Imrah Ministries

Deeper Series

2008-05-15T17:34:00.006+05:30

This is a re-post of a series Titto and I did sometime back. These teachings will get you re-focused on your walk with the Lord. I encourage you to take a few days to go through this series and go deeper into more things the Lord is calling you to:

                                                A CALL TO GO DEEPER

1. A call to go deeper : God's personal invitation to go deeper with Him

2. Hindrances to going deeper:

                  a. Our position with God
                  b. Scheme of Intimidation
                  c. Scheme of Deception
                  d. Scheme of Accusation

3. Our Response:

                 a. Prepare your minds for action
                 b. Safeguard of joy
                 c. Put on the armor of God

Our Journey into the Throne Room

2008-05-13T10:27:00.008+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

Very few people have learnt how to enter God’s Presence through prayer. They try praying for a few minutes, struggling to convince themselves of His Presence, but then they stop short and leave without entering His throne room. Before I take you into the different stages of entering the Shekhinah or the royal residence of the Lord, I would like to take you to the model prayer and show you some principles contained in it.

Here are some points I'd like to make:

(1) "Our Father [Abba]…”. This is where it all starts…a relationship. If you don’t have a relationship with Abba, then you’re not eligible to move on.

(2) Jesus goes onto say, “…Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name…”…this is the attitude of our entry: reverence. In spite of the fact He is our very own Abba, He is the King of the Universe. And therefore as we approach Him He requires our complete attention.

(3) “Thy Kingdom come…” Moving down the model prayer, you find that the entire focus of the prayer is not us, but the kingdom of God. And since we are citizens of His Kingdom…our complete well-being is also His interest.

With this in mind, I now take you into three stages in entering His Presence using the tabernacle of Moses as the outline. The Hebrew word for “tabernacle” is “miskhan” and it means “Place of Divine Dwelling”. It consists of 3 different places: the Outer Court, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Let’s start from the Gate of the Outer Court…

The Gate

There is but one gate to enter the tabernacle. This is the foundation. Jesus Christ is that gate. Your access into God’s Presence, no matter how spiritual you are, is Christ Jesus.

The Brazen Altar of Sacrifice

As we go forward we come across the Altar of Sacrifice. This is where our sins are dealt with. Scripture plainly tells us, “If you confess your sins, He is just and faithful to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness” [1 John 1:9]. What does it mean to confess? The Greek word for confess is “homologeo” and it means to “say the same as”. In other words, you agree with what God says is sin. “Homologeo” also means “say a word in covenant”, so this is also a place of renewing our covenant with God.

I usually come to a place where I agree and tell the Lord specific areas where I had failed Him [without going into the details of it], and then move on. Many people never get past this altar. Mostly because they “feel” guilty even after they have confessed their sins. Friends, the moment you agree that you missed the mark, God pronounces you clean.

The Brazen Laver

This was a basin that was made of mirrors of the serving women.

Moreover, he made the laver of bronze with its base of bronze, from the mirrors of the serving women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting. [Exodus 38:8]

James, the apostle, compared the Word of God to a mirror in his epistle. This is the place of submission to the Word, a place where you are sanctified by the washing of His Word. While instructing wives to submit to their husbands, Paul says this: just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word [Ephesians 5:26]

Very little is taught about preparation to enter God’s Presence in our day. People just slackly enter His Presence, no wonder they think prayer is dry and boring. At this altar, the priest usually looked into the mirror basin that had water in it and washed himself. What happens here? As you and I open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, He will use the Word of God to expose sins that we were unaware of.

The Lamp stand and the Showbread

As we move on, we enter the tent. The Holy Place in contrast to the Outer Court is dark. Likewise as we go further into the Presence of God, we eliminate light from outside sources. The Bible may look dark and undiscovered, but this is where we learn to depend on the ministry of the Spirit. The Holy Place consists of two things…the lamp stand and the showbread. The light that comes from the lamp stand is symbolic to Jesus who said “I Am the Light of the world” and the show bread also symbolizes Jesus who again said, “I Am the Bread of life”. As you and I go deeper into God’s Presence, my friends, Jesus becomes a bigger reality. The ministry of the Spirit is very focused: revealing more of Jesus.

At this point, I would like to compare this triune tabernacle to our being: the spirit, soul and body. The body may be compared to the Outer Court, the soul to the Holy Place and the spirit to the Most Holy Place. As we spend time with God, our body may not cooperate. Sometimes during our prayer time, we may feel unusual drowsiness, dragging us into a deep sleep. When that happens, we need to ignore what our body says and continue to move on. As you do so, you reach the realm of the soul. In this realm, many of us experience the Presence of God. I experience His Presence in various ways…I’m sure most of us can relate to a warm blanket enveloping us, a gentle breeze, a tingling sensation all over your body like goose bumps, a refreshing river that flows within you, or like a burning sensation through your veins and so forth. However, the sad thing is that many of us stop, satisfied with these experiences.

God is calling us deeper into the place of the spirit, where He can fellowship with us.

The Altar of Incense and the Ark of Covenant

As we move deeper into the inner most part of the tabernacle…the Most Holy Place, we come to that place where we just merge with Him and are filled with this knowledge that He is all in all. To me this is a place of simplicity and “silence”. By silence I mean the voice of “self” has no place here. You reach a place where you are one with Him. His thoughts become your thoughts, His desires become your desires, His will becomes your will and so forth. You don’t go in with a motive to receive, you just want to give. And that brings us to the Altar of Incense. It just keeps burning and burning…offering worship to the King… giving Him every detail of your life so that He can make it His domain.

Finally we reach the Ark of the Covenant…it is a box that contains three things: The Ten Commandments, a Golden Jar with Manna, and the rod of Aaron that budded.

The tablets of Ten Commandments symbolizes God’s promise to write His law into the tablets of our heart, the jar of Manna is a promise of fresh revelation of Jesus for every day, and the rod of Aaron that budded when in the Presence of the Lord, is the promise of fruitfulness in areas that are barren.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. [Mark 1:35]

May we be encouraged to spend time with Abba like how Jesus did very early in the morning and align ourselves to Abba’s heart for each day!

Love never fails

2008-05-10T09:50:00.014+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

Couple of week's back my grand mother, 83 years old, had a fall causing one of her discs to be compressed. We took her to the hospital the very next day and the doctor recommended 3 weeks of bed rest. We brought her back home that day itself. But that evening as I went into her room to see how she was doing, I saw her tear off all her clothes and just screaming and saying utter nonsense. I was shocked to see her do this. When we asked her why she was doing it she started accusing us of things, and then she went on to say that we were trying to murder her. All of us were in a state of shock. We didn't know what to make of it. At times she'd calm down a bit, but still detached from the world. We found it really hard to do things for her out of pure love because she kept saying things that really hurt us.

One time while I was holding her hands, she started folding my fingers, and I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Folding the clothes". Every night she'd tear off all her clothes and scream. We prayed and did all we could do, but there was no change. A few days later a dear friend of mine came home and shared with us how it was with his mother and that the only cure for what she was going through was God's love. That night my mother and I experienced Gods love in a very supernatural way. We literally felt Gods love flowing out of us as we took care of her. I opened my mailbox and saw my friend PJ had sent me a devotional of how "Love never fails". I had heard those words so many times, but that day it put on new flesh and I told myself, "His love can't fail in this one either". Others told me that things would only grow worse and some said it was the beginning of Alzheimer's. But we refused to accept it. My mother and I would sit beside her and love her by singing for her, praying with her and talking to her. In one or two days, the visual hallucination decreased to only the evenings, and a few more days later it decreased to only nights. We have seen only positive signs from here. Making her sit was something impossible. She'd throw tantrums and curse when we tried to make her sit, but now she has started walking using a walker. Releasing God's love into our circumstances is so powerful!

Dear friends, you may be facing something similiar, or probably something different. Whatever it is, I challenge you to trust His love. Ask the Lord and tell him that you want to experience His love in a different way and seek Him till He does.

Legal Authorities On Earth

2008-05-05T23:25:00.018+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

Dominion

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. [Genesis 1:26]

We all know the story of creation and how God released these spirit beings into earthly vessels that were to function like God Himself on earth. We understand from the above passage that God gave man the dominion over the earthly realm. Now what does it mean to have dominion? It means to have legal authority to rule. The Hebrew word for dominion could help us to get a fuller picture. The word mamlacha that is used for dominion simply means “kingdom”. So in other words, Gods purpose of giving us dominion was to bring a “kingdom” to earth. However, God warned man that if he disobeyed Him, man would move from the kingdom of life to the kingdom of death, a kingdom whose ruler is the arch enemy of God, even satan.

The Law of Dominion

In Ephesians 2:1,2 we read,

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

When man operated in a standard that was offensive to God, man himself gave his dominion over to satan. But if you noticed, the dominion satan received he could operate only in the “air” or in the heavenly realm. This is because the dominion given by God was for earthly beings, and not for spirit beings.

Let me deviate from this topic to something very important about Gods Word. Now, when God speaks, what He speaks becomes a law. Psalm 138:2b tells us, You have exalted Your word above all Your name. Now the word “name” in Hebrew is used for “who the person is”. That is why when Moses asked God what His name was, He said "I Am Who I Am” [Yahweh]. That is, when we need peace, He becomes Yahweh Shalom; when we need healing, He becomes Yahweh Rapha and, so forth. So God’s name represents who He is. The above Scripture tells us that God has exalted what He speaks above Himself. Or in other words, He has subjected Himself to His words and will never go against it. So when God said, “Let them have dominion”, He was giving legal authority to these earthly beings to rule. Any other beings were in fact illegal to have authority on the earthly realm. This was the same reason why God had to place His Seed in an earthly body.This can also be explained with a day-to-day example: a person can have authority on earth only while he is in his body. The moment the person dies, he also loses his authority on earth. So coming back to satan, all that he could do was to make human beings follow him and thus establish his kingdom on earth through them.

Dominion restored

Friends, let me say again, man through sin lost the dominion God gave him. And the only way this authority could be restored would be through the death of a man without sin. And since the entire Adamic race was infected with sin, God had to place His own seed in an earthly body to pay the penalty of death at every level of human disobedience. Jesus is that begotten seed. He led a sinless life and suffered the penalty of sin for the entire human race and He rose back to life saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” [Matthew 28:18]. Jesus brought back the kingdom to us. Notice, my friends, God did not break the law of dominion here.

Permission for Divine Intervention

If you have entered the kingdom of God, you have been given dominion. But there’s a problem again… Only earthly beings have legal authority over earth. Therefore unless we give permission to God, He cannot move. This is why the foremost thing Jesus asked us to pray in the Disciples Prayer was: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” [Matthew 6:10]

Jesus said, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. [Matthew 16:19]

Through prayer you give earthly permission for divine intervention. You might wonder "What can my puny prayer do?". Well, it can give God permission to interfere. However, just as the disciples needed to learn the principles of prayer, you and I need to learn to pray. The highest priority in a Christian's life should be prayer, for that is where the transaction between the King and the colony takes place.

I encourage you today to use the dominion God has given you through prayer and bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

We are all evangelists!

2008-05-03T09:59:00.007+05:30

By Alwyn Matt at Coffee and the Word

This has been the mandate that I have been embracing all of last year and especially this year – 2008. There is something about the season that we have been released into.

In this writing I wish to focus primarily on Christians, but if you are a non-Christian, go ahead read and see the enthusiasm of this group of radical people!

Due to limitation of time, space and thought, I will only put in the most urgent thoughts and points for now.

In my opinion even if we have the five-fold ministry it does not mean we burden the role of winning souls only to the evangelist. Residing in a nation like Kuwait, I have the privilege to attune myself to the best of food, hotels and service. One thing I have noticed when I have been at any hotel or restaurant is that, at urgent moments when the waiter, the barista, the customer service or the executive is away for even the moment, the range manager would step into the shoes of the waiter. Why so? Because they understand the value of each customer!

The Manager in some cases may be earning a higher pay or even holds a higher status than the person being served but regardless of who is who, the corporate society has learned what it is to represent a brand name! My explanation to some level may be a bit too vivid yet it drives home the point!

I believe this system has been stolen from the Christian faith, the system of value for a soul; this must be brought back into the Church. Every moment is a moment to win, evangelize, cast out, cast in, and heal or whatever for Jesus. Few years back the Holy Spirit challenged me to take my “ministry” outside the church. I was shocked to hear what I heard. I replied, but Lord, we need music for the souls? We need the “atmosphere” We need the booklets, we need men in suits….Where did all this come from? Christianity started with men whose hand’s stunk with fish, but when laid upon the dead brought back life!

Since then, I have taken this with huge enthusiasm. Living in a Muslim country has brought in challenges but I still go ahead laying hands on the sick and even seeing them healed.

Preaching the full gospel

In many ways I believe the spreading of the gospel has been so limited because we are not preaching the full gospel. You may ask ‘what is the full gospel?’

Romans 15:19 says ‘by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ’.

This is the full gospel of Christ; we must step out, lay hands on people and preach the gospel. The Spirit of the Lord will not step out until we step out!

It is when we release the full gospel that we bear the full harvest. I do not know about you but I wish to preach the full gospel of Christ that gives me results for the kingdom.

I dream to see the day when I minister at packed auditoriums, stadiums. When I see a soccer game and I saw the magnitude of audience, I cry out “Jesus that is what I want!” What has happened to mass evangelism? I can literally count in 1 hand the number of top level, impact creating, result producing – mass evangelists. What has happened?

So much of principles, pointers and theory has stepped into the church. We need an army, it is not about big names, it is about the need of the hour.

We need an army of on fire, anointed evangelists who walk in integrity.

There was this one time, when Reinhard Bonke was invited for a group meeting, which got turned to a discussion, 2 hours passed by and Bonke said, “Alright, I need to go”. The top officials said, what happened, we are still in the middle of this huge theological discussion, what we talk now can change lives. To which Bonke replied, I am sorry but I do not have time for this, souls are perishing each second, the nations need the gospel.

We have spoiled the mission field because many people sit uselessly putting comments on things people spent hours and years in labour. Never judge a man of God, but instead if you see something wrong, learn from that and do it a better way than them and increase the results you get.

We must never forget, that Christianity was introduced during a time, when pagan worship was huge and the roman Gods were considered powerful. Why is it that, the Romans who followed their mythology, inspite of conquering half of the globe did not spread like Christians, who kept dying back in those days?

Again, because the full gospel was being preached.

We must evangelize or we will fossilize.

Be aware, you could be a mass evangelist like me or just a person called to share the gospel to your news paper boy or the one who serves your meals at the café, you will never know where you belong, if you are called for mass or not until you start with one soul at a time. I like to put it this way, atleast preach to the cat down your street!

The nations are waiting; see you at the field of harvest!

Perseverance

2008-04-29T02:15:00.011+05:30

By Jonathan Shieh

In my "day job", we have a team of young adults who travel all the around the UK, encouraging teenage youths to take a bold step in their schools and begin to not just study the bible and pray amongst themselves, but to reach out to their friends as well. As part of this ministry, we also record short messages to challenge and to continue to encourage them weekly.

Here's one such video that I recorded earlier. Although the video is directed specifically at youths, the principles are equally applicable in all of our lives.

Get under the rain!

2008-04-27T07:48:00.003+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. [Deuteronomy 11:14]

In ancient Israel, the yearly seasons included the "early" or "former rain" and the "late" or "latter rain". The early rain falls in the months October-November, while the latter rain falls in the months of March-April. The early rains helped the seed to germinate and grow, while it was during the latter rain that the crops matured and were ready for harvest. Anyone who has studied the Scriptures would agree that the rain symbolizes the down pour of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that we are living in the season of the latter rain, where God has released an ocean of His Presence upon His people. Take heed, the Lord of Harvest is nigh, and He's coming sooner than many think He will.

God faithfully poured out the early rain upon the early Church for the first few centuries. The Church grew as the Word increased, and God manifested His Presence through the gifts of His Spirit. But then looking back into Church history, we find a period of total darkness, a period of thousands of years where no one heard the message of His Gospel as man's traditions and his opinions took the place of God's Word. What happened to the crop? Something ate the crop up for sure. The Spirit of God describes these years as being eaten by locust:

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you." [Joel 2:25]

Why did God send such an army? Because the seed that was planted during these years, was not the seed of the Gospel. But God promised to restore the years. How did He say He'd do this? The answer lies in Joel 2:23:

" Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month."

God Himself tells us what this rain is:

"And I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh…" [Joel 2:28]

The rain is God's remedy. He said He would come to us like the rain, like the spring rain [latter rain] watering the earth [Hosea 6:3]. But notice, before God sent the rain to us He started planting the seed. It's beginning can be traced back to the discovery of salvation by faith alone by Martin Luther in the 16 th Century. From then you find God planting more of the truths of His Word through various servants of God like Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley and others. God was patient. He slowly changed the mind-set of His people to receive His latter rain. In 1901, God started pouring out His Spirit as on the day of Pentecost. Ever since millions and millions have received this down pour of God's Spirit and have operated in the gifts of the Spirit. With the Charismatic movement in the late 1950s, these gifts were even distributed in the main line churches as they believed in God's promise of His Spirit. In fact, it is said that there has been no other movement that has impacted the world more than the last two. I say again, we are the generation of the latter rain. He's pouring Himself out to all people as He did in the early rain or the beginning of the Church. But unlike the early rain, there's a warning that comes with the latter rain: "THE HARVEST IS NIGH!"

James said in his epistle, Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains .[James 5:7] We who are witnessing this latter rain must realize that His coming will follow it. He is sending His angels with the sickle to gather His people from the fields.

As I sit and write this, it's raining heavily here in Trivandrum. The Lord interrupted me a while back and told me, "Get out and get under the rain!". Now, the Lord sometimes tells us to do things that may seem stupid to us, but the end result is always to bless us. I got under the rain and He demonstrated how He was pouring out His Spirit in our time. His outpouring became real to me.

Many of us have built roof tops over ourselves, and we prevent His outpouring- roof tops of ignorance, roof tops of wrong beliefs and disbelief, roof tops of unforgiveness and disobedience. God tells us, "Get out and get under the rain!". Friends, you won't have the reality of the latter rain, unless you come out of your houses and get under it. If it requires you to come out of an organized church, do that! But get under the rain!

Israel-in-the-desert-itis

2008-04-25T23:17:00.004+05:30

Robert Pennington

How many times have we read about the Israelites being rescued from Egypt, seen their ungratefulness, and thought, “Wow, I can’t believe they actually said/did that!” Well, I bet you have never known this, but the Israelites had a disease. Yep, they had Israelinthedesertitis. You probably haven’t heard of it even though it is very common in the world today. And just so you don’t “catch it” I will explain the symptoms to you so you can spot it a mile away.

When a person has Israelinthedesertitis:

They only think of themselves.

You can see it written on the patients face, “My world revolves around me, why doesn’t yours?” No matter what God does their thoughts always came back to themselves. Now, the one way to cure that is to praise God, in the good and the bad, and to seek for Him to be glorified in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31).

They desire the life they had before their God given life.

“Honey, I want to go back to Egypt where I was beat, misused, poor and destitute, because I had fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (Numbers 11:5).” Yes, it is sad, but they don’t take their thoughts captive and make them obedient to God (2 Corinthians 10:5). Their thoughts never turned to the bounty and reward of following God, but dwelled upon the fleshly things that they had grown accustomed to in their old life. They didn’t grow up, and we all know that a Body that doesn’t mature isn’t healthy.

They don’t learn from their mistakes.

You think that Big Bubba over there is a slow learner, well, you haven’t seen somebody with Israelinthedesertitis. The Lord repeatedly gave the Israelites commands, directing them to their next task, but repeatedly they took matters into their own hands, or just didn’t do what God told them to (Numbers 14). Patients with this disease refuse to listen and be obedient when God tells them to do something, thinking that they know best. Eventually they may finally give in and realize that God does know what He is doing.

They don’t have an intimate relationship with God.

Sure, they see Him from afar, and worship Him when called to, but they don’t really know Who He Is. They ask, “Can I trust Him? How do I know He won’t trick me?” They don’t trust Him and so they don’t place their life within His, and so they don’t find out if He is trustworthy. The only prescription I know to give them for that is: Read about His faithful actions and hear others proclaim what He has done. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)." Hooboy, what a journey that’ll start.

This prescription is made for everyone, and your Doctor (wink) has already filled it out. So, let’s take our medicine and get on track for finishing this race.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. [Hebrews 12:1-3]

Bitter Root

2008-04-16T22:03:00.005+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

Recently I had a close friend say somethings that really hurt me. Actually there was nothing wrong in what he said, the problem was with the way I received what he said. And there sprout in my heart a root of bitterness. After sending some mails to each other, I was still filled with bitterness, a heaviness that I couldn't describe.I was handling or analyzing his words after some time and thus fueling the bitterness with in me. I even tried justifying myself, but the heaviness just wouldn't leave. I knew what the Spirit wanted me to do: to forgive and release. I yielded to the Holy Spirit and even as I was forgiving and releasing I had my sister shout and scream at me and say mean things for no reason. The Lord reminded me of the verse in Hebrews 12:15 that said, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root springs up to cause trouble and defile many.". I could now clearly see the strategy of the enemy: to defile many. But the Spirit of God was there by me helping me and instructing me what to do. I just kept quiet, did what she asked me to do and came back to my room. But as I got back to my room my mind was crowded with thoughts "Shouldn't you have given her a piece of your mind?", "Did you let her win?". I immediately spoke out and said, "Obedience to the Lord is all that matters. And I have seen to it that no bitter root sprout out to cause trouble" . A peace suddenly filled my heart. Previously thinking about my friend brought a bitter feeling, but now I felt absolutely free in my spirit. Hallelu Yah! Remember,friends, the grace of forgiveness you receive will be according to the measure you forgive others.

Before I end, I want you to re-read this verse: "See to it that you don't miss the grace of God and that no bitter root springs up to cause trouble and defile many"

Just Do It!

2008-04-12T09:33:00.008+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

A while back I was at the hospital for some check up and there was this other guy who was waiting to enter the MRI section who started talking to my dad. He told my dad that he had a series of 4 brain tumors. I just knew I had to share the Gospel with this man. But since my dad was with me and since he wasn't a believer I had to distract him from the scene. So I asked my dad if he could get me some chewing gum from the car. When my dad went out to get the chewing gum I spoke with this man and prayed with him. As soon as I finished praying, my dad came back and this man turned and told my dad, "I feel so much better after he prayed". And to my surprise this man sat there preaching to my dad! I kept quiet while all the talking went on and then as he was about to leave, he told me, "Thank you thank you. I feel so much better".

Friends, there are two important things that Jesus told His disciples before He ascended back to heaven. One was to receive the baptism in the Spirit and the other was to preach the Gospel to all creatures. Let’s not get into a discussion about the former, even though the former is empowerment for the latter. However, God has given official accreditation to every believer to go and preach His message.

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. [Mark 16:15]

Many believers are waiting for God to give them special approval to preach the Gospel. I often hear believers say, "I will not go and preach until the Lord tells me to." That is nothing but some super spiritual talk friends! Now, don't get me wrong, we are to listen and obey the Spirit's promptings. But what I'm saying is unless you step out in obedience, you need not expect the Holy Spirit to guide you.

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. [Acts 16:6-10]

Some may read the above passage and say that Paul was instructed by the Spirit not to preach the Gospel in the province of Asia and Bithynia. Yes, they are right, but that kind of instruction was offered to Paul and his companions only as they stepped out in faith and in obedience to preach the Gospel. Friends, only a moving vehicle needs direction. If I was sitting there in that hospital waiting for God to speak to me afresh what He had already spoken to me, and that is to preach His Gospel, I would have missed the opporunity the Spirit gave me.

Be on the move for the Lord 24 hours around the clock! We have a full-time ministry of reconciliation, brethren. Don't just stand there, put out the life-line. Don't hesitate, just do it!

In everything...

2008-04-08T07:49:00.005+05:30

By PJ Sorensen at Signs and Wonders

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Notice that this scripture instructs us to give thanks in all things, not for all things. When tragedy or temptation strikes, we are not to thank God for them. He is not their author. He's the One who provides our way of escape from them. And that's what we're to thank Him for.

If you read the four Gospels, you'll find that Yeshua/Jesus never gave thanks for sickness or death. Instead, when He encountered them, His response was to overcome them by God's power. So give thanks as Yeshua/Jesus gave thanks-- not for ha`satan's/satan's activities but for the victory G-d has given you over them

The Mercy Seat

2008-04-06T07:47:00.010+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. [Hebrews 4:16]

In order to have a fuller revelation of this Scripture, we need to clearly understand the Throne Room of God. We have been given a faint idea of what the Throne Room is like from the earthly tabernacle that God asked Moses to build for Him. The earthly tabernacle had two places: The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The Most Holy Place was the Throne Room of God which contained the Ark of the Covenant. Now, the lid that covered the ark is whats called the Atonement Cover or Mercy Seat, where the High Priest sprinkled the blood of a lamb that was sacrificed for atonement. At the two edges of the Mercy Seat were the cherubim of Glory. [Cherubim are winged angels that guard the throne of God]. Well, that's a glimpse into the faint copy of God's Tabernacle.

Now when everything was arranged, the priests would enter the Holy Place to carry out their ministry. Only the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place, and even that was limited to only once a year and he was not to enter without the blood of a sacrificed lamb. He was to offer the blood by sprinkling it on the Mercy Seat for his sins and the sins committed by the people in ignorance. When God saw the blood, He'd have mercy on His people.

When we come to the Newer Covenant, we are told that Christ came as our High Priest of the good things that are already here [Heb 9:11]. And He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle and went into the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood. Jesus' blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat not for Himself, since He had no sins, but for us. The blood of Christ is ever before God and each time He sees the blood, beloved, He is moved with mercy.

Now with this bigger picture in mind, I want you to re-read Hebrews 4:16:

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

This verse is for you who feel unworthy to approach God. Your confidence to approach God must solely be on the sprinkled blood of Christ. Heb 12: 24 tells us that the sprinkled blood [of Christ] that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. The blood of Abel spoke judgment and condemnation, but the blood of Christ speaks mercy. However, it doesn't stop there; it goes one step ahead and opens us to the very life of God, to everything we would ever need to stand complete in Him. Hallelu Yah!

Should Christians Observe Sabbath?

2008-04-02T17:57:00.006+05:30

By Titto Thomas

Therefore, let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with respect to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality belongs to Christ. [Colossians 2:16-17]

As a very young Christian I remember being asked to keep the Sabbath. The person who 'commanded' me had explained in detail and yes the whole package looked very convincing. At that point of time I was desperately trying to please the Lord and I thought if keeping the Sabbath would make him happy, I would be more than willing to try it out. Anyway I took it before the Lord and he led me to the above verses! But Sabbath is not a very light topic in the bible therefore I believe we need to look at it responsibly! Allow me to get to the question by explaining our position on the old testament.

The Old Testament

We all have this question. "As a new testament believer, how do I handle the Old Testament?" Paul answers this question in Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.

The things in the Old Testament were written for our 'Learning or Instruction'. Therefore the implication is that we have a lot of things to learn from the Old testament.

An analogy that the Lord showed me was this " If someone came and beat you up with a stick, who would receive the retaliation. The stick or the person?!" The realm of the spirit was concealed from the common man in the days of old! Now we know more realities, we know who our real enemies are. Not Assyria or the Hittites, But powers and principalities in the heavenlies!

It is fundamental that we realize the importance of the Old Testament and it's implication for us. No we don't swallow it, Hook line and sinker rather we learn things from it!

The Law of the Life

As we move on to the New Testament we come face to face with another reality. That of the Law of life. Now this is definitely going to shock some people, although there are instructions mentioned in the New Testament, we find not a single mention of right or wrong! Because Law (referring to OT) meant just that! Right or wrong! The important point here is that although God (through HIS WORK) abolished right and wrong he established a much higher law, The law of Life! Now this is much superior to right and wrong. For example when one person asked Jesus, on what to do with Soldiers who asked the Jews to carry their load, Jesus did not reply with right or wrong(as what the man wanted) but instead replied that they should go the further one mile!

See the law of life goes much beyond right or wrong to a much higher realm or plane! Now once we understand these basic concepts we can look at our topic in detail.

The Old Testament Sabbath

The first occurrence of the Sabbath is in Exodus 16:23, when God asks the Israelites not to collect manna on the seventh day. He later includes it in the Ten Commandments, and even commands the death penalty for its violation. The Sabbath was also meant to be kept for all generations. The Sabbath day was by every means Holy! The Sabbath day signified rest. It was sign(Exo 31:17). And as is every sign, so was this sign, a pointer to something! The Lord says it was a sign of God resting from a work(definitely not because he was tired!). It just means he had made something perfect and stood back to enjoy it! But there was something bigger encapsulated in this. It was a pointer to something bigger, as was the whole Old Testament.

Sabbath: The Pointer

When we reach the Gospels we find that the Sabbath concept was totally misused. As with all scriptures, we humans had bent and twisted it. The perfect beginning for this was when eve replied to Satan. She said "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall YE TOUCH IT, lest ye die." See God had never told Eve that she would die if she touched it!! She just made the whole command a bit spicier! The political and religious institution of the day had used it to their advantage! Just think about it, The WHOLE Old Testament is pointing to Jesus but only a handful of people really understood him, when he arrived! I am not just talking about a few verses but 39 books and 99 percent of the people missed out on it! Yes they were very dogmatic but they missed the point. Brothers and sisters, are we at that point too. Have we missed out on what the bible is trying to say?!

Jesus contradicted the Sabbath idea of the day by grossly violating it and declared himself the LORD over it. Just as every other 'THING', Sabbath too was a pointer to the man himself – "JESUS CHRIST". That's the ultimate reality!

Sabbath in the New Testament

Now in the New Testament we can be misled to think that God is contradicting Himself when He says things like Col 2:16-17. But no He is not. He just moved it to a higher plane.

He clarifies what He says in Colossians in Hebrews 4:9 "There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God." So there is a Sabbath for us. And it goes much beyond locking up yourself in your house on a Saturday. It comes in the light of resting from another work! A spiritual work which ended with a cry from Jesus on the cross! "IT IS FINISHED". The work of salvation is over, we can now rest from our works! We don't have to strive to work for our relationship with God. We can now stand back and enjoy Him. We all must see this in our lives. It is so pivotal. The breakthrough in my Christian life came when I saw this! (5 years after being born again of him and filled with His spirit!). I pray that God would open your eyes too to see this great truth. God has finished his great work and now (amen and amen) He is at work, through His Spirit, working it out in our lives. We just stand back and say YES( to Him). That's it!!

Your response and the danger

Back to the question: Should Christians observe Sabbath? If we are looking for a yes or a no, we are barking up the wrong tree. Let me explain…as I mentioned above, the law of life in which we operate now does not involve good or bad. It has to do with what the inner life in you is swelling up for. For those who claim that it's biblical, all I want to tell you is that we no longer need to observe it like the Old Testament. Yes there is a new testament Sabbath and it has to do, not with sitting home on a Saturday, but with a state of rest in relation to God (i.e. we no longer have to earn our relationship with God).

Two books Galatians and Colossians, were written because someone hinted about following the Jewish traditions. As you read through these books we see the fire inside Paul as he wrote it.(Gal 6.11). God wanted you and me to stay clear of legalism! And He was very serious about it (Gal 5.4). If you are ever lead to observe Sabbath because of a stand you need to make or other personal choices, Go ahead! But you are in serious error if you make it into a doctrine, or if you force someone else to do it! We are not called to stand at the sign, but to move on to where the sign lead us. Sabbath is perfected in Jesus. This is what the sign is pointing to. So don't hang around the sign, run to where it points to!!!!

Praying in the spirit...

2008-03-23T09:23:00.005+05:30

By Sidharth Mohandas

INTRODUCTION

I'm sure most of us have heard phrases like "praying in the spirit" or "praying in the Holy Spirit". What is it? How is it different from other prayers? What is the benefit of it? Let me first quote all the references to this kind of praying from Scripture:

"For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful."[1 Corinthians 14: 14; Also read 1 Cor 14:2].

Romans 8:26, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know WHAT we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

"Pray at all times (on every occasion, in every season) in the Spirit..." [Ephesians 6:18]

"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit" [Jude 21]

THE PLACE OF REVELATION

You and I must realize that our mind is very limited, it cannot fathom the mysteries of God nor can it comprehend spiritual truths and realities.

"...no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" [1 Cor 2:9]

But the very next Scripture tells us something very profound...but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. If you have entered into a covenant with Jesus, beloved, then your spirit is intertwined with His. His Spirit moves into yours and your spirit moves into His. And it is in this realm of the spirit where there is abundance of revelations, mysteries are hidden and disclosed and every blessing is deposited. Why is it deposited in the spirit realm? Because it's the safest place, the only place where the devil can't lay his hand on. They're eternal realities so to speak, and not subject to change. Now do you know what the Holy Spirit does?... He takes of these eternal realities and pours them into our spirits. Our spirits in turn conveys them to our mind. Our mind receives them in the form of words, which I believe are poor containers sometimes. You'd know what I meant by that if you have been in the place of revelation where your spirit just explodes with these revelations from God, and you try your best to explain it in words but you find that no words can adequately explain what you've seen in the spirit.

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words [1 Cor 2:12]

TRAVAILING IN PRAYER

You might be wondering how praying in the spirit has anything to do with this. Well, when you and I pray in the spirit, the prayer transcends the realm of the mind into the spirit realm.

A year back I had a dream of a pregnant lady crying out and singing, "Send Revival! Send Revival!", as she was singing I saw a wall break open with a fresh river gushing out of it. The explanation the Lord gave me was: "Travail in prayer as a woman in pains of child birth" He spoke to me through many verses [ Romans 8:26; Romans 15:30], but the one that moved me the most was where Jesus agonized in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane before His trial. The following days and weeks I remember the Holy Spirit doing exactly what He spoke to me... He was agonizing and groaning through me. Those were deep and heavy groans that mere words could not express.

MYSTERIES UNRAVELED

The second and more common way of praying in the spirit is praying in tongues. This gift has been of great help to me personally. Whenever I'm unable to understand a Scripture or whenever I need a revelation of some spiritual truth I immediately pray in tongues, and the revelation flows in like a river. Mysteries are unraveled and what I once did not understand is made known.

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. [1 Cor 14:2]

ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD...

There are other times I don't know what to pray for in a particular situation, and I'd pray in tongues following the principle in Romans 8:26.

He [The Holy Spirit] maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. [Romans 8:27]

Probably the understanding I have of the will of God in the situation would be insufficient and therefore praying in tongues would help me override the realm of the mind and thus enable me to stand in the center of God's will. This is why praying in the Spirit builds us up or edifies as Jude 21 and 1 Cor 14:4 tells us: He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself

Something I found interesting is that one can even pray in the spirit while he or she is sleeping. While I was in college my room mate told me that after I would sleep I would speak in an unknown language. The scripture that came to my mind was "I slept but my heart was awake..."(Songs of Solomon 5:2). I believe the Holy Spirit was praying through my spirit even when my mind was asleep.

There is much more to this topic of praying in the spirit and much more experiences I could relate to you. But now I think I'll let you relate your own experience of praying in the spirit in the comment section and allow you to build on the topic.