It's time to give up (first part)

For those who have captured something, it really is important that we hold on to that impartation we have received. Not holding on tightly with closed fists but cherishing what God has given us and try and share it with one another.

Like an infection, let’s see if we can pass it on.

There is a passage in Zechariah which talks about people clinging on to others saying “I want to go with you to the temple”. This idea of ‘Can I come into the presence of God with you?’, ‘Will you help me get into the presence of God?’, ‘Will you pray for me and encourage me?’ Whether members of the young people’s group or whether we are older people doesn’t matter.

Our encounters of God are important and the more we capture things in the Spirit (and I know that sounds wishy-washy), but when something is in our heart, it is in us and lives in us, and then the project is secondary to the sense that I have caught it, I have caught the vision. This is about God when I am doing the washing up, it’s about God when I am laying hands on someone and praying for them to be healed. It’s all about God.

One week I might be praying with someone and the next week I might be cleaning the toilets, it doesn’t really matter because it is all prat of the same process. We have to get beyond the questioning ‘I wasn’t asked to do that!’ ‘They are always asked to do that!’. It’s beyond saying “It’s not fair’. We have put away childish things and come to maturity. I implore us all to get beyond that childishness to say ‘great!’ to what is happening.

Also, not to think that just because we prayed with someone this week, we are always the ones to do that. We might have to do some back up work too. It’s working together in a complementary way that will bless the church and bless the world and get the job done.

I can’t remember who it was (possibly Leonard Ravenhill) who said “unless things are more exciting in the church than in the world we will never see revival.”. I think we have got to get beyond misery and into life. Someone from my old church at Hollybush said that many Christians when they are going to church look as though they are going to the dentists, and when they come out they look as though they have been.