Joy Unspeakable

I have found His grace is all complete,
He supplieth ev’ry need;
While I sit and learn at Jesus’ feet,
I am free, yes, free indeed

It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
Full of glory, full of glory,
It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
Oh, the half has never yet been told

I have found the pleasure I once craved,
It is joy and peace within;
What a wondrous blessing! I am saved
From the awful gulf of sin.

I have found that hope so bright and clear,
Living in the realm of grace;
Oh, the Savior’s presence is so near,
I can see His smiling face

I have found the joy no tongue can tell,
How its waves of glory roll!
It is like a great o’er flowing well,
Springing up within my soul.

Holy Father

15 You received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” (Rom. 8:15)

The Spirit of adoption is the person of the Holy Spirit. He is also called the Spirit of comfort, truth, hope, holiness, conviction, power, etc. These various names of the Holy Spirit give us insight into how He ministers to us as believers. As the Spirit of adoption, He reveals the glory of our position as adopted sons and daughters. He convinces us of the truths or benefits related to being adopted by God. Being adopted speaks of a legal position of privilege in which the child became an heir of the family name, resources and estate.

By our new position as adopted children we have access to the Father’s heart in a unique way.  The Spirit convinces us that we can encounter God’s heart as our Abba. The “Abba revelation” empowers us to endure difficulty and to reject Satan’s accusations that we are hopeless failures.

The measure of the Father’s love for Jesus is the measure of His love for us. This is the ultimate revelation of our worth. It gives every believer the right to view themselves as “God’s favorite”.

23 That the world may know that You…have loved them as You have loved Me. (Jn 17:23)

The Father feels about you in the same way that He feels about Jesus!!!!!  He will not increase in His love for Jesus nor will He ever love anyone more than He loves Jesus. Therefore, since He loves you in the same way, He will never increase or decrease in the measure He loves you.

We ask the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth about the Father loving us like He loves Jesus.  I love to meditate on this reality and have the Spirit reveal it to me.

13 When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth… (Jn. 16:13)

Our lives are broken and unsettled without a “stabilizing anchor” until we know the embrace of the Father as our Abba. We need the assurance that we are enjoyed by God in our weakness.

Miracles

Jesus said in John 5:19 “the Son can do nothing of Himself.”  In Jesus, God became a man, He put self-imposed restrictions on Himself.  To be an example to us, so that we would emulate Him.  If we did miracles as God we would marvel but not seek to do them through Him ourselves.   Jesus couldn’t heal or raise the dead outside of the Father doing the works through Him, just like us!

Child-like Faith

Pride comes before a fall.  We must realize that the only good thing in us is our hope in Him.  We need a resolve to fight the enemy, but also the knowledge that it is only by His power that we have the victory.  Many trust far too much in their own integrity, wisdom or decision making skills and in the end-times to come that can cause them serious errors.

It’s dangerous to become ‘experts’ in the faith and loose our teachablility, for God is always moving a different and new ways.  The learned teachers of Jesus’s day didn’t see God in Him, but beggars did.

If we can remain childlike in our faith, we can avoid many of the enemies traps and keep following the Lord.  The council of the world and the enemy would have us dangerously self-reliant and exposed.  We need the Lord’s help and cannot succeed in our calling without it.  We must do our part in staying focused and resolute, yet continually led by and relying on the Lord.

“But He has delighted to choose the foolish things of the Earth, for in His great and unfathomable wisdom He knew that those who realize that they are the most undeserving will be those who have fully embraced the fact that without His love they are completely unqualified.” -Wendy Alec’s word

Maturity

In the vision picture of the Christian Faith, “The Final Quest” by Rick Joyner, we see the reality of our walk taking much focus and work.  In the effort to take new spiritual ground, climbing the mountain of Christlikeness, it required supreme concentration to watch every step, and often fight the enemy at the same time.  Though at each new level he recived a clearer view of his position and the battle raging around the mountain.

Joyner says “we must have the vision of ascending in our walk with the Lord, but the heigh of our ascent will depend on the strength of our foundation.”

Until we are like the Lord in character we have not yet attained our purpose on the earth.  Yet also, if we are not doing the works He did, we have not yet attained the maturity and fruitfulness to which we are called.”

In the vision picture of the Christian Faith, “The Final Quest” by Rick Joyner, we see the reality of our walk taking much focus and work.  In the effort to take new spiritual ground, climbing the mountain of Christlikeness, it required supreme concentration to watch every step, and often fight the enemy at the same time.  Though at each new level he recived a clearer view of his position and the battle raging around the mountain.

Joyner says “we must have the vision of ascending in our walk with the Lord, but the heigh of our ascent will depend on the strength of our foundation.”

Until we are like the Lord in character we have not yet attained our purpose on the earth.  Yet also, if we are not doing the works He did, we have not yet attained the maturity and fruitfulness to which we are called.”

Joy in Prayer 3

So many Christians have a lacking prayer life, simply because the find the Bible boring.  There are real spiritual veils keeping them from connecting with God.  It is the Holy Spirit who will lead us into truth and open us the Word to us.

God is glorified when we choose to take everyday moments and redeem them with our pursuit of Him.  There is so much distraction and lesser pursuits at our fingertips, but to lay it all down and go after God time after time, is so much more rewarding.  Satan would love to have a Christian keep his/her heart weak and fully occupied with the things of this world.

In Psalm 119 we see David’s love for the Word.  My Prayer life was radically changed when I began to pray, inspired by the Psalm, for God to change my desires to make my delight in the law, in the Scriptures.  This really changed everything for me.  The bible was no longer boring and things began to click and make sense.

There is a transition where we  are weened off satisfying ourselves with the world, as is was nature, to finding supreme Joy in being connected with God.  It’s that experience of Holy Spirit revelation and love that ruins us for the lesser things.

Todd Bentley Restoration

This was a helpful clarification to me on the Lakeland Revival issues:

From Rick Joyner’s Special bulletin #18

When I went to speak at a Fresh Fire Conference several years ago, I could not believe all that Todd was doing. They were putting together more than a dozen crusades in Africa a year, and about as many conferences in the U.S. and Canada. They also had a school, church, were publishing, and were even producing music CDs. When I heard a couple of years afterward that he had experienced a meltdown and burnout, I was amazed it had taken so long at the pace he was trying to keep.

I really appreciated the zeal around Fresh Fire, especially during times of such lukewarmness in the church in general. However, there was an increasing cost in relationships with the added workload (of the revival). After Todd hit the wall with burnout, he then fell to an emotional attachment to a staff member. There was no physical relationship, and the girl did not return even the emotional attraction. When Todd went to his leadership team about what he was feeling, they immediately sent the girl away. Todd, trying to be open, then went to his wife to confess this attraction. Todd was trying to be transparent, but he is convinced that this was what killed what was left of his relationship to his wife.

Todd often called this attraction “an affair,” but it was not one. There was no physical adultery or even physical contact with the girl. However, Todd said that he knows he would have entered into such a relationship if she had been willing, and therefore, he felt that he needed to repent of it as if it had been an affair. I can appreciate Todd feeling this way. Because of the way rumors spread and grow, many still think that Todd had an actual affair several years ago, when in fact he did not.  (This is explained) not to justify it, but for the purpose of possibly helping others avoid the same traps.

Wrong Assumptions about anointed persons:
1. Anointing equals Character
2. Anointing equals 100% Doctrinal Accuracy
3. Anointing equals Divine Endorsement of Ministry Style

Going Deep in God

There is no neutral ground in the Spirit, we are either gaining ground or losing ground each day.  We are getting more oil in our ‘lamps’ or we are burning it, we are getting closer to God or farther away.

“For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”  Mark 4:25

This is a Spiritual law is yet another reason we must be resolute in scheduling time each day to grow our hearts in love for God.  There is so much temptation with media and such to spend our time so many other ways, but the reward of choosing to build our relationship with God, and experience more of the Holy Spirit is so worth it.  I have found that the deeper experiences of the Spirit have happened after a period of regular focused seeking.

It’s like doing 50 pushups everyday, you may not notice the impact the first day, but three months later and there’s a marked difference.

Joy in Prayer 2

… we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2)

What a human mind thinks of, when they think of Jesus can’t even compare to what He is actually like in fullness.  But forever in eternity we will grow incrementally.

But now in prayer, the more the Holy Spirit enables us to Spiritually percieve His nature, or ‘beauty,’ the more we are transformed into His image, our minds are renewed unto what they were meant to be (Rom 12:2).

So we should seek in prayer to have the assistance of the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus to us. Which is what Paul was talking about when He gave us an outline of prayer in Eph 1:17:

(I pray) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,

the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.

This prayer is the primary prayer at many houses of prayer and deserves to be in our daily prayer focus forever.   This is the primary need of our unsaved friends and family, supernatural revelation of Jesus.  This will forever be our primary need, to have a greater revelation of God.  Praying this will open up your prayer life to deeper levels and experiences in the knowledge of God.

Joy in Prayer

7Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices [Will be] accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. (Isaiah 56:7)

This is a prophecy, where the Lord is saying that prayer will be linked to joy.  That our source of joy will come in the place of prayer.  The last part of this is what Jesus quoted in Matthew 21:13.
Many have boredom, frustration and condemnation in prayer and neglect it/avoid it.  I believe that accompanying the ‘Prayer Movement’ is the teaching that changes our understanding of what prayer is really to be, and how to enter in to true joy.  I hope to explore that some here.

“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26

Jesus is praying for us to love Him like the Father loves Him.  That’s quite a statement, that’s some quality of love.  But, yeah, “maturity in loving God.”  It comes mostly from the desire of Jesus and the Father to get us there.  If we seek it, and position ourselves to get there, it will happen.  It is an issue of God’s power more than ours.  It takes the help or ‘anointing’ of the Holy Spirit to enable us to love Him in a supernatural way.