Monthly Archives: May 2014

Daily Training Set #4

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Prayer, Training

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1. Pray with an awareness that God has people that He has been dropping into your spirit to “carry to term”. There is a good possibility that over any given week that God will bring them to mind- especially if you allow yourself to be drawn out of yourself. Pray with confidence in the spirit until you sense things moving as you pray for them. Be ready to ask God for any leading He may give you to take action. Be ready to share about 1 person that God may have put in your heart to intercede for during our Saturday training, or during small group. It is always good to use a prayer notebook to record “the movements of God in the sanctuary” (Ps 63). See how they pan out in the external world. The more we grow in prayer, the more, we coordinate what we see and hear in our spirit with what we see and hear with our physical eyes and ears.

2. Try to be intentional in taking opportunities to pray beyond the limits of your current capacity. You may want to use the prayer tool for reference. The main thing is to have prayed further than usual a few times in the week. By doing this, you are pushing past the boundaries of your capacity. Remember, it’s not a matter of us trying in our own efforts, but being open to God’s drawing you further. In all this, God is not only working in you, but in the places that He has you to minister – church, work, networks of relationships.

A note about training: Because we have only one session during the course of a month, it is important to be regular in attendance in order for it to be of significant benefit. If you are not able to come for a session for any reason, please inform us about it. The idea is that God is forming us as a body, and the unit through which He works His purposes in this world is the church. And when the church begins to come together in unity to function together, things happen that could not happen on an individual basis.

Considering the work done during the Easter period

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Prayer

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Easter2014

I thought it would be good to reflect a little on some of the lessons and spiritual things that God has been building into our Spirit Training leading up to the Easter Service. We would have moved quite a significant distance in prayer – if we persevere in the practice of such prayer. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Generally speaking, the basic premise that we have been making may be stated thus: that prayer in the Spirit originates not so much in the thoughts and observations of our mind and senses, but from the mind of the Spirit, who takes the things of God and reveals them to us. Rather than merely learning to pray more articulately from our natural knowledge, we have been exposing ourselves and pushing our hearts to the reality of God’s prayer which is with “sighs that cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26), at least, in English. This is what we mean by “praying in the spirit”.

In order to enter the River of God’s activity in prayer, worship has played a big part in setting (or resetting) our souls to not begin with lists of prayer items originating from our pressing knowledge of needs and circumstances. Instead, we have been learning to begin, through worship, from the work that the Spirit does in our hearts to tune us to His impress. In worship, we surrender our agendas in order to be ready for God to move us in the direction of His leading. The practice of beginning with worship tunes us to the Spirit’s leading.

This has necessitated our being willing to “sit” in the apparent silence, repetitively praying in the spirit or calling our to Him until He brings clarity, focus, a certain unifying unclutteredness in our souls, or drops a word, a conviction, a passion, a burden, a half-formed something in our hearts.  The training involves doing this often until it begins to be second nature. It also takes perseverance and consistency, without which it doesn’t actually develop into fruitful empowerment in ministry. There is no substitute for repetitive and reiterative practice.

2. Recognizing that God probably has been putting people in our hearts for us to pray for them in the spirit to “full term” is also something we have begun to practice before Easter, and will be continuing to carry through praying in the spirit. Living with that reality changes our orientation in life and will bring us into fruitfulness. As we prayed for these precious ones, it has been clear that prayer has taken on a deeper resonance and faith. As we have mentioned, God has called us to bring many children of glory whether we are evangelists or not.

3. Pushing the limits of our prayer just a little beyond where we usually stop is also something we have seen happen especially in the 2 sessions before Easter. This is important as it allows our capacity to be enlarged, and pushes our spirits beyond the level of our current faith. In all this, it is not our own self-directed efforts but God’s drawing us out of ourselves, and further into deeper penetration in the spiritual realm. To a large extent, the depth of effectiveness of our ministry is a function of the penetration of our “pitch” into the spirit realm. We will know more, and minister with more effect as we lean into the Lord’s drawing of us. As Solomon wrote, “Draw me after you and let us run together”.

4. From what I have heard from the Easter Service anecdotally, God moved in several people who were unchurched. This does not mean that they are now churched. The birthing process of intercession and follow-up must continue in order for them to be won to the Lord and incorporated into His body. But a huge move has happened in their lives. One woman who was not a Christian shared that she had received a dream in which Jesus spoke to her that He was the true way. One man from came up for prayer weeping and received Christ, and one unchurched couple was so touched that the husband asked whether he could join our church. So far none of them have turned up on Sunday, but it would be wrong to think that the work was shallow. The spiritual mind of the harvester pursues practically, even as in prayer we are pushing the boundaries.