Week 4 of the Wednesday night messages on our current Isaiah 56 focus is on what that promise means related to the lifestyle of the Church as a people who are known by the way we lean in trust upon the goodness of God.
Isaiah 56 Focus – Week 4 – Voluntary Weakness (54min+extended ministry time, 20.1MB)
Week four the focus is on the lifestyle God calls His house to live. Again, there is some background thoughts and verses, and then passages to meditate on. Return to these as often as you like (our suggestion is every day during this period!), dialog with the Lord about what they mean to Him, use the questions at the bottom as fuel, and then pray it: God if that’s what’s in your heart than do … in me, and do … in my city and in the nations of the earth!
Week 4: The Lifestyle of God’s House – Voluntary Weakness
PDF Handout – Week 4 – Voluntary Weakness
Background Verses: There is a lifestyle associated with the call to be “a house of prayer.” It’s an easy one (meaning simple) that God makes accessible to even the weakest, but it’s a humble and costly one that few choose. God’s house is to be defined by the fact that we are a people who get where we get and become what we become out of the weakness of our asking and God’s moving. (more…)
Week 3 of the Wednesday night messages on our current Isaiah 56 focus is on what that promise means related to the role of the Church in the earth as a sacred assembly where God dwells and where God releases His government through intercession.
Isaiah 56 Focus – Week 3 – Governmental Intercession (62min, 17.6MB)
Week three the focus is on the Church’s role in the earth. Again, there is some background thoughts and verses, and then passages to meditate on. Return to these as often as you like (our suggestion is every day during this period!), dialog with the Lord about what they mean to Him, use the questions at the bottom as fuel, and then pray it: God if that’s what’s in your heart than do … in me, and do … in my city and in the nations of the earth!
Week 3: The Central Role of the Church – Governmental Intercession
PDF Handout – Week 3 – Governmental Intercession
Background Verses: God’s prophetic decree that His house will be called a house of prayer for all nations also speaks to the role of the Church in the earth. Jesus, in the only two times He speaks of His “church”, describes her primary role as a governmental one – His church is to be a voice of authority that speaks of things on earth and things move in heaven and speaks of things in heaven and things move on earth. The word we translate church is ekklēsia and speaks of an assembly gathered to make governmental decisions. (more…)
Week 2 of the Wednesday night messages on our current Isaiah 56 focus is on what that promise means related to the calling of the Church to intimacy with God.
Isaiah 56 Focus – Week 2 – Intimacy with God (70min, 20.0MB)
Week two the focus is shifting from identity and who we are, to calling and what we’re made for. Again, the first page is background Scripture to start connecting our hearts with the ideas, and the second is passages to meditate on. Return to these as often as you like (our suggestion is every day during this period!), dialog with the Lord about what they mean to Him, use the questions at the bottom as fuel, and then pray it: God if that’s what’s in your heart than do … in me, and do … in my city and in the nations of the earth!
Week 2: The Central Call of the Church – Intimacy with God
PDF Version: Week 2 – Intimacy with God
Background Verses: The identity of priesthood speaks about who we are and how God sees us: first and foremost as a people chosen by God for God to have God and to belong to God. The call of intimacy speaks about how then we ought to live: our path forward into fullness and our measure of success is in loving God and being loved by God. By God’s indisputable choice, our lives are measured and defined not by many things, but by one thing – our relationship with God. (more…)
For the next 8 weeks, the Wednesday night message will be tracking with the weekly focus for these 56 days of praying the promise of Isaiah 56 that God would raise up His house of prayer.
Week 1’s focus is on what that promise means related to the identity of the Church as a Royal Priesthood.
Isaiah 56 Focus – Week 1 – Priesthood (54min, 15.5MB)
UPDATE: click here for Wednesday’s message on this theme
Here’s the first installment of the weekly prayer focuses for the Isaiah 56 Focus. Each week we’ll look at a theme behind what’s in God’s heart when He promises He will raise up His house as a house of prayer in all the earth. The first page is background Scripture to start connecting our hearts with the ideas, and the second is passages to meditate on. Return to these as often as you like (our suggestion is every day during this period!), dialog with the Lord about what they mean to Him, use the questions at the bottom as fuel, and then pray it: God if that’s what’s in your heart than do … in me, and do … in my city and in the nations of theearth!
Week 1: The Central Identity of the Church – a Kingdom of Priests
Background Verses: From the garden of Eden, where God created a paradise where He would walk and charged man to “keep it” (Genesis 2:8-9,15;3:8), to the New Jerusalem, where God again dwells with man and He will be our God and we will be His people (Revelation 21:2-4), God’s central purpose for humanity has always been priesthood. (more…)
Part 5 in a series on Foundations for Intercession.
As we finish this series on intercession, we’re looking at what it means to live in the authority that God has given us, again in the context of relationship. Our authority doesn’t come from who we are, but from who we are to Him. It’s not a legal arrangement that grants us authority but rather the way that God’s heart is moved over us and His delight in displaying His love toward us by backing the desires of our hearts when they’re in agreement with His.
Understanding authority gives us more than just confidence to pray bold prayers, it shapes our whole life into one lived expecting our Father to have our back. It reshapes our priorities when we truly believe that our created purpose and our way forward in all that God has put in our hearts, is to move the heart the God.
Foundations for Intercession – pt5 – Friendship: Authority (22.3MB 72min+ministry time)
Part 4 in a series on Foundations for Intercession.
As we continue to unfold what a practical life of friendship with God looks like, we move past inquiring and the searching out of God’s heart, to the issue of agreement and our call to walk in truth. God desires for us, as friends, to know His heart, and God desires for us, as friends, to honor His heart and stand for His heart and fight for His heart.
With the privilege of knowing God’s heart, comes the responsibility of stewarding God’s emotions. The Lord of the universe has chosen to make Himself vulnerable for the sake of love, so that He could have a bride who knows what He loves and values and chooses to love and value the same.
Holiness is not about following a set of rules but about honoring a heart. It’s about the glory of how God loves us that makes even the little things an opportunity to honor and bless Him and to move His heart.
Foundations for Intercession – pt4 – Friendship: Agreement (22.3MB 75min+ministry time)
