Prayer...

Sooo... I have just listened to the following sermon: http://vimeo.com/5294550 as Simon Holley had something about it on his facebook and I remembered and saved it for a day off! And WOW would truely recommend it! The things that mainly stuck out to me were:

-Prayer is built on what God has promised to do

-Prayer is the vital pre-requisit for the release of God's power

-We are invited to pray, God has chosen us to ask Him for things... we should be asking in order to get!

We need to get specific in our prayers. We must take hold of things that God has promised to us and ask until we get, with conviction that He will give!

I'm reminded of a recent story, when I was at a conference I bumped into a couple I met at the Rendezvous conference in France last year, and I asked if I would be seeing them again this year.. unfortunately they had not been able to commit as they were unsure of the future of the husbands job. I was convinced that we needed to pray for this, and was certain that it would be fine. So we got around and prayed, and I have since heard that first God provided a way for them to go to the conference anyway, and then he heard that his job was safe. How exciting! I had prayed quite a lot, and of course was glad to hear the news, but it many ways I was confident of this before I even heard from them. I long that this be my experience with prayer more often!

A quote from my book Great Revivals by Colin Whittaker 'Billy Braithwaite... prayed, "Lord, give me souls or I shall die". A farmer who overheard Billy's raised voice left his ploughing to discover who was quarrelling behind the hedge, but found only one man with the tears running down his cheeks. It filled him with wonder and it still rings down the years as a challenge to us all.'

Wow.

My favourite verse.... for now.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I wil say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4v4-7.

Also: 'Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.' Psalm 37v4...

So aware of my constant pride covering self-pity or otherwise self-pity covering pride... I wish I could get it to be in the middle with being happy about myself though not proud. Satisfaction in my relationship with God always brings the greatest fruit, focus and joy! I get so distracted by what God has given me, or what He hasn't, before realising that it's all meaningless anyway. Not to say life is meaningless, just that without God it pretty much seems to be.

Jesus or 'magic'?

Been reading 'Surprised by the Power of the Spirit' on my breaks at work lately, and this quote has to be shared...

We have been saved that we might passionately love a Person. We have been redeemed to serve a Person, not a set of principles. We are called first to please a real Person, not perform a ministry. It's so easy to fall in love with principles and ministry, and fall out of love with a Person.
Here's where the magic comes in. When we fall out of love with God but continue to use the principles of the Bible in order to make our lives successful, we have entered the realm of magic. When we read the Bible morning after morning but don't allow God to search our hearts with his Word, we are practicing magic. It's so easy to fall into the habit of reading the Bible in the morning to get our "God stuff" out of the way, so we can get on with our real lives. At times, I have read the Bible in the morning with absolutely no ense of God's presence, totally bored with the whole experience, my eye on the clock waiting for my scheduled time to lapse, and then actually felt good when I was finished. I don't mean that I felt a sense of relif that the boredom was over--I felt satisfied with myself, with my discipline and perseverance, and I felt God was satisfied with me too. I thought my day would be better because I had read the Bible. That kind of experience is closer to ritualism and religious magic than to New Testament Christianity.

pg 291, Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God.

Hmm, I am worried about where I am on this journey, and concious that it is probably closer to the previous Jack experience of 'ritualism' than the new revelation. A set of prinicples or a relationship. I know which one I'd rather have, I just hope I can learn to remember that each day.