Returning to Our Journal

It has been quite some time since I logged a Firelight post. It was originally intended as an opportunity to log what God was saying during our prayer gatherings and for others to likewise express their thoughts through any comments. Since none ever took the opportunity to log their own thoughts or comments, I saw no reason to maintain it.

However, in recent months, the LORD has been drawing a number of us i

nto a fresh and rich depth of relationship with Him. So as to chronicle the baby steps we are taking into this seeming new frontier of relationship with Jesus, I am resurrecting this blog. I hope it serves as a point of reference for each of us as we engage in our exploration of intimacy with Jesus!

First let me establish that a few short weeks back, we began meeting each Thursday night for what we call "Fascinate." Inspired by having read "Gazing Into Glory" by Bruce Allen, we have chosen to encourage each other to learn to become more attuned to the reality of the spirit life than we have been up to this point in our lives.

So to digress a bit, I will post a bit about our Fascinate gathering of June 9. During our worship, Tonya Rainey watched Jesus go to each person in the room and recorded what He said concerning each one present:

Russell:

with great love in His voice, and smiling, the Lord looked at

Russ then looked at me and said, "I am his sufficiency." there was great weight to the word "am"

Jordan:

as He walked in front of Jordan, He began giggling. He seemed to enjoy Jordan. Then He sai

d, "We're walking together." There was a certainty in His voice.

Eileen:

with great affection, He placed His hand on her cheek, then looked at me and said, "She's precious to Me."

Pastor Don:

when He walked over to Pastor, He patted his shoulder a couple of times and said, with a smile, "That's My boy!" Then He

looked at me and said, "he's walking in a new light."

Will:

He walked over to Will and placed His hand on Will's chest. He looked at Will for a while, then he said to me, "I have much more in

store for him."

Jon:

When He got to Jon, He lifted Jon's chin so that Jon was looking strai

ght up at the Lord, and said to Jon, "Keep your eyes on Me. Don't look

to the left or the right." Then He looked at me and said, "I love this boy!" (there was great weight to th

e way He said that He loves Jon.)

David:

The Lord embraced him

in a hug. It was a chest to chest kind of hug and it lasted a while. As they embraced, I could see tha

t there was an exchange happening between the Lord & David....spirit to spirit....deep

to deep. I knew that whatever He was transferring from His Spirit to David's that great encouragement would be a result.

Jack:

He stood in front of Jack for a while, enjoying his worship. Then said, "he'll see things h

e never imagined he'd see."

Bev:

He waited a while before speaking about Bev. It seemed He had many things on His mind. Then He said, "she yearns....and she will be filled."

Now we come to this week's Firelight. We blended our weekly Fascinate gathering with our once-a-month Firelight meeting. The truly astounding aspect of the night was that we CLEARLY were enjoying a spirit of revelation from the very outset. A comment would lead to a realization which would, in turn, lead to an "aha moment." Then an observation would be made and someone would relate it to something said earlier. A scripture would come to mind followed by a thought, that related to a comment and it would connect to an earlier revelation.

This continued unbroken for three solid hours! It was almost as though we couldn't turn around without bumping into a "eureka" thought. We tried to start our worship time but it was almost as though we couldn't stop the stream of thought, scripture, postulations and what-about's. At some point Mike finally, almost unable to contain himself, remarked, "Man, Jack! I don't know what's going on here tonight, but you'll say something and it reminds me of a verse that I'll wonder where to find it and when I open my bible, THERE IT IS!" Then he added, "I can't tell you how many times that's happened tonight just the short while we've been in this room."

It was finally 9:30 when we BEGAN worship. But we were already saturated! Wanting to be mindful of the time, we wrapped up worship at 10 but then interpersonal ministry got started in obedience to the Holy Spirit's direction. We finally ended at 11:00. It was a truly remarkable evening.

In conclusion, I could sum up the theme of the night as revelation on God's BOUNDLESS expanse of all He wants to do in our lives. "New wineskins" was an underlying topic as was "repent" AKA "burn the house down!" The operative word for the night was "enlargement." Lord, give us a greater capacity for Your Presence!

LORD, Welcome to 2010

Its been a very long time since I've posted anything to our Firelight site, but at this outset of 2010, I felt it important to log Friday night's prayer. You see, Friday night was our first gathering for the year and it was good see our regulars. But the tone of our gathering would prove to be different from others and there are two aspects of where the Holy Spirit took us in prayer that I felt must be conveyed here.

The first thing to note was that the Lord illustrated to us that the previous week or so was filled with His dealings in the affairs of men. Those events included the catastrophic earthquake that suddenly flattened Haiti in general and Port-au-Prince in particular. Suddenly personnel and resources had to be funneled by the nations to that tiny country in response to a shaking in the earth. Another shaking took place within days, but it was in the realm of US political affairs when Massachusetts shattered the hopes and delusions of liberal Democrats nationwide. In only a matter of days, that Senate race was upset by Scott Brown coming seemingly out of no where to seize the seat. The Democratic leadership were suddenly sent running for cover and have been visibly shaken by an event they can't explain.

Meanwhile, a shaking in the heavens over California--the home of drought and wildfires--produced four waves of powerful storms relentlessly dumping the kind of rainfall they haven't seen in years and creating floods and landslides. Finally, there was a mild shaking in the financial realm when the Dow Jones averages dropped 200 points after as the markets reacted to the President's warning he has decided to take aim on big banks.

All of this shows us how the LORD can suddenly and sovereignly create a shaking within the affairs of men and send them scrambling not unlike ants in a stirred anthill. We prayed as the Lord indicated the year ahead would be met with more of the kinds of "suddenlies" as we've found crammed into these brief, few days. We prayed this nation would recognize God's sovereignty and turn TO Him not from Him.

Then there is a second aspect of our evening I wanted to make known (there were many facets to our evening, not just two). It concerned our intercession for the Church in the Baton Rouge region. We implored that the fear of the Lord would manifest itself when various minister's meetings in the area are conducted. These would no longer be times to compare notes as to how many people various churches are running nor opportunities to commiserate over declining tithes and offerings but a time when pulpit ministers would weep over the flock of God and convulse over the tepid condition of the people of God.

We initially cried out for Jeremiah 3:15 shepherds for God's people in the Baton Rouge area. But then we had to backup a verse and realize God providing those kinds of godly men were contingent upon something. So, we prayed according to verses 13 and 14 that we, the Church, would recognize and repent of our own transgressions and discontinue folly. In discussing the scriptures we had been praying over, we noticed planted there was something we all needed to be prepared for. You see verse 14 reveals that God will "take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion." Zion is the presence of the Lord. As the Lord draws people into His very presence, it would mean separating people from each other and moving them around to places He was directing them to.

It can be very unsettling for us to see loved ones being moved around even when we know the hand of the Lord is in it all. But we understood this was part of His plan to reorganize His Church for His glory. It could mean redefining congregations and moving saints both out of as well as into our area.

But it was clear from how the Lord directed our prayers that we are to make His presence the goal of both ministers' meetings and congregational worship. It was a great way to step into 2010. Let's all press in to HIM!