If you are serious . . .

Yesterday I ran across this passage in the Bible, and it really spoke to me about our current situation in our own country! I'm sharing this account from The Message because the meaning is so clear.

Then Samuel addressed the house of Israel: "If you are truly serious about coming back to God, clean house. Get rid of the foreign gods and fertility goddesses, ground yourselves firmly in God, worship Him and Him alone, and He'll save you from Philistine oppression."

They did it. They got rid of the gods and goddesses, the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and gave their exclusive attention and service to God.

Next Samuel said, "Get everybody together at Mizpah and I'll pray for you."

So everyone assembled at Mizpah. They drew water from the wells and poured it out before God in a ritual of cleansing. They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against God."

So Samuel prepared the Israelites for holy war there at Mizpah.

1 Samuel 7:3-6

Clean house! Isn't that great? I'm in the mood to do some spiritual housecleaning. I want to get rid of all the weights and sins that are so easily besetting me. I want to put God first in my life!

They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against God." Again, we see those three elements - fasting, prayer and repentance - are necessary for the nation to get right with God.
It's not enough to pray; we must fast. It's not enough to fast; we must repent of our own sins and the sins of our nation. We are waking up and we will arise!!

Our God is a covenant maker!

Hosea 4:6 tells us "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Our lack of Bible knowledge keeps us from God's richest blessings. We have to renew our minds to the Word! We have the blessings of God available to us, but we may be living in spiritual poverty.

Let's examine how God promises Abraham great blessings in Genesis 12:1-3.

" Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Wow!! After several years, Abraham hadn't received the full extent of God's Word to him, so he asked the Lord, "O, Lord GOD, how may I KNOW that I will possess it?" (Gen. 15:8)

God answered him by establishing a covenant with him immediately! A covenant is the most binding commitment that two can make. The Lord was making the most powerful statement possible that He would bless Abraham. He wanted Abraham to know that He was serious about fulfilling His promise. God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

Because of covenant we can also know that God wants to bless us. Indeed, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. We secure His blessings through covenant. Since we've entered into a covenant relationship with the Lord through Jesus, we can learn to hold fast to that covenant. Then we can live increasingly in the fullness of the blessings we have inherited in Christ.

Our covenant reveals how deeply God loves us and is committed to us. It also reveals to us that God is completely faithful to His own word. God's covenants are the foundation for His blessing!!

These are perilous times!

We've seen horrible natural disasters in our lifetimes, yet there are more disasters to come. Our country has fought many wars, but there are more wars to come. Terrorism has occurred in our country, and more terrorist acts will be perpetrated in the future. The Word of God tells us that evil will become worse and worse in these last days.

Some of these events can be stopped if we will fast, pray and repent! God's promise in 2 Chron. 7:14 says, "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." Fasting and prayer are not enough - we must really repent of our nation's sins.

Ask the Lord to give you revelations of trouble on the horizon. Repent, fast and seek God in fervent prayer. In Ezekiel, God looked for someone, anyone, who would make up the hedge and stand in the gap, but he found nobody!! We can become a bridge of intercession for our nation and all nations. The Lord can rebuild spiritual hedges of protection around us. The Lord is searching for people who will seek His face. He wants to tell us what the terrorists are plotting. Are we willing to listen?

After all, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (I John 4:4). The Holy Spirit within us is our Helper, Friend, Comforter, Advisor, Strengthener, Ally, Advocate. He brings us into the presence of God. He convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit motivates us to live a pure and holy life. He helps us pray and worship. He teaches us and guides us. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth . . . and shows us things to come!! Yes, He shows us things to come. Hosea 4:6 states that God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. But it doesn't have to be that way.

We desire to be the women God has called us to be, not lukewarm, not half-hearted. We have within us the authority and power to withstand every temptation, every trial, every affliction, and every hour of darkness that is coming upon the earth. We can overcome instead of being defeated.

Let's not become discouraged and lose faith when we see these things happening. We can win every battle through surrender and obedience to the Holy Spirit. Jesus, our Lord and Savior, has made us more than conquerors!

Beth Moore on Saturday afternoon

Beth Moore taught on learning to mind your "spiritual gut." John 14:15 states, "He will give you another counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth." The Holy Spirit is within each of us. He gives us supernatural power to KNOW. In the New Testament everyone who believes in Jesus Christ and is born again has the Holy Spirit living in them. Allow Him to give you spiritual discernment. Then go with it, even when you can't explain it.

II Cor. 2:16 tells us "We have the mind of Christ." These are epic days on the Kingdom calendar, so we need to wise up. The Bible warns us that there will be terrible times in the last days (II Tim. 3:1). People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (II Tim. 3:12,13) In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse - deceiving and being deceived.

Let's watch out that we are not deceived. The enemy disguises himself as an angel of light. Listen to the Holy Spirit! We want to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to walk in the Holy Spirit. We will live our lives on purpose for Christ.

Priscilla Shirer

On Saturday morning Priscilla spoke on Ephesians 3:20,21. "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations foirever and ever, amen." We already have all the right resources. We just need to open our eyes and see! Now is the time to connect our impossible situations with God's ability. The power of God is "dunamis" - the word "dynamite" derives from this. The dynamite power of God is beyond our beyond.

God's power is:
more than we can ask or think
abundantly more than we can ask or think.
exceeding abundantly more than we can ask or think!!!

We need to take the lid off our God box. When there's a lid on your God box, your ability to accept God's power in your life is limited! Our God is an immeasuably MORE God.

All things are possible with God!!!!!

Notes from Kay Arthur at Deeper Still

Kay taught us on Hebrews - the entire book of Hebrews! "In these last days God has spoken to us by His son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe." (Hebrews 1:2) In these last days, we must pay careful attention to what we have heard from the Lord, so that we will not drift away!

Now is our hour. God is raising up an army! We are to fix our eyes on Jesus and persevere! We will not shrink back and be destroyed, but we will believe and be saved! Even if we suffer greatly, we won't quit. We will receive rich rewards! The Israelites in the desert blew it because they did not mix the Word of God with faith.

The Word + faith = the Rest of God

Of God's Kingdom there is no end. Let's be the women of God who will not look to the right or to the left. Our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We will stand our ground for the Lord! We will grow up so that we can get off the milk and eat solid (spiritual) food. We will grow up!

Notes from the conference

In December Ann, Rosie and I went to the "Deeper Still" conference in Oklahoma City. Here are some notes I took.

When we were seated in the Cox Center before the event began, I started to mist up just looking at the crowd of 10,000 women who were assembled there! The Lord has been busy these past ten years uniting His Body in a most beautiful way. There were women from 30 states and probably just as many denominations. They came to praise and worship the Lord, to pray to Him and to hear His Word taught by these anointed teachers!

Jesus' prayer in the book of John was that we would all be ONE even as He and the Father are one. That is happening before our eyes as denominational barriers have crumbled and we're uniting as we major on the important issues. Jesus is not coming back for a weak church, a powerless body. He is preparing us for the future and uniting us to be His Bride!! To God be the Glory!

Travis Cottrell and his band led us into the manifest presence of the Lord as we praised and worshipped God! Everyone really entered in as we sang and praised the Lord! I was reminded once again how important praise and worship are in breaking up the fallow ground of our hearts so that the Word of God can be planted.

Are you hungry for the Lord?

Are you more hungry for God than you are for food? Our hearts cry to You, Lord. "I love You and want to fellowship with You. I'm hungry for Your Kingdom, Your agenda, Your plan in the earth!!"

1 Cor. 10:7 warns us not to be as the idolators. Then Phil. 3:19 states "Their bellies were their gods." I don't want my belly to be my god. Adam fell from grace because of food. Esau sold his birthright because of food. The Israelites died in the desert because they weren't content with God's food; they yearned for meat.

Fasting brings the flesh off the throne of your heart. In 1 Cor. 9:27 Paul stated that he brought his body under subjection.

Every time we fast unto the Lord, we will grow closer to Him.

This is so beautiful!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGAZVASoUv4

Why fast?

Jesus taught His disciples the principles of the kingdom of God which are in direct conflict with those of this world. Jesus said, "When you give" and "When you pray" and "When you fast." He made it clear that fasting, like giving and praying, is a normal part of a Christian life. Even Jesus fasted! He's our example in all things, so why do we think we don't need to fast? We may be missing our biggest breakthroughs because we fail to fast.

Matthew gives us the story of a father who had a demon-possessed son. He took his son to Jesus and cried, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severly, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him." (Matt. 17:15,16)

Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him, and "the child was cured from that very hour." (v. 18). What made the difference? Matthew 10:1 says that Jesus had already given the disciples power to cast out evil spirits to heal every disease. So why couldn't the disciples cast out the demon and cure the boy?

Jesus told them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there" and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting." (Matt. 17:20-21)

If Jesus could have accomplished all He came to do without fasting, then why did He fast? The Son of God knew there were supernatural things that could only be released through fasting. How much more should fasting be a common practice in our lives!

What is fasting?

Simply stated, Biblical fasting is abstaining from food for a spiritual purpose!

Fasting is not just going without food for a period of time. That is dieting - maybe even starving - but fasting it is not. Will we lose weight when we fast? Yes, but that must not be our motivation. Will we fit into our clothes better when we fast? Yes, but there has to be a spiritual reason and purpose for fasting.

As expressed by David in Psalm 42, fasting brings us into a deeper, more intimate and powerful relationship with God. When you eliminate food from your diet for a number of days, your spirit becomes uncluttered by the things of this world and amazingly sensitive to the things of God. "Deep calls to deep." (Ps 42:7)

David was fasting. His hunger and thirst for God were greater than his natural desire for food. As a result, he reached a point at which he could cry out for the depths of his spirit to the depths of God, even in his trial.

In Acts 13, as the disciples fasted and prayed, they ministered to the Lord! Do our hearts cry for a closer walk with the Lord? Do we need answers to the crises in our lives? Victory over habits and addictions? Breakthroughs in certain areas in which we're stuck in a rut? Do we need cleansing? direction? healing? deliverance? Do we need to take dominion over something that is blocking our way?

Our motivation for a fast is important! There will be many, many side benefits, but let's make sure were fasting for a spiritual purpose. Soon we will realize that fasting is a joy that is overlooked by many!