Isaiah 56 Focus Week 2: Intimacy With God

Posted by Tim

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…)

Isaiah 56 Focus Week 1: Priesthood – Message

Posted by Tim

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)

Week 1 Handout

Isaiah 56 Focus Week 1: Priesthood

Posted by Tim

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

PDF Version

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…)

Foundations for Intercession: Friendship – Authority (Burning Hearts Gathering 2/27/13)

Posted by Tim

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)

Notes

Foundations for Intercession: Friendship – Agreement (Burning Hearts Gathering 2/20/13)

Posted by Tim

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)

Notes

Foundations for Intercession: Friendship – Inquiring (Burning Hearts Gathering 2/13/13)

Posted by Tim

Part 3 in a series on Foundations for Intercession.

In these next few sessions, we’re unfolding what a life of Friendship with God actually consists of. This message is about the call to “inquire in His temple” – to talk to God about His heart and to become a student of His emotions. As the identity of friendship becomes real to us, all of life reorients around a single desire – to simply come to know and understand our Friend. That desire, in turn, changes how we view day-to-day life, and particularly, how we approach Scripture.

Foundations for Intercession – pt3 – Friendship: Inquiring (21.3MB 70min+ministry time)

Notes

Foundations for Intercession: Worldview (Burning Hearts Gathering 1/30/13)

Posted by Tim

Part 2 in a series on Foundations for Intercession.

Our hearts can’t really enter into intercession, without first believing certain critical things about our God, our world and our crisis. We have to believe in an all-good, all-powerful God. Which means that we have to wrestle with the injustice and suffering that is so clearly present in our world and what it is that we’re supposed to do with that. The answer is found in who our God is and where this is all going.

Foundations for Intercession – pt2 – Worldview (19.7MB 59min+ministry time)

Notes

Foundations for Intercession: Vision (Burning Hearts Gathering 1/16/13)

Posted by Tim

As we pursue growing in the spirit of prayer, we’re starting a new series on Foundations for Intercession.

This first session is about our foundational vision for what intercession is about and why God wants us to enter in to it. Intercession is intensely personal to God. It’s about more than just effective ministry. The best fuel for a life of intercession is an intensely relational vision for why we do it. It’s about our hearts connecting with God’s. It’s about God’s desire for friends.

Foundations for Intercession – pt1 – Vision (21.1MB 64min+ministry time)

Notes

Pursue Love (Burning Hearts Gathering 1/9/13)

Posted by Tim

As a new year begins, here’s a simple call back to the one thing God calls us to give our lives to: pursue love. God promises that if we value what He values and pursue His priorities, He will take care of the rest, and God’s central motivation and drive in all that He does is love.

This is a practical look at what it really means to give your life to the pursuit of love, given that God is love and love is of God: how to pursue the width and length and height and depth of the love of God – not just how we conceive of love in our brokenness, but the fullness of love as God defines it, flowing from His heart abounding in love, and not stopping until we’ve given all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Burning Hearts Gathering – 1/9/13 – Pursue Love (21.8MB 76min)

Notes

The Father’s Heart and the Baby in the Manger (Burning Hearts Gathering 12/19/12)

Posted by Tim

Another look at the Christmas story, this time from the Father’s perspective. The way in which God chooses to birth things into the earth is deliberate – it’s an invitation for us to encounter the heart of the Father: Our Father who doesn’t mind the costly and the messy for the sake of His kids… Our Father who loves the days of humble beginnings and weak efforts… Our Father who fights for the destiny and identity He sees in His kids… Our Father who gives us time and room to grow and mature, and who loves the whole journey…

Our Father who wants to display His heart in the way He loves the weak and Fathers them into maturity and greatness, and who wants us to see and experience and love and embrace His way of love.

Burning Hearts Gathering – 12/19/12 – The Father’s Heart and the Baby in the Manger (19.3MB 68min)

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