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“Questions & Answers”: Week 1

If you missed this weekend, here is a recap of the message…

 In the book, Letters To a Young Poet, the author says,

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in foreign languages…The point is, to live everything, live the questions now.”

Ask questions; live out those questions.  When we ask questions, we obtain answers. We need to be asking questions.  To acquire knowledge, we need to find wisdom.  The Bible contains the wisdom we need for our life. 

God has a purpose and plan for you.  But, are you experiencing questions today about your life, your purpose, your destiny?

We answered these two questions this past weekend:

1. How can I know it’s God’s voice that is speaking to me?
2. How can I know God’s will for my life?

I believe that we listen for what we want to hear. Only when we hear His voice, can we do His will.  We are His sheep; only His sheep hear His voice.  We must be listening for His voice. Remove the distractions and focus on Him.  Through the process, you will hear Him and He will show you His will for your life.

Here are simple steps in the process of knowing and doing His will:

          -Ask God for His help.

          -Trust Him with all your life.

          -Obey what you already know to do.

          -Study His Word.

          -Pray without ceasing.

          -Live surrendered to Him.

We asked some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves during our lifetime.  If you don’t have the answers, you need to ask the question.  God’s waiting for you to speak…

Find the complete message online at:

www.thechurchonstrayer.com

The Power of the Church

Jesus has given us the church as an instrument of instruction, guidance and protection.

Anything significant that happens in your life will be a result of God’s activity in your life.

The fuel, energy and life of the church is prayer.

Prayer is a relationship – not just an activity.  It is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you.

God doesn’t need your prayers, but He wants you to pray because of what He wants to do in and through your life.

We often think of prayer as an outlet for expressing what we need – a cry to God for help.

But prayer is the asking of God to fulfill His needs through us.

God’s original thought is not the letting of believers to achieve their own aims through prayer, but God accomplishing His purpose through the prayers of believers.

God wants to meet our needs and will as it relates to His purpose.

Prayer is responding to God’s will since He seeks our cooperation with Him.

Isaiah 45:11

¹¹Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Would you question Me about things to come concerning My children, and concerning the work of My hands [would you] command Me?

During the period called “time” all of God’s actions are governed by the church.

Today the church stands on earth as God’s vehicle for His will to be done.  To the degree that we do His will, His power is released.

God is always waiting on the church to come into agreement with His will.

The church’s ministry today is the proclamation of the Gospel and the manifesting, on the earth, of the will which is in heaven.

Living the Vision

Hebrews 10:35-36

³⁵Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward.  ³⁶For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

One man defined vision as “foresight with insight based on hindsight.”

Vision is clearly about the future.  It is a clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to His chosen servants and is based on an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstances.

Kierkegard (a Christian philosopher) said, “What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know…  The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do…to find the ideal for which I can live and die.”

We must be driven by our passion to fulfill our vision.  Not only do we need perception (understanding) and perfection (to improve, complete) we must also have performance.

Unless you perform the vision, you will never fully accomplish the will of God in your life. 

Unchurched people need to see a demonstration of God’s power flowing through us causing us to live as blessed, favored, conquering people.

Paul worte in Ephesians 6:10 – Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

Performance depends upon strength.  The word “strong” indicates an empowering or an inner strengthening.    It conveys the ideas of being infused with an excessive dose of dynamic inner strength and ability.  This power is deposited into a container, a vessel or a receptacle.

When this power is released into the life of a believer, it takes normal believers and turns them into spiritual giants.

It is demonstrative, eruptive, tangible, and it always comes with some type of external, outward manifestation that can be seen with the physical eye.

Paul says this same power dwells in us.  And this power is given to us in order to accomplish God’s will in our lives.  It was this power which caused Jesus to be moved with compassion when He saw the lost sheep (Israel), the sick, the afflicted.

It is time for us to perform the vision that God has given us.   See the vision and take action!

If You Missed this Weekend at theChurch…

The Upside Down Life:  The Mystery of the Kingdom

Perhaps it is the most asked question ever presented to me –

          What is God’s will for my life and how can I know it?

Here is my answer –

It is God’s will for you to intimately know Jesus Christ and to learn how His secret Kingdom functions in the earth.

The words “mystery” and “mysteries” occur some 27 times in the New Testament.  As this word is used in the Bible, it refers to something which has been kept secret through times eternal, but is now revealed.

It also is a divine purpose, hidden in the heart of God for a long period of time until He unveils it with a new revelation.

The “mystery” of the Kingdom is unveiled by Jesus as He demonstrates the Upside Down Life.  The secret of this unveiling is found in the dynamics of Jesus’ prayer life.

He listened to God’s heart and then spoke God’s will to those around Him.

God has entered into a partnership with every believer. 

Prayer is the link between us and the unlimited purposes of God.  Prayer is our “Kingdom connection” to the will of God in our lives.  Prayer in its purest sense means to put our lives totally into God’s desires for us.

Literally, we determine His will and then make ourselves available to Him for His will to be done through us.

His desire for us is to live in His Kingdom, live by Kingdom laws, and carry out His directives, which we receive from His Word and by His Spirit.