Over 30 years of this walk, 27 with the Holy Ghost, 3 without, have helped me frame what is happening to me right now. I am moving thru a new level. My heart is becoming enlarged.
Thanks to Todd Beery’s influence in my life, I experience Worship and Prayer as two sides of the same coin. Heaven’s economy spends the coin of intercession no matter which side (heads or tails) is presented.
There was a time for me when Prayer was hard work. Now it happens as spontaneously and continuously as if I were breathing. I don’t sit and contemplate my navel while praying. Sometimes I kneel. Mostly it happens as I walk, drive, think, sleep, read or visit with my wife. It is as present as the air around me. I’m not unique. Millions are now entering this realm. It’s where you always wanted to be. It’s where God intended you to be. The bar is raised.
This prayer is wrapped in a musical covering. It makes Prayer passionate and passion prayer. It makes prayer a joy. Prayer had been tedious at times for me in the past. This takes that stigma off and allows me to enter in at a higher and more continual level. It plays over and around in my head all day long. He is always on my mind. I can still pray in a more conventional way, but now when I do I hear music. I pray with power. I pray with authority. I pray with faith. Without ceasing.
I am able to do that because of Intimacy. The price of moving in power in life and ministry, faith and authority is intimacy. With whom? The Fullness of the Godhead. (I am fully Trinitarian). We must know him in all his fullness. It’s more than a good idea. It’s a demand.
I am more and more convinced that the Trinitarian view of God is like the Sabbath. It was meant for man. God is one. But we must worship him in Spirit and in Truth and that means we must do our best to comprehend him in all his fullness. That takes Trinitarian theology. Jesus said, Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. The Trinity may be like this. I am not going to try to cover that here; you can chew on that for yourself.
So how is Intimacy in Prayer/Worship preparation? When Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you” he’s talking about intimate knowledge. What a friend I have in Jesus is a good song. But Jesus lover of my soul is better. The Song of Solomon 1:2 (Bride says of the Bridegroom) “Let Him Kiss me with the Kisses of His Mouth”. He is our Bridegroom Warrior King and we are the bride. Too intimate for you? If so go tear this book out of your Bible. It's not too intimate for Jesus. He wants to KNOW you. Nothing less will do. Take a look here. Can you know Him like that? YES!
This was hard for me at the beginning. I’ve never been a big fan of “Jesus as my Boyfriend” Songs. Let's see the demarcation. Songs that are just Jesus as boyfriend are rooted in a lack of real intimacy. It’s like a 14-year-old girl’s crush versus the passion right after a birth. I’ll never forget the Kiss right after our second son was born my wife and I exchanged. That was intimate. I wasn’t her “Boyfriend”. I was her lover. Her Bridegroom. I am frankly nauseated by the Jesus as boyfriend songs. I want to know the one who loves me more than life itself. I am a romantic. I’m in love with love. I am also a warrior. I run to the battle. I believe battles can be won. For that reason I am more fearless the older I get. I wish more men in the pews were swashbuckling romantic pirates set at taking back ground from the enemy for their lover. That’s the image I believe men were created to be. Loving Jesus at that level isn’t about Gender. Get over it, in God’s economy you are a bride, now strap on your sword and act like the Warrior for your lover you were destined to be.
This syndrome is like World War II. Men at the front in Europe and the far east carried letters from their wives or girlfriends. They carried pictures. They thought about them. They fought valiantly because they believed doing so would make a better world for their lovers. Men that didn’t have a girl or wife back home had a picture of a pinup girl. They were doing exploits for LOVE. Romantic exploits. They were heroes who fought and sometimes died with the name of their beloved on their lips. Remember the movie “Saving Private Ryan” or “Braveheart”. Men fighting and dying for love. Does Jesus deserve less?
The concern about women dominant in the Church will be solved as men alight on fire in Love with Jesus live as passionate warriors. The reason so many are apathetic today is they aren’t in Love with the Lover of their souls. Too many men are working too hard being burned out in the church of today because of a lack of JOY. I identified with the character Worf in Star Trek Next Generation. He had joy in the battle. The most attractive men are better looking as they are sold out to Jesus in passion. The good news is there is a new sound of war in the land. Read what Rick Joyner said about this new generation of warrior leadership.
The bar is raised. It’s now about Jesus. Do you really love him? Nothing less than total commitment will do. Jesus is all there is. My friend Tim Campbell used to say, “Jesus plus anything is a cult”. It’s true. Jesus is all there is and Jesus is all you need.
When Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you” its obvious he is talking to people in ministry. They respond, “But Lord, didn’t we heal the sick, cast out demons, preach, run churches, even raised the dead all in your name”? It’s who you know, not what you do that matters. They were working without intimacy. Cold dead works conducted by cold dead people. Oh they knew all the “Moves” but they did it without intimacy. And they were cast out. Don't be there. You were destined for Glory. You were destined to do conquests. You were destined to win.
Even the precious gift of Tongues can be vain repetition without the intimacy required to pray in the spirit. Certainly English will fail. I can listen to a person pray and in 10 seconds tell you their level of intimacy. Ministry without intimacy is wood hay and stubble. It’s not enough to just do it with the Jesus name on the door; you must do it with Jesus in you and where you are just the flesh and bones he works thru.
Years ago Howard Cole was a friend of mine. A Lutheran Pastor. Our two marriages were not going well. He counseled me. He said that I needed to have experiences with my wife to make our marriage work. I was working hard, making a lot of money but not investing time in my experiential relationship with Peggy. He was right. I took a right turn. Peggy quit everything and we went off for 6 weeks together to experience each other.
His marriage didn’t make it but his advice was good. People who know nothing on a practical level about being married do lots of marriage counseling. They can’t do it but they can tell you how you should. Do as I say not as I do.
It’s exactly like that for many people in ministry today. They have been to Bible School, they know all the right concepts, they have read all the right books and they have been to all the right seminars. The problem is they are not experiencing the joy of the Lord they are trying to lead others into. Oh, some get there anyhow. Like Howard, the info is correct and if followed by a hungry heart will produce results. It’s just not spontaneous or real on the part of the minister. It comes from a book of how to. Not from the creative heart of God. They just do a buckshot ministry with lots of stuff they read and hope for the best. And luck for them now and then a blind sow finds an acorn.
I don’t question their dedication, devotion or desire. I know they are missing so much more God has for them. One on One all alone intimacy in the spiritual bedroom of Jesus. Into the Kings Chambers he brought me says the Shulamite.
Development of this profound intimacy is more important than Bible study, more important than seminary, more important than working hard for God. In fact many people get so busy in ministry they lose the intimacy God desires for them and they miss the whole thing.
John Piper is a father of this movement. He says this, “Missions exist because true worship (Intimacy) does not”.
You can say the same thing about evangelism programs, stewardship drives, and a hundred other man made implementations designed to get results only intimacy can produce. Lovers of God work harder, give more, go more joyfully to the mission field, do better evangelism, become ministers, and love others better than those who are just putting in their time. Get a worship-prayer vocabulary in your life and the rest will become more joy filled and much easier. Do less better.
Jesus talked a great deal about the need for this. He went away when the crowd pushed in around him and prayed. Do you think he prayed from some prayer book? It was passionate and personal. There was the time when his disciples couldn’t cast out a demon for a young boy. He said to them, “This kind doesn’t come out except by prayer and fasting”.
Every time Jesus ministered to someone he prayed first. Then he ministered. He didn’t pray for people except in intercession. He never prayed for the sick. He prayed a prayer of preparation then he spoke to the mountains to move. He prayed a prayer of intimacy before he raised Lazarus from the dead. But we think we can minister without that level of intimacy and it falls flat. Time to change. The bar is raised.
That’s exactly what he requires of us today. Preparation. You and I were designed by God to move mountains. We were to have dominion. We are to be the head and not the tail. We are to have authority over demonic things. But that takes intimacy. The Church of the Vision God gave me for this area is a great deal like a recent Church described in the last Charisma Magazine article by Matt Sorger on Intimacy. The worship was spontaneous, people came to the altar, the preaching was prophetic utterances of Gods heart toward his people “Words of Love”, and people were made whole in His presence. The bar is raised.
I see this coming up on the horizon like Gehazi, Elijah’s servant. A cloud the size of a man’s hand. I smell the rain and I hear the sound of abundance coming. I have hope fully in God that is driving me forward with a vision he gave me 11 years ago.
Stir it up in our Hearts Lord, Stir it up in our Hearts.
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