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DEAR READERS
Our biggest challenge is: 'To hear what the Spirit is saying to
the churches'. In all the information and opinion that has crossed
my desk and brain recently, the following article from Spokane
stands out as the voice of God. The Spokane Marketplace Prayer
Leadership has begun to set before the Church and Marketplace
Leaders in Spokane a call to repentance for the first half of
2004. Let us take to heart what they have to say and apply it to
our hearts in Canada. The team has outlined some very
helpful practical steps on their website at
http://www.marketplaceprayer.org
SETTING OUR HOPE ON GOD
This scripture has certainly got my attention as it concerns
continuous intercession - 1Timothy 5:3,5. But how do we relate to
such a command?
Honour widows who are real widows ... She who is a real widow, and
is left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in
supplications and prayers night and day; whereas she who is
self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command this, so that
they may be without reproach.
Does this seem extreme or unreasonable to our way of Christian
life? Surely we can be allowed some self-indulgence! What about
existing alone without all the stuff! Is the Lord enough to
satisfy the longing of our hearts without some worldly
distractions? A real widow, Paul says, seems to have the
opportunity to set her hope on God and seek Him by day and
by night. Imagine the power and the blessing that a poor
disadvantaged widow would generate in this manner and the effect
that her prayer life would have on her church and city! Is there a
sense in which the church in Canada is spiritually like a widow?
Our spouse, lover and husband - Jesus, seems so far away, and we
have been left behind to live our life without Him. In His absence
do we move into creative self indulgence or seek Him like never
before. What would it feel like to pray day and night? The next
article might be helpful.
REPENTANCE AND THE LOST HEART OF THE CHURCH
The Spokane Market Place Prayer Initiative
Repentance has become the "lost heart" of the Church today.
One seldom hears messages on the need for personal or corporate
repentance from sin. And yet, when we look at the New Testament
there are some 58 references to the need to repent. "Repent" is
the most frequent instruction given by the risen Christ to the 7
Churches of Asia in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 (occurring 6 times).
Repentance is a matter close to God’s heart. I believe God is
about to make repentance from sin as important to us as it is to
Him. I believe that God is calling His Church, particularly in
Spokane, into a season of prayer, fasting and repentance in
preparation for revival.
When you and I stand before God on judgment day He will not ask
you to give an account for anyone’s sin but your own. That sin or
issue in your neighbor’s life that you thought was so terrible and
which you believed cried out for repentance on their part will not
even come up in the conversation. But God will ask you to explain
the log in your own eye which you steadfastly denied was there and
which you refused to repent over. Repentance isn’t about any one
else. It is about you and me. It isn’t about anyone else’s sin.
It’s about yours and mine. It isn’t about what you might think God
wants to do in anyone else’s life. It’s about what God wants to do
in your life and in my life. It isn’t about the Church calling the
world to repent of it’s sin. It’s about the Church wanting to be
holy before God and living out a life of humility and repentance
before a watching world that has yet to see a genuine role model
of repentance and forgiveness. Perhaps the world will consider the
claims of Christ more seriously when it sees the professing Church
living out a life of humility, forgiveness and holiness more
fully.
I believe God wants to send Spiritual Revival and Transformation
to our community, and at this current point in time, particularly
in the first six months of 2004, He is calling His
available church to seek Him in humility, in fasting, in prayer
and in genuine personal and corporate repentance, asking God to
have mercy upon us and to pour out His Spirit upon us, our
churches and our community. This isn’t about a program, a crusade,
or a festival. It isn’t even about particular pastors or churches
or ministries. It’s about the heart and desire of God to visit our
city, to pour out spiritual revival and transformation, and its
about the role He wants each of us to play.
The Church in Spokane and Eastern Washington now stands at a spiritual crossroads. After many years of prayer
for revival, and many prophetic words promising a season of
revival, we now stand at a critical crossroads where we must
choose. We can choose to continue on in more man-made structures,
activities, programs and coalitions which will do nothing but mask
spiritual poverty with activity while perpetuating the status quo,
or we can choose to lay aside all other considerations and enter
into a season of prayer, fasting and repentance which will lead to
genuine revival. In this season, God is not looking for empty,
ritualized and formalized repentance events. Rather, He is looking
to raise up men (and women) like Ezra who are genuinely appalled
at the condition of God's people and who are willing to weep the
prayers of the broken hearted over the sin of God's people and the
failure of the Church.
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