Dear Friends,
If you have ever wondered what your value within the Kingdom of God is, or even sought out answers as to whether or not God truly cares about you, “The Cry Inside” will bring healing to your heart. If you carry the souls of your loved ones heavily upon your heart, wondering how you can continue to carry them through this battle alone, “The Cry Inside” will bring comfort to your heart, along with a new level of encouragement that will compel your intercessions.
For those of you who have been with us for some time now, yet still don’t quite understand the importance of Joel’s Army, this message is for you. It will help you understand the spiritual significance of Joel’s Army and why it is important that you pray for your nation. It will also help you understand why we will never stop encouraging you to join Joel’s Army – no matter where you live – it is only through the intercessions of the Saints that a Nation is saved from the plans of the enemy. Despite the many obstacles we face, we must press on, for the sake of our Nations!
"The Cry Inside", was originally given in 2010 during a New Orleans Revival Service, before the “Save the Nations” call. Today, it seems the perfect prelude, reminder, and cattle-prod for that message. God is calling you my friends. His desire for you reaches beyond our comprehension. Re-read “The Cry Inside, Part A” and read “Part B”, then submit yourself to the Lord that He might do a work in you and bring purpose to your heart! Before you were ever born, God chose you; He chose you! Now is the time to find out why, and determine what His plan is for your life from this day forward!
Read with purpose my friends!
Much love,
Ricci Wilson
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Following is the next installment in "The Cry Inside." It is a compelling article that will drive you to your knees again, and again.
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"The Cry Inside"
Part B
By
Nita Johnson
Transcription of New Orleans Teaching
One thing about God is that the Bible depicts Him as a God of peace which is meaningful to a Christian because this world sure does not give peace does it? It is true, God is a God of peace, but there is also another side of God that is very active and I am also going to use the term: very violent. There are different aspects of this violent side of God. I do not want to go so far above current understanding, but I want to help you understand the warfare you are in for your soul. In this place of violence, God is doing warfare. And this place of violent warfare is on behalf of the peoples of the earth. My understanding is limited, but I have seen and felt this area of violence. I know this is prophetic in nature. He is acting out; performing in His own Spirit of work.
The Bible says that the Spirit of the Lord did what over the waters? He brooded over the waters; brooding is more than hovering. A butterfly hovers over a flower, but it is a very gentle thing. It does not create anything; it just hovers until the butterfly can do what it needs to do in that location. But the Spirit of the Lord was brooding and what does brooding bring forth? It brings forth the birth of something; it sends forth life. So, when the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord was brooding over the deep, it is because God was actively working to perform a wonder.
One thing that occurs in the place of violence is that God's Spirit is brooding over the peoples and things of the earth. In other words: His Spirit is actively bringing forth life out of death and order out of chaos. You might say He is fighting within Himself for your soul. This is ongoing warfare, actively occurring on behalf of your soul. I love how the Bible says: Roaring deep calls to roaring deep. This roaring deep is calling out to the roaring deep inside of you which is grieving the loss and crying out for the restoration of God.
You are born again once the Spirit of God enters you. The Bible says that at this point, the Spirit of the Lord begins to mourn, weep and intercede with groanings too deep for utterance. In other words: He is brooding. This brooding occurs with words you cannot hear, and He performs wonders inside of you that you cannot perceive, all to bring forth a new life. The roaring deep in God is calling to the roaring deep in you, just as the roaring deep in you is calling to the roaring deep in Him. This call goes out because God knows this place inside of you, now inhabited by Him, will know no peace until Christ reigns supreme over all of God's enemies.
So, the Bible tells us that the Spirit of the Lord is praying and interceding for what? For God's will. It is searching the deep and fathomless things of God to bring forth God's will within you. Is that not exciting? So often in this life you feel like you are fighting the battle all by yourself, yet the Bible is very clear that the Spirit is in you: brooding, morning, weeping, challenging and doing warfare within you to rescue you from yourself. It is the greatest rescue in history. The Son of God is sitting on the throne and what does the Bible say He is doing? Ever living to intercede for you.
I'd like to share a profound experience with you that changed me. I was brought to the throne of God to witness the following: when a person sinned, Jesus Christ got off His throne and laid Himself in front of the Father and began to weep. He wept, He wailed, He mourned, He groaned, and He agonized on their behalf, telling the Father: "This one is mine: I bought them with My blood, You must forgive them for My sake." He interceded until they repented. That is why we have the ability to repent.
So, we have the Holy Spirit within; we have Jesus sitting on the throne ever living to make intercession for us. On top of that, we have the Father listening to the prayers of the Saints which brings us into another category of intercession wherein the Saints here on earth and in heaven are praying for us. People that do not even know us are praying for us. True intercessors pray for people they do not know. They pray according to the assignment given by God. The intercessor lays it at the Father's feet; who do You want me to pray for today? We may know the person’s name; we may not. He may give a vision of a face we have never seen before, but the Lord is saying: Pray for this one. So we pray.
We have the saints on the earth praying for us, and we have the saints in heaven praying for us. I cannot tell you how many times I have been in heaven hearing the saints praying for the people on the earth. One man who was a minister, who had gone into rebellion, was taken up to heaven where he could hear his mother praying for him. She was crying out to Christ: Give him victory! Bring him through to victory and do not let his life be taken until he knows victory! He could hear her all the way across the heavens praying for him.
I can give you many examples where I have heard the saints praying for the people on this earth, for nations, and even for movements. Prayer is a never-ending cycle, it is like a wind that never stops; though you cannot see the currents, you see what they produce. Prayer is the most important thing a human being can do; prayer dictates where the nations of the earth are going not to give up. If there are saints praying, then there is life in the nation for the harvest to come. If the Saints are not actively praying, the light in that area diminishes, and where there is no light, the harvest is slim. Prayer is absolutely essential, and everyone must engage.
Some people may declare: I am not going to be a warrior or an intercessor. However, the minute you got saved, you were called to that lofty position to have the privilege of interceding on behalf of God's work on the earth. That is why Jesus said: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He said: Pray like this; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If God's will is not being done on earth as it is in heaven then what does that say? The Saints are not praying. If the Saints are praying, God's will, will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Let’s go back to that newborn baby (see "Part A" from last week). This newborn infant with pangs of hunger deep within his soul. When I was taken into Him, and He showed me all of this, I could feel the hunger happening inside the soul of that little infant; it was so real it felt like a sharp pain. This pain was over the loss of God and the desire to be restored to his Maker, this is why if you begin to minister the life of God to your baby in the womb, you can have profound effects. When that child is born and you minister the life of God into the child daily, there are profound and long-lasting effects because you satisfy an inner cry that even the baby does not know he has.
The Bible tells us to train up a child in the way that he shall go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. This is very critical. There is a call here, and because God still has a certain Lordship, He knows when He needs to provoke that inner cry to an intolerable level so the person will leave the world and get saved. He knows the cry is there because He put it there and He has the operational license to do what He wants with that hunger.
So, I do not know about you but for several years before I got saved I used to make up goals list of what I was going to accomplish that year. My first goal every year was: to find God and know Him. This was years before I got saved. Why? Because He was starting to rev up the fire of this inner longing. When it reached that critical point, nothing could have stopped me. The need to find Him was so strong that I stopped everything I was doing, went into my house for three days and three nights and wept and cried out to God to get saved.
Now, not everyone does things that dramatically. But, the day you got saved was the day appointed to you; the cry inside was brought to a fever pitch, and you had to respond. Did you experience anything like that? In a way, God controls that feeling but once the person gets saved, the control is back in their hands. What are you going to do with the Spirit of God that placed within you now? If you do not nurture the cry, then it will once again become imperceptible. How do you nurture the cry? Through prayer. Your response to the cry inside draws you unto God, and He begins to reveal Himself to you.
After I came to the Lord, I remember this insatiable hunger for the Him from deep within. Did you go through the same? I was so hungry for God that it drove everybody nuts, but because I was so hungry for Him I did not care. I can remember the feeling that I was not getting His attention fast enough. I do not even know what I expected; I just knew I wanted to know God. So again I went back into my room and said: Lord, I want to spend two days and two nights in prayer, I am not going to sleep, and I am just going to seek Your face. This took me to a whole new level in God. He began to speak to me prophetically in ways He had never done before. Of course, I had not been saved that long, but the point is that when I saw Him it was with all of my heart.
I have a pastor friend who for several years went to a cabin where he would water fast for 21 days at a time. On the third year making his expedition to this cabin, he was telling the Lord: I am so hungry for You, I just want You to respond to me, and I want to know that You are here. For days, this is how he continued to pray and by this point he found himself getting very frustrated and even a little angry with the Lord. He had been there for two weeks seeking Him, and he did not feel like God had given Him enough attention. Suddenly the Lord Jesus Christ appeared in front of Him, and this pastor went down to his face; he had no idea what was happening. When he fell to his face, the pastor saw everything in the room worshiping the Lord. He saw the very walls and the furniture worshiping the Lord. He saw the wind and even the air worshiping the Lord! Here he is in a cabin, hidden in a wooded area, and he said even the fur on the creatures outside worshiped the Lord. Jesus said to him: Everything that is, worships Me, except the heart of man. When you seek Me, seek Me with all of your heart.
There is this cry inside of you. What you have done with that, I do not know, but God has put this cry inside of you that you might know Him. In this place inside of you that is crying out for the knowledge of God, there is a spiritual capacity to touch Him. He gave you that capacity when you were born, to more greatly ensure that you would return to Him. He gave you the ability to touch Him and to be touched by Him, that you might know and relate to Him.
When He begins to call you, He wants to have a relationship with you and to know you. So, He is igniting the workmanship of the Spirit of the Lord within you.The Spirit of the Lord begins to work in your soul bringing rest and peace so your soul can work in conjunction with your Spirit. He is strengthening your soul. If you are a person of prayer this will have a marked improvement on this workmanship inside, but if you are not a person of prayer you may never know what has been happening within, until the day you die.
He is willing to work with your spirit and soul to prepare a place for Himself, and it should be known, that there is no place of greater measure than Himself. The Bible says that Jesus had the Spirit without measure. The rest of us were given a measured amount of the Spirit of God. That measure will remain small, or increase, depending on how much you pray. If you want more of God, you pray more. When you pray more, it releases the Lord's work inside you so He can place more of Himself in you. Thereby making a way for you to have that relationship He so greatly desires.
Now this is something that cannot happen overnight, and that is where my pastor friend began to get frustrated. He had been water fasting to have a certain experience with the Lord praying day and night and with two weeks having passed, he felt that God should just make it happen. He did not understand there was a particular work the Lord needed to do to grant him the answers to his prayers.
If you have a prayer life, God can do this work within you to make a deeper walk with God possible. Do you understand? In the same way a baby grows into a toddler, grows into adolescence, young adulthood and eventually maturity, God develops our soul and spirit by the workmanship of His Spirit. He aches to bring forth this beautiful workmanship inside of you that eventually looks like transformation, and even transfiguration, for those who have paid the price. You were born to be inhabited by God. You were born to be owned by God.
To be continued...
In His Amazing Love,Nita Johnson
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