the Call to Pray

God is calling for intercessors in our day, those who are willing to be different, to lay aside weights, sins, and distraction to seek Him on their faces on behalf of the lost sheep of Israel who await the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah in a thousand places on the planet.

Will you be the one? Will you intercede for those yet in exile, those in bonds, too weak to help themselves? Those who need an Abraham to plead with God for just ten in their city?

You may never meet them in this life, but God can use your prayer to minister to them, intercede where no help can be found.

Abraham could not pray in the Spirit; you can.
Use what you have! This Holy Ghost is the power to subdue the enemy, lay hands on the sick and watch them recover, overcome every fiery dart..

What are we waiting for?? Either He is God, and it is TRUE, or it is all false.

As for me, I KNOW Him to be true.

Church, let’s pray!!

2 Chronicles 7:14

the Witness

From the Voice in the Garden to Adam

and to Abraham

and to Isaac

the One who wrestled with Jacob

and sent Joseph ahead to save all of Israel

who called to Moses from a burning bush

and spoke to Joshua in the tabernacle

who inhabited the pillar of fire and of cloud

who inspired judges to lead

gave prophets Words to speak

and kings wisdom to reign

and kept His promise

by coming Himself, in the flesh,

who did not leave us nor forsake us

but left us a Witness,

making us witnesses ourselves,

still speaks,

still moves,

in this day, in this hour,

for those who seek Him.

Romans 8:16: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.”

“Beareth witness” means He shows UP! God Himself, Jesus, in the flesh–now OUR flesh, our redeemed flesh, once weak and worthless, now filled with this Treasure!

Have you received Him? No, not reciting words like ‘I accept you..’ followed by nothing noteworthy. Have you received Him? Undisputable evidence of His presence?

(‘Received’ implies that the action is taken on the part of the giver, not the receiver. We cannot instigate a ‘reception’ until something is given. A football is not ‘received’ until someone throws it.

God is not passively waiting around for us to ‘receive’ this spiritual football–pardon the sports analogy–while it hovers just above our heads. He throws it when we’ve shown we’re ready to catch it! He takes the action, and there is no disputing when you’ve caught it–it’s right there in your hand!)

He has never, and will never, leave Himself without evidence. When so much of our social system depends on proof, do you think He would require us to stand on nothing and claim belief when no active, tangible proof of Him exists?

Do you think He would hold the proverbial carrot in front of our faces by saying, while in the flesh, “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you,” and never follow through, but instead let us believe that heavy statement was figurative? Would He leave us hanging like that for two thousand years?

Do you think He willingly removes His presence from our daily lives just to see us squirm and struggle?

Let me ask you: for an engaged girl who lives far from her fiance, would he never call or visit? Do you think there’d be much of a relationship there if she didn’t see or hear from him until the wedding day?

He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. He knows our weaknesses and is sufficient for all of them. He knows we humans are fickle, easily distracted, easily swayed by temptation when we feel detached from Him. And He knows that our detachment from Him is remedied by an audible, tangible Proof of His presence.

I must tell you: Jesus is alive. Not figuratively. Not in the way that a deceased person is kept ‘alive’ by our memories (for this is what His presence amounts to for so many people, unnecessarily!), but ALIVE. He lives, and where He lives is EVIDENT! You KNOW when you have met the Creator, because He causes you to say what you could not say, do what you could not do, be what you could not be without Him.

He is supernatural by nature; His evidence in us, therefore, is–MUST be–supernatural. In keeping with His nature.

I must tell you it is REAL.

Have you received that witness–the Holy Ghost–since you believed? Acts 2:1-39

He lives, and so shall you!

It takes a lot of faith to believe someone who is dead will live again.

Lazarus was not only dead, but stinking. Any hope of healing was gone. Martha said, "if only you were here a few days ago, my brother would still be alive.."

But that's just it. Sometimes we want God to heal us, heal our situation, fix the problem. But God knows it is impossible to be healed from 'sin sickness' without dying first. "Without shedding of blood is no remission (of sins)" (Hebrews 9:22)

For if we were healed without dying first, we could still live on unto ourselves, not having crucified the 'old man' of sin. The real problem would remain.

Life lived unto ourselves is no life at all. Jesus replied to Martha, "I AM the resurrection and the Life." True life, as Adam and Eve experienced before the fall, can only be where sin is absent, and this only happens in Jesus. So when we are resurrected with Christ, it is His life we live, not our own.

"God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
'Commended' here means "brought together." So God brought His love and us together. But since He cannot abide with sin, sinless blood was required for us to be brought together with Him. He shed His own blood to cover our sin, erasing the curse of death that separated us from Him. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Cor 5:19).

But blood can only be transferred where there is an open wound.

In Isaiah chapter 1, the people of Judah were brimming over with sin, filthy, with hands 'full of blood' (bloodguiltiness). God described them as full of sores, open wounds, "putrifying sores," from head to toe. But it isn't simply the presence of sin that brings His forgiveness; if that were the case, we'd all be saved already without repentance.

In Galatians, where Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ," the words literally mean "impaled together with Christ," as if the nails and sword that pierced Him pierced us too in the same thrust. This requires something of us. Something voluntary. It isn't just the sickness of our open wounds that readies us for His blood...it is the voluntary nearness to Jesus in the act of dying to our sins that prompts Him to bring His love to us. "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you" (James 4:8). And when we are crucified with Him, "mortifying the deeds of the flesh," the blood shed in His death flows to our open wound, annihilating the poison in our blood, abolishing the bonds of death. Praise God!!

When death occurs, the first thing to decay is the blood. The curse of sin was passed to us through the 'bloodline' of Adam. Leviticus 17:11: the life of the flesh is in the blood, and when diseased, that means the death of the flesh is in the blood.

Why is Jesus the only one who could save us? Whereas sickness is spread among man by infected blood, Jesus' sinless blood is not subject to this. Rather, healing is spread by His blood...a reversal of the curse of sin. This could only happen outside the paternal bloodline of Adam. Jesus, Son of God, was the only one who could conquer sin.

How imperative that we have His blood cover us! There truly is no hope, as Martha felt, otherwise. The disease will not be cured without death to sin...for if sinful man is not killed, he will yet have his reward: 'the wages of sin is death' (Romans 6:23). Our choice is either death now, voluntarily, being crucified with Christ, that we may LIVE with Him...or death later, without hope of resurrection.

What is that hope? David said, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." Our death (repentance) and burial (baptism in His name) is our step toward Him. It is the "draw nigh to God" part. And because He will not leave us buried in the ground, "He will draw nigh to you." He brings us to life, not just a cleaner version of our former selves, but NEW, as if the sinful man had never lived!

The mark of this is evident: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). This happens with Holy Ghost baptism, evidenced by speaking in other tongues (Acts 2).

Because He rose again, so shall we! Not only in this New Birth, but even more to His glory on That Day!

So, what shall we do? Shall we choose to live on in sin, asking again and again for healing, when what we need to do is die? Or shall we choose to die now, and find true life in Jesus?

I choose now! Now is the day of salvation. While it is yet day, let us draw nigh to God with repentant hearts, crucifying the old man, that we may live in Him!

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Happy Easter!!