INSPIRED WORD

May 30, 2007

SCRIPTURE

....the Lord was talking about that freedom. In 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, it says: The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

EXHORTATION

.....and asked if there is anyone here who is need of freedom, I was in the back, pacing and praying. All of a sudden I had this thought of my Anatomy and Physiology book. I then recalled this one section where it talked about the eyes. There is a point at which, if the eyes have had enough irritation, they dry out and the person's tear ducts won't even work – they won't even open, so that the eyes can flush themselves out. It can get to the point where the eyes hurt and are very sensitive. I asked the Lord what this had to do with freedom. The Lord then said to me that the hearts are the same way. When there is so much irritation, so many problems in everyday life, we get so wrapped up in the things of life that weigh us down. Then the Lord has to come and open up our hearts and give us that moisture that our hearts are needing for the cleansing. It is a very liberating thing to be able to open up and say, “Here I am, Lord!” Just allow the Lord to wash all the burdens and irritations away. It is okay to cry; it is okay to let those tears fall. No one is going to wonder what is going on with you. Allow God to free you!

SCRIPTURE

Isaiah 46:3-4, 9: Hear Me, O house of Jacob, all who remain of the house of Israel, My burden since your birth, whom I have carried from your infancy. Even to your old age I am the same, even when your hair is gray I will bear you; it is I Who have done this, I Who will continue, and I Who will carry you to safety. I am God, there is no other, I am God, there is none like Me.

TONGUES

INTERPRETATION

Abide in Me, as I abide in you. Love others as I love you. Let My Spirit be through all of you, through each of you, so that My Spirit can be passed to the world.

SCRIPTURE

Colossians 4: 2-6: Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, that I may reveal it clearly, as I should. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

SENSE / EXHORTATION

...a freedom. And I believe what the Lord was telling us is that He has called us here tonight. He has called us here to fill us with His fire. But He wants us to be a vessel and that vessel is crouched in the word “freedom”. That freedom is kind of an emptiness because by being empty can you only truly be free. By being empty, nothing has any control over you and you become a vessel that the Lord can fill. He wants to fill you with His fire.

CONFIRMATION

I want to thank the last gentleman who just spoke. I confirm what he said. Since being prayed over in the Holy Spirit, I have had the feeling that the Holy Spirit has cleaned out of me a lot of stuff that I was carrying around as baggage – like being cleaned out like a vessel. That really touched me and I want to thank him and thank the Lord.

TEACHING / EXHORTATION

'We may say that the river of life's events provides the most powerful impetus for prayer. In the din of life, He speaks to us, calls to us, and providentially prepares the materials of our salvation. We cannot tap this great stream in which grace unfolds unless we receive God's help. It is a valuable tool in the Life in the Spirit to pause and ask for the grace of prayer'. What was speaking to me was that God doesn't save us inspite of our lives, He saves us through our lives. There are people in our lives who we are meant to encounter. There are a very few in which He gives the grace of a cloistered life, where you pull away from the world. Even that is the greatest misunderstanding of the mystics; because when they pull away from the world, that is when they most engage the world, in praying for the world. So even then, they are not without community. But the line that really touched me was “the valuable tool in the Life in the Spirit is to pause and ask for the grace of prayer – be it through prayer tongues, be it in a heart-felt Rosary, or prayer in reading the Scriptures and having it come alive, or prayer in just sitting and being with God, or interceding powerfully for another. These are all the graces of prayer and we need to ask, because He says that if you ask, you shall receive. This doesn't mean that bad luck won't happen in our lives, or that challenges or sufferings won't happen in our lives, but He walks with us through all of these things. When we are the closest to Him is often the times when we are hurting the most. That is a gift we can give to others as well, because our world doesn't understand that paradox – of the cross – that it is dying that we live; they just see it as dying. It is the greatest of gifts to watch someone else understand that for the first time; what a sacrifice of suffering can be and how powerful it can be to positively change your life. And who will hear it, if we don't tell them? They won't hear it on the radio, nor the television and they won't see it in the movies. They will hear it from you, listening to your stories and sharing with them the love of Christ; and saying that when you die, you will come to life again in a much more powerful way.

CONFIRMATION

I want to confirm that. The thought has been going through my mind ever since Joe opened this meeting by reading from Acts. I went back to Joel 2:28-29: “Then afterward I will pour out My Spirit on all fleshy; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young ment shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days I will pour out My Spirit.” (In some Bibles, this can be found in Joel 3:1- 2) God poured out His Spirit on Mary and we know what happened; God, the Father, poured out His Spirit on Jesus and we know what happened; and then the Father poured out His Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost and we know what happened. We know what happened when the Spirit poured down upon Jesus. When the Spirit is poured out on us, we have the freedom to say yes or the freedom to say no. We have to say yes so that the Spirit can change us and then something can happen to us, the same way it happened to Mary, Jesus and the Apostles.

SCRIPTURE / EXHORTATION

We come here on Wednesday nights to praise and worship God, but tonight He turned the tables on us. When we started to praise and worship Him with joy and gladness, He turned it around and ministered to each one of us. Then He lead me to a place tonight where He had me write down some of the words He gave to each of us. I want to preface that by saying that last night we had a pastoral team meeting and God gave us a word there too. That word for me was “awe” - to be in awe of Him. We don't want to rush through the things that He says to us because they have a deep meaning for us to ponder – ponder is to do something more than just to think about it – to take it into our hearts and to study what He has given to us. Tonight He gave us the words: mercy, comfort, healing, joy, poured out, abiding, love, peace, freedom and fire. If we put all of that together, I believe that He wants us to take each one of those gifts from Him tonight and claim them for ourselves. He led me to a Scipture and we have heard it here many times. It is Isaiah 43:1: “Do not fear, for I have saved you; I have called you by name you are Mine.” Most of the time we stop there because that is pretty awe-inspiring when we say that God has called us by name and has told us, by name, that He has showered us with His mercy, comfort, healing, joy, abiding love, freedom, fire. But He led to read the rest of that Scripture because it encompasses the words that He gave us tonight. This Scripture goes on to say: (verses 2-5): “When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned; the flames shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give up whole nations to save your life. Because you are precious to Me and because I love you, and I give you honor, do not be afraid, I am with you.” The God Who gave us those words, through Isaiah, is the same God Who came here tonight and told us, through Mel, a few minutes ago, to accept what He says. He says, “For each of you I have mercy, comfort, healing, joy, abiding love, peace, freedom, fire and I want to pour all of it upon you. All you need to do is ACCEPT and SURRENDER to the God, Who has called you by name.”

IMAGE

Before CeCe's last song, I had an image of Jesus walking among us here in this assembly. He had a smile on His face and He was placing His hands on each of our heads.

PRAYING OVER A PERSON WHO HAS BACK PAIN

WORD OF KNOWLEDGE

We prayed for Evelyn and Howard, but I know that someone here received a healing while we were praying for them.

HEALING ACKNOWLEDGED

I have been having a chronic eye infection that has just been going on and on. We started praying over these two people and all of a sudden, I just felt this warmth flowing over my eyes and I could then blink my eyes normally. That was it!