Dear friends,
Last week was our final week of corporate
intercession until January of 2014. This, of course, does not mean that
the need for intercession has been eliminated. In fact, the opposite is
true, intercession must continue on. I encourage you to go into the
Intercessor’s Vault on our website and listen to this brief teaching. It
provided a wonderful glimpse into the work World for Jesus Ministries
is doing in our Gathering of the Eagles Conferences and corporate
prayer. Nita also shared the importance of valuing those in leadership,
both spiritual and in the natural. It was a beautiful message.
By the end of this week, our team will be
on the ground in New Jersey preparing for the NYC Gathering of the
Eagles’, 2013 Conference. We will lead the intercessors on the ground
through intense prayer from December 2-6, 2013.
After this, our leadership team will begin our prayer journey and will
not return home until mid-December. Whether you can join us or not, we
encourage each of you to spend this time seeking the Lord through prayer
and fasting. Your intercession from home is just as important as ours,
remember that. As a reminder, you can learn more about the topics we
will cover in the Save the Nations Prospectus found on the Joel’s Army page of our
website.
This week we are continuing our teaching
entitled “Hunger for God is Not Enough.” Last week we learned about the
necessity of not allowing our circumstances to pull us away from the
Lord. Whether we encounter illness, great suffering, or other difficult
trials that would consume the time we previously dedicated to the Lord,
we must not allow this to become permanent. Submitting even those times
of suffering unto the Lord will allow Him to do a work in us using these
times of suffering
Finally, we want to wish each of you a
happy Thanksgiving. We pray that God will bless you as you spend time
with family and friends. Please remember those who are less fortunate
and consider giving of your resources to bless someone during this
holiday season. Our CedarWood team collected all the supplies to provide
Thanksgiving meals for those who came to our CedarWood Pantry on Monday.
The families were deeply touched and we want to extend a special thank
you to our team for their commitment to this project. The team is also
continuing to hand out coats, hats, gloves, and (when possible) shoes to
every child who is in need. We are working with the schools in the area
as well to ensure that not one child will find themselves without a
warm coat this year. Thanks to you, we have also been able to provide
warm coats to the adults as well. Thank you for your contributions to
this effort, you have blessed so many through your
gifts.
We appreciate your continued support, your
prayers, and your love throughout the year and we want to take this
moment to let you know that we are so thankful for you. We pray that God
will bless you in new and special ways this week.
With love and care,
Ricci and World for Jesus Ministries Staff
________________________________________________________
HUNGER FOR GOD IS NOT ENOUGH
Part "C"
By
Nita Johnson
Seattle
Many years ago, He came to me, and He
said, “I would give anyone who will the place to walk with Me that I
have allowed you to walk.” Anyone. I said, “Lord, that's so wonderful.
Why don't You?” He said, “It's not My problem. Most are not willing to
pay the price. They say they want Me, but they won't pay the price, and
this is the most serious aspect of that.” I asked, “What is it, Lord?”
He replied, “They refuse to see who they really are. Because of that, I
cannot give them My glory. I cannot take them where I want to take
them.” The brokenness before the cross must be complete. That only
happens when you see who you really are, deep inside.
It is so painful because we are like
preppy Christians. Do you know how the preppies dress? They are usually
the most intelligent in the classroom, well groomed, and often with
glasses. They are the ones who always have all of their homework done
and get straight A's. They always have the right answer at the right
time. We Christians are like that, too. We are kind of preppy Christians
where we think we are better dressed than anyone else, spiritually. We
think we are cleaner of heart than anyone else, spiritually. We think we
are smarter, with more understanding of God's ways, and with more truth
than someone else. When God shines the light into that preppiness, and
He begins to show us what we really are inside—how spoiled we are, how
much self-love there is, how much stubbornness there is, how much of a
critical spirit we have toward others, how we judge others by our own
standards, the unforgiveness, the bitterness,
the demanding of our own rights and way and will—we react. We say, “Get
the light out of here! That is not me! I won't accept that!” And the
revelation stops.
Now I am here to push you over the cliff,
spiritually speaking. Do not worry if you have wings. Put on your bungee
gear, and take a good bungee jump. Go! Do not stand still, but let your
faith arise and take the chance. Look beyond the discipline, the
correction, and what you have to see inwardly. The sooner you do it, and
you put your eyes back on Him, you will come to realize that it is not
your righteousness that is going to cause you to stand before Him; it is
His. He has known this about you from the beginning, and it is going to
be His joy when He is able to change this and lift you above this
darkness.
If you have a problem lying, do not say,
“No, I don't lie.” The minute you say that, and you hold to fight the
battle that you do not lie, when you know you do, you keep the darkness
in your heart. If you have a problem with jealousy, do not deny it. Come
to the Lord Jesus, and say, “I've got a jealous heart for all the wrong
reasons. I hate this thing in me. Please remove it.” He wants to remove
the darkness. Do not hold onto it and pretend that it does not exist.
You cannot go anywhere in Him as long as you do that.
I want you to remember something which is
very sacred. He poured out His blood on Calvary, and He chose you. He
loves you so much. When He has to show you the rotten of the rotten, it
is okay. His love will cover it. Even if you tell Him that He cannot
ever touch those things in you, He will still love you. If you have been
born again for forty years, and you are no more than a two year old
babe in the Spirit, He still loves you. If He poured out His blood to
make you His own, how much does He love? So why do we continue in our
stubbornness, our judgments, our unforgiveness, our bitterness, and our
self-righteousness? Sometimes people say, “Oh, I wish I had someone to
love me.” You have someone that loves you. Jesus loves you so much that
He went to the cross and poured out His blood that He could buy you off
of the slave market of sin. So do not come into His Kingdom and then
look back to Egypt and think that the leaks
tasted better than the Word of God.
Dine on His Word and let it do its work.
Do not just read it, but tell Him that you want His Word to go through
you like a rototiller, breaking apart all of the darkness and the
ungodliness that you want to cling to subconsciously. He knows that if
you really understood what He wants to give you, you would let go. But
you have to fast and pray for your eyes to be opened for you to really
see.
Come with me, please, to Psalm 119. This
is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible. Every Scripture
verse in it is so beautiful.
Psalm 119:1-2 Amp. Blessed (happy,
fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere,
and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order
their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of
God's revealed will). Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they
who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave
Him with the whole heart.
How do you get there? Let Him cleanse you.
People think that if you are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ,
then that is all you need. My dear friend, I am so thankful He taught me
the inaccuracy of that. We do need that righteousness. No amount of
repentance or works is enough; without it, you are lost and going to
hell. So we do need it. But what we want is to be consumed inwardly. We
want Him to put His Holy Ghost hammer to our soul and break apart the
darkness so that we can flush it out. Then, not only will we have His
righteousness, but we will not have our own righteousness. Inwardly, we
will have His holiness.
The Bible clearly says that without His holiness, you cannot see God. (Heb 12:14)
Psalm 119:1 Amp. Blessed (happy,
fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere,
and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order
their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of
God's revealed will).
I want to be undefiled. I want every part
of me to be as pure as it can be on this earth. This word is going
through my heart like a knife.
I am going to open my heart to you, so
please do not judge or criticize me. One time, I said to Him, “Lord, is
this all there is to Christianity? You appear to me. You talk to me. You
teach me out of Your Word. I walk in this high and holy place for two
or three days, and then I'm right back to where I was except that I had a
visitation and some teaching of truth. Is this all there is to being a
Christian?”
Then He came to me, and He showed me what
being a mature Christian means. He showed what happens inwardly, and how
our soul, mind, and heart are transformed. When that happens, you do
not go back. You are utterly transformed.
There was a world class pianist who
traveled all over the world. In one particular interview, he was asked,
“How did you become so great?” He replied, “Do you want to know the
truth? I practice every day, seven days a week, for eight hours a day.”
The interviewer's mouth was now down to his chest. The pianist said, “If
I miss one day of practice, then my instructor knows it. If I miss two
days, then those who are discerning in music know it. If I miss three
days, anyone who comes to the concert knows it. I have to be married to
this piano to play like I play.” He did it for the pleasure of
connecting himself to his gifting to do the best job he knew how to do.
To be continued...
In HIm,
Nita
To be continued next week.
