Update in today’s news: Churches burned all over Egypt

Posted by Admin on Aug 16, 2013 in Updates | Comments Off on Update in today’s news: Churches burned all over Egypt

Since August 14, just two days ago,  over 5o churches have been looted, ransacked, and/or burned, reportedly by US backed, pro-Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood mobs. Watching CBS evening news tonight, I saw nothing on this aspect of the over-arching violence. I called the White House comment line to let them know I am alarmed by this slaughter of Christians and that I wanted President Obama to do two things:

1. Denounce this brutal, hateful slaughter of Christians

2. Remove all financial backing to the Muslim Brotherhood and all other political entities involved in this civil war.

I am posting a CNN article on this intense attack against Christians—including Catholics, Coptics, Baptists, Evangelicals, Greek Orthodox, and Adventists. Homes, businesses, and non-profit offices were also targeted. An Adventist couple have been kidnapped. More than a few convents housing nuns have been burned to the ground. Our brothers and sisters in Christ desperately need our prayers.

CNN report:  http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/15/world/meast/egypt-church-attacks/index.html

List of churches attacked:  http://nilerevolt.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/1198/

These attacks are all across Egypt, and therefore have been highly coordinated. We have authority over serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the devil (see Luke 10:19). It is time for us to exert that authority on behalf of these precious saints.

Dorothy

No blog this week

Posted by Admin on Aug 5, 2013 in Updates | Comments Off on No blog this week

Hi Everyone,

I will be taking a week off from the daily blog (which is not the same as the daily grind!) to refresh, seek God, study, and get some things done around here!

Whoever you are, I want you to know that I have thoroughly enjoyed my maiden voyage into blogdom, and it is my intention and desire to return, by the grace of God, with a fresh entry on Monday, August 12.

Until then,

Dorothy

The Lord bless you and besoin d une recette viagra 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. Numbers 6:24-26

The Summer of Zap

Posted by Admin on Aug 3, 2013 in Revival | 1 comment

Every summer, from my mid-teens until I was 21, I worked as a camp counselor. The second to last summer I worked at that camp, I was a brand new Christian. I had gotten saved over Christmas break, and I’d been loading up on the Word and was freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit.

I entered my beloved camp that summer as a new creature—both spiritually and in the eyes of my peers. Many young believers before me had worked at the camp, sowing seeds of prayer and witness into the fertile ground of the souls of the kids, teens, and twenties they touched. One dear friend, a singer, had used her guitar and her voice to plow deep furrows for imperishable seed into the soil of hearts for several summers before I was saved. The chorus to her signature song was:

          And Jesus said Come to the waters, stand by My side;

          I know you are thirsty; you won’t be denied.

          I felt every teardrop when in darkness you cried,

          And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died.

But those more seasoned Christians were gone for the most part; it was now my turn. God sent two others that summer, a young man who led the dorm Bible study I attended at my college, and a young woman who, like me, had just received Jesus within the past year.

A microburst of revival was about to sweep that little camp.

The three of us quickly found one another and the after-hours prayer meetings commenced. At first it was just us, but one by one, over the summer, other counselors joined in, and we became a pile of prayer, heaped up in the middle of the non-trafficked road near the lake, an every-evening occurrence under the Ozark stars accompanied by the music of crickets, bullfrogs, and whippoorwills.

Things started happening. Little miracles were taking place in hearts all over camp as young people began opening up to the reality of Jesus. Things even got a little crazy. Those who viewed our passion with skepticism began calling us “Zaps” due to the lightning-quick manner in which prayers were getting answered and hearts were being changed. They also dubbed themselves “Pazzes”—the polar-opposite of “Zaps”. In fact, before the end of the summer, our prayer piles were encircled by “Pazzes” standing quietly, hands behind their backs, as they observed us fellowship with the Father.

One late July Sunday morning, in a counselor-led chapel on the hillside by the lake, one counselor, neither a professed Zap nor a Paz, a scientific-type who was a bit older than most of us and greatly respected by everyone, stood up to share his thoughts. “I’ve watched all of you this summer as lines have been drawn. I’ve seen the changed lives and the stand that so many of you have taken. And I wanted to take this opportunity to let every one of you know—I, too, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and He is the Lord of my life.” A stunned silence fell upon that hillside, and with that, no one remained in the faith closet any longer.

Probably the most remarkable incident of the summer, however, happened far away from the view of the prayer pile.

One morning, early in August, two counselors-in-training, boys I had trained in the leadership program, stood up and took the mike after breakfast to deliver the daily “Thought for the Day”. Instead of reading a saying from Kahlil Gibran or a snippet from a Peter, Paul, and Mary song, they re-enacted something they experienced the night before, after hours. It played out something like this:

Pee Wee: Jack, man, I’m bummed out!

Jack: Why, man?

Pee Wee: I messed up my back in a wrestling match last spring, and I really hurt! Man, I’m so bummed out! I may never get to wrestle again!

Jack: Oh, man, that’s a bummer! I’ve heard, man, that, like, if you pray and ask God, man, like maybe He might heal you.

Pee Wee: Man, do you think He would?

Jack: Well, man, like let’s just ask. Hey, God, Man, like, I’ve heard that You might heal people. Would You, like, heal Pee Wee right now, Man?

Pee Wee (to the campers and counselors present in the dining hall): And then, man, I’m not kidding—a ball of light of flashed down on us! That ball hit me, my pain left, and it’s still gone, man! I’m going to get to wrestle again next year!

Jack: And, like, I’m going to serve God, man! He’s real!

Pee Wee: Me, too, man; Jesus is so real! God bless you, man! Campers, dismissed!

With eyes full of accusation, Pazzes flashed looks across the dining hall at the various Zaps. The Zaps shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads no at the Pazzes—we had nothing to do with this! Zaps looked in wonder at other Zaps around the room. All over, everyone shook their heads, nope—we had no involvement in this one!

As the summer drew to a close, everyone—both Zap and Paz—knew that they had been in the middle of something they’d never experienced before—a real move of God. The microburst of revival left an indelible mark on the hearts and thinking of every one of us. And now, sprinkled all over America are men and women in their 50’s and 60’s who witnessed what God could do through a little band of praying people. And it is my prayer that every one of them gets to witness it again, and that their hearts and lives will be forever changed through a fresh move of God.

May God move again upon this generation—everyone now living—from the youngest to the oldest, from the most tender to the most calloused—and everyone in between, in Jesus’ name!

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Isaiah 62:6-7

Let’s contend for it!

Dorothy

Deep calls to deep

Posted by Admin on Aug 2, 2013 in Revival | Comments Off on Deep calls to deep

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.” Genesis 7:11

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.‘” John 7: 38

“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts…” Psalm 42:7a KJV

The other night God visited a prayer meeting I attended. Waves of worship in languages given by the Spirit of God filled the atmosphere, spilling out in joy, peace, and great awe. To me it felt as if I had entered a river, toes first, splashing and washing away the tiredness of my flesh. I saw swirling eddies and light dancing upon the water with my mind’s eye, and realized that, try as we might, no human could really control a living river.

As I worshipped God, I reflected upon rivers I had known, from fishing expeditions with my dad, float trips, rope swings over deeply-rooted banks, and the torrents of flood waters that often crash through the mighty rivers of my region. Rivers—life-giving, playful, refreshing, cleansing, powerful, dangerous, destructive—rivers.

I sang quietly to myself, “Oh, oh, the River of God! Wash it away, wash it away, wash it away in the River of God!” The river of God was washing me, and I allowed it to carry me into the deeper flows of the peace of God.

Then I caught a glimpse of how an outpouring of God might begin upon a people or a land. God said to Jeremiah, “…call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you…” (see Jeremiah 29:12-14).

When the heart cries of God’s people are toward Him, seeking Him with their whole beings for mercy, salvation, and restoration to be poured out upon both them and their land, He listens and responds. During times of chaos, distress, crisis, and upheaval in the past, men and women have cried out to God earnestly, beseeching Him for deliverance from their backslidings and sin, crying out for relief from the fruit of wickedness in the land. And as a result, revivals have nearly always erupted in those darker times.

By Noah’s time, although the earth was still young, wickedness had grown out of control and evil permeated the thoughts and intentions of the human race. The world was corrupted by sin; violence ruled the day, and God had seen enough.

He directed Noah to build an ark for the preservation of the race and every animal species on the earth. According to 2 Peter 2:5, it is likely that Noah preached righteousness to anyone who happened by throughout the entire ark-construction project. The door to the ark was left open until the last minute; had anyone taken Noah’s message to heart, my guess is that they would have been welcomed aboard.

Genesis 7:11 gives the report of the fateful day when the flood began. “All the fountains of the great deep burst open,” declares the Word, “and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”

In our day, as wickedness grows out of control once again, and as evil thoughts seem to saturate the very atmosphere with perversion, violence, and greed, God is once again leaving the door of the ark open for a while longer.

And He is now stirring the depths of the hearts of His people—deep is calling unto deep—and He is pressing by His Spirit upon all of us—anyone who will—to “burst open” and allow the release of living waters from their innermost being.

And as we cry out to Him and seek Him with all of our hearts, He will be found of us. The great depths within us, placed within our hearts from the beginning, will be met by the opened floodgates of Heaven, and another great flood of outpouring will occur.

In this flood, souls will be saved, not lost; and as we cry out to Him, perhaps one last time this planet will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

It is our time; may each one of us yield to the Holy One pressing upon our hearts in this hour and cry out to Heaven, “Send the outpouring of your Spirit! We must have revival!”

Dorothy

News Flash!

Posted by Admin on Aug 1, 2013 in Victory over evil surmisings | Comments Off on News Flash!

News flash! I interrupt this series on revival to bring you an update on last week’s blog series. After writing the series featuring the dreaded devilish technique against Christians called Evil Surmisings, this author was targeted with that selfsame strategy by her adversary, not once, not twice, but three times within a few short days!

How could this be? you may wonder. Isn’t anyone who prays and studies the Bible like you claim you do too mature to be hit by such attacks? I respond, Only in their press releases, and mine haven’t been written yet.

Suffice it to say, rounds one and two hit me back to back, within seconds of one another. I was minding my own business, actually thinking about how good it was to walk in victory, when the first round hit. No biggie, I thought; what I just heard from those people wasn’t directed toward me. Then close on its heels, round two hit. Nope; I’m just imagining this, I said to myself.

And then round three hit hard and fast. Evidence! All my suspicions are undoubtedly dead-on! And that old knot in my stomach which had become a mere memory returned to my gut with a vengeance. Along with it came the old shame and fear of man.

Unfortunately, the bad news is this: you will be the target of evil surmisings—and all their hitchhikers—for the rest of your life on this planet until you finally get to fly home to the Lord.

The good news is this: you do not have to accept those thoughts or their tagalongs.

But, you ask, what about all that evidence you picked up by the Holy Spirit? Did I say it was by the Holy Spirit that I picked it up? To tell the truth, I don’t have a clue if what I sensed was accurate or not. And most of the time, neither will you in similar circumstances.

But don’t you need to protect yourself against the lies and disdain that might be rocketing your way? This is always the concern with evil surmisings, and the answer is…not necessarily. You see, suspicions are, even for the most spiritual man alive, still that—suspicions. They have no substance as far as you know. And along with the evil surmisings, launched by the prince of hell, are the whispered promptings of his “unholy spirit”: follow through, investigate, talk up your side of the deal just in case “those people” are seeking your ruin!

Do we not have a Helper, the Holy Spirit? (See John 14:16.) Has He not been summoned, called to our side, especially called to our aid, as One who pleads our cause before a judge? Is He not a Pleader, a Counsel for our defense, our Legal Assistant, and our Advocate? (See http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3875&t=KJV )

If I was wrong about “those people” and the motives of their hearts, would I not be guilty of judging them before the throne of God if I took to my own defense? And would I not demonstrate before the One with whom I have to do that I did not trust Him to fight my battles, if indeed a battle actually was in operation?

If I was correct in my suspicions, and I was the object of the disdain of others, even then—why should I fear? The Lord has fought similar battles for me while I remained silent; He is faithful to do it again (see Exodus 14:14).

The Lord provides for you a secret place where you can stay safe from the strife of tongues and the snares of the trapper. He surrounds you with favor as with a shield, and even if your enemy does seek to pit unsuspecting people against you, God can cause all things to turn around for your good if you love Him and are called according to His purposes (see Psalm 31:20, Psalm 91:3, Psalm 5:12, and Romans 8:28). You definitely have an unfair advantage, evil surmisings or not.

As for me, I choose to obey God, throw off the mantle of shame and fear which the devil seeks to drop upon my shoulders, and rejoice in the Lord.

God has your back. He is your sun and shield and gives you grace and glory (see Psalm 84:11). And evil surmisings—true or false—can’t stand long before you when you refuse to play along.

May God defend you and keep you forever from the strife of tongues and from falling for evil surmisings!

Dorothy

Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright. Psalm 20:6-8, KJV

Contention vs. revival

Posted by Admin on Jul 31, 2013 in Revival | 1 comment

Yesterday I introduced you to Winkie Pratney’s book, Revival. Something I read in it years ago stuck with me and changed the entire way I looked at differences between believers. I would like to share it with you.

George Whitefield, one of the revivalists Pratney wrote about, was used mightily of God during a key outpouring in American history. He preached his first sermon when he was 21 and continued without faltering throughout the British Isles and the American colonies until his death in 1770 at the age of 56. His style was described as the “preaching that startled the nation” (page 90). He spoke with authority, and said of himself, “I have not come in my own name. No! I have come in the Name of the Lord of hosts and I must be heard!” (page 92.) And heard he was. He typically preached twelve messages per week, and often spoke up to forty to sixty hours each week. The joy in which he walked was evident to all; one colonial woman said of his influence upon her, “Mr. Whitefield was so cheerful it tempted me to become a Christian” (page 96).

This man, who was used so powerfully by God to blast the message of the gospel to his generation, dealt with some of the same catty, factious, divisive forces that persist within Christianity in our time. Although he was a friend and contemporary of John Wesley, they did not see eye to eye on points of doctrine. Whitefield held to Calvinism; Wesley viewed the Armenian belief system as correct. In fact, at that time, many in the Church were sharply divided between these two branches of thought, and along with the division came bitter contention, criticisms, and smug judgments. Pratney wrote, “[Whitefield] had a deep humility, and broad charity toward others, loving all others who loved Jesus in sincerity. If other Christians misrepresented him, he forgave them; if they refused to work with him, he still loved them” (page 96).

One believer, more interested in controversy than in the furtherance of the gospel, asked Whitefield if he “thought he would see John Wesley in heaven.”

Whitefield replied, “I fear not. He will be so near the throne and we at such a distance that we shall hardly get a sight of him” (page 96). Something beyond anointed preaching and tireless endurance burned within Whitefield’s breast. The love of Christ that shunned partisan sniping permeated his life and ministry as well.

Are you willing to speak kindly of others despite doctrinal differences? Are you willing to forgo a juicy snide remark concerning a “rival” believer or ministry? Are any of us willing to set aside sectarian prejudices for the sake of keeping our motives pure before God?

These are the questions each of us must ask ourselves before the Lord. I am concerned that our generation will never experience the unlimited outpouring of God if true Christians refuse to lay aside suspicious attitudes and strife one against the other. Can we afford to continue in “me against you” and “us against them” mentalities at the risk of blocking the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon this dark generation? Whitefield didn’t think so.

May God help us all!

Dorothy

[The quotes from Revival are used by permission. Winkie Pratney’s ministry can be accessed at www.winkiepratney.com ]

Revival

Posted by Admin on Jul 30, 2013 in Revival | Comments Off on Revival

I read a book years ago with a message that was both ancient yet strikingly current. The book was Revival, by Winkie Pratney, published in 1983. The back cover asked:

• Are you disturbed by the apathy and despondency of people today?
• Do you wonder what the future holds for this immoral world?

It went on to say, “In an age where values are questioned, families are falling apart, and where quality is being replaced by quantity, there is an ever-growing need for a revival of the morals and beliefs of a more stable time.”

I agreed with it then; I agree even more now. These thoughts are more pertinent today than they were in 1983; without God’s intervention, our culture will continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Without divine interference, neither the best programs nor projects good men have to offer will be adequate to stave off the eventual collapse of our culture or return us to kinder, gentler days. We must have revival.

Pratney wrote about revivals, reformers, and revivalists spanning history from before the Great Reformation in the 1400’s up to the time of his writing. He wrote that “true revival is marked by powerful and often widespread outpourings of the Spirit.”  He also pointed out that in past revivals “many times preaching had to cease because the hearers were prostrate or because the voice of the preacher was drowned by cries for mercy” (page 16).

Quoting In the Day Of Thy Power by Arthur Wallis, Pratney shares concerning revival, “It is God revealing Himself to man in awesome holiness and irresistible power. It is such a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs abandoned. It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the field” (page 17).

“Revival is periodic; evangelism is continuous,” Pratney quotes from an April 9, 1965 article in Christianity Today. “Revival will always vitalize God’s people…but revival is not always welcome. For many the price is too high. There is no cheap grace in revival. It entails repudiation of self-satisfied complacency. Revival turns careless living into vital concern…exchanges self-indulgence for self-denial. Yet, revival is not a miraculous visitation falling on an unprepared people like a bolt out of the blue. It comes when God’s people earnestly want revival and are willing to pay the price” (page 19).

It is interesting to note that the article in Christianity Today was written two years before a double-barreled blast of God’s intervention hit this nation. Both the Charismatic Renewal, starting among Catholic seekers and spreading into Protestant denominations, and the Jesus Movement, capturing disenchanted and disenfranchised young people for Christ by the tens of thousands or more, are said to have started in 1967, two years after the Christianity Today article was printed. Hunger for more than what they were currently experiencing in their churches and relationships with God was driving believers to seek God’s intervention in the mid 1960’s.

Pratney also warned, “Evil as well as righteousness can have a ‘revival’; there can be an unholy uprising as well as a holy outpouring” (page 21). Proverbs 28:28a declares, “When the wicked rise, men hide themselves” and Proverbs 29:2b says, “when the wicked rule, the people groan.” One strategy of the devil is to use intense widespread ridicule, derision, and scorn of godly values and faith in Christ to discourage believers from confidently persisting in prayer for a sweeping, mighty outpouring of His power and holiness. Satan accomplishes this through stirring wicked men, rulers, and ungodly popular thought to coerce believers to retreat in fear from voicing their convictions or confident profession of faith. Perhaps, they think, if we don’t ruffle any feathers and we just play nice, those who hate our values will simply forget we are here and leave us alone. However, such fear works to the enemy’s advantage; when good men are silent, evil increases and gains leverage. Like it or not, this describes our time.

That is why we need God’s intervention. As a friend of mine used to say, “The devil’s not playing wiffle ball.” We find ourselves facing the big leagues, now, ready or not. But we have a God who is ready to intervene in a big way for the asking. It’s time now to let go of distractions and fear for our own safety and reputations. It’s time seek the Lord on behalf of our nation. It’s time for a move of God.

[The quotes from Revival are used by permission. Winkie Pratney’s ministry can be accessed at www.winkiepratney.com ]

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