Dear Friends,
These are exciting times for our ministry!
There are so many things going on! We have the opportunity to affect
change through our corporate intercessions. We have the chance to help
train and develop intercessors and connect them to one another here in
the States, as well as throughout nations across the globe. We have the
privilege of serving those in need through our CedarWood outreaches, and
we have the joy of providing for various ministries all over the world
so that they can fulfill the call of God. As I said: these are exciting
times dear friends and we are humbled to know that you are walking with
us on this journey.
Last week in “The I Syndrome,” Nita told
us about the significance of our intercessions and the importance of
pressing on even when she is unable to join us. We must remember that
the heart and driving force of intercessory prayer is intimacy with God.
Intercession builds our relationship with Him. It is about trusting
Him, knowing Him, and understanding His thoughts on the issues that
affect your life as well as the lives of those around you.
Often we pray on issues that may not
appear to be connected to us in any way yet, in obedience, we pray over
them. We pray for our President, we pray for our nation, we pray over
laws that will ultimately have a negative effect on this nation, our
families, and so on. The truth is, that regardless of what we are
praying about, at the heart of our prayers and intercession is the
development of a deeper relationship with God.
As a ministry, our primary objective is to
spread the Gospel of Jesus. We help develop that relationship through
teachings that we hope will provide you with a deeper knowledge of the
Lord. We share experiences and what we have learned with you. We strive
to pass on that which has taken us so many years to learn in order to
help you grow closer to God. We encourage you to take these lessons to
the Lord and pray over them.
Read the scriptures and ask the Lord to
give you further knowledge on the passages we share with you. These
lessons will be so much more effective if, in addition to listening
and/or reading through them, you will study the topics for yourself. As
important as it is that we learn from others, it is even more important
for us to pick up our Bibles, read through the scriptures ourselves, and
pray. This allows us to build an intimate relationship with the Lord.
As you read Part B of “The I Syndrome”,
keep this in mind. Our hunger and thirst for Christ needs to take
priority in our lives. Let us not settle. Instead, let’s press in
further and seek His face for greater truth, understanding and knowledge
of the things of God. This is after all, about our relationship with
God and like other relationships, we must develop this one through time
in prayer, reading the Bible, and learning about the One we are seeking
to follow.
Blessings to you,
Ricci
________________________________________________________
THE “I” SYNDROME
Part B
By
Nita Johnson
Seattle
We must come clean with Jesus. We have to
let go of the “I” syndrome. Have you ever heard of that? “I'm so great.
It is wise that Jesus loves me. I'm such a good Christian. I read my
Bible three times a day and pray morning, noon,
and night. I love to look at the mirror and just remind myself how
wonderful I am, how much I do, and how great I am in the doing. I, I,
I.” The “I” syndrome. There is a pill for it, but the pill does not cure
it; it only covers the ache from it. The pill is the world. Just keep
shoving the world into that empty place called “I.” Pretty soon, you
will not feel the pain of the loss of Jesus any longer. You will be so
busy applauding and idolizing “I,” letting everyone know how wonderful
“I” is, that you will not even hear His voice any more. This “I”
syndrome is spreading like a plague. Never has it been so prominent in
the world as it is today.
They have “I” promotion clubs now that try
to help the afflicted who have the syndrome of “I,” but they cannot
cure it. No man can cure it. It carries a horrible poison and leaves
behind a stench of corruption. It gets the eye so completely off of
Christ until His wooing, His calling, His crying, His pleading, and even
His weeping can no longer be heard. Not only is it spreading like a
plague, but when it over takes the human soul, it ravages it until one
does not know how to be happy in Christ anymore.
I used to have a prayer warrior who prayed
for our ministry incessantly. One day, the Lord gave me a vision and
showed me this person. I saw that her soul had been suddenly filled with
corruption because of her pride in being an intercessor. It got to the
point where no one could tell her anything because she knew everything.
This “I” syndrome grew so severe that she became entrapped in a terrible
deception, from which we were never able to retrieve her.
It is a terrible plague. It steals the
sense of being thirsty and famished for Christ. Christ hung on the
cross, and what did He say? “I thirst.” (John 19:28)
They thought they could give Him gall to drink to satisfy His thirst,
but I have been before that cross, and I have heard my Lord say those
words. I know what was in His heart. He was crying out to humanity down
through the ages, “I thirst for you! I paid this price because of My
hunger and My thirst for you!” Where is the anguish of the soul who is
thirsting for the Lord in the Church? America will not carry you for
long! You need Jesus! You must an anguish that pulls you out of bed
at night and gets you up in the morning to pray. You need an anguish of
heart that is so intense you will say, like Rachel, “Give me,… lest I
die!” (Gen 30:1)
Who else is there to answer your need but
Him? The world cannot cure this disease, but it will sure give you
little pills to help you so that you do not feel so bad. Only One can
cure the disease of “I” syndrome, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ, in
the fullness of His glory. Do not accept less! How can you be passive?
“Oh, we'll just accept whatever He gives.” No! You must grab the horns
of the altar, and cry out to Him, “I will not be denied! I won't let go
until You come!” There must be something in you that is broken for love.
Cry for Him! Weep because your soul is desolate, and you do not know
it. Cry out, “Lord, what is wrong with me? I feel like I am with Jacob
at the house of Bethel. God was here, and I knew it not. What is wrong
with my soul? What is wrong with me that I do not crave You? Why don't I
thirst for You like You thirst for me? When did I put too much of the
world in my heart? When did I get the syndrome of “I,” and it became
such a big tree that I couldn't even chop it down? Come in Your mercy,
Lord. You know that I'm trapped and bound. You know that I don't even
understand how desperate I am. Come.” Pray and cry out to Him. Tell your
heart, “You will awaken, if it is the last thing you do. You
will awaken to the cry of your Lord!” Cry out until He fills you with
the oil from the alabaster box.
You are not hungry enough because you are
too saturated with life. The Lord spoke to me in a vision a few days
ago. He showed me that the shepherds and the sheep are too busy. When
the terrible and difficult times come, they will not be ready because
they are famished for lack of God. The shepherds became too busy to take
care of the sheep, and the sheep became too busy to take care of
themselves. There is a need for God in His Church. There is a need for
the hunger, for the life of Christ and the Holy Spirit. I can feel it.
It feels like a cavern in the heart of God. There is a hunger, which we
are not satisfying. We are too busy satisfying our flesh.
Come to Jesus. Cry out to Him and repent
of your apathy. Plead with Him for His mercy to change your heart that
is so filled with the world. This “I” syndrome will leave you with
spiritual leprosy. It will deform you and make you demented. It will
take from you everything of value. Once it starts to ingest, it never
stops. You have to catapult it out of your heart. Cry out for your Lord
while He is near. Cry out for His mercy to break your heart, empty it,
and fill it with Himself.
Prayer:
Jesus, You know our hearts. We are so
empty that we don't even weep. We have been empty for so long that we
don't even know how empty we are. We have grown accustomed to the
luke-warmness and the emptiness. We do not even perceive the loss. Open
our eyes, open our understanding, and open our hearts for us to see how
desperate we really are. We need You, Lord. We do not need another. We
need You.
Lord, we weep for ourselves, and we
weep for the Church. The Church is filled with apathy, busyness, and
bitterness. We sing songs, and we say that we love You and Your ways,
but when we are put to the test, we discover that we despise Your ways,
Lord. Change our wicked hearts. Let us know the hunger and the passion
of the Spirit of grace. None but Jesus can satisfy. None but Jesus can
fill the emptiness, the aching, and the longing of the soul. He alone
can hold us. None but Jesus can bring us to the Father.
Lord, forgive the Church for our apathetic
ways. Forgive us for not praying enough, for not desiring enough, and
for the lack of passion for You to draw near. Forgive us, Lord, for our
pride that causes us to be so self-sufficient. I feel the aching of the
breaking of the pride, Lord! We are so self-sufficient because we are so
full of pride! Forgive us, Lord. You alone are our sufficiency. Help us
to capture the experience of knowing how empty we really are. Help us
to know where we are now so we can start fighting for where we need to
be!
Lord, send forth Your glory and
revival. Lord, we can neither live nor continue without it. We need Your
life in our hearts. We need what revival gives and brings. We need You,
Lord Jesus, to draw near and to come. Save us from the “I” syndrome and
from the world. Save us from the things that we cherish, Lord.
Prayer ended
In HIm,
Nita
To be continued next week...
|
