Mark of True Call of God: Perseverance

Many people say that they want great experiences from God—encounters in the throne room, angelic visitations, burning bush experiences—but they do not realize the responsibility that comes along with these types of encounters.

Yes, God wants us to be captivated with Him and truly experience Him not just with head knowledge, but with actual revelation. However, many of the dramatic encounters we see in the Word of God were a commissioning to do a great work of God. These commissionings were given to strengthen the person to do great exploits in the face of grave danger and hardship over long periods of time where it seemed the promise would never come to pass.

Any believer can go preach the gospel—the Lord calls us all to do this, but there are certain assignments set aside that are so difficult that the Lord will grant specific experiences to sustain that person over the long-haul.

Most people so covet the experience, but they do not realize that God gives those encounters, because He knows that person is going to have so many difficulties that they will want to quit over and over again.

The world, Satan, and even our own human nature are constantly pushing us to give up and quit. However, God will come strengthen us with His grace so that we can persevere.

I have heard Mike Bickle say, “Perseverance is the mark of a true minister of God.” Everything in us and around us says, “Quit, give up, you’re a failure anyway.” However, God’s Word says that we have already won. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, and the God of peace will soon crush Satan under our feet.

Encounters into the realm of heaven give us a glimpse into eternity, and pull us out of our present circumstances into the vast expanse of God’s redeeming plan. When life gets mundane, difficult, or we are in danger of losing our very lives, we can remember those times when God met us in such a way that we will never forget it. Those times strengthen our hearts to persevere.

I can imagine that when things got hard for Moses, he remembered the bush that burned with fire, but was not consumed. He remembered the voice that came from the bush and sent him to deliver Israel from the land of Egypt. An encounter like that is difficult to forget no matter the circumstances. I am sure that encounter sustained him in the journey.

Even Paul had a dramatic encounter on the road to Damascus. He met Jesus and was blinded by His glory. Meeting the risen Christ sustained Paul through beatings, shipwrecks, stonings, scourges, hunger, thirst, and miles and miles of endless road. He had been captivated and could never turn away.

God comes to strengthen the weak hands and the feeble knees. He comes to tell us, “Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, you will reap a harvest, if you do not lose heart!”

Message of the Apostolic: A Vision for Eternity

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (II Corinthians 4:16-18).

Another aspect of the apostolic ministry is that it always restores the message of eternity and connects it to the life of the believer in the “here and now.” If people see that they are not living for today but for the age-to-come, it will help them realize that every moment counts. Every decision made for righteousness will be rewarded in eternity.

Paul constantly made the connection of holiness with the hope in the resurrection (Rom. 6:5-12, I Cor. 15:42-45, II Cor. 5:1-7, etc.) He also constantly connected the indwelling Holy Spirit with eternity. He would refer to the indwelling Holy Spirit with phrases like, “guarantee of our inheritance as sons” (Eph. 1:13-14) or “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). He would make reference to being transformed from glory to glory into the likeness of His image (II Cor. 3:18). He spoke of how the momentary afflictions were nothing compared to the eternal weight of the glory we will have in eternity (II Cor. 4:16-18).

Also, the connections that Paul made with eternity, holiness, and the resurrection of the dead were many times connected with a vision for the Second Coming of Christ (I Cor. 15:50-58; I Thess. 4:1-8, 13-18, I Tim. 3:1-11). Also, the vision of Christ’s Second Coming and hope in the resurrection were also given to comfort those who suffered persecution (I Thess. 2:3-10, II Thess. 2).

Peter also made the connection between eternity and holiness in I Peter 1:3-4 when he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you…”

 

Then, later in the chapter he says, “Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct…" (I Pet. 1:13-15). He was saying that in light of our eternal promise, let us live in godliness and holiness now.

John was the Apostle who saw Jesus in His resurrected glory and wrote the book of Revelation. He saw the eyes like a flame of fire, the door standing open in heaven, and the events of the Second coming of Christ. He heard a voice calling out to him and heard the lightning and thunder of God. He saw God seated on His throne in all of His glory and splendor. Reading the book of Revelation, which was written by an apostle, will give you a vision for eternity and put a cry in your heart for the return of Jesus.

The apostolic message is the story of Jesus from beginning to end, and constantly keeping before us the hope and vision for eternity. God, restore the apostolic message back to the church.

Devo 59: The Genesis One Creativity of Healing

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them…And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 1:1-2; 26-27; 2:7

Imagine Jesus kneeling down in the dirt, making the first man. He probably put some dirt in His hands and spit in it (sound familiar?). Forming clay, He molded hands, feet, eyes, head, mouth, nose…Not only that, but He shaped organs. He shaped the lungs—the bronchial tubes, the alveoli, pleural membrane, cilia—little intricate organisms. He shaped the cells—mitochondria, DNA, ribosomes, chromosomes…He shaped the heart and arteries. He shaped the brain—the different hemispheres, the brain stem, the synapses, nerve endings, spinal chord, nervous system, etc…He sculpted every nook and cranny of the colon, stomach, liver, spleen, diaphragm, muscles, bones, veins, tendons, ligaments, cells…Every little part of the human body, Jesus formed it by hand.

He is a Craftsman. Proverbs 8 personifies Jesus as Wisdom. As He speaks of the formation of the world, Jesus says, “Then I was beside Him as a Master Craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men” (Prov. 8:30-31). Jesus was creative—of course. He is the Creator.

Psalm 139 speaks of how God cares about the human body. The psalmist says:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psalm 139:13-15

Our physical bodies are precious to the Lord. He made them. He also loves to heal them. Asking for healing, releasing a prophetic word, or praying for heaven to come to earth are actually ways to release the creativity that God has given us.

We are made in His image, and He is Creator. We cannot create anything, but through us, the Holy Spirit can create. He can speak through us with the same power and authority that He created the world.

When we realize our God is the Creator, we can understand why humans love creativity. We love art. We love knew ideas. We love to see beautiful structures that man has built. Man is made in God’s image, therefore creativity is part of human design.

Even natural men can be artistic, creative, and have ingenuity. However, men cannot create in the natural. They can only take what is already created and reform it to make something out of it. Jesus did that when he formed man. He formed man out of dust—but of course, He was the one who spoke the dust into being.

When we partner with the Lord, however, we can see things in heaven and call them into existence on earth. It’s called faith. Faith is the substance of things unseen, and the evidence of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). We can bind and loose things in heaven and earth (Mt. 18). When we behold God the Creator and get a grasp on what things are like in heaven, we have the boldness to pray for them on earth.

Jesus told us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Mt. 6, Lk 11). Although this does pertain to the time when Jesus establishes His reign on earth, it is not limited to that time. The kingdom is our inheritance as sons and daughters. The Lord originally designed men to have dominion over the earth, but man gave his dominion over to Satan when he sinned.

However, as we come under the reign and dominion of Christ and are seated with Him in heavenly places, we also have His authority through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Many times, we try to fight our way up to heavenly things as though we could do anything on our own strength, but God puts everything in us, and He is the one who has called us sons. He made us sons and also heirs (Gal. 4). We are already seated with Him in heavenly places. We can do nothing to earn it.

We often have so many reasons in our mind why we should not pray and believe for healing—mostly unanswered prayer. We prayed and the person died anyway. Our hearts were broken. We ask why. We have physical problems in our own bodies. We do not understand and become discouraged.

All of those thoughts, feelings, and emotions are real. However, we must have faith and just keep asking, keep believing, keep asking, keep believing. The problem is that sometimes we feel it is just too painful for our hearts. We do not want to put ourselves out there anymore. Its too vulnerable, too painful, too difficult…So, we become burned out, discouraged—and if we let that go long enough—offended, bitter, and angry. We stop believing and stop asking.

But, the testing of our faith produces patience, and when patience has its perfect work, it brings us into maturity, lacking nothing (Js. 1). Not only that, but our faith is accounted to us as righteousness (Heb. 11). Not only that, but faith is the foundation for the kingdom of God. We must become like a little child (Mt. 18:3). Little children just believe. They do not know any different.

Also, healing is real. It actually happens today. The kingdom of God really exists and people are actually healed.

In Matthew 8, a centurion came to Jesus and asked for his servant to be healed. The centurion said that if Jesus only said the word his servant would be healed without Him even going back to his house. It says that Jesus marveled at the man. I heard someone pray the other day, “Jesus, Give me faith you can marvel at.” What a wonderful prayer. Jesus, give me faith you can marvel at.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He said, “Let there be…” and there was. God took so much care in sculpting the human body. He cares what we do with it, how we take care of it, and He loves to heal it. So, let’s just ask—and keep asking, and ask again—and just believe, keep believing, and believe again.

Blessings,

Amanda

Copyright © 2010, Amanda Rich, All Rights Reserved

Devo 56: Death, Burial, & Resurrection: The Place of Intercession

"Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life…"

Romans 6:4

Even as it was the place of intercession that Christ died for us, so we also reach enter into the place of intercession through a daily death. As we take up our cross and follow Christ, conflict arises between our natural man and spiritual man. While wrestling in that place, if we choose to “put to death the deeds of the flesh” (Rom. 8:13), and truly walk in the Spirit, we are then able to enter into our calling as sons and daughters and join into intercession with the Father.

In John 17:3, Jesus said that He came to give us eternal life. Then, as if we did not know what that was, Jesus goes on to define eternal life by saying, “And this is eternal life, that they may KNOW YOU, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent…” He defines eternal life as relationship. Life is about knowing God, and eternal life does not start when we die a natural death, but when we die to ourselves and are raised into the newness of a life in Jesus Christ. That is where eternal life begins.

Once we realize that eternal life is about knowing God, it leads us right into abiding in the Spirit (Jn. 15). Abiding in the spirit is all about having that personal relationship with Him—knowing Him. Jesus said that we MUST abide in the Spirit or we will be cut off. Also, we can do nothing apart from Him, but if we abide in Him, we can ask anything we wish, and it will be done for us (Jn 15:5-7). Abiding in the Spirit allows us to walk in the newness of life.

One of the difficulties we all face with walking in this newness of life is the problem of our old man creeping back in. For this reason, Romans 6-8 and Galatians 5-6 both talk about putting to death the deeds of the flesh and walking in the spirit. As Jesus instructed us in Mark 8, we must take up our cross and follow Him, which means that we must face crucifixion everyday.

As we walk the way God tells us to walk, we are faced with decisions daily where we must “put to death the deeds of the flesh” and therefore, our old man is crucified. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

As we are confronted with these situations where we must die to ourselves, we are then able to enter that place of abiding in the Spirit, because we are remaining in Him. He said to His disciples that they were already clean because of the words He had spoken to them. Then He said, “Abide (remain) in me and I will remain in You, as the branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains in the vine.”

When Jesus saves us and we enter a relationship with Him, He speaks to us and says, “You are a new creation, the old has passed away and all things have become new” (II Cor. 5:17). These are the words He speaks to us that make us clean. Then, from looking at John 15:4, we can see that He would say, “Remain in these words…”

When we remain in these words, we bear fruit. Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, etc…we cannot bear that fruit without remaining in the spirit, remaining in His words. These are not “fruits of our strivings” but “fruits of the spirit.” We cannot make them happen unless we abide in the vine.

But, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and say that we are not a new creation. He comes to tempt us so we walk outside of the Spirit and therefore “prove” that nothing has changed in us and we are not a new creation.

However, if we continue to walk in the Spirit and abide in His words, we will walk in the newness of life—being a new creation. As we look at God and who He is through the word, we become more like Him and are transformed from glory to glory (II Cor 3:18). When we mess up and depart from the vine, we must ask for forgiveness and jump right back in without allowing lies and condemnation to stop us.

But what does this have to do with intercession? Everything. Jesus is the prime example of an intercessor, who laid down His life, but ultimately gained the place of authority by taking up His cross and following the will of the Lord no matter the cost.

Philippians 2:15 lays out God’s divine strategy by saying that Jesus humbled Himself, took up the cross, despising its shame, and therefore, God has highly exalted Him and raised Him to the right hand of the Father.

Every place in our lives where our will and desires conflict with God’s will and desires is a opportunity to take up our cross.

When we daily take up our cross and follow the Lord, we are exalted to the right hand of the Father. Ephesians 2 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” (Eph. 2:4-6). We are already in that place because of the words He has spoken to us, but we must remain in it and walk in it.

Abiding in the spirit, taking up our cross, walking in the spirit—all allow us to walk in that “newness of life” of being seated with Him in heavenly places, and boldly approach His throne with confidence (Heb. 4:16). Then, we ask whatever we wish and it will be done for us.

I believe this is why so many times there is such turmoil surrounding a time of intense intercession. Things are being brought up in the intercessor that require that person “to die,” and then allow that person to “be raised up.” It is a daily process. I also believe that this is why prayer and fasting go hand in hand, because fasting brings up so much turmoil in the flesh that must be put to death, and then we are raised up before His throne in the place of intercession.

We are all intercessors. God has called every believer to pray. Some are called to make it a lifestyle more than others, but we are all called to “pray without ceasing” and to abide in the spirit. In that place, we will bear much fruit, but without it, we can do nothing.

Grace and Peace,

Amanda
 
Copyright © 2010, Amanda Rich, All Rights Reserved