(part 2 of fasting series)
2-18-07
~Do you feel weak or drained when you fast? What gets us through the fast is the hope and prayer that when you're done; your heart, your life, your spirit will be changed and renewed. 'Cause you don't want to come out of a fast the same way you went into it.
~It's not that the world has changed; not necessarily even that the church has changed, but that we have changed.
~My prayer is, "God, please don't let me be the same as when I went into this. Please don't let my worship be the same. Let there be a fresh fire; a fresh passion in our hearts. And let it not be just me, Lord. Let somebody else get something too!
1 Kings 18:36-39
~Elijah knew something was going to happen. He challenged God. He said, "God, if I be a servant of integrity...if I am the servant You called me to be; if I've done everything you've asked, then you fall on my character."
~How many of us in the church world today, could stand and challenge God based on our integrity and our character?
~All of a sudden, Elijah shows up and says and says 'God, I've never been in the spotlight before, but based on my intergrity and on my character, You show these people that You are still God.'
~God's fire only falls on those who challenge Him with their character and integrity, and their preparation.
~Verse 39 says the people fell on their faces, saying, "The Lord, He is God, the Lord He is God." You see, when God shows up, the hardest-hearted of people will fall on their face.
~It doesn't do any good to get on to that loved one who won't give his heart to God. What you need to do is get on your face and show some character, so the fire of God falls.
~When the fire of God falls, anything will melt in fire. The skeptics will humble themselves. These were the same people who were cutting themselves for Baal. These were the same people that we making fun, the same people that were challenging Elijah. But when the fire fell, they laid on their faces and said, "God, You and only You will we worship."
~You want to see a difference in your family, let the fire of God fall in your house. You want to see a difference in your church, we need to start getting on our faces and let Him change our character.
~So we can stand and say "God, I want to be healed because of my character." It's hard for God to financially bless you if your character isn't right. It's even hard for God to save your children if your integrity isn't right. If you haven't been living a life of integrity before your children and you're asking God to save them, God is saying, "I'm trying to. You're the light." Our spirit is God's candle that leads us.
~How many times churches in America, and if I may be as bold to say, in this very service take a stand against the worldly ways and say, "we don't do that anymore"? When people come in because their marriage fell apart, or they're financially broke or they're hurting in some way, and they say, "we heard the fire fell here". We would have to respond with "well we've heard about the fire, but we just don't have that anymore."
~I grew up in a day when Pentecostal was something people knew about, and some came for the express purpose just to see what was going to happen.
~Matthew 25:8 the vigins say, "give us oil for our lamps, for our lamps have gone out." or in other words, 'our fire has gone out'. How many dying flames do we have in the church? And the thing about it is that some of us aren't even crying out for oil! At least these virgins understand that "if I don't stir up somethin', I'm gonna miss the King comin'.
~Dying flames were once burning flames. Once a passion so hot for God, that we couldn't wait to tell somebody about who Christ is, and to show up. But now we do good just to show up. I see a need for a fire fall in our church.
~What is fire? Hebrews 12:29 says God is a consuming fire. That means He don't just touch and go where you want Him to in your life. If you really are God's, He consumes you, your heart, your life, your eyesight, your hearing, etc. He consumes everything about you. Malachi 3:2 says He is like a refiner's fire. That means you should never stay the same; always changing, always refining. Isaiah 4 says the Holy Ghost is the spirit of burning. Some of us just need some spiritual heartburn. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist says, there's one coming after me and His soul mission is that He is going to baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. There is a purpose for fire. There is a purpose for the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that God manifests Himself through fire.
~The Laodocian church in the book of Revelation was once a red hot fire church and were on fire for God. But they became lukewarm. Because they allowed their flame to go out, God says, 'I'm just rebuking you. Have you ever been rebuked by God? If you've really been rebuked by God, you would have no problem getting up at 4:00 in the morning to pray. Being rebuked by God is worse than being rebuked by parents you fear. Because while He's rebuking you, you know He loves you and that's what makes the rebuke feel so horrible. You try to offer a sacrifice to God, knowing what you just came out of this week, and God's up there rebuking you because you're not hot and you're not an unbeliever, you're a faker.
~God is saying to the Laodacian church, You're not hot, you're not cold, you're just fake, so I am going to rebuke you. Because you choose to be half-hearted. Understand that they once had the fire, but they chose to become lukewarm. They chose to become comfortable instead of passionate.
~When people come in from the outside of the church, it puts more pressure on the leadership of the church. If you have an unbalance in the spirit of your church, the greater spirit will always rule.
~Timothy said, stir up the gift that is within you. When you feel that your heart doesn't have the same passion that it used to; never ever let it grow cold towards the things of God. That is probably the worst thing you can ever do, is to let your passion and desire for God to dry up. The Bible says this: in the last days, the hearts of many will wax cold. That word "wax" means that it takes just a little time, it's gradual. Like a pot of water that has been brought to a boil and turned off, it'll boil for a little while, then goes to a simmer, pretty soon the simmering has stopped, then it is just kind of warm, and before you know it, it's lost all of its heat (in other words, the effectiveness of why it was first put in the pot).
~How many of us in the church know what our purpose is, and even how it is done, but we've lost the effectiveness because we got off of the flame, and we have not done what Timothy said in stirring up the gift.
~We must start crying out to God, "Let the fire fall again!"
~How about we just quit making excuses for ourselves and find time for God. Be real with ourselves and be real with Him. Just admit to yourself and to Him, "the reason I do the things I do, is because I've let my flame die."
~When you begin to wax cold, you begin to lose the ability to hear God personally in your life, and then we begin to rely on other people to do our praise for us. We can no longer hear God, so we rely on somebody else to do our praying for us. We rely on our parents or spiritual leaders more, because we have allowed our flame to go out.
~The reason some of us are were we are today is because somewhere along the way, we quit fasting, we quit praying, quit seeking God's will, and we made choices that altered our future. Esau made choices that altered his future, all because he wasn't seeking God, he wasn't fasting and praying and his stomach became king--and he traded his birthright to his brother.
How many of us have made choices in a lukewarm state that has altered our lives, our ministries, and because our ministries have been altered, we have affected a whole body of Christ we call family.
Somewhere along the way, the fire lost importance in our life.
The danger in not stirring up your gift (the flame), is that you lose God's personal Word for your life.
Once you become lukewarm and have stopped stirring your flame, God will not speak to you unless He's rebuking you.
~When Moses came down from the mountain and he had real relationship with God, his spirit was so illuminated, that they had to put a veil over his face because they couldn't handle looking at him.
~We don't have to walk around with veils, but how about we just walk around with love in our eyes. How about we just have compassion in our face.
~The Bible says Stephen had such a spirit about him, that the people could not resist the spirit by which he spake, he spoke like an angel. His spirit was like God's spirit.
~When we get the spirit of Moses or the spirit of Stephen, we won't have to say a whole lot, because our spirits will do the talking for us.
~It takes that kind of anointing to do your everyday ministry. It takes that kind of spirit to get you to go feed the homeless, it takes that kind of spirit that makes you care about what's going on in your church.
~Of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, the Laodecian church was the only one Jesus was standing outside of. They all had problems and they all had issues; one lacked love, one had a Jezebel problem and you wouldn't think you could get much worse than a Jezebel spirit, one had the reputation of being alive, but were really dead. At least God was still in those churches, which meant at least a few people there had a flame burning. The only church (Rev. 3:20) Jesus was standing outside of knocking, saying 'could you please let Me come in', was the "half-hearted, lukewarm, don't care if I'm going to heaven as long as I don't go to hell" church.
~The only church Jesus will walk out of is a fake, half-hearted church, that has a form of godliness but there's nothing happening.
~We need a fresh fire. We need a Pentecostal fever. The prophet Jeremiah said it this way, 'it feels like fire shut up in my bones'.
~Ephesians 5:18 takes a negative to accentuate a positive. He says don't be drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the Spirit. What's that got to do with us? What happens when you get drunk? You get bold, and even fearless. Even when you're wrong. What happens when you get drunk? You start walking different, you definately start talking different, you don't care what anybody else thinks, you become emotional, and if that bartender won't serve you, you will go down the street. Why? Because there is something in you that says "give me more." Paul is using a negative to bring out a positive. If you would ake that kind of passion and get filled with the Spirit, you would be amazed how much easier your life would become because you were walking in God's will instead of fighting God's will.
~For those who claim that they cannot get emotional about the things of God, then you just need to get a little bit of fire under you.
~We have raised a generation of hard shells and nothing will penetrate that but the fire of God. We are growing extinct in tongues and interpretation because we have tried to conform the fire. We need to realize that we are putting another generation's future at risk.
~Even believers who say we have the anointing have grown so hard in our hearts and I believe this is the reason we don't see as many miracles today. I believe the reason we don't see the type of revivals we used to see, is because of the hardness of our hearts.
~We have become a people who think we can do what we want to and I'll just show up when I need God, and we have developed such an outward crustation experience, that we'd better start fasting and praying. The church better get ahold of God and start expecting a fire to fall. This is the only thing that is going to bring deliverance.
~God told me when I was studying for this word, that "if us that know better, if us that have had the experience of the fire, will once again allow the fire to fall, God will melt the hard shell of hearts and break off the crustation that's built up in lives, tears will begin to flow, hands will go up and lips will begin to stammer, and tongues of fire will loose them and set them free from the spirit of this day and age. If those who know of this fire I am referring to, will quit trying to reform the fire and will just say, "God, let your fire fall".
~How many of us with a sincere heart and a voice of passion are crying out to God saying, "God, you better do something, You better fall, we need Your fire, You've gotta fall."
~Acts 2 says that a cloven tongue of fire sat upon each of them. That word cloven means "split in two."
It means I have my natural language and now a spiritual language. I know that's not popular anymore, but that's what the Bible says. There is a purpose for tongues.
~We need a fresh fire fall from God.