Prayer, Purity and Proclamation cross culture church
- Earlier this week, I was praying and the Lord revealed something to me about Isaiah 6-7.
- In chapter 6, verses 1-4, the Lord speaks to Isaiah just as he does in PRAYER.
“In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high-heeled throne; the train of his robe filled all the temple. 2 He was surrounded by the cross culture church seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two, he covered himself with his face and with two, he covered his feet and flew with two. Three And one called out to the other and said:
“Cross culture church Holy, holy and holy is the Lord of hosts.”
His glory is all over the earth!”
4 The foundations of the thresholds shaken at the call of him, and the house became filled with smoke.
Verses 5-7 show that Isaiah’s lips have been cross culture church cleaned by an act of Purity
5 I replied, “Woe to me!” Because I am lost, for I am a man with unclean lips and dwell among people with unclean lips. But my eyes Exton Elias Downey have seen King, the Lord, of hosts!
6 Then, one of the seraphim flew over to me with a burning coal in his hand that he had removed from the altar. 7 He touched my lips and said, “Cross culture church behold, this has touched you lips; your guilt has been removed, and your sin atoned.”
Verses 8-13 ask Isaiah to Proclaim a word (a very harsh one).
8 The Lord spoke to me, saying “Whom shall we send and who will go with us?” I replied, “Here I’m!” 9 He said, “Go and say to these people.
- “Keep hearing, but don’t understand.
- Keep looking, but don’t see.
10 Make their heart dull and heavy and make their eyes blind. 11 He replied, “How long?” 12 And the Lord takes people far away. The land is full of abandoned places. 13 But if a tenth of it remains, it will burn again, just like an oak or a Terebinth, whose stump will remain, when it’s felled.” This holy seed is its stump.
It was a tough job for a prophet in OT times, as they had a lot to deliver. In Isaiah 7:10, however, the Lord speaks again to Isaiah and to Ahaz concerning the coming of Immanuel. It is indeed a PROCLAMATION!
In 2005, the Gospel was preached to me. In the past, I have had people hold signs about it and yell at me in condemnation. They even spit on me, telling me that I was headed for hell. A young woman, almost 16 years old, came into my salon to read her Bible. I asked her about her Bible reading and she patiently guided me through the parts of John as well as Romans. She invited me to church on Sunday. I ran to the altar, and gave my life to God. This was something I thought about recently, as I was stuck in an elevator for 50 mins. Cross culture church emmy’s birth mom stayed by me on the other side. The firefighters asked her if she wanted to go home and she said, “No, this friend is mine, and I will not leave her.” Although we have had a difficult three-year relationship, I was happy to learn that birth mom considers me her friend. I have spread the gospel to her by loving her unconditionally, honoring her and serving her other children.
My house is noisy and my yard is loud. If you don’t know, my puppy just came home and I also have three small children. My house can get quite loud. It was my escape from the demands of motherhood that I would sneak away to the toilet in order to use social media. It doesn’t take me long to feel overwhelmed and bombarded by all the news in the world. After I had put my children to bed, I sat down in silence. I sat in silence, and focused my attention on God’s presence.
This type of prayer is discussed by Jeanne Guyon in her book, “Experiencing Jesus Christ’s depths.” She calls it the prayer to silence. “To engage in the prayer of silence does not mean you stop all action. It means that your soul acts through the movement of your spirit.
I invite you not to be distracted by the noise. Spend some time every day praying in silence. Invite Him to meet with you in the secret place.
These are some steps to take:
- Find a quiet place, sit down and let your mind go.
- Take deep, relaxing breaths and close your eyes.
- Concentrate your attention on God’s presence.
- Let the Spirit guide you as you calm your mind and let it sink in.
- Your prayer should be in silence, with no thoughts or words.
- You can stay there for as long as it takes
Recently, I have been experiencing a lot of power problems. But not the power you thought, but battery power. Although I don’t know whether you have run out of power recently, my phone, laptop, and van keep dying. Although I don’t forget to charge my phone or laptop, I’m not charging them enough and I’m spending too much time on them. Sometimes we lose power due to something we leave on, such as the dome lights in our van. It was so bad that the battery died, it took extra effort to get it back to charge.
There are many things in our lives that drain our energy. But I’m so happy that I don’t have to rely on outside energy. I can actually live off the energy I receive from God, which I keep in a spiritual battery that I use every Sunday. God promises us power (dunamis = dynamite type of power) when He comes ON us (Acts 1-8 and 2:4; 4:8) and lives within us (John 14-18, Romans 8 and 11, 1 Corinthians 12:7-11). The LIVING God’s power is within us and through us. This power is the same one that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and allowed all the prophets and apostles to perform signs and wonders. That same power is available to us all day, every day. Wow! It’s amazing! The God who is beyond all creation wants to make His home IN you and do His work through you by His personal presence (Philippians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:13).
As I said on Sunday, many times the pure and unfiled work God has done has been misinterpreted for fake worldly power, priorities or spirituality. But what God has is so much better! You don’t know what the difference is until you try it. Imagine a battery that never ran out of power, or a phone that never lost signal. Once you have experienced this miracle, you will never go back to needing to recharge your device or searching for a signal.
It is the same with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. It is a powerful experience that Jesus and the early church compared to baptism. They also spoke about the Spirit’s indwelling element by talking about it being IN them and using images like temple, fire, wind and other symbols to describe the new relationship the Spirit would have to the people of God.
