Ask yourself, would I court a girl like me...?

I promised my Facebook friends that I would share excerpts from CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters - a letter from a senior devil to a junior devil.

"Our third aim is, by these constructions, to destroy the devotional life. For the real presence of the Enemy (they refer to God as the enemy), otherwise experienced by men in prayer and sacrament, we substitute a merely probable, remote shadowy, and uncouth figure, one who spoke a strange language and died a long time ago. Such an object cannot in fact be worshipped. Instead of the Creator adored by its creature, you soon have merely a leader acclaimed by a partisan, and finally a distinguished character approved by a judicious historian." Page 125

It's interesting that this book was written in 1941, as the devil still uses the same strategy. Gradually worship & prayer where a man can actually come "face to face" with God & encounter His glory are gently being eroded and replaced by "other agenda", less and less room or priority is given to these important foundational truths. We have become too sophisticated, "skilled" and we must demonstrate those, I suppose?

The Pentecostal church came out of the old Anglican, Methodist - etc churches however it is interesting to note how the "Pentecostal" church is also starting to become muscle bound by over organisation (to quote Leonard Ravenhill quoting Dr J.B. Phillips), administration & so called "order" - some of the things we ran away from. Order was created for man not man for order, to help man not rule man. We must not be so structured that we stifle the moves of The Spirit. We must not be so administrative that we have little room for spiritual things.

I will sound the alarm even if I may not be popular for it.

Satan doesn't always come up with new tricks - he simply reinvents the old.

Why did Jacob wrestle with God all night, why not for a few seconds or minutes?

Why did Jesus ask His disciples the question: could you not tarry with me for an hour?

Why was it the manner of the early church to gather together to pray and worship God? Acts 12:5,12; Acts 13:2, Acts 1:14, Acts 16:6

Why was Moses's face changed when he spent 40 days in the raw and living presence of God? Could it be that there are some issues in our lives, some characteristics or lack thereof - which can only be formed when a man comes to stand face to face with God's Shekinah, when he comes to do business with God and God alone?

Where can we do this type of business with God other than in prayer & worship?

Why did Jesus remind us with a whip that His house must be called a house of prayer?

Why is prayer so unattractive to most churches & Christians? Why???

Habakkuk said "I will set me upon my watch and see what He says to me"... How do we watch???

Watching is spending time with Him - when we worship Him, when we pray and when we do these things, He will speak.

Why must God speaking to His church in the rhema be a rare or uncommon phenomenon reserved for a select few? Is it because these few are willing to pay the price on a regular & consistent basis and the rest of us are not?

If I were a guy looking to marry a girl whom I had been courting for quite some time, but this girl was predisposed to only spending any significant amount of time with me seasonally, where she would go for long periods of time without spending any significant amount of time with me and just when I was getting ready to really love on her and express My feelings for her or share my points of view with her she was consistently cutting Me off because of her "schedule" - how loved would I feel? Considering that I was an all or nothing kinda Guy?

"If you want anything from God, you will have to pray into heaven. That is where it all is. If you live in the earth realm and expect to receive from God, you will never get anything. The Church has been negligent in one thing... she has not prayed the power of God out of heaven. The Lord's model prayer provides the clearest instruction on how we bring the reality of His world into this one. The generals of revival speak to us from ages past saying, If you pray, He will come! Biblical prayer is always accompanied by radical obedience. God's response to prayer with obedience always releases the nature of heaven into our impaired circumstances. Jesus's model reveals the only two real priorities of prayer: First, intimacy with God that is expressed in worship-holy is Your name. And second to bring His Kingdom to earth, establishing His dominion over the needs of mankind-Your Kingdom come." Bill Johnson - When Heaven invades Earth

Don't cower in the corner...

for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Joel 2:13b

If you feel like you've missed God i.e. you have missed the mark either due to neglect or disobedience or whatever reason... don't hide away from God, He is full of grace and mercy, indeed of great kindness & compassion and regretful of any evil against you. I remember the first time I truly understood  Hebrews 12:24 which tells us that the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Abel... I always thought... yes ofcourse this is the blood of my Lord, yes yes it is stronger but I didn't quite fully grasp it's meaning until a man of God explained it and I caught it... the blood of Jesus speaks mercy whilst Abel's blood cried out for vegenance - for justice but the blood of Jesus speaks more than justice, His blood speaks mercy on our behalf - herein we see mercy triumph over judgement.

We see God's mercy saying, they should be judged but I accept their repentance and the blood of Jesus which covers their shortcomings, therefore justice has been assayed by mercy. Someone I used to know once said God takes no pleasure in our shame or bringing us down... therefore today friend if there is something that is holding you back from fully enjoying fellowship with God, you feel you have failed and don't deserve a second chance, maybe it's in a particular area, maybe it's life in general, I am here to tell you today, that Jesus says I am giving you a second chance ...maybe it's your fifth chance, God's mercy is available for you today. And not only will He fully restore you, He will surpass your expectations. I always tell people about my Daddy the over compensator... yes He's my Daddy... my Papa... the Elohim of me. Don't just take my word for it, take His word for it 'I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten - the great locust and the young locust (big problem or small problem), the other locusts and the locust swarm (other locust - the uncommon locust... the uncommon problem or situation... the unique issue - maybe you can't even tell anyone about it and the swarming locust - they have come at you in hordes, you feel like an army is arrayed against you), My great army that I sent against you (because of sin and disobedience, you became an enemy of God and His army came against you). Joel 2:25

Now God is saying if you will return to me, with your heart not just saying it and not meaning it, if you will leave what you are doing, priotize getting right with me over all other seemingly pressing committments 'Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber' Joel 2:16b

'Let the priests who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar, Let them say spare your people O Lord...' Joel 2:17a

'Rend your heart and not your garments' - Joel 2:13a. God is after your heart... there are no pretences with God, if you are coming back, He expects you to come back all the way and that begins with the state of your heart before God... your resolve to do all it takes to be right with God, your willingness to obedience.

And this is what He said He will do after repentance and you have to wait for it, you have to tarry before God to receive it and you have to be willing to ask for it.

In vs 28 of Joel 2, God says 'afterward I will pour out My Spirit on all people...' The spirit of God Who can keep you from going back to having to cower in the corner and making the same mistakes again... ask God to be filled with His spirit, for that is the grace we all need to live a holy life.

And this is the conclusion of the matter vs 32 'For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance...' Mount Zion is the mount of holiness and in Jesus there is deliverance.

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death. The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12: 18-24

Jesus loves you!