Dear Friends,
Thank you for joining us on our prayer call yesterday. We had a powerful time of prayer and can see the work that God is doing in the intercessors during this time. God has not given up on our Nation and neither should we. We must keep our light burning for Him knowing that it is through this light burning strong within our hearts, that the lost souls of the world will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Keep pressing in my friends!
It was so exciting to have Nita join us last Friday. It was a surprise visit! The Lord began to speak to her at the last minute as He began to impart strength into her body and directed her to go. It was an incredible night wherein the anointing of God fell in such a powerful way. She will join us this Friday to give us the next message in this Summer of Prophetic Teachings – the location and time is to the right. You won’t want to miss it!
Last week, in “Grace to Die” part ‘B’, Nita shared with us the necessity of humility in the midst of His refining fires. When we submit to the process, His work can be completed in us producing a sweet fragrance unto Him. Below is the next part of this message and I pray that it will help usher you into the next step in your relationship with Him.
Blessings in Him,
Ricci
GRACE TO DIE
Part C
By
Nita Johnson
Seattle
From Charles Finney's earliest days as a Christian, God taught him. He sat with his open Bible in front of him, and he wept and wailed for the truth. His friend, who knew what had happened to him and believed in him completely, sat beside him and wept along with him. They would wail for God to open the mysteries of the Word to Finney. What Finney taught was so new to that era that the pastor of the Presbyterian Church thought that this man was into every kind of false doctrine there was, starting with his belief that the doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was not for the Church of his time. Finney not only went out to die in the woods, but the very place where he thought his soul would be nurtured became his casket. God lit a fire inside that man, and that fire burned and burned. It burned so much, the persecution from the Presbyterian Church only caused the fire to grow more intense. When it was finally time, God sent Finney forth to carry revival wherever he went.
There was a city to which he was invited. When he arrived there, he walked around the city and surveyed it with his mind and eyes. Thoughts came to mind of what he needed to preach to the people. He sent out invitations to the entire city to come out and hear what he had to say. During the worship, God gave him the text, “Up, get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.” He preached on Abraham and Lot, and the destruction of Sodom, and before long, the people were so angry with him that they were grinding their teeth. He pressed the message upon them with a heart almost bursting. Suddenly, an awful solemnity seemed to settle upon the people. They fell to their knees, crying for mercy.
Later, he learned that the community was so desperately wicked that they had called themselves, “Sodom.” The only Christian in it was the one who had invited him to preach, and they had named him “Lot.”
Finney had so many of these kinds of experiences where people were about ready to tear him apart, and then the Spirit fell, after which they all got saved. He had two suits and he traveled from place to place on a horse. He went through three wives. One time, he put his new wife in their new home, and he went out to preach and did not come back as long as she was alive. He did not do this on purpose, of course; he loved her enough to marry her. But the Spirit of the Lord was carrying him from place to place to deal with this nation.
If you are looking for revival to experience fun things, you need to readjust your understanding and your heart. Someone might think that revival makes everything easier. Not so; revival makes things a little harder. You have to be willing to give up whatever He asks once revival falls in order to maintain it. If He calls you at two o'clock in the morning to get up and pray, you do not say, “Okay, I'll get up with you at four, Lord,” and go back to sleep. You go to revival to die. I know that when the Brownsville Revival happened, they would give wonderful, incredible testimonies for an hour, but I want you to know something. The revival that happened at Brownsville was not the kind of revival that happened under Finney, the reason being because Finney was willing to die. He raised up children just like himself.
If all you want to do is make religion fun, God cannot dwell there. That is a temporary visitation. God wants to find a people who will come and pray whenever the doors are open to pray, if there is any way you can. Once prayer brings forth the baby, come and die. Come up to the altar and weep and pour your heart out until God has broken the hardness of your prideful heart. Do this because you want to be His dwelling place -- His habitation. Come and cry, weep, and travail. Come and break before the Lord.
I just love it when I take an altar call and I say, “Come up and repent of your sins,” and what I hear is prayer in the Spirit. I wonder, “How are you repenting of your sins, praying in tongues?” God understands your tongues, but I do not see a broken heart over your sins. Break your heart over the things that break His. Now you are preparing a place for His Spirit to enter and do a work. Eventually, you are preparing a place for Him to dwell.
My dear friends, I am telling you the truth as a friend. We have to come to a place of understanding how to grow in Christ. This nation is about to go through a very, very difficult time. Personally, I would like to go there in a Spirit of Revival. I do not know about you, but I think we do not have the grace today for where we are going. The only way to get it is to be enlarged in capacity in God. This means we have to have our spirit eyes opened and our spirit revived. Our biggest problem as a Church is that because we dream, we think we are awake. In reality, we are asleep. Sometimes when we wake up from a dream, we say, “Boy, was that real!” That is where we live. We think we are awake because we know something with our minds.
Years ago, I had received so many visitations from the Lord, the Father, and from angels which showed the future. That was great except the future I saw was horrible. The Lord said to me, “I'm going to send you out. In every Church, I want you to share the things I've been giving you.” So I went, and every Church was filled to capacity. Many of them had overflow rooms that were also full. The people wanted to hear what the angels said. When they left the week of meetings, they felt so enlarged and super-spiritual. They felt like they had met God and had been changed.
After a few months, I would call the pastor back to see how the people were doing. His Church was on fire when I left, with the people at the altars crying. They thought they were ready to charge into whatever God called them to. You know how it goes, right? I asked the pastor, “How are they doing?” He said, “It was not easy to see the fire go out. It went out pretty quickly.” I said, “That's so sad.” He said, “Nita, they think they're so spiritual because now they know everything you told them. I don't understand this. They're so asleep, and they think they're wide awake because they heard the things the angels had to say.” I said, “Oh my! Is that for real?” He said, “That's for real.”
I went through Church after Church, and I came to a place of realizing that the Church has it all wrong. The Bible says that the song of the prophet is a lovely song (Ezek 33:32). The Church thinks they can hear what the prophets are experiencing and saying, and then they can go and live their life the way they have always lived it. They think they have prospered by the word of the prophet. You have to quit doing that.
Come to Church to meet Jesus. When you meet Him, you have to be willing to die if you are going to be part of Him. James warned us not to look into the mirror and walk away and forget what we have read because then we deceive ourselves (James 1:22). What we want and need from Christ is His power to die and His resurrection to bring us back again. Give me the grace to die, Lord. Give me the grace to come to where You are, to be willing to see what I need to see, and to change what I need to change. Give me the grace. If you are not praying for that grace, dying is going to be impossible. You must have His grace, and the only way to maintain it is in prayer. The Word is also vitally important, or you will lose your way, but the Word without prayer will not bring forth the fruit that God wants to bring forth in you. You have to plow up the fallow ground, which means a lot of repentance is required. People do not really like to repent because that means they have to change. Plow up the fallow ground.
I am feeling His heart right now. Jesus does not want to walk by the earth of the Church today and see one field after another untouched. He throws the seed into the field and what happens? The birds of the air come and take it away very easily because the ground has not been plowed. You must make repentance a way of life until God has broken the power of the self-life. When the power of the self-life is broken, there will not be so much need for repentance because you will be wholly yielded to the Spirit of the Lord.
It is amazing to me when people say, “I've repented. I've changed,” and they have not changed at all. They have deceived themselves. There must be change; the Spirit of the Lord will provoke it. He will put a desire in your heart that is so passionate to be more like Jesus. Then you will not be able to stand the self-life.
Jesus said to Martha, “Take away the stone.” (John 11:39) Martha said, “But the flesh, Lord, it stinks.” That is where we are today. The Lord is saying, “Take away the stone from your heart.” We say, “The flesh stinks.” He knows it stinks; it stinks to Him, too. He wants that stone removed so that He can gain entrance into that private place where He has to inhale all of those fumes from the stench so that He can create in you a new heart. He desires to give you the strength, grace, power, and nobility to be all that He wants you to be.
Paul said, “I am the least of the apostles.” (1 Cor 15:9) He did not think that in the beginning, but before his life was over, he said he was the least. Humility comes in brokenness and contrition results. We want humility because we want Christ. This is the most beautiful Gospel in the world because Jesus is teaching you how to hate that self-life so that He can give you Christ. As long as you want everyone to think how beautiful and wonderful you are, you will never let Him into those places in you He must touch to bring you into the nobility of the Son.
To be continued next week...
In His Love,
Nita Johnson |
|
| |
Check out our Itinerary page to get a PDF of our June calendar!
|
|
Corporate Intercession
Wednesday 6/26/13 & Sunday 6/30/13
Wednesday morning intercession will be held for one hour via FCC & Skype!
Time: 10:25 PT, 11:25 MT, 12:25 CT, 1:25 ET
Call in number: 559-726-1300 access code 182152#
Our Sunday Night Intercession will continue to be held via FCC & Skype!
Time: 5:50 - 8:00 PM (PST & EST)
Call in number: 559-726-1300 access code 182152#
Please join us as we intercede for the Nation!
WWW.WORLDFORJESUS.ORG
|
|
Seattle Services!
Bethel Chapel 23010 66th Ave West Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
Corporate Intercession Thursday 6/27 at 7pm
Prophetic Message by Nita Johnson!! Friday 6/28 at 7pm (all times are PST)
Not in the area? You can join us live on the live stream page of our website!
WWW.WORLDFORJESUS.ORG
|
|
CedarWood Food Bank
Pantry will be open Monday, July 8th 10:30am-12pm and 5:30pm-7pm
WWW.WORLDFORJESUS.ORG
|
|
DC Gathering of the Eagles, 2013! September 3-7, 2013!
Pre-registration required! Check out the itinerary page of our website for more information including the link for online registration. Keep in mind that there are limited on site rooms available so book your room asap!
WWW.WORLDFORJESUS.ORG |
|
|
