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Life is good because God is good! Care to change your address?   There are many vacancies!
 
GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

Author: Woodrow Kroll, Tony Beckett Source: FaithWalk Scripture Reference: Romans 15:14-33 Psalm 94-96    Balanced Worship   Do you have a preferred “style” of worship? In some churches only a piano and organ are allowed for accompaniment, and if it isn’t in the hymnal, it isn’t sung. In other churches the drummer sits behind a Plexiglas wall so as to not overpower the band. Whatever the instruments used, some people prefer a quieter, contemplative service while others are attracted to a more lively celebratory style. Which is right? Neither and both.   Neither is right if it is all a person experiences. If every worship time is contemplation, or every worship time is celebration, that is not right. What is modeled in the Bible, which is the right arbitrator of such discussions, is a balance of reverent celebration and reverent contemplation. It may seem that hand clapping and knee bending don’t mix, but they do when we have a biblical balance in our worship. The words of contemplative worship are found in a popular praise song: “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our Maker.” It is a quiet, reflective song, with words from Psalm 95.   But the psalm begins with, “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock, our salvation.” Those are the words of celebration. Sing and shout aloud!   Psalm 95 calls us to both contemplation and celebration. Our life of worship is lived not at the extremes. It is not to be an “either/or” but a “both/and” balance.   Consider your time of worship. Do you at times sing and shout aloud in celebration? Do you at times also bow down and kneel? If you are doing only what you prefer, remember, God wants us to be worshipers who both celebrate and contemplate.     A ministry of Back to the Bible   Key Verses: Psalm 95:1, 6

David Wilkerson Today

PROVING MAN

“God left him, to try him” (2 Chronicles 32:31).

We have become so preoccupied in proving God that we have not prepared our hearts for the great tests of life whereby God proves man. Could it be that the great trial you are now facing, the burden you now carry, is actually God at work proving you?

“God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him.. Take now thy son.and offer him there for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:1-2). God proved an entire nation to find out what was really in its heart. “The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was
in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

We see an amazing thing in 2 Chronicles 32:31: God left a great king for a season to prove him. “God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.”

Often, while in the righteous pursuit of God’s work, the steward of the Lord finds himself apparently forsaken-tried to the limits of endurance and left all alone to battle the forces of hell. Every man God has ever blessed has been proved in the same manner.

Do you find yourself in strange circumstances? Do you feel forsaken and alone? Do you fight a losing battle with an unpredictable enemy? These are signs pointing to the proving process.

Victory is always desired, but should you fail, remember: It is what remains in your heart that God is interested in, your attitude after you have won or lost the lonely battle. Your devotion to him in spite of failure is his desire.

Jesus has promised never to leave us or forsake us, but the record of  Scripture reveals there are seasons when the Father withdraws his presence to prove us. Even Christ experienced that lonely moment on the cross. It is in these times that our blessed Savior is most touched by the feeling of our infirmity-and He whispers, “I pray for thee, that thy faith fail not.”

Jesus says we are to take up our cross and follow him (see Matthew 16:24). What is that cross? It is the flesh with its frailness and weakness. Take it up, move on in faith, and his strength will be made perfect in you. Is your cross of self and sin too heavy? Then, my friend, take up your cross and follow on. He
understands and is there beside you to lift the heavy burden!

Read this devotion online:
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/devotions/2010/proving-man

Pulpit Series Newsletters
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Maintaining the Joy of the Lord, 05.17.10
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/coverletter/2010/maintaining-the-joy-of-the-lord

Brokenness, 04.26.10
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/coverletter/2010/brokenness

We See Jesus, 04.05.10
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/coverletter/2010/we-see-jesus

Sermons By David Wilkerson
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Moving Your Mountain, 05.01.08
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/4735

He Will Not Break A Bruised Reed, 04.24.05
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/5332

The Great and Final Apostasy, 08.20.06
http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/2236

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For more sermons by David Wilkerson visit our Pulpit Series Newsletters
[http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/pulpit_series_newsletters] and Sermon
Media Center [http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/sermons]

Audio sermons by David and Gary Wilkerson are also available via our audio
Podcast in iTunes [http://www.itunes.com/Podcast?id=294033386]

  Tozer Devotional

“What I believe about God is the most important thing about me.”

A. W. Tozer, a modern day prophet, was a key figure in The Christian and Missionary Alliance. His legacy reaches through time and has impacted countless millions. A prolific author and pastor, Tozer was known for his emphasis on the deeper life movement. His message, informed as it was by A.B. Simpson the founder of The Alliance, brought the missionary call to a massive audience. A series of his sermons are available as audio files.

His books have been published around the world and in many languages.

The Divine Conquest
Chapter 3 – The Mystery of the Call

God’s Effective Calling

How delightful are God’s ways and the goings forth of His will. Not by might nor by power, neither by native ability nor by training are men made apostles, but by God’s effectual calling. So it is with every office within the Church. Men are permitted to recognize the call and make public acknowledgment before the congregation, but never are they permitted themselves to make the choice. But where divine ways and the ways of men mix and mingle there is confusion and failure continually. Good men who are yet not called of God may, and often do, take upon them the sacred work of the ministry. Worse still is it when men who belong yet to the old world and have not been renewed by the miracle of regeneration try to carry on God’s holy work. How sad is the sight and how tragic the consequences, for the ways of man and the ways of God are forever contrary one to the other.

Is this one of the reasons behind our present state of spiritual weakness? How can the flesh serve the Spirit? Or how can men from another tribe than Levi’s minister before the altar? How vain to try to serve the new after the ways of the old. From this stems the rank growth of evil methods that characterizes the churches of our day. The bold and self-assertive push forward and the weak ones follow without asking for a proof of their right to lead. The divine call is ignored, and sterility and confusion result.

Verse

So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah 4:6

Thought

How sad is the sight and how tragic the consequences when unregenerated men try to carry on God’s work, for the ways of man and the ways of God are forever contrary one to the other.

Prayer

We want to hear the divine call, Lord. We will not settle for the words of men.

By Michael J. Knight

News Release (August 6, 2010)

“One subject, an elderly Mozambican woman named Maryam, initially reported that she could not see a person’s hand, with two upraised fingers, from a distance of one foot. A healing practitioner put her hand on Maryam’s eyes, hugged her and prayed for less than a minute; then the person held five fingers in front of Maryam, who was able to count them and even read the 20/125 line on a vision chart.”

(Bloomington, Indiana)—Findings reported on August 5 from a new international study of healing prayer suggest that prayer for another person’s healing just might help—especially if the one praying is physically near the person being prayed for.

Candy Gunther Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, led the study of “proximal intercessory prayer” for healing. It will be published in the September 2010 issue of the Southern Medical Journal.

The study, titled “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Prayer (STEPP) on Auditory and Visual Impairments in Rural Mozambique,” measured surprising improvements in vision and hearing in economically disadvantaged areas where eyeglasses and hearing aids are not readily available.  

“We chose to investigate ‘proximal’ prayer because that is how a lot of prayer for healing is actually practiced by Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world,” Brown said. “These constitute the fastest-growing Christian subgroups globally, with some 500 million adherents, and they are among those most likely to pray expectantly for healing.”

Brown and her colleagues carried out the study as part of a larger research program, funded by the John Templeton Foundation Flame of Love Project, on the cultural significance and experience of spiritual healing practices. As editor of a forthcoming book on Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing (Oxford University Press, scheduled for release January 2011), Brown has made an in-depth, seven-year study of how Pentecostals worldwide pray for healing.

Although Pentecostals often pray for their own healing and request distant intercessory prayer, they consider proximal prayer to be particularly efficacious and emphasize the importance of physical proximity and human touch in praying effectively for healing.

“When people feel that they have a serious need for healing, they are willing to try almost anything,” Brown said. “If they feel that a particular religious or spiritual practice healed them, they are much more likely to become an adherent. This phenomenon, more than any other, accounts for the growth of these Christian subgroups globally.”

Brown and her colleagues studied the activities of the healing groups Iris Ministries and Global Awakening in Mozambique and Brazil because of their reputation as hotspots of specialized prayer for those with hearing and vision impairments. The researchers used an audiometer and vision charts to evaluate 14 rural Mozambican subjects who reported impaired hearing and 11 who reported impaired vision, both before and after the subjects received proximal intercessory prayer (PIP). The study focused on hearing and vision because it is possible to measure them with hearing machines and vision charts, allowing a more direct measure of improvement than simply asking people whether they feel better.

Subjects exhibited improved hearing and vision that was statistically significant after PIP was administered. Two subjects with impaired hearing reduced the threshold at which they could detect sound by 50 decibels. Three subjects had their tested vision improve from 20/400 or worse to 20/80 or better. These improvements are much larger than those typically found in suggestion and hypnosis studies.

Brown recounted that one subject, an elderly Mozambican woman named Maryam, initially reported that she could not see a person’s hand, with two upraised fingers, from a distance of one foot. A healing practitioner put her hand on Maryam’s eyes, hugged her and prayed for less than a minute; then the person held five fingers in front of Maryam, who was able to count them and even read the 20/125 line on a vision chart.

Dr. John Peteet, a professor at Harvard Medical School, similarly commented in an editorial in the current issue of the Southern Medical Journal: “Whatever their views about the efficacy of healing prayer and about whether it belongs in the armamentarium of medicine, clinicians and Believers share core commitments to healing whenever it is possible, and to meaningful acceptance when it is not.”

 

by Michael J. Knight

And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not. Numbers 14:7-9

God told the Children of Israel, “I have given you the land of Canaan. Go and see if the land is as I said, flowing with milk and honey.”

The people sent the leaders of the twelve tribes as spies into the land. It was just as God said, but when they returned, ten of them were completely frightened by what they saw and heard. They gave an evil report, saying that there were giants in the land, walled cities, and trained armies. This report was a tragedy to the Children of Israel. They had experienced great victories-God had freed them from the plagues, opened a path through the Red Sea, and delivered them from the greatest military power on earth-but now they believed the tragic reports. The two spies who were in faith, Joshua and Caleb, went among them and said, “The Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid! ” Joshua and Caleb had seen the same giants, but they remembered what God had done.

The people, however, decided to turn back. They were so afraid that they attempted to stone Joshua and Caleb. The consequence of their unbelief was that no one was able to go into the Promised Land but Joshua and Caleb. The people were delayed for forty years.

The enemy is an intimidator. Don’t be surprised when he attempts to scare you with circumstances. You, too, may have had great victories in your life and then run up against a tragedy, tempted to forget how God has been faithful throughout your life.

Don’t give up on God. He has promised you the land. Keep the faith!
 

Prayer for Today

Father, I worship you for being a God who helps me walk from victory to victory. I thank you that there’s power in the wonderful name of Jesus! I choose to look at my situation through eyes of faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 Selah: Think on These Things

 For Further Meditation:

* 1 Peter 5:8
* Deuteronomy 6:10-11.