INSPIRED WORD

DECEMBER 15, 2004

SONG
As we wait for You, O holy Lord, we want to know You more, as we wait for Your coming, Lord, fill us with Your Holy Spirit, Lord; give us more love, more power, more of You in my life.

WORD
John 7: 37-38: On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, “Whoever is thirsty should come to Me and whoever believes in Me should drink. Whoever believes in Me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'”

PRAYER
Jesus, we are a thirsty people, thirsty for Your presence and Your love; thirsty for You, thirsty to drink of the Holy Spirit that You pour forth upon us. We are thirsty to taste that sweetness. O Lord, enable us to drink of that Spirit tonight, to thirst for You, O Lord, from the depths of our being and to say to You, “Come, come Lord Jesus, come! Come Spirit of the Living God, come Living Water, come into our hearts; flow from us, change us, purify us and make us holy. Help us to be thirsty for You, O Lord. Increase that thirst within us, O God! We believe in You, Jesus!

PRAYER
Let us not satisfy our thirst for just a little bit of You, Lord God, but increase that desire in us, Lord, for You; for more of You, for more of the living water. Lord, we, in this world, are so used to being satisfied with a little bit, just a little bit more. Father, we don't want a little bit more of You, we want a lot more of You. Pour Your living water upon us, Lord; pour more of that living water upon us, Lord, that we can consume, Lord. Help us to empty ourselves, Lord, that we may absorb even more. Thank You, Jesus, praise You, Lord God! Thank You, Jesus!

WORD
Psalm 63:2-5: O God, You are my God, I seek You! My soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You like dry and weary land where there is no water and then Lord, You invite us. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and glory, because Your steadfast love is better than life; my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on Your name.

EXHORTATION / PRAYER
The words that we sing are not words really, these words need to be the desire of our hearts. They need to be words spoken from deep within. When we ask the Holy Spirit to come, we need to mean that from the depths of our hearts and ask Him to fill us with His love. We need to mean that from the depths of our being. Lord, come and fill us; come and make a difference! We do thirst and hunger for You, so please listen to the prayers, the heartfelt prayers of Your people, articulated through their voices, but reflecting the desires of their hearts.

PROPHECY
You did not choose me, I chose You! From the beginning of the universe, before it was even a thought, I chose you. I did not give a second thought to that choice, because from the beginning, before you were formed, I chose you. Before you were in your mother's womb, I chose you! Before you came into this earth, kicking and screaming, I chose you to be with Me, to love Me, to know My joy, to know My spirit, to know My salvation, to know the fullness of My healing; I chose You! The love that I have for you is not light; it is a passionate burning love. It is one that burns to the depth of My own being, for I sent My Son, Myself, to you because, My beloved, My beloved in whom I am well pleased, I chose you!

WORD / PRAYER
Matthew 11:28: Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden light. Lord, in the business of this time of year, we thank You that we can come to You; and that You tell us to take Your yoke and that it is easy and light. Lord, we are dry, we are thirsty. Lord, we take time now, to be able to breathe and to rest and to be able to drink deeply Your presence. It is like an oasis in the middle of a desert; it is a time to be able to love You, to lean against You and to worship You.

PRAYER
Lord, we are asking for more of Your presence; we are asking that You would touch us a little deeper.

WORD OF KNOWLEDGE / EXHORTATION
Our praise and our worship were touching the very heart of God. As He said that, I knew that my word for tonight was ‘touch'. I looked at the stained glass window, the darkened stained glass window, and I could just see as if a single ray of light was touching that piece of the window that is the heart of Jesus. That single ray of light lit up the heart of Jesus with a fire and a love; a love that brings joy to that sacrifice. In the song, it talked about coming to the fountain, and really being touched. Touch is so much a two-way action. I have also been reflecting on our Advent cloth on the altar. If you look at the Advent cloth, how the very tip of it is such a deep darkness, we walk our Advent journey both personally and communally. As you walk up the cloth, the darkness is illuminated, we see the week that we have just celebrated; we see the joy, we see the light spreading. As we sang the song “Come, Lord Jesus, Come”, we have seen tonight that we come here and we are touched. As we are touched, we touch the heart of Jesus. As we walk out that door, do we continue to hear that voice ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come'? As deep cries out to deep, as the people who were not able to be here to touch the fountain that we have touched, cry out to us and we are the fountain and as we touch them, we do indeed touch the very heart of God.

SONG
We spend a little time with You, Jesus, lover of our souls. All we want to do is worship You, worship You, because You take our breath away. Who could stand in Your presence, Holy and Beloved One? There is none like You, there is none like You, there is none like You in heaven or on earth. For Jesus, Jesus, we worship You! In our coming and our going, we will set our hearts on You, O Lord. There is none like You, there is none like You; so we will worship, we will worship You until the very end, until the very end.

EXHORTATION/ PRAYER
Into that sacred place, that inner court where He resides in His glory, let us reach out for Him; beyond the extent of our physical reach, let us reach out for Him. Let our hearts reach out for Him. Lord, we yearn for You, but not enough, not enough. Help us to come in, to reach in, to move in; help us, Lord. Bring us there; we want to enter in, to reach out with our hands and our hearts and every atom in our body.

PRAYER
Father, we pray tonight that You would cause the breath of God to blow upon us, because we don't really know how to worship You. We want to be close to Your presence. We want to go past the outer court; we want to come into the inner place, we want to touch and to be touched by You, but we don't know how to do that, Lord. We need Your breath; we pray that Your breath would be upon us to cause us to understand how to worship You in a fuller way, to worship You in a closer way, to be before You. We thank You for the promise that You have given us ‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.' You fill us with Your spirit as we hunger and thirst for righteousness. We pray that You would cause Your breath to blow upon us; we pray that the wind of the Holy Spirit would blow upon us. We pray that the water of Your spirit would blow upon us; the fire of the Holy Spirit would fall upon us and we would walk in all our days according to Your ways, in every way that You have ordained that we should walk. But we don't have the strength to do that; we don't know how to do that, so we pray that You would cause us to be able to do that. We pray that the rain of the Holy Spirit would fall upon us here tonight and cause us to walk more closely with You than we ever have before.

EXHORTATION / PROPHETIC SENSE
I feel the Lord calling us to sit in silence for a few minutes and soak in His presence, to go into the Holy of Holies, to really just stay in His presence for a moment. I had this image for awhile now, I was cooking stew before the prayer meeting tonight. The Lord led me into this image - I have shared my testimony on other occasions – that five of the people in the crowd I was running around with are dead; all before the age of 25. I think of the song “He's taking me from the miry clay and He put my feet upon the rock.” The Lord does that to us, like in cooking stew; He stews us and softens us with His grace; His tremendous grace that is around all of us tonight. His grace is just washing over us. God is so amazing. He wants to bring us into His Heart of Hearts and into the Holy of Holies and into the deepness of Who He is; deep cries out to deep. He says, “Come”! I felt like the weight of the weak was washing away. Lord, why am I not soaking in Your grace more often? We feed on Christ in the Eucharist, so that we can become food for others. We soak in God's love, mercy, grace and peace, so that we can be God's love, mercy, grace and peace for others. He tell us that no matter where we have been, He takes us out of the miry clay and loves us because we are His children. He loves each and every one of us so much in that same way. He knows what we need and He also knows who He wants us to be for others.

WORD OF KNOWLEDGE
In the account of the Annunciation in Luke 1, Mary asked, “How can these things be?” Mary does not understand. And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Lord wants us to know that tonight the power of the Most High has come upon us and the Holy Spirit has overshadowed us. What we have felt in our hearts is the beginning of a new thing that God is doing within us. A new thing that causes us to surrender more to the power of the Holy Spirit, to be able to say ‘Let it be done to me according to Your will, O Lord'. The Holy Spirit has come into this place and overshadowed those gathered. Be at peace for the Lord is among you.

EXHORTATION
Let us be open to the love of the Lord and yield to His Holy Spirit; His presence is here among us tonight. Continue to yield ourselves to Him; to worship Him and give Him praise.

PRAYER
We come and give You thanks. We give You thanks for Your holy presence, for Your salvation, for the action in our lives as we yield all of our circumstances to You. We give You praise by our thanksgivings in the midst of Your assembled people.

MESSAGE IN TONGUE

INTERPRETATION
My children, I love you so much! I have heard your prayers and I have taken your yoke upon Me.

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