Albums worth purchasing for your Hidden Place

“These Streets Come Alive” Joel Khouri

“Forever and a Day” Anthony Skinner

“1200 Feet Below Sea Level” Jason Upton

“Faith” Jason Upton

“Closer to the Burning” Stephen Roach

“You Take My Breath Away” IHOP Compilation

Self Titled Phil Wickham Album

“Dying Star” Jason Upton

“The World Can Wait” Merchant Band

“Onething 2008″ IHOP Compilation

“Immersed” IHOP Compilation

“Fading” Audra Lynn

“Relentless” Misty Edwards

“Brave New  Worship” Kelanie Gloeckler

“Holy” Cory Asbury/Matt Gilman

“Under the Apple Tree” Katie Bennet

“Revival in Belfast” Robin Mark

“The Longing” IHOP Atlanta Compilation

These are all really great CD’s for your secret time with the Lord. ITUNES has all of them I think.

Bless you guys. We’re going to pick up Tom, this homeless man to bring to the Encountering God Service tonight. Praise the Lord.

This is powerful. Worship the Lord!

Burning in the Sky

Here is a very powerful live version of the Jason Upton song “Burning in the Sky.” It has been ministering to me for the past couple of days very powerfully. I believe that you would all be blessed to hear what this man has to say. Jason Upton is like a modern day Keith Green. Not only is writing amazing worship music, but he is a messenger to this end time generation. Wherever he goes he brings the kingdom and the Lord ministers mightily through this brother. The middle of the song to the end of the song he is just prophetically speaking forth what the Spirit is putting on his heart; it is POWERFUL! Listen carefully, to download this as an mp3 just right click on the link and click “save link as.”

This morning at our 6-8 am prayer time David Gordon called the house of prayer and anyone else feeling lead to a solemn assembly. The next ten days we will be fasting corporately food and time. Every day for the next ten days we will be arriving at the prayer room at 6am. This is not mainly for the elections or our nation, but really to get before the Lord and return again to Him individually with our WHOLE HEART! David Gordon feels like the Lord is going to bring us into a deeper fervency, intimacy, and place of intercession. He is asking us to seek the Lord’s heart as it relates to the election and if and how we are to vote. We want to know His heart. Praise the Lord! Anyone feeling lead to fast with us feel free. It promises to be a very powerful time of encounter as we give ourselves to voluntary weakness before the King of Kings and invite His Spirit to reckon Truth on the inward part of our inner man. Hallelujah!

There is none like the Lord!

Turn the Tables

I have been feeling so desperate in my pursuit for spiritual poverty.

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.”

David Gordon (my director here at IHOP-AC) taught about this at the Way School of Ministry on Wednesday night. It was such an incredibly powerful teaching. The Spirit of Truth was really coming forth and piercing my heart and sinking into my Spirit as reality. It was powerful.

So as I have been meditating on what it means to live in the revelation of my depravity and being humbled by that revelation, the Lord has been fueling a hunger inside of me to give myself in abandon to that which He is doing in me and through me and around me.

Today I felt Him saying to me, “let Me turn the tables, let Me turn the tables, let Me turn the tables.” When I heard it the first time I understood immediately what He meant. The song that was playing in the prayer room was a Jason Upton one, and in the middle of it Jason says, “freedom is not being controlled by nothing, freedom is being controlled by the love of God.” This was a powerful truth.

Turn the tables Jesus. I believe the Lord was inviting me into the reality of being purged and refined of all that is inside of me agreeing with the spirit of the age. I feel the Lords zeal to cleanse this temple. Inside of me I can see all sorts of “tables” set up for my own gain, set up for my own pleasure, set up for my own convenience, set up for my kingdom, and they NEED to be turned. He is not passive about the purity of my heart, the purity of my intentions and the purity of my love. He is not passive about those things that I have established in this temple of the Spirit as tables of gain for the flesh. Just as He was zealous and jealous to cleanse His Fathers house, and turned the tables of the tax collectors, He is jealous to cleanse me of ALL lesser pleasures that I seek to mix in with this house of prayer. Jesus said that the people in that day were making His Father’s house, which was supposed to be a house of prayer, into a den for robbers. I believe the same thing is happening all throughout the church. We have made our personal temples for the Holy Spirit, which are supposed to be houses devoted to prayer, into a den for robbers; we have set up tables of pleasure in our hearts that are robbing Jesus of the affection He is due! The Lamb deserves the reward of His suffering. Is it not every ounce of our affection? Is it not all concentration of our thought? Turn the tables Jesus. Turn the tables. What does it look like, when a people will actually give themselves to partnering with Jesus, our Holy Bridegroom, in His jealousy to rid us of all that is not of Him; when we are jealous for Him to have our own hearts in the same way and intensity that He is jealous to have them? Turn the tables Jesus! Turn the tables!

Paul Washer said in his sermon at the revival conference on Wednesday night:

“If you want the church to be something other than a peculiar people than you want something that God does not want!”

What does a peculiar people look like? I believe it is a people without any tables set up in our temples. To the church without mixture, He will pour out the Spirit without measure. I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of His mercy, and the riches of kindness (which we have presumed upon, not knowing that it was meant to lead us to repentance) to cry out for Jesus to reveal the mixture in your own heart, partner with Him in His jealousy and zeal to cleanse the temple and say without reservation and full abandon to His purpose for you, to TURN THE TABLES!

Mercy triumphs over judgment…you are so good Jesus

There is an emerald rainbow around your throne.

Everything you do, you do it through the eyes of mercy,

everything you see, you see in love love love…

There is an emerald rainbow around your throne.

Revival Conference

Paul Washer is on live tonight at 7:30 Eastern time.

http://www.ustream.tv/videoplayerpopup/channel/169268

This promises to be very powerful.

I wanna be with you, where you are, and you’re the servant of all…

The Lord has had me in the beginning part of John 13 for the last 4 or 5 days.

It is truly an amazing passage of scripture.

I realized early last week that I have drifted away from pressing in wholeheartedly to studying the sermon on the mount and really giving myself to living the sermon on the mount lifestyle. I believe that this is something that we need to have constantly before us; Matthew 5, 6, and 7. If we believe that this is the culture of His kingdom, then I believe it is a valid thing to give ourselves to studying unto living for the rest of our lives. So, I felt the Lord drawing me back to this early last week. I felt lead by the Spirit to really get a firm grip on humility. In order for me to live humble, I need to gaze upon the God who is altogether humble. My heart will be fueled by the reality of His beautiful humility and in light of that revelation grace will be poured out to live humbly just as He is humble. Many people want to point out areas of pride, and expect that to be fuel for our heart to live humbly. However, I have been seriously convicted that it is not the filth of sin that will draw men to God, but rather the goodness of God that will draw men radically, in abandonment of all other things, to God. So, the solution to my lack of humility, is to gaze upon Jesus in His humility. In essence, it is a knowledge of God issue.

I felt lead immediately to begin to study the passage where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and I have been stuck in this passage ever since. We all know the story of Jesus at the Feast of Passover, taking off His outer garment, clothing Himself in a towel, and kneeling down to wash the disciples feet.

He comes to Peter and Peter says,

“Lord, do you wash my feet?”

“What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

“You shall never wash my feet.”

“If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

This conversation has held me captive, and drawn me into deep understanding of my own depravity and level of pride that so often appears to be noble humility. Jesus, in the midst of my darkness, kneels before me to wash my feet, and I arrogantly express that

1) I do not need it.

2) that I can do it myself.

3) that He doesn’t have to do it in public.

These of course are outrageous claims to the face of my Savior. You will never wash my feet! And He says so softly, that if He does not wash me, I have no share with Him. He whispers gently, this is why I came, to cleanse you, to wash you, to show you how to serve, to love, to show you the eternal character of my Father.

This has been my meditation point, and I encourage you to embark upon this same thing for a season, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

The world will not humble herself to say she is needy, unable to accomplish what only God can, or too good to have to have it done now. We must live in a place where we say that we are needy of the cleansing! We cannot do it ourselves! Do it in front of whoever you want to Lord! I AM POOR AND NEEDY AND IF YOU DO NOT WASH ME, I HAVE NO SHARE WITH YOU!

One other thing in this passage is verse 12.

“When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place…”

This is such a picture of the Lord Jesus, removing His outer garment (His place as a deity), putting on a towel, (clothing Himself in flesh), kneeling before us (descending to earth), washing our feet (dying on the cross), putting back on His outer garment (glorified body) and resuming His place, (ascending again to the right hand of the Father!) What an amazing revelation!

If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. If I do not become sin for you, you have no share with me.

I have included a page with all my support information on it, and in what ways I am in need of support now.

I just had one of the best days of my life.

I will update later. I need to sleep.

Praise the Lord for IHOP Atlanta. My heart aches to be with those people. I am so so so so so blessed to have had the opportunity to build the relationships I have with people from that place. THANK YOU JESUS!!! YOU HAVE BEEN SO GOOD SO SO GOOD TO ME!

Hey everyone,

Thanks for being patient with me in my updates. It is hard to find time to write. I am so thankful for all your prayer and supplication made on my behalf. The Lord is sustaining me, and drawing me away into the secret place. I feel the Lord producing in me an ache, and a burden to be broken in humility before Him, with a great zeal to partner with Him. I am desiring for Him to possess my mind, to take captive all concentration of thought. He is worthy of all of me! He is worthy of all of me! He is worthy of all of me!

I desire total submission to God. I desire obedience. I desire holiness. I desire sanctification. I desire faith. I desire fire on the inside. I desire deep intimacy. I desire consecration. I desire pure love.

For the Bride, I desire a counterculture Christianity instead of a sub-culture. I desire her to hunger for reality. I desire her to embrace the crucified lifestyle. I desire her to embrace the fasted lifestyle. I desire a Bride without mixture. I desire that she would cry out for mercy louder than she cries out for change. I ache for her to not desire man-made solutions to our injustices and unrighteous, but for her desire the Lords solutions. I pray that she would ache for revival. I pray that she would long for Jesus to come! I pray that she would be aware of the hour in which we live. I pray that she would break off lethargy, complacency, and apathy. I pray that she would submit fully to the value system of the Kingdom. I pray that she would pray again.

It is absolutely crucial that we as a church, begin to labor for reality to be formed in us and for concept to be crucified. We must be a people that are moved by Truth! Truly moved by Truth! I desire that

1) Eternity would be real to the Bride!

2) His coming would be real to the Bride!

3) The call, necessity, and desire to pray would be real to the Bride!

4) His character would be real to us!

The problem with the majority of our Christians here in the west is that they are simply agreeing with concepts and not submitting to realities. The reason we hate prayer is because He is not real to us. The reason we hate obedience to His commandments, the reason we are disgusted with the call to live the sermon on the mount, the reason we hate Christian disciplines and immediately label them legalism is because we DO NOT KNOW GOD! What we do know of Him is only concept. If there is any aspect of biblical literature or any aspect of Truth spoken that is cliche to you, you have no clue what it means, it is not reality!

This is a call for us as a Bride, to labor for reality in the place of prayer and fasting and study of the Word. We need REALITY!

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day

O how great He truly is…

Friday night went really well. Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties and didn’t get the sermon recorded. But that is okay, it is probably better that way for my ego. The Lord is moving in some pretty awesome ways here. Yesterday we went to visit Tiffany and the baby, it was so wonderful. I got to hold Isabella Grace…the first baby I have ever held. I was just overwhelmed with the love of the Lord and His expression of Himself in the earth through this baby. Just thinking about the way the Lord knew us before the foundations of the world, and knit us together in our mothers wombs so intimately, all the while knowing our weaknesses and knowing the ways we would sin against Him and disagree with Him, and yet He extends patience, and mercy, and loving kindness and draws us near to Himself, to ravish us with uncreated love, and uncreated beauty, and uncreated splendor and glory. The very thought that the Lord longs to be known by mankind, is enough to ruin me for a million millenia….oh how worthy He is of all honor and glory and praise….every thought I think, all concentration of my mind, all affection and hunger and thirst. I WILL WASTE MY LIFE ON YOU OH LORD!! I WILL POUR OUT MY ALABASTER JAR OF AFFECTION ON YOUR HEAD, AND WIPE YOUR FEET WITH MY HAiR, RUIN ME WITH YOUR LOVE!!! RUIN ME WITH YOUR LOVE!!!

I am ruined….