, arrogance and self exaltation.  How can one proceed unto God for mercies, if he does not truly believe that he needs mercy?  A proper perspective is absolutely necessary in praying rightly.

2.  It is not God's desire to annihlate us.  Let us see what God's response to us is when a soul comes seeking HIm rightly:
First, they come humbly.  They know they have no right to come before Him, but they also know God desires for His chidlren to approach unto Him.  God desires to hear and respond to His creation.  SEcondly, we come in His image.  WE are made in the image of God. 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'  God accepts His image, 'and when He saw man, it was very good.'  Therefore He receives His creation for there is none other in existence like man.  And because of God's attributes, He demonstrates mercy, grace, longsuffering in receiving us.  Not that we deserve anything of Him,  but that this is Who He is.  We are undeserving, yet receiving so much from Him. 

He imparts His mercies and graces, which are His very Own 'unmerited favor' for redemption and blessings.  He made the way through the sacrifice of Christ, to atone for our sins.  The blood of Christ covering us, as we receive it and it is imparted allows for us to 'proceed boldly before the throne of grace'.  He does not see the first aspects of sin as mentioned, but sees Christ great love and shed blood for our sacrifice.  He imparts His love, for His fallen creation.  Loving us while we 'were yet in sin'.  This is great love from a great God;  this is Divine love. 

The soul comes seeking forgiveness for they know that they have trespassed, greived, offended, sinned against Him.  And God is willing and able to impart forgivness for our great transgression.  And with the sin removed and 'cast as far as the east is from the west' and 'carried and dropped in the depths of the sea, no more to be remembered'; we are restored to a right relationship before HIm.  He is ever the restorer of the breach.  Praise His Name!

The declaration of God about His Own Name reveals to us, His desire toward us.  Exodus 34:6 - 7, "The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering,a nd abundant in goodness and truth, v. 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressiona nd sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the inqiutiy of the fathers upon the chidlren, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

He gives mercy, grace, truth, longsuffering, fogivness and cleansing.  In all this, God is constant in working us towards HIm.  Even though man sinned and went away from God, God is ever seeking men to return unto Him.  'If ye return unto Me, I will return unto you.'  God is the One Who beckons us toward Him.  Drawing us, for no man draws night to God of his own ability or decision.  'Unless God draws him, he will not come.'  By His convicting us of our sin, reveals His Spirit is working on us and in us to reconcile us with Him.  Praise His Name for His everlasting desire to bring us back to Him. 

When one sees and knows these Biblical truths of SCripture, it overlows in the prayer life.  We are thinking about God and His works, and not our own works.  We are grateful and thankful for Him and all these attributes He is demonstrating for lost men.  And as we pray for lost souls, we pray for all these components to be brought to pass for the saving of souls.  It is a two fold effect in our prayers.  That which happened to us, and that which we desire to happen to our lost loved ones.  It is cause/effect again.  God caused it, and it effected us to the 'renewing of our minds toward Him'. 

Also to note, if men, nations reject God these Divine prinicples of salvation, we know that God's wrath and anger goes out toward them.  We can rehearse of what God has done to sinful people in His anger of their wickedness.  WE know the Scriptures that reveal these truths.  It comes out in our praying, for those that reject God.  We do not know how much time they have left, it is of the most urgent needs.  Eternity is streaming toward them and they are not ready for it. 

Thursday, August 9, 2012

THE HOUR OF PRAYER

THE HOUR OF PRAYER

I.  Introduction
Some have been asking about filling an hour of prayer on kingdom prayers and not selfish, local praying.  When one is engaged in intimate praying, you cover the things nearest and dearest to you.  You pray for youself; your own struggles, weakness, health issues, problems and such.  You pray for you family, they are close to your heart and mind.  They occupy much of your prayers and concerns for their spiritual plight, eternity, links to the world, in-laws and such.  You pray for you church family, wide and vast is this consideration of health, sins, problems and interest for your extended family of brothers and sisters in Christ.

But kingdom prayers are different.  A part of the kingdom is found in us, our family and our local church; yes, we pray that they are, but extended beyond our normal reach of interest, thoughts, cares and prayers is kingdom prayers. 

Kingdom prayers are found in time, eternity, and wholeness of nations, men's souls, the earth and all that is therein.  Knowing that He is over all and controls all.  We pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Knowing God's will is very important to be praying rightly; to not know His will is to be found praying against His will and possibly praying for our own will.  'You ask amiss, not knowing'.  Knowing God's will is found in agreement with His Word.  We must know the Word to know the will of God.

II.  Application

Praying Scriptures is found to be praying God's will.  Praying them rightly is of wisdom and discernment.  For example, to pray for lost sinners to be saved, is in agreement with God's Word, that 'He would have all to be saved'. But to pray for them to be saved an continue in their sin is not praying rightly. They msut renounce their sin, repentance, confession, profession and obedience.  A false hope is found in this and wrong praying is found also. 

Praying Scriptures is to pronounce now that which God has already pronounced.  A promise, a directive, a statement by God about Himself or His plans is to hold onto to pray His will be done. 

A couple catgeories to pray for the hour (suggestions is all):

1. Worship/Adoration - listing of the Names of God and their specific meanings; listing His attributes and thinking how He has demonstrated those in Scripture, history and your own personal life;  Declaring the Scriptures that tell us of Who He is and what He has done;  One of the greatest impacts of this Name is found in Exodus 34:5 - 9; God decalres His Name before Moses;

2.  Confession - a recongition of how high and holy God is and how low and sinful I am, we are, and His church is.  I did a word study through the Scriptures of 'Sin'.  I found it very helpful in learning how to pray for sins by the pronouns used.
Pronouns, 'I have sinned', 'my sin' - a very personal declarative;  'You have sinned', 'they have sinned' - is not being a part of the sin, but recognizing it;  'he, she sinned' individual sin; 'we have sinned' inclusive of us all under the weight of sin against God and His ways.  The confession, repentance is importance on how the pronouns interact with us and our dealing with it. 

Jesus came to the demonic man and said, 'What is thy name?'  and he answerd, 'My name is, Legion, for we are many.'  Somewhere in reference I read or heard that a legion represents the number of 70.  Seventy makes up a legion.  So I was led to direct the confession of legion, 70 sins:
1. Lies; 2. Adultery; 3. Fornication; 4. Drunkenness; 5.  Unthankful; 6.  Unholy; 7.  Neglect; 8. Disobedient to God; 9. Disobedient to parents; 10.  Murder; 11. Steal; 12. Rob God of tithes; 13. Sloth; 14. Waste of time/life; 15. Hate; 16. Idolatry; 17. Lust; 18. Pride; 19. Envy; 20. Jealousy; 21. Anger; 22. Wrath; 23. Strife; 24. Unfaithful; 25. Love of self; 26. Vanity; 27. Self-exaltation; 28. Unbelief; 29. Luke-warm; 30. Half-hearted; 31.  Profanity; 32. Prayerlessness; 33. Evil; 34. Materialism; 35. Love of Money; 36. Breaking the Sabbath (for us the Lord's Day, Sunday); 37. Take the Lord's Name in Vain; 38. Covet; 39. Abortion; 40. Homosexuality; 41. Gambling; 42. Gluttony; 43. Witchcraft; 44. Hypocrisy; 45. Excessive Indulgence; 46. Divorce; 47.  Atheism; 48. Agnosticism; 49.  False Religions; 50.  Lack of Compassion; 51.  Unloving; 52.  Brawling/Fighting; 53.  Unclean; 54.  Self-willed; 55.  Debt;  56.  Apathy;  57.  Neglect of the Widows; 58.  Neglect of the Orphans; 59. Foolish;  60. 

Each of these are found in Scriptures as being condemend of God.  AS of yet, I have not posted the Scriptures for all these.  In time I hope to complete that.  The following are a beginning of recognition of such sins and where to find them:

-- Look at the 10 Commandements:  Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5;  Go down through each commandment and see blessing and curse of 'Thou shalt' and 'Thou shalt not'.

--Also, sins to be recognized from ourselves is found where Jesus said, 'Out of the heart proceed these things.'
Matthew 15:19, "Evil thoughts, murders, adutleries, fornication; thefts, false witness and blasphemies"  There are 7 sins mentioned here.
Mark 7:21,  "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, v. 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:  v. 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile theman."

--Found in Titus 3:2 - 3 reveal other like minded sins of our doing:  speaking evil of men; brawlers/fighters; cruel and unkind; foolish, disobedinet, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, malice, envy, hateful, hating one another

3.  His Glory - the adoration and worship of His Name sake;  The manifest Presence in revival that is declared when His glory comes down.  'His glory filled the temple'; 'His glory sat upon the ark'; 'they were filled with the Spirit' are examples of His glory being manifest to men.  Sin and the devil seek to mar His glory and erode it away.  WE pray in opposite fashion, that His glory be found everywhere and upon all.  'Let Your glory be throughout all the nations.'  'Let all the earth be filled with your glory'

4.  Praying against hell - the devil has come; darkness is thick in the world and lives of men, 'men loved darkness rather than light'; evil is spreading quickly;  while the church adds, evil is multiplying, our prayers are to counter this development.  We must see the ways of the devil and pray against them.  It is the tearing down of his strongholds and ways.  Of course, it is not simply enough to tear them down, but pray for the the right ways to built up and established. 

The Devil's ways to pray against - lies, 'a refuge of lies', hypocrisy, deceptions, half-truths, hindrances, trickes, temptations, forces, powers, whisperings (Hath God said?), plans, devices, come in like a flood (Isaiah 59:19), imaginations, strongholds,  scheming, manipulating, followers, organizers of sinful plights; discouragement, fleshly trust; vanity; humanism, coerce them, corrupt them, etc.

As we learned the attributes of God, to cause us to see His splendor; so we should know our enemy.  Seeing the Devil's attributes should be a way to help us to counter and pray against his tatics and ways.  But if we don't knwo them, then we will not have how to pray against such. 



We must see that this is all simply about Light vs. darkness; Holy vs. sin; Heaven vs. hell; eternity vs. temporal; righteousness vs. unrighteousenss; etc.

5.  Church - It is the bride of Christ.  It is to be what God desires for it to be, through its members.  Pray in covering these things of His church, His body, His bride. 

6.  Time - He is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;  He is everalsting, eternal, always was, is and being.  And in this it is hard for us to see the plans that He has for us, because of our limited vision.  Praying kingdom prayers is praying for the continuance of His desire from the beginning, that man would glorify His Creator.  His plan of redemption has always been. 'While was in sin, Christ loved us and died for us'.  It is the proclamation of this truth to incorporate into our prayer life of not only what He has done, in which we can offer thanksgiving; but in that which is, happening presently and that which shall be, His ultimate glorification at the end.  This is a vast concept and will be devleoped later.  I hope that you understand some of it in praying it through for God's will to be done. 

7.  World, the earth - it is not men's nor is it Satan's.  The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.  He is creator of heaven and earth.  The nations are under His authority.  We are to pray for the nations, for the spheres.
Directional - north, south, east and west;  Isaiah 43:4- 7; Isaiah 59:19, west and east are set forth to pray for. 
Nations - 200 nations in the earth; how many do you know?  each having a remnant in them, the church; how these nations operate affects the church?  It is needful to pray for the nations governments, education, freedoms.  It is our responsbility to pray for the government leaders, elections, officals, lawas, judicial courts, edicts and such.  Praying against restrictions, limitations, Satanic hindrances, attacks, sin and evil.
7 contients  - North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and Antarctica;
Population - 7 billion in the earth; 2 billion in Asia with restraints by the darkness; a prayer for the 10/40 window of 2.82 billion, 6,000 unreached people groups are found in this location; 
1.6 billion Musulums in the world; rapidly increasing; other religions all brought on by lies, deceptions of Satan and his demonic influence over the minds, nations and people.  Oh, for Light to shine in this vast darkness!


This is a beginning of topics that can be developed in your own way or other things that you would like to add.  I will continue as time permits to work on this with more specifics and Scriptures for your benefit. 

Blessings as we pray, to pray for one another and for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven for His glory.

until,
dan

August 9, 2012 - began;
Update:
August 10, 2012;


LET THE FIRE CONTINUALLY BURN

LET THE FIRE CONTINUALLY BURN

Leviticus 6:12 - 13, "And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out:  and the priest shall  burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.  v. 13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out."

Such a deep truth is found here for us to glean.  May we allow for God's Spirit to speak and reveal it to us.  Our service and devotion is not of ourselves, nor to ourselves.  As Christians, we are saved by the Lord for His good work in us and through us.  Our flesh and the world are opposed to this way of life in Christ.  'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh:  and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.'  Let us seek the victory and its source of power in the fire of the Lord.

--The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out
The fire of the Lord, in Levit. 9, came from the Lord upon the sacrificial offering and consumed the offering.  That fire from the Lord, was continued on and burned the offerings day and night.  The priests were responsible for maintaining that fire.  A fire left unattended will burn itself out eventually.  The soul that has begun by the fire of the Lord, and left to themselves, will burn out.  It is a fire from the Lord that begins it, and we must rest in Him to maintain and continue in it. 

A false fire is to be guarded against.  Just as Jesus taught of 'wolves in sheeps clothing', so false fire may look like the fire, but is not accepted by the Lord.  A matter of fact to remember, is that when Aaron's son, offered strange fire on the altar, God's fire fell from heaven and consumed them - killed them, dead on the spot.  A trespass against the Lord is a high offence.  We regard sin as little to nothing; we forget that sin in God's sight is an abomination.  'The wages of sin is death' and we think we can sin and get by with it.  False religionists come along and fan the flames of deception, emotionalism and flesh.  These false fires enrages the wrath of God, that gives an accusation against His Holy Name and Spirit.  He will defend and protect the Holiness of His great Name.  False fire works against Him and His Divine will. 

The source of these false fires is to be considered. Two sources of false fires: 1. Satan, the devil comes in and manipulates truth to intentionally lead us away from Christ and His ways.  He takes half-truths and works off of that to lead astray.  He is the father of lies, and may begin with a half-truth but it leads to a whole lie.  This is the reason we are to know the Word.  'this is the way, now walk in it' is the voice of God leading us rightly.  Yea, though I walk through the paths of righteousness, not the paths of deception and ungodliness.  2. Flesh, mainly emotions of man, that are manipulated at times of created a deception that is sincerely perceived as God, but is simply emotionalism at its height.  And out of this can come all kinds of hellish practices and sin.  The flesh is weak, easily deceived.  I remember William Gurnall's statement, "If Adam fell at his perfect state into sin; how can we expect to prevail in our weakned state against sin."  We are to guard against emotions, and thoughts, and adrenaline, and things that cause our ways to be uncertain and unclear. 

It is reported by some that this fire begun by God in Leviticus 9, continued till the children of Israel were carried away into captivity by the Babylonians.  And so it is that for almost 900 years, the fire was continued, and maintained.  Despite the waywardness of leaders, of the sins of the people, of attacks, of failures on their part the fire continued.  Ah, is this not the faithfulness of God!  Is He not long-suffering, patient, enduring, eternal in all His ways?  Yes, we know Him to be.  Yet if a people continue in sin, the fire grows less and less and eventually, is exstinguished.  This only happens when we forget the upkeep of the fire and maintain its source of continuousness. 

The desire and success in the fire continuing to burn is life long pursuit.  It is not a one time event, it is a continual process of engaging the Lord for His help, knowledge and growth.  To retract from the Lord will lead to extinquishing the fire.  'But I have somewhat against you, for you have left your first love.'  It is the intentional leaving of God by His children that causes the fire to burn low and out .