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John Hancock

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Often when we ask for a person’s signature, we will call it their “John Hancock.” This is because of the fifty-six signatures on the Declaration of Independence, one stands out above the rest. That signature belongs to John Hancock. He was the first to sign the declaration and he signed it in a large and legible script so that the King of England could read his name without using glasses. Mr. Hancock wanted it to be very clear where his allegiance lay. His commitment to his country was so clear that when King George III offered amnesty to all who would cease fighting, John Hancock was among the select few who were left out of the offer.

A similar thing happened to Moses. Its found in Exodus 34:5-7 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

At first it appears to be pretty pompous of the Lord. But when we seek to connect to the Lord, listening for His still small Voice to teach us, He will lead us to the Truth, guiding us beyond what offends our natural minds. As I sought Him He surprised me with His answer. Numbers 6:24-27 “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’ “So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” God places His Name upon His people through His Word. Add to that this revelation: Psalms 138:2 I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name! God magnifies His Word above His Name. Let that sink in. Reading this for the first time you immediately think of the Scripture, and that would be right. Yet consider that Jesus is the Living Word of God. In essence, God was exalting Jesus – the Word above His Name, and writing His Sons’ Name onto the heart of Moses. And don’t forget Acts 11:26 …and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christ…..ians. Jesus put His Word in their hearts along with His Name! The good news for us is that God writes His Name – Jesus, Yeshua – on our hearts through His Word. Through our obedience and surrender in our wilderness; and in our dying spiritually to ourselves through prayer, fasting, seeking, submission, and obedience. As we meet Him – the Word, outside the camp, at Christ’s crucifixion, He is, and will continue to write His Name – His Word – His Story – on our hearts. That’s pretty powerful.

Is My Sacrifice Living?

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Genesis 22:9 “When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there; then he laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on the wood.”

Oswald Chambers: This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not— “Lord, I am ready to go with You…to death” (Luke 22:33). But— “I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.”

We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.

Precious Church family while you are praying about what to fast during our 21 day fast know that it’s not what you are giving up that matters to the Lord. Rather it is what you are in pursuit of. Are we giving those things up for the only ting worth having and that is Jesus Himself? The year of 2019 should be a year of pursuing Jesus. May God bless you with His Grace in this endeavor.

“Prepare the Way – Forty Days of Seeking God for the Feast of Trumpets”

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During this season God is drawing near to us inviting us to come up to His Mountain. Use this season of seeking the Lord to seek an answer to the following questions:
1. What does the Lord think about my relationship with Him?
2. What does He want to do to enhance our relationship?
3. What did you do in the past to get closer to Him when nothing else took priority?
4. What activities can you do together to develop greater intimacy – especially during this season of 40 days?
5. What ideas does He have about your getting closer to Him?
Isa 55:6-7 Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
Jer 3:12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: ‘Return, backsliding Israel,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not cause My anger to fall on you. For I am merciful,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not remain angry forever.
Eph 5:14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
The “Prepare the Way” Commitment
Q. How could Christians prepare the way for the Return of Jesus?
40 Days of Seeking God through…thanksgiving, praise, confession, prayer, QT, and the Word
40 Days of Seeking God through…a fast of turning off the distractions
40 Days of Seeking God through…partner prayer
40 Days of Seeking God through…prayer room deposits
40 Days of Seeking God through…committing to become sons and daughters of the Word
This Weeks Commitment?- Thanksgiving Journaling and Rigorous Thanksgiving.
10 things a day that you are thankful for – journaled and expressed aloud to God.
Throughout the day especially when you are tempted to be negative, critical, anxious, angry, discouraged – thank God for the opposite; through it; in spite of it.
Seek to enter in and remain in His Presence through thanksgiving.
Thank God for the things you’ve been praying that haven’t happened – as if they have happened.

21 Day Fast – Day 20

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21 Day Fast – Day 19

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21 Day Fast – Day 18

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21 Day Fast – Day 17

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21 Day Fast – Day 16

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21 Day Fast – Day 13

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21 Day Fast – Day 12

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21 Day Fast – Day 11

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Day 11. Hump Day. We are half-way through our 21 day fast. I was doing my Experiencing God study and happened upon this statement by Henry Blackaby:

“What is God’s will for my life? One of my seminary professors, Gaines S. Dobbins, used to say, “If you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer.” Sometimes we assume every question is legitimate. However when we ask the wrong question, we may find an answer but remain disoriented to God and His activity. Always check to see whether you have the right question before you pursue the answer. “What is God’s will for my life?” is not the right question. I think the proper question is, What is God’s will? Once I know God’s will, then I can adjust my life to Him. In other words, what is it God is purposing to accomplish where I am? Once I know what God is doing, then I know what I need to do. The focus needs to be on God, not on my life.”

This morning as I was meditating on Experiencing God I was reminded of a thought I have had for quite some time:

“You can’t have a Pentecost without a resurrection. You can’t have a resurrection with out a crucifixion.”

Mulling over this thought I was reminded of the many people I have known throughout the years of ministry, and another thought occurred to me: “Before there can be a crucifixion you must know God.” The Bible tells us that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Yet our perceptions of God are shaped through our experiences, sins of our fathers, lies of the enemy, and the world. The self-centered filter and lens of who we think God is will be distorted, deformed, cloudy, and out of focus at best. All of these like tethering chains pull on us dragging us to everything but God.

Fasting offends our minds (and our stomachs) exposing what’s really in our hearts. Pay close attention and you will notice that you have been tethered to something that has been actually taking you away from God – not closer to Him. Ultimately the solution is to have God as our Center. But it has to be “the Center” found in the whole counsel of God – not just certain passages of Scripture. The whole counsel of God will shine the necessary light to snap the shackles of bondage, and torment. May we all cry out with Braveheart’s William Wallace: “Freedom!”

21 Day Fast – Day 10

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How is everyone doing on there fast? Today is day 10 of our 21 day, and the second day of our meditations in Experiencing God. Tomorrow night we have our second prayer meeting.

I began fasting back in the 90’s and was often amazed at how God’s grace would “carry” me through the time of fasting. Yet I would be disappointed more often than not in the results of what I was seeking God for in prayer. If God awarded gold medals for effort I would have a wall full. I’ve been on 40, 30, and 20 day fasts only to suffer disappointment after disappointment. But not this time. This time I combined several aspects into seeking God. And my belief is that as a result of my being called by God to seek Him through this fast, having no other ulterior motives other than to get closer to Him – that He is drawing near to me. I’ve combined praise, thanksgiving, holiness (turning the media slime off), prolonged prayer, and the pure pursuit of simply wanting to be near Him. And He is drawing me into His loving embrace. This morning I awoke at 1:30 and He began answering questions I had been praying about. It took me a while to make the connection but I realized God was working and wanted me to come join Him. When I made that connection from John 5:19: “Jesus gave them this answer: I tell you the truth the Son can do nothing by Himself. He can do only what He sees His Father doing. Because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” – I rolled out of bed and headed to my “prayer tent.” (I have a chair in my study that I like to kneel in front of and pray. But I’ve added a new twist. I’ve been taking a blanket, draping it over it’s back, sliding underneath, and climbing into my “tent.” it takes me back to my childhood when my sister and I made “forts” out of blankets and chairs.)

Under my “tent of meeting” God has told me so many things, and has been so good to me. With each passing day of the fast the commitment level intensifies – the bar being raised higher. But His grace empowers me to do things I can’t do in the flesh. And by that grace His eagles “will mount up” higher and higher.

Are you hearing the call? “Come up here?” Set yourself up a “tent of meeting.” Moses and David did. The friends of God have tents of meeting. You want to be a friend of God?

21 Day Fast – Day 8

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Today is Day 8 of our church’s 21 Day Fast. How’s everyone holding up? This morning I was questioning the purpose of fasting as I thought about my hunger pains. In the shower I told the Lord that I could seek Him without having to go without food. Basically I was saying to Him, “What’s the point?” My prayers did not go unheard. After arriving at the church, turning on the lights, and cranking up the heat I went into my office to spend time with the Lord. I wrote in my thanksgiving journal, and then verbally acknowledged the things I was thankful for. I reviewed my Scripture memory, and then settled down for some meditation in the word. Usually I have 8 passages of Scripture that I try to meditate on during the week, and today I was meditating on the word “word” in the Scripture. Using my concordance I searched for the Scripture that I was to look up which happened to be Deut. 8:3. And here is what its said:
“And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”

I realized the Lord was answering my prayer, reminding me from the rest of the verse and chapter what fasting was all about:
It’s about humbling yourself before the Lord

How was it humbling?
Deut. 8:2 “And you shall [earnestly] remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your [mind and] heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

To see if I will obey God’s Word.
To test and prove what’s in my heart.
To help me see that I don’t live on bread alone. (What really should be making me come to life is God’s Word – His written Word and His spoken, revealed word.)
To not forget the Lord when he prospers me and I start looking to things to satisfy and make me happy.
To cause me to turn back to Him while I’m fasting, knowing that I need Him and His grace to to pray and fast, and to be free of the distractions.
In the end I recognize all of God’s goodness, I experience His grace empowering me to fast and pray, and I see God clearer than I did before I began.

During your fast don’t forget the Word. Remember the Word is a mirror which Jesus- the Word, holds up so that you can see yourself as you truly are. He really will feed you. So go to His banqueting table as your stomach rumbles in protest and ask Daddy God to feed you some fresh baked “manna” from Heaven.

21 Day Fast – Day 7

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Day seven of our 21 Day Fast I have been seeking the Lord first of all because I felt that He was inviting me to so. In December I was going through my Scripture memory and my eye just happened to fall on some scripture I had written down that I wanted to memorize. (These Scripture go back about three years ago) My eyes happened to fall on one – Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found call upon Him while He is near.” Then I saw several other Scripture: 2 Chronicles 15:12 “Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul.” Job 5:8 “But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause.” As the scriptures seemed to pop up off the page I smiled. I knew the Lord was answering the prayer I had been praying for several months regarding whether I should lead the church in this fast. I felt that this was His answer. A week before the fast began I pressed into seeking Jesus desiring to see Him; desiring for Him to appear before me. In my search the first thing that He drew my attention to was this question: What do I need from God? I wrote down a list: breakthrough in my walk with the Lord; breakthrough in my coming into what He’s purposed for my life; breakthrough in Bethany Church’s ministries, growth and God’s Presence; breakthrough for my son; breaking off of fear; girding up of my faith; what country God wanted out church to be on mission to; reformation of the church; revival, transformation, awakening; and renewal in our church’s life. Those things gave me some extra things to pray. But before I answered this question I had made another list. In this list I had written: “The purpose of this fast would be to seek a dramatic encounter that would transform my relationship with God. My focus would be seeking the Lord’s appearing, His Presence, a transformation. To have a new being. To be “dictated” to by the Spirit. To pray for a movement of the Holy Spirit to be birthed in me and the people of Bethany that will shake our neighborhood, the City of Weddington, Union Co., NC, America and the world. Transformation of the people of Bethany. Awakening of the lost through the people of Bethany. That God would do something only He could do. Pray that God would release grace expectation, and anointing in me and others at Bethany.” 

These were the things that I would seek God to obtain. Is He able? All day long. Is He doing it? I don’t know yet. But my encouragement to you is to write down what He is saying and pay close attention to all that’s going on around you. He loves you and wants you to find Him. He hides, we seek. Join in God’s hide and seek. Remember: “The fire of God, the manifested Presence of God, does not fall on an empty altar.”