Archive for January, 2017
CHAIN-REACTION IN THE SPIRIT
If you are focused on what the LORD God might have in store for the New Year, you may be in for a few surprises. “God”, as someone observed, “doesn’t change but He moves!” He is constantly moving on behalf of those who diligently run after His Presence. It is His delight to run after us until WE catch Him! “The eyes of the LORD run throughout all the earth to see those whose hearts are perfect toward Him in order that He strengthen them(?). He is not running so as not to be caught but in order that He may be found in this hour (Isaiah 55:6). With this, the prophet Isaiah confirms,”The Lord waits to be wanted”. He waits for our pursuit in order to bless us all the more. But we need to understand that the “More” is not “More things…more ‘stuff’ to consume upon our passions and greed. No.The chase is in order that we might “find Him. For He is not far from anyone of us”(Acts 17:27)
A passionate pursuit of God will be rewarded with the friendship of His Presence. The more we seek Him, the more we will find HIM. God pursues us in order that we might run after Him with whole-hearted devotion. This creates a chain-reaction in the Spirit. We an example of this in the Book of Acts Chapter 3.
SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER
Peter and John had gone up to the Temple because it was the Jewish “Hour of Prayer”. They had spent three and a half years with Jesus while He was ministering in the earth. They had heard His teaching; seen his miracles and they were eye-witnesses of Him raised from the dead. After forty days, He was no longer physically with them. But they learned the secret of His nearness was constant abiding-fellowship through prayer. On a certain occasion, they encounter a lame bigger at the Gate called beautiful, asking for money(alms, charity for the poor). But Peter and John had no money to give the beggar. But Peter realized that what looked like a “limitation”in the natural was an opportunity for the Unlimited One dwelling now inside them. The Holy Spirit not only had come as Jesus promised He would but He had come to stay. Taking him by the hand and lifting him “in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth!”, the man for the first time of his forty years of living began to walk and leap; praising God as he heads into the Temple to worship.
CHAIN REACTIONS CREATE ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES
The crowds rush toward Peter & John. But they did not allow the wondering crowd to draw attention from the glory due God alone. The crowds desired to “elevate them” to a status of “super-heroes”. This drew the attention, envy and jealousy of the religious leaders. They arrest, interrogate and threaten Peter and John. But when Peter (Who previously couldn’t testify of knowing Jesus of Nazareth to a servant girl) refused to back down by their “religious intimidation”, they took note of it. They recognized a “different spirit” resting upon Simon Peter. It was a “spirit of boldness”. What was the difference? These “common”, religiously unlearned, non-degreed men, “had been with Jesus” while He was on earth. And further, they had learned to host the presence of Jesus who dwells now in the heavens.
Suddenly, those who were intimidated “not to speak” the holy things of God”,in the Name of Jesus”(Yeshua) were emboldened to bear witness to Him all the more!
Peter and John leave their presence and go to their own company, gathered together to welcome and worship Jesus in their homes. The apostles rehearse what had happened to them. The people were not frightened, hearing of the religious threats. Rather, they pressed into the glory of God’s presence with a greater passion and desire to honor the Presence of Jesus among them. Claiming God’s promises (Read Acts 4 & Psalm 2) as their strategy, they seek God asking that He manifest “the greater works of Jesus”in the earth. The results? Another chain-reaction in the Spirit! They experienced His Presence in a greater way. “The whole house where they were was shaken” and with greater boldness, signs and wonders were manifest, causing many to magnify the God of Israel in truth and reality in their lives (Read Acts 4:29-31). And the kingdom of heaven advanced in the earth.
This year, let us not lose our focus. Many things are happening in the earth in this hour, but let us keep our eyes fixed on He who rules over all from heaven. And let us learn to make a place here on earth where the Presence of Jesus can rest and abide. The greater works of His manifest glory surely will come. There is a chain-reaction in the Spirit-realm, waiting to be manifest in you and through you in His great Name.
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Messenger On The Bridge 