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…)
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)
Another look at the key pieces of the heart God is relaying through the house of prayer, specifically this week at the key place fasting, prayer and longing for more of God has in the New Covenant.
For many it’s hard to see the place for fasting in the New Covenant. After all, what we see in the Old Covenant is mostly fasting as a sign of mourning over sin that has separated men from God. What’s to mourn about now that nothing can separate us from His love? When Jesus is questioned about fasting in Matthew 9:14-17, that’s exactly what He says: “How can the friends of the Bridegroom mourn while He is with them?” But then He adds, “but the day is coming when the Bridegroom will be taken away, and then they will fast.”
In the New Covenant we fast because we’re separated, no longer by any barrier, but simply by time and space. We fast because we know what’s ours – we remember what it’s like to be with Jesus, and we long for a day of fullness when our greatest moments with God are multiplied by 1000 and strung end-to-end without ceasing. The new wineskin that holds the power of New Covenant life is the remembrance of Jesus that fills us with anticipation for more of Jesus – today and That Day.
Burning Hearts Gathering – 11/28/12 – Then They Will Fast (19.3MB 68min)
Part 8 in the series: Gospel Identity: Belonging to God
We’re finishing up this series on our identity in God with a look at the lifestyle of the kingdom and how God invites us to choose a pattern of life that pulls us out of ourselves and into the place of writing a history with God. The cry of the Father’s heart to His children is “Trust Me!”
Burning Hearts Gathering – 5/30/12 – Growing In Trust (17.9MB 63min)
Part 5 in the series: Gospel Identity: Belonging to God
We’re continuing to look at the revelation of the Bride of Christ, specifically beginning to look at what it tells us about what love looks like of the sort that God gives and desires, and our heart requires. Defining what “intimacy with God” actually looks like lets us actually begin to live a life of experiencing it, not just hearing about it or longing for it. We’re going to look at three elements of what bridal intimacy looks like in the next few weeks. This week, it’s to desire, to be followed by to know and to cherish.
Burning Hearts Gathering – 5/9/12 – Defining Bridal Intimacy: Desire (17.0MB 60min)
Session 7 on Loving God: Loving God With All Your Strength – The Sermon on the Mount Lifestyle
In the application part of this session, we’re looking at the lifestyle and practices that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount and how they lead us to a life of sacrificial love and dependence upon God. Jesus lays out five areas of surrender where God longs for us to give and receive love.
Loving God – Session 7 – 11/14/10 – Loving God With All Your Strength (practicals) (22.5MB 66min)
Notes(Primary scriptures: Matthew 5:17-6:18)
