Tag: prayer

Posted in Uncategorized

Monday Prayer

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

I was in prayer this morning and heard part of a song by Luke Wood:

I want to stand in Your counsel

And sit at Your table

And speak to You face to face as a friend…

Before I got past this first verse, I felt like crying.  It was such a necessary reminder of what I’m after and what I feel I have been left alive on this earth to do. Even as I labor in prayer and as I prepare to preach (there, I said it) and with everything else I have going on from day to day, this is the heart of who I am. In all my doing and all my ministry, if I haven’t stood in His counsel, it benefits me nothing. If I haven’t met God and heard His voice and had His own fire touch my heart, not only will my witness be that much less effective, but I will become dull on the inside. I desperately don’t want that to happen. I can’t afford it.

Life is too short to not really know God. The hour is too urgent to babble away with lofty sounding ideas that have nothing of the weight of heaven upon them. As exciting and glorious as it sounds to stand in the counsel of the Lord, it is more than that — it is a matter and life and death for those called to be His messengers. It is a matter of hearts being alive and our witness being powerful, or our hearts growing cold and our words falling to the ground. He is coming back soon, and we must know His voice in that hour.

This journey is a painful one. As other lyrics in the song go, “Let my heart be torn in two until Your will is mine.”

 I personally am hitting head-on the reality that in and of myself – I have nothing.  I’m nowhere near where I want to be as far as hearing God and then responding rightly when I do hear. But by the grace of God, I want to continue to say yes, continue to rise up and follow, once and for all to remove that garment of fear that the enemy keeps trying to fasten back on me.  No more! uh uh NO I will not cower to intimidation any longer and I will continue to cry out to hear His voice until the day I see Him face to face…

I want to stand in Your counsel

to sit at Your table

And speak to You face to face as  a  friend

I want to stand in Your  fire  wherever  Your  eyes  fall

May You find me  faithful  to Your  heart

Let me be  found…

With a heart  after  You

May Your eyes find this  heart  loyal  to  You

May You be all that’s on my mind  all  of  the  time

Let my heart be torn in two until  your  will  is  mine

Dearly Beloved of my  soul

Posted in Uncategorized

“How long are you going to continue this praying thing?”

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

JESUS CHRIST said: “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” or in another translation, “Pray all the time and don’t quit.” (Luke 18:1) and Paul said this: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17)

“How long are you going to continue this praying thing?” That is the question someone just asked me. Wow…how do I answer that? My life is very much a developing life of prayer. I take these verses literally and so I have purposed in my heart to try to figure how to live this life on earth while also living a life of prayer. To me ending my prayer life would kill the person that I am as much as someone killing me physically. I am not ashamed of my life of prayer but I really don’t discuss my daily schedule unless I am asked. Most don’t understand this life and many are frankly offended by it. The longer I pray and the more I pray the smaller my circle gets. Maybe some don’t understand my heart or maybe they don’t understand theirs. The flesh part of me would like nothing more than to be accepted and understood and liked by people. The part of me that was forgiven of so much and changed so radically and quickly by such a merciful God can never ignore nor do I want to ignore the debt paid for me. I feel nothing but absolute total love to the one that set me free. God changed me and showed me through His Word that I was to know Him in ways that I had never considered.

I asked for it all…this change. I said I would give Him whatever He wanted. He asked me into a life of prayer. Nothing has changed me more or continues to change and then sustain me than knowing my Lord the way that I do through prayer and the Word…they go hand in hand for me. It is glaring to me in these days as I watch and as I study, how little we all pray…even me. I am nowhere near the “without ceasing.” I have heard some try to explain and justify my actions as a calling. Was I “called” to this life? No. I may be assigned to certain ministries but I believe we are all to pray and so there is no waiting to be called for prayer any more than I would be called to something like obedience. Both are expected of me and demanded of me… but in the end I do it because I love God. I love Him. When I said whatever I did mean it. Love gives whatever is needed and to me it is so obvious that what God needs most is PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER.

There is this great saying: “Find out what God most wants done and do it!” Sounds simple.

You want to see the world evangelized? So does Jesus. In fact Luke 10:2 says: Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

I have heard sermons on that verse saying GO and I have to tell you most everything in me wants to GO. But I want my definition of go, my will. Jesus didn’t say go, He said PRAY. If you GO, only ONE of you will go. What will that do to a huge harvest? But if you PRAY, hundreds can go. PRAYER ENABLES GOD TO CALL AND EQUIP AND SEND WORKERS INTO HIS HARVEST FIELD. I have found myself saying… but God, I want to win souls in Africa! And God says, “Do you know their language?” I say no and He says, “Do you know their customs?” I say no and He says “You pray and I will send someone who already knows the language and the customs.” His Will be done…not mine. So I pray. Does that mean I don’t take care of a need in front of me? Witness to the person across the street? Go into the mission field of my own town? Get outside the prayer room? Absolutely not, but in addition to a life of prayer, not as a substitute for. You want to see the world evangelized? Prayer may be the greatest act of evangelism.

Why are the harvest fields unreaped? I believe it is not because we didn’t GO, but because we didn’t PRAY. I pray because God loves me; I pray because I love God. And you know what? When you think about it, I pray because God loves you. Oh, and I don’t intend to ever stop.

Posted in Uncategorized

God is Stirring

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Prayer notes (12/1/2009) God has stirred my heart this week to some new places. To press in and push hard in this last month of 2009 for the breakthrough that was proclaimed by our pastor at the beginning. Is this not the will of God? I believe it is and therefore this breakthrough is also a PROMISE of GOD as He said in His Word “anything we ask according to His will.”

1 John 5:14-15 says: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

and Haggai 1:13-14 says,
‘”I am with you,” declares the LORD. So the LORD stirred up the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God,…’

So I’m asking tonight…

Lord! We love you. We declare our love for you! We pray tonight as a part of the body of Christ, along with You, Jesus! Stir us Lord! We want Your will, purposes and expectations fulfilled in us and through us; in this church and through this church. We pray with a living hope and confident expectation because we serve a Living God. We are going after Your honor and Your glory and are thankful for this opportunity as we humble ourselves in Your presence Lord.

We believe we will see a demonstration of the power of the resurrection manifested through our prayers tonight in a very real way– even this day. We declare NOW is Your time, Lord! Now is the time to build Your house. Now is the time for souls. We ask for souls Lord as Your Gospel is proclaimed this week by our man of God- through the Word; through song; through the Love of God flowing out of all of Your Body. Now is the time for Your Kingdom to advance and increase; for breakthrough. Now is the time for revival!

Posted in Uncategorized

Mind of Christ

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

I often journal my prayers. This morning during one such prayer, I simply wrote the following…”Father, Show me how to love like you love. What will that look like in my life?” As I finished I began reading in the Bible where I had left off the day before. The passage was Mark 10 but I could go no farther than verse 45 because as I read this verse I began to hear God answer.

45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

My eyes were drawn to a little note I had in the margin “see Philippians 2:3-7” and so I turned to it.

3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Wow- I saw it, heard it, felt it. I got it. God was answering my question from His Word and so from His heart. Jesus came not to be ministered to, but to minister. If my goal is to love like Jesus, to be more and more like Him then am I not asking for the “mind of Christ?” And if this is what I am asking for, if I receive it then what am I expecting? What I feel the Father showed me is that to receive the “mind of Christ” and to learn to love as He loved and live in a way that pleases Him will cause a change to be made in me that is very visible and unmistakable but in that change… I will be made only a servant, of no reputation on this earth, just like His Son.

Oh that I would embrace such service and honor it as the ultimate gift passed down to me by a loving Father; shared with me by His precious Son, Jesus.

 

Posted in prayer

Fruit and fish…who can understand?

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
“All fruitfulness flows from intimacy.”

This phrase has been “burning” in me for the last few days. Where did it come from?

I was thinking about it this morning during prayer walk and it became kind of mixed into the scripture about Jesus pulling the coin out of the fishes mouth. I wondered why they seemed so intertwined? Maybe it was just the guy fishing at the pond…

Posted in prayer

Pray lest you fall

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Well it has happened. I fell asleep in the prayer room this morning. Dozed off, nodded off…never imagined I would. Most especially didn’t imagine it since I popped up and was ready to face the day at 5am because I couldn’t sleep. So eager. There is just something about falling asleep during prayer that really humbles you. I am reminded of the disciples and their same struggle. How often I have judged them…and now I have lived it, kind of. What did Jesus say to them…pray lest you fall into temptation? What did He say to me? Pretty much the same thing the first time I woke up and the second. As I left I did so just as I imagine Peter did, determined to prove I hadn’t failed terribly and that I could overcome. Even to standing up and cutting off an ear of the enemy…acting first thinking later out of a passion to prove something. That same determination and proof— a failure as well.

Yes it happened. The temptation, the frustration, the battle, the failure. All I had to do was stay awake and pray, but I couldn’t.

Posted in prayer

Don’t abandon ship; someone has to throw the life-preservers

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
Interesting things have been happening in prayer these days. God has spoken about revelation driven prayer and hearing His voice through the things that He brings to my mind during prayer time. I have been given confidence that some things I have for so long excused as just my imaginations are one of the ways He uses to speak to me. This was made very clear for me during our prayer meeting yesterday.

We came into prayer last night feeling very discouraged. Everyone. We were tired and everything seemed the same old, same old. Even our conversation was frankly boring. Someone asked God to help the people get into his Word (fairly common prayer, I guess) but just like that I heard God say, “You first.” It was so clear that it couldn’t be ignored so I immediately relayed what I heard. We opened our Bibles and began to pray the scriptures. During this time we asked God to show us what was on His heart. To have us pray His heart, His prayers. We have said this prayer many times before too but yesterday things just were different.

Immediately I saw the hill behind the church and from the very top of the very tallest tree on down all I could see was the blood of Jesus running down it like rivers. Maybe more rushing down it and the blood was covering absolutely everything in its path. Every corner, every crevice…everything. I began praying this scene and declaring this scene but admittedly I started feeling awkward because it was a different kind of prayer for me and I became aware of those around me and so I stopped, it ceased – the prayer and the flow of what I had been seeing. I knew that I had stopped what God was trying to do.

But toward the middle of our time I was asking God for salvations and He gave another “scene.” Don’t you just love second chances? I knew immediately that it was connected to the the Full Flame Evangelism course (Reinhard Bonnke). In that course we watched a short movie about a group of people on a ship that ran across some that were overboard. The message was that people are drowning and we have the ability to rescue them but we each must decide if we will risk our own lives to do so or not by jumping in. What God gave me was just a bit different though…

There was a ship with many, many people beside it in the water. People were floating around and drowning but it was as though they were very comfortable and didn’t know that they were drowning. There were a few that were fighting for their lives but they were for the most part ignored by those floating. Those floating had no idea they were getting ready to die. Some people were still on the ship and they each had a stock of life preservers. When they could get someone’s attention, they were throwing them out into the water and then dragging them into the boat to safety. Those aboard the ship faced two obstacles. They had to find a way to get the people to pay enough attention so they could warn them of their impending death and they had to avoid the lure of jumping into the water themselves. See no one fell off the ship. There were no problems with the ship. The problem was that the people were lured to jump. Some had jumped with good intentions of helping but for most something of the water had enticed them and I heard God say to me, “Don’t abandon ship. Someone has to throw the life preservers.”

Just like that discouragement was gone and I settled into what I had been asked to do in prayer and intercession…and definitely not feeling the same old, same old.

Posted in Journal

random thoughts re: Tongues and where I am in my walk today

Posted on by Melissa Lynne
When I think about praying in the Spirit I picture it as entering into the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit and it makes sense to me that God would provide this place of refuge. A place where evil can’t abide. A place where evil can’t even comprehend from the vantage point of the outside. Because of the blood of Jesus and the new covenant I am allowed to go there every single moment of every single day if I so desire. It is a great and magnificent gift and it is given to all who ask.

Why do I pray in the spirit? I pray in the Spirit when I am hungry and I am fed on the Word that is in my heart. I pray in the Spirit when I am in bondage and I am set free. I pray in the Spirit when I am tired and I am revived. I pray in the Spirit when I can’t focus and I am given direction. I pray in the Spirit when I am sick and I am healed. I pray in the Spirit when I am confused and I am taught. I pray in the Spirit when I am lonely and I am given company. I pray in the Spirit when my sin has exposed me and I am given new clothing. I pray in the Spirit when I don’t know how to pray or who to pray for and the intercessions of Jesus are revealed. I pray in the Spirit when I feel I don’t have enough faith for what I ask and I am given a measure of His faith. I pray in the Spirit when I can’t feel and I am given burdens. I pray in the Spirit when I just don’t care and I am given travail. I pray in the Spirit when I don’t know what else to do and I am given a call and sent forth. That is some of why I pray in the Spirit. For all who would question this beautiful form of intimacy I would be interested to know if they question as someone who has not experienced it and therefore doesn’t believe or someone that has experienced it and changed their mind. I can’t imagine getting through my everyday life without this form of prayer.

I came upon this gift as someone that had no understanding of it for today. When I first spoke in tongues I was in my dining room and afterward asked God that if my speaking in tongues was demonic or even wrong as I had been taught throughout my life, that He just take me home. I wanted to die rather than do anything else against His will. I called the person whose sermon I was listening to when I was Baptized and given the gift of tongues. God is good and He knows exactly what we need….Little did I know that the very person that led me into the Baptism was a former Baptist preacher – now an AG pastor http://www.raleighfirst.org – that experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and subsequently had to give up much that he had known (including his church) because of what God did in his life that day.

So as not to sound too contradictory, how could I receive such a gift when I had not asked for it specifically. Here is what I believe-I asked for more of God. Period. As much as He wanted to give to me without setting any of my own conditions one of which was to consider the limitations of my own understanding. Often when I find myself in situations that are foreign to me or uncomfortable I have to remind myself that I asked and He gave. Isn’t it amazing that many times as I ask without conditions and He gives without limitations. awesome!

I think that people prayed in tongues ALOT in the early church. It wasn’t few and far between otherwise why would they need to be instructed in how to have order during corporate services.

I wonder sometimes, could the experience of Acts where they all heard their own language have been a gift of speaking but also a gift of hearing? I believe that they all did speak in the tongue that the Holy Spirit gave them…gift of speaking. It was a language that was and is between the speaker and the Holy Spirit but I believe that each person in attendance because the Holy Spirit so desired was given the ability to hear those same words of the Holy Spirit with their own ears…just as we can hear sometimes what He is saying through someone if the Spirit desires (maybe like a corporate gift of interpretation)…gift of hearing. Just my thoughts and kind of how I envision it. I mean I don’t see them all speaking different languages at the same time but if they all spoke one language (of the Spirit) and each person heard.

Also speaking in tongues and praying in tongues are they basically the same thing but used for two different purposes and yet the same purpose? To edify oneself is not a bad thing and is needed. If everyone built themselves up then corporate edification would not be such a struggle. I believe it is our responsibility to edify ourselves so that when we come together corporately we are flowing in unity with the Body. I understand this struggle and I believe that is where so many get into a bind because they expect to get their personal edification during corporate times of worship and therefore we never get to worship in that totally unified way. I believe that people began distinguishing tongues as a “prayer language” to make it sound a little more acceptable to non pentecostals. The language of the Holy Spirit is His language regardless of where spoken. It sounds different to each of us if we are listening because we aren’t in that secret place. In that place when others are speaking to their father through the Spirit it is not something you even question.

Posted in Journal

The Glory and the Burden of God

Posted on by Melissa Lynne

Saturday during my weekly prayer walk I was blown away by the Glory of GOD!! After a time of difficult prayer and pressing in as best as I know how -I asked God, as Moses asked, to show me His glory. I found myself remembering the Lord’s response to Moses’ request, “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” God summed up His glory with one word – goodness. God’s glory and goodness the same?? hmmmm. As I continued walking, I began thinking about the account in Genesis of how God with each creation declared “it is good” and with the creation of man declared “it is very good.” I heard God say in my spirit, “My glory, my goodness is all around if you see with open eyes.” I could say I opened my eyes but I believe actually God opened them because the praise that was birthed in me and what I saw in and through that praise for the remainder of the walk was like nothing I have ever experienced…an intense mixture of song and sorrow. Each flower, smell, sound, each person I passed or prayed for seemed to just shine through the eyes and ears, well– really all the senses of my spirit with a different kind of beauty. I found myself praising like never before for even the rocks and the weeds. But then each thing that I praised God for, the very same creations that shone with such glory, I saw also reflected a burden that almost ripped my heart to shreds. I knew it as a burden that could only have been His.

This was Saturday morning. It was July 4th and as I walked I was able to see those I considered the best of the best as I watched people giving up a holiday morning to joyfully work behind the scenes for the Lord. I saw the glory as if it were clothing them and it brought rejoicing to my heart. Almost immediately though my thoughts and prayers were taken to one of God’s creations that at that same moment in time was only known to me as a serial killer…terrorizing a neighborhood, and my own family- killing their friends. I considered this man probably the worst of the worst and yet right there I was faced with the truth that God had declared him at creation as good. God loved and died for him just as much as for the one I labeled “best.” I had to lay aside my need for understanding and declare in unison with God that what He had created in each was equally good. I found myself begging for his life to be spared and for the salvation of his soul more than I was even asking God for an end to the violence. The Glory of God and the burdens of God are not exclusive. The Glory of God is GOOD but it also carries a weight that is offensive to my natural mind and so it was easier to try to separate them.

I have been fasting and praying for months, asking for a burden for souls and here it was quite suddenly and unexpectedly intermingled with God’s glory like the blackberry bushes next to the pond…you can see the berries from a distance so you know they are beautiful and you know that they are probably sweet but you have to get through the thorns of the same bush to experience them in all the ways God intends…even the thorns are His creation with a purpose and GOOD, a burden necessary for the Glory.

Still blown away : )