Growing in the prophetic part 1-- learn to seek

We spend a lot of time--too much time-- in the church comparing ourselves to one another.

We evaluate where we are and where others are and we measure our spirituality and giftedness by what we see around us.

This doesn't encourage growth when we end up feeling like we fall short.

I remember when I first started leading worship on guitar I was incredibly insecure about it. I used to compare myself to every other guitarist around me and felt absolutely inadequate. Then one day I got a prophetic word from one of the speakers in my YWAM school who told me "You're comparing yourself to others and God wants you to stop it. It's a sin."

I'd never seen it as a sin but it was certainly a wake up call. It also brought a lot of freedom to my life because up to then I had felt paralyzed by the comparisons. For my own sake, I needed to stop. The comparison was not leading me to step out but to stop in my tracks.

The truth is there is no growth without stepping out.  This is why we need to stop comparing ourselves and get on with what God has given us already. We may not be as gifted as some others but if we will use whatever little we do indeed have from the spirit, we can actually increase in our gifting.

We need to look at what we do have, not what we don't have.  What seed have we got in our hands? There is more seed and more fruit that comes after we've sown what we do have...but if we don't sow it.. then we never see what could have grown. And God wants us to grow in spiritual gifts!

Otherwise, why would He have called us to "earnestly desire" spiritual gifts? (1 Corinthians 14:1)

When I look at where I was two years ago, I'm amazed at the amount of growth, but it didn't happen overnight and it didn't happen without my challenging myself. I made a choice to take up every challenge given me. I've tried to say 'yes' to every opportunity to prophesy. It's not been comfortable or easy but I've been determined that I want to grow. I know there is no short cut to this.

Here are some scriptures about our part to play:

3Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. 4Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.…   Psalm 37

There is a personal cultivating of our gifts faithfully.

"..you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you..."  Eph. 3:2

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4:10 NIV)

² Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful.  (1 Cor 4:2 NLT)

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. (Matthew 25:23)

So I think the question we have to ask ourselves is "How am I doing with tending to what God has given me? Am I sowing what I have?"

A few weeks ago our associate vicar decided we were going to have 'prophetic evangelism' in the church for the tour de France (yesterday).  I was both excited and uncomfortable with the thought.  It's something I've never done before but a part of me thought "How hard can it be? It's the same principle...just leave out the Christianese."  So I began to organizing for it and the closer we got to the date, I found my excitement was overriding any fear I had at first.  We did this yesterday and though it was mainly Christians who came forward, it was a lot of fun and a stretching experience. God met us as we stepped out.

I find that many times we are waiting for God but I believe God is waiting for us.

He's waiting for us to pursue, to earnestly desire, to ask, to seek, to knock... to seek the Kingdom and His righteousness.  There is a huge part for each of us to play.   We often act like spectators in our own stories, waiting for permission to to be invited in. But this is your life and your story with God.

So why not do some asking, some pursuing, some seeking and knocking today?

God is waiting for you.

Pray it doesn't rain

Stepping out in faith involves risk.

But I think God loves when we believe and trust Him. It's gotta put a smile on His face when we take him at his word and we stand on it.

Last week we had planned an open-air worship time intermingled with evangelism/prayer ministry on the streets. But as the time drew near for our outreach, the weather forecast was depressing and dismal.

Every time I looked online-- and I looked almost hourly--it was predicting rain. Even the day before I told my neighbors "I'm praying it doesn't rain tomorrow..." and they said "You're wasting your time...it's going to rain...!"  It was already raining and it didn't look good.

But that night I wasn't going to give in.  We had a five hour Burn worship and prayer time at St. Michael le Belfrey that Friday night before our outreach.

I stood up in front of  the congregation that night and said "Listen, the bible says that Elijah prayed it wouldn't rain...and he had a nature like ours...and it didn't rain for years--not that I want a drought over here--but I would love for us to pull together our faith and believe God can stop the rain for our outreach!"

So we prayed.

And sure enough...when the day rolled around, it was looking a little ominous but it cleared up...and it was looking really beautiful during our outreach! God did it.

Not only did we worship on the streets and evangelize, but we offered prayer to people who were passing by. Several people came forward for prayer. Some on our team even got the names of people and what they needed prayer for.

I received a beautiful e mail from someone we prayed for on the streets.

My husband and I were walking around York and came across your prayer ministry table outside the church. We are both committed Christians. I have been in somewhat of a wilderness for the last year and went for prayer for my neck and shoulder. Your three ladies all had words that someone would come for these complaints. More important to me than healing was what has happened to me since. Something broke in me and my fire is coming back. Although the neck and shoulder still very painful what was important to me was to know that the Lord cared and loves me enough to mention me to three different people!

It makes it all worth it to know that God is touching lives.

There was a tourist who stumbled across our worship time from Kansas City. He was remarking about the strong presence of God in the city--and he is also someone who regularly goes to the IHOP prayer room in Kansas. So many people said it was encouraging to have worship on the streets.

Another man who is a believer struggling to make his acting relevant to his Christianity said he also came into contact with someone who was preaching him the gospel from our group and he was really encouraged to see us using our music and worship on the streets.

For me this kind of ministry is the fulfillment of something I've had on my heart for years. I've always wanted to mix worship and evangelism. I'm so grateful that my church has given me the green light to do this here in York and that we have so many wonderful people who are willing to step out into this ministry.

We will be doing more outreach this summer: May 31st, June 28th, July 19th-- 1-3 pm on the forecourt of St. Mike's. 
You are welcome to worship our great God with us!

The one who calls you is faithful

A couple of years ago I took a group of people around the nation on what YWAM calls a Trumpet Tour.

In such tours we visit churches and encourage them into ministry and missions, and it's almost as though we're sounding a trumpet in the spiritual realm, calling people to serve God in the great commission.

One of the 15 or so churches we visited was the Round Church in Cambridge.

I felt our night in Cambridge was one of our weakest moments as a team. Most of our set up arrived late and we were scrambling to pull things together last minute. However, I do remember the worship was really good-- that people didn't seem to care about our lack of set up or good sound--they worshiped from their hearts. I was encouraged by that, even though it felt like we were teetering on the edge of a precipice.

So I was chatting to a friend of mine from that Trumpet Tour team who is now based in Cambridge. He told me that when he was asking about the spiritual climate of Cambridge before he moved there, the YWAM'ers were telling him that everything seemed to shift spiritually and open up in the city after a trumpet tour came through town a couple of years ago.

"Really?" he said, "I was there that night!"

When he told me this story I was both astounded and greatly encouraged. We really have no idea of the fruit we're leaving behind in our little acts of obedience.  Sometimes we get to hear about it later, and some of us won't ever get to hear about it until heaven...like so many in Hebrews 11 who believed and trusted God without seeing the fulfillment of all they believed:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13 NASB)

The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NIV)

God doesn't tell us when or how--only that He will make a way.  He walks with us through it all and sometimes the only answer we get is His reassuring presence.  There is often a lot of pain involved as we struggle to believe and to persevere in the promises we have.  And though we know He is true to His word--it doesn't always work out the way we are thinking or in the time we are thinking, does it?

A dear friend prayed for me today as I have been working through some of my own challenges.  My confession of faith is that I won't stop believing...though the fulfillment tarries. I trust God.

This led us to talk about how we get spiritual authority.

Spiritual authority is something that often comes in persevering by faith. When we believe in hope against hope... and when we keep believing in the midst of suffering.  There is no short cut in getting that spiritual authority.

I'm grateful to hear about some of the fruit of our trumpet tour. It's fantastic to hear how people can see that we made a difference. But there are so many areas where we keep persevering even though we have seen no change.  We keep praying, we keep believing... and yet we have yet to see the fullness of what we have asked for.  We have no idea if we are making a difference.

Sometimes we're persevering through illness, believing for healing...sometimes we're asking for peace in a relationship... reconciliation where none seems possible... praying for a loved one who has walked away from God... and we don't see any change...yet still we pray...yet still we believe. yet still we trust in God.

I was listening to a sermon about suffering and having 'indomitable' joy in the midst of sorrow.  Unconquerable, unquenchable.  I think to have this means that our ultimate joy comes in knowing we are loved by the most precious person in the world-- that no matter how we lose our footing or our place on this earth, we have a seat beside the maker of all things in heavenly places.  It means that no matter what is taken from us and how we suffer-- we know that our greatest desire remains with us always because He remains with us always.

It means that through the tears, we have hope.

He, Himself, is our hope. Thank you, Jesus.

The challenge of hearing God's voice

I joined Youth With A Mission about 20 years ago last month. I had no idea what I was getting into back then but very quickly I learned the whole mission is built on hearing God's voice.

This was a new concept for me since up to that point I had been taught aside from God's written word, God only said "yes, no, or wait" and that didn't leave many options. You had to be asking all the right questions and this way of thinking left most of the responsibility on the individual to study the word of God in order to know what was required.

I still think the word of God is vital to hearing God well, but my understanding is much richer and deeper than it was back then.

I now believe and understand God speaks today to His people.  His sheep hear His voice and they won't follow the voice of a stranger(John 10). I've also heard many stories of God speaking to people who don't know Him yet...and I see that God doesn't work within the boxes I tend to create for him.

One of the other values with hearing God clearly I quickly learned was this idea of Lordship.  Who has rule and reign in your life and mine? Who is managing the day to day affairs of your life? Have you yielded or submitted them to God?

Do you trust Him enough to do that?

Getting to know God is a part of Lordship, too. If I realize God is good and has my best intentions in mind, then I will know He understands the best way for me to live. If I believe He created me, then He will know what is the best way I will flourish. I will trust Him to direct my life and speak into every decision.

I used to struggle with the word 'submission.' I used to called it the 'S" word because I am essentially a control freak. I think you are, too.  Haven't you heard? There are two kinds of people in this world: those who know they are controlling and those who don't know they are controlling (smile).

I want to be in control of where I go and what I do. I think I know which way to go and what to pray and what is the right thing in most situations.  My natural inclination is not to say your will be done... but my will be done... I have had to learn how to pray the way Jesus prays and to really mean it because I've come to understand my life is not my own. To say my life belongs to God may sound like a prison to you but I've come to see it as true freedom. There is no better way to live.

But at the time I was struggling...
These YWAM'er were telling me God knows best who I should marry and where I should live and what occupation I should have... and I should trust God.

It's important to remember that hearing God is essentially about relationship. How am I relating to God? This is another thing I learned in YWAM... is the importance of understanding the nature and character of God. We stress knowing God in the place of worship... seeing Him in all his beauty and majesty as well as in His amazing compassion toward us...

Getting to know God in the place of worship helps us to WANT to submit to Him.  When we have an encounter with the living God as Isaiah did when the train of God's robe filled the temple(Isaiah 6), our response is naturally "Here I am! Send me!" Obedience becomes an act of love we gladly surrender to.

Lordship is important because if I am asking God to speak to me, I want to be ready to listen and definitely willing to obey Him.

If I ask God to speak and yet I am unwilling to obey Him, why would he speak to me? Also, why would he want to incur more curses that follow disobedience into my life?(Deuteronomy 28). Sometimes God is not speaking to us because we haven't done the last thing He asked us to do. He is waiting for us to obey the last thing He shared with us.

God wants to speak to us but He also wants us to realize He died so that we would no longer live for ourselves but for Him.(2 Cor 5:15). Are you living for Him?

Josephus was a historian and scholar at the time of Jesus and he often used the word "repent" in his writings. This word was not necessarily a Christian word but used in political writings at the time.  It essentially meant, "Give up your agenda..."

My question for you and for me is, Have you given up your agenda for your life? Have you repented and given control of your life to God?

And if this seems hard and heavy, why don't you get to know Him better? Ask God for a revelation of His great love or meet Him in the place of worship. He loves you and He wants to show you how very good He is.

There is  a level of obedience God is calling his church to. I sense it in the air. I sense it in the winds of change currently blowing through the church.  Our response will be to say "Whenever, wherever, however... Your will be done, not mine."