Boldness and Exploits Amidst Persecution

The church in the Acts of the Apostles was not cowered by persecution, it prayed for more boldness and more exploit amidst it.

Right prayers amidst persecutions will birth great grace and miracles, not just of convictions and conversion, but of healing; for Jesus hasn't changed and His power, still the same.

We trust the Lord for great grace upon people in the regions where persecution ravages like tsunami. that they shall wrought exploits amidst all these. We know Lord that in the flesh, we consider them as victims but we know they are overcomers.

Let there be more miracles happening where they are, Lord. Much more than where the church basks in comfort and opulence.

Let there be convictions among the persecutors. Let them see the visions of heaven and its welcome to the martyred saints.

Let these persecuted Christians stand strong in your grace in spite of the killings. Let them be steadfast to recognize like Polycarp from the 1st century that you are not a disappointment.

Have your way on earth, dear Lord.

Let believers in safety understand their privileges. Let their safety not be misconstrued as a right or a sign of being better. Help us to lift up in prayers the arms of our brethren being harmed.

Amidst all these, we know Lord, that ...

...the gates of hell shall not prevail

... the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever.

... of the increase if His government, there shall be no end .....

... the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as water covers the sea.

For the kingdom is yours, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen!

#zionheights
#influence

Say No To Inadequacy

Say No To Inadequacy
Exo 4:10-17; Jer 1:5

It is true that experience from the past could leave someone with scars. Some of the scars can be listed as unhealthy self image and inadequacy. Inadequacy is the state or quality of being inadequate or lacking the quality that is required; it also means inability to deal with a situation or with life. Inadequacy keeps people stuck in the rut of the past without being able to move forward. Never ever insist on being inadequate with God

The high calling of God upon your life is more than whatever you have been through. You cannot afford to allow such to affect it. With God, where you are coming from and its scar on you cannot not be as important as where you are going. If you would learn to look away from the effect that the past has put on you, to consider where God is heading you towards, extraordinary things can happen. There were too many 'who am I' in the scriptures. You can also see what God did with David, Gideon, Saul. The importance placed on where you are headed is the reason why God formed you and why he is dealing with you.

Every one has his variety of of the scars which come of different reasons: sufferings from the past; social class; failure, emotional wounds. Serious as these scars might be, they cannot alter the plan of God, unless you so choose

God sets before everyone life and death (Gen 2:16-17; Deut 1:8, 21; 11:26; 30:15, 19) for instance, salvation is an offer; the blessings of salvation are offers; His call upon your life is an offer. Man can very well choose to reject God's offer. Man's destiny temporally and eternally hangs in a balance awaiting his decision
Though divine plan changes not, man can scheme himself out of the plan

Moses was really proving incorrigible in spite of the extra miles that God had gone with him. He was still uninfluenced. The thought in him are still set up against the knowledge of God.

Never say it is mere thought as it could make or mar your life.

God's approach in answer to Moses expression of inadequacy was from the angle of His creative power. ...who has made .... Have not I? ...go and I will be with you. Despite all these, Moses was still persistent to the extent of even asking God to send someone else.

Many in our time are still maintaining this wrong attitude. Lots are rejecting and burying the good design of God for them, simply because of the refusal to change That you fell doesn't mean you shouldn't rise. Lots are staying down; lots of the citizens of Zion are lying in the dust. The devil is being availed of the opportunity to rejoice, whereas it shouldn't be. Mic 7:8; Ps 30:1; You should rather let the Lord rejoice over you. Zeph 3:1; You should rather let him be pleased with you. How?

Never say I am not to the I am that I am.
You are what he says you are. You are what His grace has made you to be. 1Cor 15:10; All you need, is to know what he says. That should be it with you. Why?

The creature cannot know more than the creator.
He knew you, your coming challenges; your possible weaknesses and in spite of all, he designed you for a particular plan. He says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you .... I distinguish you; I recognize you and in spite of what may come, I acknowledged you as fitting. Before you were born: I separated, dedicated, set you apart; I ordained: gave, assigned, designated you ....

He who made everything can do anything with what he has made in spite of the limitations. Though Moses was once mighty, Acts 7:22, and now slow ..., Exo 4:10; God is not limited by it. God asked him, who has made man? Have not I? Now therefore go .... If God says to the blind, I will show you; he should prepare to see. If God says to you, do, you should not say "I cannot"

Just as in Isa 10:15, the axe should not boast..., it also should not resist
You don't need excellence of speech or of wisdom 1Cor 2:2, 4-6; he has said I will give you a mouth p ..., Luke 21:15; 1Cor 11:6; If he is with you, he will do whatever he has spoken or promised.

Don't ever refuse or instruct God against his plan
In doing this you may be signing yourself out. Don't let the sense of inadequacy limit you. Don't ever ask him to send someone else because he could. Why should you cause your place to be given to another

Unbelief is the greatest sin; it grieves God
There is nothing as grieving as someone doubting you in spite of the extent you have gone to persuade. God is grieved and angered when things are not done the way he prescribed. 2Sam 6:7 and when the heart turns from him. 1Ki 11:9. Whatever he asks you to do, do it. Jn 2:4; If he says follow, don't choose other option. Luke 9:59-62. When things are done right, he is pleased. Heb 10:38; 11:6; Acts 15:28

You sign out of what God offers when you reject it. Moses could possibly have been the statesman - prophet and priest of Israel. His tongue and lips could have been healed or used just that way. He chose otherwise.

God will always propose great things to you. His definition should suffice for you without any attempt to look to your situation. Self distrust is a virtue that attracts God's help when moderate but a vice when pushed to an extreme.

God calls us to walk by faith in spite of where we are coming from or what we are having around us.

He is saying to you:
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you (distinguished you; recognized you and in spite of what could come, acknowledged you as fitting); before you were born, I separated you (dedicated, set ŷou apart); I ordained (gave, assigned, designated) you to be specific in my plan.

You should not be anything less.

Say no to inadequacy.

How to Stay Connected With the Unchurched – OutreachMagazine.com

http://www.outreachmagazine.com/

HOW TO STAY CONNECTED WITH THE UNCHURCHED

He was the pastor of a large and growing outreach-oriented church. When he asked if we could meet and talk about reaching lost people, I was glad to carve out a lunch to meet him. After a few minutes of introductions, we ordered our food, and he launched into a barrage of questions all listed on his yellow pad of paper: "What outreach programs are working at your church?" "How do you get your board to invest more money in outreach?" "What is your best evangelistic sermon?" He fired question after question, and I tried to give helpful answers.

Right about the time our food came, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to ask him two very specific questions. I felt a little awkward because I knew he still had a big list of questions, but I looked at him and asked, "How much time do you spend in a normal week with people who are not yet followers of Jesus?" He looked at me, and then looked down at his food for an uncomfortable amount of time, saying nothing. Finally he looked up and locked eyes with me with a very sober look on his face. He did not speak, but simply lifted his right hand; placing the tip of his thumb against his pointer finger, he made a circle. He swallowed and said, "None! I am so busy doing ministry, I don't have time to invest in nonbelievers."

I asked my second question, "How many friends do you have that are not Christians?" The look in his eyes gave the answer—none!

My next words popped out of my mouth almost reflexively: "I don't think we need to talk about the rest of your questions right now. Would it be OK if we spent time talking about ways we can make sure we have significant time in our week set aside for relationships with nonbelievers?"

What followed was a great conversation about the challenges of staying connected with people who are not Christians, and how this gets more difficult the longer we are believers. This is true for pastors, church leaders and all Christians.

Since that day, I have consistently worked on making sure I always have a number of non-Christian friends and that I have regular time carved out to be with them. This means when these friends come to faith in Jesus, I have to expand my circle of friends again.

Here are some simple ways to battle this tendency to drift away from the very people who most need Christians in their life:

1. Try something new. I once joined a community soccer league just to build some new friendships with people outside of the church.

2. Evaluate your schedule. Once a week, look back and honestly assess how much time you spent with non-Christians. Adjust as needed.

3. Connect with old friends. Call people you have not connected with for months or even years. Seek to rekindle these friendships.

4. Serve in your community. Volunteer in a civic organization, a club, or some other community group. These hours could be more fruitful than time you serve at the church.

5. Enter their world. Ask a nonbelieving person you know if you can participate in something they enjoy. Hang out in their world.

6. Bridge relationships. Get to know a nonbeliever who is close with one of your Christian friends.

7. Bridge relationships among nonbelievers. Ask a friend who is not a Christian if you can meet and spend time with some of their friends.

8. Make your home a prayer hub. Let your neighbors know that you would be glad to pray for any joys or needs they have. You might be surprised how many non-Christians actually ask you to pray for them. This can lead to spiritual conversations and new friendships.

Ask yourself these two questions often:

How much time do I spend in a normal week with people who are not Christians?

How many friends do I have who are not Christians?

If you don't like your answers, do something about it!

Finders are Losers while Losers are Finders

The business of the church is to be busy with the commission given her by the Christ. The present concern and occupation with self organized and campaign for protection can't be spiritual. I doubt if that fits into WWJD (what would Jesus do?) considering the context in Matt 16:22-27.

Peter rebuked him and gave a "prophetic word" of that shall not be your portion, when christ spoke of the challenge awaiting him.

His response to Peter: "Get behind Me satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

He that loves his life will loose it, he that looses it will find it. 

I taught my sons early enough to remember from the words of Christ that finders are losers while losers are finders (Matt 16:25).

I think the church is concerned with the extinction of a religion and how to organize its safety. A religion may go into extinction but not the way. The Christian faith is not a religion, it can't go into extinction. The history of the church was punctuated with various assaults like the ones being witnessed now globally. The church only gets stronger against the assaults of the gates of hell.

We are His concern (Acts 9:4-5), any attempt against us is one against Him; His work and desires are our concern, he asked us to occupy till she comes - that cannot be with self pity and and appetite for security.

These are part of the signs of the times. Political calculations and organizational planning cannot change them.

If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

I understand why we are wrongly concerned. 

A pastor once told me he dislikes the hymn with the lines: I'll be a good soldier, I'll die at my post." For Him it is not spiritual being negative confession. 

I was scared! With this type of thinking we will see more of mixing the preaching of the gospel with political and organized fight for protection.

Let us discern the sign of the times!

#HeThatHasHearsLetHimHear

#IATBoluwatise

Leonard Ravenhill Paints Picture of True Prophets

 

Leonard Ravenhill Paints Picture of True Prophets

by ldhaywood@gmail.com (Leonard Ravenhill)

Charisma Magazine / 2014-12-26 15:28

Leonard Ravenhill at age 81

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the Year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality.

In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.

He has no price tags.
He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith
the Lord."
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of
impending judgment.
He lives in "splendid isolation."
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!"
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with
epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint
by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of
Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in
the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival.

Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant "churchianity."
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.

God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!

About the author: Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was a well-known British evangelist who brought many people to Christ through his straightforward preaching of the Word. In 1959, he and his family moved to the United States, where Ravenhill continued to travel, ministering in tent revivals and evangelistic meetings. He placed great emphasis on the subjects of prayer and revival, and though he wrote many books, he is probably best known for Why Revival Tarries. ("Picture of a Prophet" was taken from ravenhill.org and used by permission of the author's son, David Ravenhill. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill.)

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