Peoria Prayer Center Moving Forward

Peoria Prayer Center

Moving Forward

What has been happening?

Over the last year and a half many of us have gone through numerous transitions and changes.  If you are like me your daily life has gone through numerous alterations.  I have gone through health issues, car accidents, new employment, changes in my family dynamics, loss of friends and the gaining of others, new church life dynamics and battles with technology and production.  I could describe my life as a new theme park ride, one that combines a rollercoaster, a merry go round and some kind of superman in the dark ride.

Until recently I would have told you that I didn’t know what I was doing, I was trying to be faithful and obey the Lord.  Then in a season of mercy from God, I felt Him enlighten me on His ways and reveal to me that I have been on His plan for discipleship.  I have often said, “God uses our daily life to disciple us.”  I now know that on a much deeper level.  God takes us through stuff so that we can share with others what we have learned.  In the economy of God nothing good or bad is wasted, as everything we go through can be redeemed and utilized for His glory.  All that you learn from the Lord is to help me and all that I learn is to help you.  Community and Discipleship work together. 

Knowing that God was in control of my daily life brought a greater sense of security to me.  I became more aware that the Lord flows through us in the everyday and not just through a title or position.  The ministry of the Lord is often not even visible or measurable with our understanding of production.  Ministry is “service to the Lord” and most of that goes unseen.  If we are in the need to “gear up” or enter into special preparation to be able to minister, we are missing God’s desire for us to be living epistles.  Removing ministry from daily life can cause us to fall into different traps of false importance.  We can also loose the joy of life that God has made for us.  The more we feel the pressure to “run off and do some ministry” the more we disconnect from the life that God has given us, a life of daily service to Him.

Years ago I was earnestly seeking the Lord concerning the question, “How is it that none should parish?”  As the Lord recently spoke to me about daily life, I was reminded of this past experience and what the Lord laid on my heart.  In answering that question for me, I felt impressed that intimacy with God produces an edge to daily life that cuts through culture and assists in revealing God to the hearts of humanity.  When we live with God in an authentic way, we bear much fruit.  Souls are saved; lives are restored, healing flows from our words as we practice the presence of God daily.  All of us can live close to the Lord.  All of us can have a supernatural ministry.  We often hear how it is normal to have a supernatural ministry but fail to understand not normal the supernatural is.  We tend to seek something from the Lord that transcends our daily life.  We should be looking for Him to fill our daily life, to show up in the everyday, to touch others through the repetition and “sameness”.

This may seem simple, yet it is very difficult to live out.  We are now in a season when “living out” the ways of the Lord are greatly needed for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the pushing back of darkness that is destroying people and our world.  Spiritual warfare is on the brink of taking new ground and regaining the ancient ways of effecting culture and releasing God’s power.  Spiritual warfare has been pushed into the prayer closet where words and actions can be separated.  As we seek to live out a daily life of ministry the reality of overcoming evil with good with be reconnected to what is said in the place of prayer.  “In word and deed” are harmonious and not in competition.  Our guest is to take the part we like the best and add to it what is missing.  Often we do not seek to much to change our personality as add a person to our life and friendship who is different than we are and who has their passion rub off on us. 

Seldom does a person fall into the depth of evil in one day and seldom is evil defeated in a moment.  Patience, longsuffering and enduring love are all a parts of spiritual warfare that stays the course.  As we learn to be kind to people, love them more than ourselves and have the abiding presence of God that ministers to them through us, we fight against powers but not people.  Right now many of us are more concerned about winning the battle and have lost a vision for winning people.  If our idea of spiritual boldness conflicts with 1 Cor. 13 then we need to adjust our method, not excuse it.  We need to stop blaming evil for being evil.  Too many of us simply live in reaction of evil, reacting in anger to anger, spewing out hate for hate.  How many of us know how to be peacemakers?  How many of us see the ministry of peace as a compromise and fail to understand the ways of the Lord?

I have gone through a journey with the Lord that was intended to help me be equipped in helping others value the Lord more as they see and understand how He is working in the everyday for their development.  I am not saying that I have some special revelation that makes me above others.  I truly believe that many of us have been on this same pathway as we are in fellowship with the Holy Spirit.  God Himself is leading His people and a part of my part is to verbalize this so that numerous people who hear it can come into understanding of what they are going through and why.

To summarize this section, here are some of the topics I have walked through in my daily life.  Maybe you can see in them similar situations in your life.  Maybe we can see that God has a plan for us that transcend personal desire and firmly rests on the foundation of glorifying God in word, in deed and in all we do.

·         Rejection, being rejected by people whom I am serving, seeking to help, desiring to keep safe

·         Disrespect, daily being neglected, overlooked, mocked, belittled

·         Obedience, doing things the way others want them done even though I have other desires, plans and thoughts about effectiveness

·         Pain and Suffering, gaining understanding into the whole counsel of God’s word through history and not just holding a consumer driven theology

·         Death, pressured into investigating the role, purpose, meaning and eternal perspective on death

·         Time, living out God in real time as patience, kindness, mercy, longsuffering take lots of time to be expressed and received

·         Community, loving others and being loved is not what happen on selfish terms.  Community has mercy and is filled with all the aspects of God’s kingdom and righteousness

·         Love, flows from us and it flows to us.  God grows us both in the giving and receiving of love, pushing back our systems of control and opening our hearts to new depth of security and experience

The above is a short list of some of my training these past two years.  There is much more and I am thankful for now, not so much when I was going through it. 

Those things that were added to my life are not given to replace the foundation that God has built over the past decades.   God is adding to us and seldom has us remove from our lives those things that He has birthed in us.  Worship, Prayer and Intimacy with God are foundations of my daily life that are not being replaced, but added to.  Each one of us has some God given foundations.  We are made by Him for Him and He is a wise builder who knows how to equip us for the work He has given us.  There is often a temptation to look down on what God has given us as we envy what God has given someone else.  We can even fail to enjoy these foundational things God has placed in us, as we allow ungodly judgments and false importance work in our hearts.  Selfish ambition is still very strong in the people of God.  Many of us are more concerned about making ourselves into the image of God than allowing God to make His image in us.  We tend to use our own list of what a righteous and good person is, seeking to control our own lives and reject the humility and dependence God is requiring of us. 

Selfishness, independence, self-importance and worldly significance are so much a part of the modern church that in many places these sins are argued for as aggressively as basic Christian doctrines.  Elitism has replaced loving others more than self and fulfilling your calling replaced the numerous “one another” passages in the Bible.  We justify impatience with our “Godly ambition” and our dishonor of others with our boast of “doing God’s will”.  What if God brings these obstacles into our pathway to see if we embrace humility, kindness and patience?  What if God knows the character we need to do His will is developed more in the pathway of Joseph than the pathway of Saul?  What is presumption was as great a sin as homosexuality or abortion?

It is through God’s gift of daily life that we learn how to authentically wait on Him.  While God is intentional, He is not in a hurry.  God takes time with people and shows patience through those who walk with Him.  Sure there are moments of decision that have lasting effect.  Most of the times, these critical moments are arrived upon through years of God’s preparation, discipleship and instruction.  God is a good Shepherd and gives to us His Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. 

What I feel God is doing now?

I feel we are in a season of time when the Lord is awakening discipleship.  It is not as though God has neglected the Great Commission, but in His timing God labors in the earth to awaken and focus on differing aspects at differing times.  Social justice, mercy, holiness are all aspects that God has highlighted in different times in history.  I also do not want to convey the idea that discipleship is the only thing God is doing now.  Discipleship is the thing I see God doing now and I want to align myself with what I see Him doing.   If you are on a different page, have a different insight that is OK.  We see in part and we understand in part.  God has made us to need others.

I am sure that as I pursue to understand God more, I will be given more to understand.  Right now the issues that I am most aware of are….

·         Repentance, as in turning and going in another direction, not just feeling sorry or asking for forgiveness, but an actual going in a different direction

·         Spiritual Warfare has mainly been about intercession and now it is time for us to embrace our lives as warriors for God.  Daily life is going to be brought onto the battle field as “doing good” and living out “humility”, “patience” and “kindness” are verified as powerful weapons.

·         Obedience, 100% generous, freely given obedience to God.  Not driven by what we desire to give God, but to His specific call as revealed to what He brings to us via daily life.  An obedience that takes steps away from independence and moves to more dependence on knowing and hearing the Lord’s voice

·         Dependence, upon God and others is going to take a healthy perspective and the spirit of independence is going to be challenged in the people of God

·         The Word of God, as we feast on the word of God we are going to grow in life and not just be empowered for a purpose.  We were made to know the Lord and not just fulfill a mission.   As we partake of the Word to know God and deepen our relationship to Him we will find life flowing in us and through us.

·         Judgment needs to mature beyond carnal outcries to wisdom and love intermingled.  Judging for the intention of healing, restoration and reconciliation are on the heart of the Father

·         Followers of Christ, in recent time’s people have become followers of a church, movement or stream.  “Joining in” and “doing are part” is good.  Immaturity happens when we stop there and fail to progress to being a unified follower of the Lord.  Many ministries do not even know how to help people go beyond hearing and obeying their own words, but that is going to change.  Hearing the voice of God and following Him will be a sign of a mature disciple

How we are going to respond?

The PPC is going to respond by seeking to live out what God has put in us.  After I first felt this stirring of the Lord I was encouraged because I felt it was impossible for me to do.  That impossible call was just what I needed to awaken my heart to lean hard on God and trust Him. 

With the tools of media I am going to labor at producing material that will challenge and encourage the people of God.  This media will include books, workbooks, video and streaming.  That is the method of communicating the content.  I hope to again have some gatherings that encourage, as we face to face seek God together.  I will continue to speak and share as the Lord opens doors.

The content that I hope to share will come through my quest to know the Lord, the study of history, the living out of practical everyday life and insights gained through serving.  I hope to do a better job of integrating history, the present and the ongoing power of God to transform us in our inner man.  Transformation in the work of the Lord in us and when we have language to exsplane and share with others what is happening, we can encourage others in that process.  Many lessons I have learned I have shared in a booklet called “Re-education”.  “Re-education” is one work I need to finish to be able to share.

Let me leave you with a passage of Scripture to ponder.  Maybe you find yourself in this passage as one who worships, maybe as one who doubts.  Possible your have lost sight of who has authority, or maybe our vision has diminished to be concerned over only one nation.  In our day the “Lord’s commands” may seem only to be teachings or suggestions.  His promise to be with us may be reduced to having a Bible, but no living God.  Maybe in this season it is time for Jesus to come to you, to speak to you afresh, to be with you.

Mat 28:17-20 ESV  And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.  (18)  And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (19)  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20)  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."