Tag: last days

The Saturday Song – God’s Not Dead

Posted on by Dorci

It’s revival day! 

Today’s the day Franklin Graham is leading Prayer March 2020 in Washington D.C. for the healing of our nation, and the day Pastor and Rabbi Jonathan Cahn is leading his event, The Return, also seeking God’s forgiveness, repentance, revival, and healing of our nation. 

Heavenly Father, we come to you in humility and total dependence on You, praying that in Your mercy You would pour out the power of Your Holy Spirit throughout our country to soften hearts and open eyes to the truth of the destruction of sin, and the truth of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross that paid for our sins, that many will turn to You with repentant hearts and that there will be a great awakening and revival of our nation in the name of Jesus Christ.  We pray you would send your warrior angels to bind the hand of the enemy from stopping or disrupting any of the prayer events going on today. We look to You, LORD, for help and hope and renewal. In Jesus’ holy and precious name we pray, amen. 

This is the song the Lord put on my heart to share today.

 

 

God’s Not Dead (Like a Lion)
Newsboys

Let love explode and bring the dead to life
A love so bold
To seek a revolution somehow

Let love explode and bring the dead to life
A love so bold
To bring a revolution somehow
Now I’m lost in Your freedom
In this world I’ll overcome

My God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

Roaring, He’s roaring, He’s roaring like a lion

Let hope arise and make the darkness hide
My faith is dead I need resurrection somehow
Now I’m lost in Your freedom
In this world I’ll overcome

My God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

Roaring, He’s roaring, He’s roaring like a lion
He’s roaring, He’s roaring

Let heaven roar and fire fall
Come shake the ground
With the sound of revival
Let heaven roar and fire fall
Come shake the ground
With the sound of revival
Let heaven roar (Let heaven roar) and fire fall
Come shake the ground
With the sound of revival

He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion
God’s not dead
He’s surely alive
He’s living on the inside
Roaring like a lion

He’s roaring, He’s roaring, He’s roaring like a lion
He’s roaring, He’s roaring, He’s roaring like a lion (Roaring like a lion)

 

 

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer to Hear the Right Voice

Posted on by Dorci

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  You are righteous and holy and mighty, and we lift up the name of Jesus Christ as the only name by which we can be saved. 

Father, there is a constant, seemingly endless number of voices in our ears, trying to tell us what to think, what to believe, and what to do.  

But we know only you have the wisdom we need to live this life according to your will, and only you have the Holy Spirit we need to carry out your will.  

Father, we ask that you would anoint our ears to listen to only your voice and to carry out your wisdom no matter what the world tries to tell us. 

Help us remember the importance of spending time in your Word, the source of all truth and wisdom, and to do that daily.  Please open your Word to us and give us understanding and speak to each of our hearts what we need to hear to live lives that glorify you. 

Help us not be swayed by the words of the world, or by words of any who may sound compelling, but are not of you. 

Please lead us through this valley of the shadow of death, so that we come through victorious, matured followers of Christ, having had the privilege of bringing glory to the eternal King of kings. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. 

Getting the Cart Before the Horse

Posted on by Dorci

Life is fleeting. More fleeting than most of us think about on a day to day basis. But I think anytime we look back over the life of a loved one who’s gone, we realize again how very momentary it is. 

I want to pack all I can into this life. I want to do all the right things, and I sure don’t want to miss anything God wants for my life. I don’t want to miss His purpose in having me here, and I’ve caught myself feeling frantic that I’m not doing enough, or worried that God’s disappointed that I haven’t gotten everything right. Maybe I’ve messed it all up. 

I grew up learning to be a perfectionist, that if I could just do everything right I’d be worthy of love, and that spilled over into my relationship with the Lord. Do everything right and He will love me.

But that’s getting the cart before the horse. 

God already loves us, and what He wants from us, is us. 

He desires us to love Him, to grow in our relationship with Him.

If we practice loving Him with everything in us, everything good will flow from that. Anything we do for Him, any obedience, any service, any use of our gifts, will be a result of that fellowship of love. 

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” 
Matthew 22:37

That word commandment means an injunction, an authoritative prescription.

This is what the Lord’s been impressing on my heart lately.  “Rest in Me. Focus on being, not just on the doing.” 

And yes, of course I love the Lord, but there’s always room for that love to grow. He wants us to love Him – 

– with all our heart. Choose to trust Him with every emotion, every anxiety, every worry;

– with all our soul . Choose faith in the love and goodness of God in every circumstance, no matter what’s happening;

– with all our mind. Choose to believe in Him with all understanding. Take every thought captive to obey Him.

Receiving God’s love and loving Him back is God’s prescription for the health of our entire being, heart, soul, and mind. 

Sometimes this life doesn’t quite turn out the way we thought it would or ever wanted it to. But God knew, and He’s had a plan all along.

In the middle of the mess He says, “Focus your energies on loving me with your whole being, and anything I desire you to do I will show you and enable you to do it.” 

Just a couple of chapters later, after Jesus tells His disciples the greatest thing we can do is love God, His disciples ask Him what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.

He tells them, among other things, that “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13

He didn’t say the love of some, or the love of many, but the love of most will grow cold. 

Whether we’re facing the end of the age now or not, there is a lot of hatred and violence and destruction going on out there publicly, and in a lot of ways we’re each being stretched personally. We’re suffering, we’re hurting, we’re confused, we’re downright angry. 

The enemy will try to use all that to cause our hearts to harden and grow cold. 

But if we purpose to love our Heavenly Father with all of our being, we won’t be one of the most.

Instead, we’ll be one of the few with His love flowing in and through us that will be like an oil causing the light of Christ in us to shine brightest when the world needs it most. 

This life is fleeting.  

Wouldn’t it be great if someone looked back on our life and said “How they loved the Lord”?

And even more, facing Him at the start of our new life, having loved Him with everything?

 

 

 

True Freedom

Posted on by Dorci

“Now the Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.”
2 Corinthians 3:17


God, in His grace and mercy, put in the hearts of men and women to establish a nation that would be free to worship Him without outside influence. 

Free to believe in the one, true God, free to follow Him, free to call on Him, free to have and read His Word, free to gather together in His name, free to obey Him rather than our sinful nature, and free to tell the world the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It would seem we’re at a crossroads in our country right now. Sin abounds because the Spirit doesn’t.

But there is hope.

There is anger and violence in the streets.

But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Bitterness and unforgiveness grows.

But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Sin and lawlessness spread.

But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

The world doesn’t need more fun programs, or coffee shops, or topical, feel-good messages, or a weakened, compromised, watered-down version of the Word of God so no one’s offended.

It needs the power of the Spirit of the Lord, and by Him to know Christ and the freedoms He gives.

It needs us to put away the old self and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 

It needs us to stop being influenced by the world so we can influence it for Christ.

It needs us to walk in newness of life, a life of obedience to Christ, so we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, and instead be filled with Him.

And by the power of the Spirit of the Lord in us it needs to hear that Christ loves them so much that He died for them to forgive them of their sins, to restore their relationship to God, to give them a new heart and a new mind, and to fill their hearts with love and peace and forgiveness.

It needs to hear that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10:15

God gave us a land with freedoms to give the chance for every heart to be free. But so many hearts are painfully held captive to sin, and the enemy is having a field day.

I believe God is calling His children, for whatever time we have left, to boldly speak His name, and in His Spirit, free as many of those captive souls as possible, so they, too, can be filled with the Spirit and true freedom.

And we are here now for such a time as this.

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:14-15


Oh Father, forgive us for allowing the comforts of the world make us complacent. Please forgive us for any sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Fill us with your Spirit and give us a heart of love for the lost and a vision of how you would have each of us reach the world around us. Whatever you have us do, may we be careful to continue to do it in the strength of your Spirit and not in our own. Thank you for this unique nation you’ve given us, where we’ve been afforded so many freedoms, freedoms we have largely taken for granted. And thank for the freedoms you’ve given us in Christ, to love you, to serve you, to carry out the good works you’ve prepared for us to do, and to know that someday we’ll live with you forever.  In Jesus’s name we pray, amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for All the Saints

Posted on by Dorci

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you.  We lift up your righteous and holy name above all names as the one true God, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who created us to have relationship with you, to know you, to commune with you, to be a grand part of your creation that would glorify your goodness and beauty and grace. 

Father we pray for all the saints. We pray you would consecrate us, that we would understand you have made us a holy people that are meant to be separate from the world, that is, to live in a different way, to have a different perspective, to see people and circumstances through your eyes rather than as the world sees. 

We pray you would lovingly convict each of us of any sins we’ve allowed as we’ve become complacent, and that we would repent, turn, and do the right thing, live the right way so that we would honor the calling you’ve so graciously given us. 

As we do that, let us be a light in the darkness, shining brightly for the world to see what true love and grace and forgiveness are so that many come to know you through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

We pray you would encourage us and fill us with joy that we might have strength in the face of the enemy, and with your peace that passes all understanding no matter what storms rage around us. 

We pray we would be one just as you and your Son are one, and that we are all one in you. 

We pray we would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that we would worship you in Spirit and in truth. 

Let us remember who we are in you, Lord, that we are children of the King, holy and righteous because, through your Son, you have made us so. 

Sanctify us that we might live as your chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that we might speak of the praises of the One who has called us out of darkness into your marvelous light.  

May we empty ourselves and let you fill us up with your Spirit who gives us everything we need to live in these hard times, and not only to live, but to prosper and to be victorious. May we come together and live for you and you alone, and bring you all the glory due your name. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.