Africa Revival Ministries The Blessing Of Friendship With God
Notes
Transcript
I want to speak about something that I feel is valuable and applicable to every different walk of the Christian life. Whether you are a new believer or a seasoned elder I believe that what I am going to share is essential to understand in order to be all who God has made you to be.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Do you know He counts you as a friend?
For the last 4 years we keep coming back to this question how do we stir up prayer? In our hearts, neighborhoods, cities, and nations. I’ll never forget the first time this question came into my mind
I wonder if it was the same of the disciples when they enrolled in this school of prayer with Jesus in Luke 11:1
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
I was in Texas and I had just done my DTS and was back home trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I worked numerous jobs that were hard work 6-6 but wasn’t finding purpose in any of it. I remember coming home every day thinking there’s got to be more than this.
After a few months of that I went outside early one morning and saw the pile of pallets in our driveway. I heard a small voice whisper into my heart “build with me” I knew it was Jesus. Can anyone else relate to that whisper in your heart?
Jesus’ main goal with you is to make you a lover. Because a lover will always outwork a worker. Because one who is in love knows no end.
Why not pray about a key? Why not pray about a pin? Sometimes, it may be as important to pray about a pin as to pray about a kingdom. Little things are often the linchpins of great events. Take care that you bring everything to God in faith and prayer.
Do not draw a line between the temporal and the spiritual, and say, “God will go just so far, but I must not take such and such a thing to him in prayer.” I remember hearing of a certain good man, of whom one said, “Why, he is a very curious man; he prayed about a key the other day!”
- Charles Spurgeon
The audacity of thinking that God would not only love me but like me- meaning He wants to be involved with every part of my life, even the “not so spiritual things” is a bit scary.
So I took a pallet and built a coffee table and it was pretty fun. Then that turned into a few more and before I knew it my mornings with Jesus looked like getting up and ask Him what He wanted to build and then building it with Him.
1. Jesus is looking for relationship not rigidness
1. Jesus is looking for relationship not rigidness
He’s not looking for you to check the box and pay your dues but He is looking to connect and this is so key in growing in prayer.
It was in the place of living life with Jesus that I grew in understanding of what prayer is. It is union with the author of love himself.
love by its nature seeks union. With the grace of recognition comes the awesome and alarming awareness that Jesus, the incarnation of the furious longing of God, wants more than a close relationship with you and me; He seeks nothing less than union.
Manning, Brennan. The Furious Longing of God (p. 68). David C Cook. Kindle Edition.
a.) The Christian life is about experiencing the love God
a.) The Christian life is about experiencing the love God
In your heart and your mind and all around you. Union reflects in each person participating. You and I were created to participate in this Union of the Godhead
b.) Humanity was always meant to reflect God
b.) Humanity was always meant to reflect God
You! Yes YOU are a reflection of the living God. The OT is very clear throughout its
entirety that we are not to have images to worship. God makes humanity the closest representation to Himself
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Nothing else in creation can say this!
c.) We are the only thing in creation that God made in His likeness
c.) We are the only thing in creation that God made in His likeness
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
So I am building these different things out pallets and slowly learning how to engage with the Jesus who seeks union. I go to my church that Sunday and I’m in the back row and during the worship I hear that soft whisper again. “I want to you build a prayer room in the DR Congo” I laughed! I said God you’re crazy that’s a war zone how do I even get there? But I knew that it was God that said it. This is the beginning of the question how do I even stir up prayer began
2. God’s heart moves when you set your attention towards Him
2. God’s heart moves when you set your attention towards Him
God is looking for people that will just pay attention to Him
I end up messaging a friend I knew who lived in Cape Town and asked about coming out. I shared the vision about the Congo and she told me she had some friends who lived right in the war zone. I email these guys and they get back to me saying they have been praying for a prayer room to start for 10 years! I visit them and they give me a piece of land to build the prayer room. I felt the Lord tell me my place in this was training and so I tell them I’m going to Cape Town to start a prayer and it will be the hub where prayer rooms start out of it.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
3. Prayer & Worship from every tribe and tongue is the context in which Jesus will return
3. Prayer & Worship from every tribe and tongue is the context in which Jesus will return
I move to Cape Town and start running these 24 hour prayer meetings and get people to sign up for slots. We have a few and we built the prayer room. We started running this school of prayer gathering around the question how do we stir up a culture of prayer? As of October 2020 15 Congolese did the school and a prayer room was established!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
The Lord goes out like a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his zeal;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.
When you make space for the Lord you are making space for breakthrough.
Sometimes the most breakthrough happens from spending time with Jesus and not always so much doing great exploits for Jesus.
What breakthrough will be unlocked through you cultivating friendship with Jesus?
4. What would it look like to stir up prayer and worship in your own heart? and in this area?
4. What would it look like to stir up prayer and worship in your own heart? and in this area?