Good Morning Gorgeous,
It’s a brand new day. A fresh new start. I am up, but I am tiiiiiired.
Our Bible Study group met last night until after 11pm. We have been studying Spiritual Warfare and listening to a teaching by Pastor Tony Evans. The Presence of the Lord visits with us so powerfully when we gather that the time flies by and then even when we have said “Amen” we linger even a little longer in His Presence. He is faithful and where 2 or more gather in His name, He will be in their midst. I can testify that when I am with other believers whether it’s the mid week prayer group I am honored to be a part of, Thursday bible study, Saturday blogger chats, or Sunday services, there is POWER in the gathering of believers. Whether its 2 or 2,000 or more, when people come together with sincere hearts and call on the Lord, He is faithful to show up.
And we gather to be strengthened and have something fresh deposited in our Spirit so that we can take Jesus into the world around us. We get filled up in the gathering at church and fed so that we have something to feed the cashier at the grocery store, a friend who calls for encouragement, a neighbor in need, and even so that our social media posts speak Jesus.
We go to church so that we can be the church.
We have a responsibility to effectively and accurately represent Jesus to every person we encounter. This is our commission, our charge directly from the mouth of Jesus. He came and lived a model life for us. My pastor said it well when he said something close to this, “Christ’s life was His Word on display. His doctrine was displayed in His life.” Basically, it wasn’t what Christ taught as much as what He DID.
And then after living a model life both fully human and fully God, performing miracles, driving out demons, speaking with authority and backing from heaven, He says something INCREDULOUS! He says we will do even more than He.
So as you study Jesus, you are seeing what a life lived out as a follower of Jesus could look like. A life that is filled with miracles, authority as you move, and all of heaven backing you. Jesus was able to do all of these things because He was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. He was the Lord Himself living in the constraints of human flesh. That’s why He withdrew so often to pray to the Father. He needed to commune and connect to the Father just as we do. There is power in the fullness and completeness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! And while Jesus temporarily left His seat on High to enter earth to live as man, He needed to spend time back in communion with the Father.
So how can Jesus say we will be able to do even greater miracles than He did? He was the Lord! The answer is His precious gift to us. His own Spirit. After He ascended to Heaven, Holy Spirit was to come to believers and dwell inside of us empowering us to do the same as Christ did! And how could we do more?? Because there would be 11 commissioned disciples at first, then hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions of Holy Spirit filled believers with their feet on planet earth while accessing their inheritance and authority from heaven so that they can move and live like Christ did!
Can you imagine millions of Jesus’s walking the earth? How different the earth would look? People would be healed, blind men would see, deaf ears opened, repentance would run rampant, and salvation would be commonplace!
Welcome to the assignment of the church!!! Of course, We are not Jesus, but we are His followers and we are empowered by Him. We are given authority by Him. We are given backing by His name, and we are filled with the same Holy Spirit that empowers flesh to live by their spirit instead of their earth suit. We are called to walk JUST AS HE DID.
We were never meant to stay silent amidst the darkness of the day.
We were never meant to enter into divisive arguments either.
We are designed to be Holy Spirit empowered people who shift atmospheres everywhere our feet tread.
So yesterday, I posted about praying for three things that my pastor invited our congregation to pray for: churches, our nation, and the end of the coronavirus.
I am posting about 1 a day. 🙂 Today, the church. That’s you and me! That’s people all across the globe who declare Jesus to be their Lord and Savior.
I believe there is a bold prayer on my heart to share with you.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We exalt Your Holy Name. We recognize You as our Lord. We recognize that You Lord have a Heavenly solution for every problem we see in the earth today. We also recognize that the church has a vital role to play in carrying out Your plans.
You could do anything, but You choose to partner with man to carry out and accomplish Your will. Lord, awaken the church today! Awaken us from our slumber. Open our ears to hear from Heaven. Open our eyes to see what Heaven is up to. Give us bold tongues to preach the gospel. Give us fiery feet that move to the sound of Your Voice.
Lord, empower pastors and preachers and anyone who leads other believers to preach the full Word of the Lord. Lord, empower churches to be countercultural and to be the solution to cultural issues and not to join in on what is popular.
Lord, let the church stand out, set apart, empowered, bold, courageous, and filled with Your love so that hard teachings are spoken in full love and recieved by prepared open hearts.
Lord, let there be a fresh revival in the church. Believers returning back to their love relationship with you. Spirits reignited with the fire of Holy Spirit.
And Lord, open up the eyes of believers to receive the full power of the Holy Spirit that You so generously give. Allow us to fully receive all of the gifts You have. Let us not just pick and choose the gifts that we want, but let us open up fully to receive the full baptism of the Holy Spirit just as You intended when You promised to send the Advocate to us.
Lord, empower the church to stand up and rise and begin to battle in the spiritual realm so that we can begin to see healing manifest in the earth. Lord, you have a great and mighty plan for us! Let us partner with You and accomplish all that You promised we could.
Lord, have mercy on Your church and guide us in all truth. I pray for every denomination to walk in the truth of Your Word. I pray for every denomination to draw so close to You Jesus and draw on the Power of the Holy Spirit that we all begin to look so much like Jesus you can’t tell us apart. That our commonalities in Christ would outshine and outnumber the minor things that make us different. Let’s celebrate ALL of the body of Christ and lift eachother up, joining together for ONE purpose, the very commission given to all of us by Christ Himself!
IN Jesus’s Holy and Precious Name, Amen.
Here is the commission given to us by Jesus!
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20 NIV
So important to pray for the church especially in these days
Amen and Amen! Vanessa, this is what we need to focus on as the body of Christ. We need to pray for the Church instead of throwing stones and sowing seeds of discord. Great post! You are a blessing 🙏
Thank you my friend!!!