June, 2007
Something cool and great just happened to me. (10:30 a.m Saturday morning). I received a call from Joanne Turner (wife of Lloyd Turner, author of the book “The Highway of Holiness). I was just sitting here in the dorm room at Western Ill. University blogging about the festival and out of nowhere this call came in.
She is, along with her husband a woman of prayer with a heart to see awakeing come to this region. She and Lloyd have devoted themselves to doing whatever the Lord tells them to relative to helping to bring about awakening. I had a chance to share with her Bill Tang’s dream about the river and she was really touched by it and said it very much connected with what God had been showing them.
She called, literally out of no where after being awakened at 3:30 a.m. by the Lord. At some point in the early morning she said the Lord had prompted her to call me. Wow, I’m blown away, who the heck am I? Anyway, she shared with me a conference they are trying to put together as well as a strong sense that God is drawing them to focus attention on the city of Newark. I don’t know exactly where this will lead, but I am thrilled at the thought that God would bother with me in the equation. Read on for an update to this inital blog entry (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 30th, 2007 in Revival | No Comments »
In Ephesians 1 Paul the Apostle encourages us to pray this way: (16) I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, (17) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him... What is a spirit of “wisdom and revelation?” I believe that this is a prayer for direct experience of God communicating His heart and mind to believers. It can take the form of prophecy, dreams, visions and impressions specifically given to the us by the Holy Spirit.
I can tell you that within the Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday morning prayer meetings we have been asking the Lord for “the spirit of wisdom and revelation.” It is in light of that I want to share a dream which was recently shared with me by a brother in the church. This dream occurred just a few days ago, and I believe that it is both a sober and very helpful admonishment to Lamb of God.
The dream begins with a man (the person who shared the dream with me) being taken to a quiet place and being told to “examine” his life. This was a serious and sobering situation in the context of the dream. Next, he heard a tender male voice speak an encouraging - “friends.” He understood this to be a gentle encouragement not to give up in prayer and to remember that his “friends” (brothers and sisters both in Lamb in in other churches) need him to remain faithful in intercession. (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 21st, 2007 in Revival | No Comments »
The psalmist writes: I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. In Proberbs the author writes: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Here in is the chief reason why intercessory prayer is so difficult, and why prayer itself weighs so heavily. I want God to act now! As God has stirred my heart to pray for revival in these past few years it has required me to reflect again and again on the desperate need of the church. As I mentioned this past Sunday we have witnessed a substantial number of young people from our own congregation make professions of faith only to turn away from this commitment. This is heartbreaking. It should cause us to grieve and to mourn. And this is a very difficult burden to bear. Revival praying requires stripping away all the props, all the excuses, and all the rationalizations. It involves identifying yourself with the need rather than distancing one’s self and praying for “those people, over there who need to do thus and so.” It means that we open our hearts and we take on ourselves the desperation and anguish that will propell us to pray and not give up. That last sentence is a hugh revelation to me. In order to pray with any passion or intensity I must allow myself to feel the desperation. (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 19th, 2007 in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, I preached on confronting the lies which satan uses to wield power over our wills. I briefly covered a number of different situations in which satan is named as the chief antagonist in the story. I began by looking at the fall of Adam and Eve and the manner in which satan drew Eve, and then Adam into “agreement” with him and then induced them to act contrary to God’s will. The lies which satan use to woo them are three - (1) “Has God said” (does God really mean what he says). (2) Is the any real reason to fear God? (3) Isn’t God really unfair? I talked about 7 or 8 other stories in which we see satan working to draw a person into a situation where that person concedes to a falsehood and then acts upon the basis of a lie.
The enemy of our soul wants to persuade us that God isn’t fair, or that he doesn’t really watch out for us, or that our various felt needs are so powerful that we simply must meet them in whatever way we possibly can. Bondage to sinful patterns comes in part as a result of repeated choices based on lies about the way in which the world works. If I don’t give as I should it is ultimately because I don’t trust God’s provision. If I fall into sexual sin its because I don’t believe that God’s ways really are better. If I compromise my faith in order to fit into the workplace, or school or whatever - its because I really don’t believe that in God’s presence is the fulness of joy. No freedom will come without this first step of admitting the truth. (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 18th, 2007 in Uncategorized | No Comments »
A wonderful and unexpected change has been occurring to the Cry for Awakening monthly prayer gathering. God is bringing diversity and a strong bond with the urban church. In the beginning of Cry for Awakening was for the most part, suburban white churches (with some important exceptions - Good Will Rescue Mission and Bethany Evangelical Free). Initially we began with 9 churches and the Mission as partners in the monthly prayer meeting. Participation of all 10 was inconsistent, but a committed core emerged. Prayer is a challenge, one which Jesus anticipated. He was very explicit on this matter by telling us in no uncertain terms we were to learn to pray and not to give up. (Luke 18:1) There is a simple reason for that - giving up is pretty easy to do. (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 15th, 2007 in Revival | 2 Comments »
One of the most perplexing questions that I have regarding things of the spirit has to do with how satan acts or moves against the believer. How do we discern his activity? How do we break his attempts to harm, deceive and create confusion among us?
Recently, I head a teaching that has been very helpful in coming to a more through understanding of an answer for this question. Scripture does not go into elaborate detail regarding this matter. What it does tell us should be all that we need to engage in effective spiritual warfare. Pastor Bill Johnson, of Bethel Church in California suggests the following paradigm to help us understand this.
Before Jesus returned to the Father he made this statement: Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” How much authority then is given to satan? If Jesus has all authority then the answer would seem to be none. Satan has no legitmate authority to exercise control or power over the Christian. How then does Satan gain influence over Christians, and even over churches? (more…)
Posted by Scott on June 5th, 2007 in spiritual warfare | 2 Comments »
As promised in yesterday’s message (Sun. June 2.2007) here is Adam Clarke’s (pictured on the left) definition.
“God is the eternal, independent, and self-existent being; the being whose purpose and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence; he is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, the most spiritual of all essences; infinitely perfect; eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made; illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only by himself, because an infinite mind can only be fully comprehended by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived, and from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, and right, and kind.”
It will require work - but I highly recommend memorizing this definition, or at the very least taking some time to put it on a 3X5 card and regularly meditating on it. The even more industrious might consider looking at verses from which a definition like this might be derived. Parents… how about teaching our children a definition like this?
Posted by Scott on June 4th, 2007 in Revival | No Comments »
