Wednesday 13 November 2013

Coming up higher, what is God saying about my situation...

Dearly Beloved as we are gathered together on this day........................k!

Let me come at you in the language you'll understand - guys, here's the deal, we need to pray...

First, I need to apologise that I don't blog often, am not sure if this blog is ever going to be that kind of blog where I blog every day but my prayer is that it will be all that God means it to be and that I won't get in His way (we can do that you know sometimes - get in His way). My deepest desire is that you will hear His voice in all of the posts. I do tag the posts with labels so that if there is ever a time when you need to reflect or study on a topic, you can find it easily using the labels. The "Living" tags I use for items that I feel are generally related to every day life, so if life is coming at you as life often does, come on over and click on a post, meditate on the scriptures attached & get with Our Papa.

Some of the posts are long because they are teaching posts and you will need to do some bible study along with them, which is why I often don't post frequently - as they do sometimes require some depth of study which take time and err well, there's also the me factor, urmm... urgh... will be working on that... and I hope that you will be praying for me as well for loads of energy and also revelation ;-)

Today I thought I'd drop a sound bite on the place of intensifying prayers:

I was reading Isaiah 1:15 "When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood."

The Lord had been speaking to Israel on the fact that they held a form of religion but denied its power, they'd been making sacrifices, observing ordinances but still doing evil & not seeking justice for the oppressed. But what jumped at me this instance from the message that I wanted to talk to you about today was verse 15 where God said - even if you made MANY prayers, I wasn't going to hear you... Wow, now that's a thought I said to myself, so My Father, it must mean that under normal circumstances - many prayers do move You! 

Luke 18 vs 6 & 7: "Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day AND night to Him, though He bears long with them?" And in verse 1 "And He spake a parable unto them (to this end), that men ought always to pray and not to faint" - the word translated to faint is literally translated to be being despondent.

 
My encouragement to you today is keep praying, when you are offered the alternative to be down, get praying instead, you might have a good cry that's okay but do get praying AND also seek to hear what God says. Our relationship with God should be relational - where we speak and then He speaks back. Let's approach prayer as a relational encounter, tell God - Father, I want to hear you.

Let the Holy Spirit help you to pray in tongues when you don't know what direction to pray about on an issue, pray till you start to feel the peace of God and have direction. (We have talked about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in prayer in previous posts and I will leave you with a quote on that from Oswald Chambers on that "I tell God what He knows in order that I may get to know it in the way that He knows it" The Holy Spirit in prayer is God coming along side you to pray, to help you in prayer, where you start to see things from God's point of view instead of yours - that is what the Holy Spirit does - He reveals the mind of God on a matter) He is like Your Governess who comes along side to help you.

Get some insight to what is happening around you and what you need to do about the situation if your action or inaction is required.

Prayer is relational. Paul said "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But HE SAID to me... 2 Corinthians 12:9

for behold, he is prayingAnd in a vision HE HAS SEEN a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.” Acts 9:11b -12

The two times described above Paul was given feedback, which were insights into his situation, the first one was - I won't take it away but I have given you strength to walk through it and Paul understood why because in the earlier verses he says ~ this was given to me to buffet me because of the many revelations God has given to me so I don't get proud. Second time the answer was I have heard you and someone is coming to lay hands on you to receive your sight.

You know God is so amazing because I feel He wants to talk about revelation today, I was going to just do a sound bite on the power of many prayers & the place of intensifying prayers but The Lord seems to be taking me to share about revelation - having a living & active relational (two way) relationship with God in prayer (forgive my grammatical error as I don't think relationship should follow relational but at this point "mine" English is limited to that as the best way to convey what I am trying to say!)

Sometimes you need to ask God: Father what are you saying about this situation or that...

Another person I looked at was Elisha, when the Shunamite woman came to him distressed as her son was sick and she grabbed his foot, and zealous Gehazi - armour bearer -ADC (aide de camp) tried to push her away (okay, looking left, looking right, I don't think I have any friend who is in the armour bearers or protocol team so I can tease them today :-) Back to Elisha anyways, Elisha said let her alone God has hidden it from me and has not shown me. First I love his honesty and second what got me the most was that in his answer I saw a man who lived in a place where God spoke to him about things happening around him, his answer sounded like that of someone who God usually tells things to! The literal Hebrew translation to English says Yahweh has obscured from me and He has not told me.

Let's look at Abraham in Genesis 18:17 "Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?"

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

The word translated to friends literally from Greek is "fond ones" - philos... God is fond of you, He wont hide things from you that you need to know, He will give you an answer, it may be "Wait, its not yet time" or "Trust me" or "you are not ready to handle it, pray for your capacity to handle it to increase" or "I am taking you through school, daughter... this is just a school, you'll come out of it and AM here with you" or "you are in the wrong place, child" or it may be that Gabriel is being withstood in second Heaven by the prince of Persia (thank God Michael came and Gabriel went back to fight him!)

Our Lord will not ignore us when we come by The Blood of Jesus, His word says "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16

Rebekah is an example of a woman who inquired of the Lord: "Two] children struggled together within her; and she said, If it is so [that the Lord has heard our prayer], why am I like this? And she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, [The founders of] two nations are in your womb, and the separation of two peoples has begun in your body; the one people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." Genesis 25 vs 22&23

Jeremiah 33 vs 2&3 “This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

I for one, I want to know, the Lord said I should not call Him Baali anymore and has invited me to call Him Ishi. He is my Ishi, my husband. That is the premise on which I stand, I stand before a God Who desires intimacy and in that intimacy He will speak to me as I speak to Him. He will show me great and mighty things which I do not know on my own...

Hosea 2 vs 16 "And in that day, says the Lord, That you will call me My Husband (Ishi) and no longer call Me My Master (Baali)" Jesus again says the same thing, you are my friends, my fond ones because I do not obscure from you what I am doing.

My Father and My God, I don't want to live far from You. I want to hear You speak as I speak with You. I need a word from You because Your words they are Spirit and they are life. They infuse LIFE into me! They make me come alive, they cause me to SEE, they give me DIRECTION.  Paul's answer caused Paul to see his circumstance in the light of the truth which was he should not see it as weakness but as an opportunity for God's strength to be made perfect, if he did not get an answer he would not have known this...

Sometimes a person could keep making the same mistake over and over again because they have never had an insight into their situation. Esau was passed over because he was described as a profane person, thank God for the Holy Spirit and the Bible because often times we may have an inkling but we sometimes do not realise the extent of the damage some of those recurring "mistakes" have - revelation brings that.

Sometimes you need revelation to get to the next level.

This might be a good place to stop and to take off next time. I had said to some people that I would do a series on some of the sons of Jacob. Issachar will probably be my next one, I have started to write it so hopefully it will be the next post which ties in to this one... The sons of Issachar were a people who understood times, seasons & what needed doing to get to the next level. May the Lord enlighten us.

Ciao Ciao

Till we meet again my brethren! Ha! Till next time guys :-)

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