He's in town

This past Sunday morning as I was praying for the service @ LifeHouse Harvest before anyone else arrived, I remember specifically asking for a "manifestation" of God's presence in the service. We definately had a great service on Sunday as the Spirit of the Lord moved in our worship time and it was as if we felt those "Angels wings" brushing up against us as we took-in the presence of God.

I have begun reading a book that has actually been sitting on my book shelf a long time and, being prompted by the Holy Spirit, I picked it up and began to scan through it. I have quit scanning through it and have begun to "read" it and I wanted to share with you today an excerpt from chapter 2. The book title is The God Chasers by Tommy Tenney. The chapter 2 title is No Bread in the "House of Bread" and there is a couple of paragraphs from this chapter that I would like to share with you:

Do we even know when He's in town? On the day Jesus made what we call His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the back of a little donkey, His path through the city probably led him right past the entrance to the temple of Herod. I believe the reason the Pharisees were upset at the parade in John 12 is because it disturbed their religious services inside the temple.
I can hear them complaining, "What is all this going on? You're disturbing the high priest! Don't you know what we are doing? We are having a very important prayer service inside. Do you know what we're praying for? We're praying for the Messiah to come! And you have the audacity to have this noisy parade and disturb us?! Who is in charge of this unruly mob anyway?" Uh, do you see the guy on the little donkey?
They missed the hour of their visitation. He was in town and they didn't know it. The Messiah passed right by their door while they were inside praying for Him to come. They didn't recognize Him. Had Jesus come on the back of a prancing white stallion, or in a royal chariot of gold with a phalanx of soldiers ahead of Him, the Pharisees and priests would have said, "That might be Him."
God is getting ready to break out in America, even if He has to bypass her stuffy churches to break out in the barrooms! We would be wise to remember that He has bypassed the religious elite before to dine with the poor, the profane, and the prostitutes. We need His presence. We need to decide that whatever it takes and wherever it comes from, we must have Him. And He wants to come - on His terms, not ours. We can be inside praying for Him to come while He passes by outside. Worse than that, the "insiders" miss Him while the "outsiders" march with Him!

As I read this chapter I was convicted about "not knowing Him as I prayed for Him to be manifest in my life!" I believe that a lot of times we pray for Him to show up in our services but on that note we don't allow Him to show up because of "religion", "schedules", "programs", etc... We, as a body of Christ, need to learn how to recognize Him when He is in our services. We must learn to listen to the Spirit and move with Him instead of asking Him to move with us. How awesome would our services be if we started recognizing the "Bread" instead of being selfish and wanting to have our way. It is my desire to know Him when He's in town! When He passes by in our services, no matter what is on the agenda, we must be able to "let Him pass by" for our nourishment and growth as Christians!

Recognizing the Voice of God

1 Samuel chapter 3 tells of the calling of a young man named Samuel. Samuel was staying with Eli (the priest) and was awakened by a voice calling out his name. Samuel went to Eli to see what the call was all about. Eli told Samuel to lay back down because he had not been the one to call out his name. After about the third time of Samuel's awakening to the voice of the Lord, Eli recognized what was going on and sent Samuel back to bed, but this time instructed him to call on the name of the Lord for He was the one doing the calling. See, the Bible says that Samuel didn't know the Lord yet - in other words - he had no relationship with the Lord and in having no relationship with Him, he had no knowledge, or recognition of His voice or fellowship with God. Eli, being a priest, practiced having a relationship with God, therefore, had a recognition of the voice of God.

When someone calls you on the phone that you haven't spoken with in quite a while, you may not know or recognize that voice. When your spouse, child, sibling, or best friend calls you on the phone you have no doubt who you are talking to without even asking! That's the way we ought to recognize the voice of God!!!

We have to be able to hear God when He is calling our name. He calls our name when He has a mission for us to do, when He has a plan for our life, when He wants to fellowship with us, when He wants us to be effective in the Harvest for His Kingdom, etc... There are many reason that God calls out our name and we have to be like Eli and recognize the voice of God in order to act upon the calling!

More to come later!