"Friendship with Jesus" | POWER HOUR | Ep.106

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] foreign [Music] well hello power our family good afternoon good morning good evening from wherever you are as sometime during the day i'm sure yeah of course whether you've just woken up or you've stayed up late or you've been up you've been awake for a long time and we are super excited to be with you on tuesday the 17th of november for episode 106. i bet you we did never think we never thought that we'd be saying that and when we started power um way back at the beginning of the year but we are saying that today episode 106 of a power hour and we're just so excited to be with you all for the next hour just hearing what the what god is saying to the church what god is saying to all of you personally and and i've had a bit of a sneak preview of some of the words that sarah jane and john are carrying beforehand and you're in for a treat well john cena jane it's so good to have you both john this is your first time back with us in a little while how are you doing uh i'm doing very well i don't think anything particularly amusing has happened to me only getting the glasses sorted out yesterday no longer sliding down the nose and making me look you know like that but anyway that's a good thing thankfully as the little things when when we're in lockdown in scotland and it looks like glasgow in the greater glasgow region might be going into even a lot and you've got to celebrate the little things yeah i got my glasses yes i remember way back when lockdown started the most exciting part of my day um apart from power hour and work was getting to go for a drive-through coffee at a starbucks yeah i started life i was like that's right i remember the first one you got and we were all we were all envious because we didn't get one it was the moment and it just the little things so i'm sure getting your glasses fixed past the film it didn't mean that i did i was walking in pollock park i think it must have been over the weekend those of you who who know where pollock park is on the south side of the city here um and um and i was just walking and on the path but there was a fair bit of undergrowth nearby and i just turned around to my right and about 12 feet away from me was a deer oh it's all antlers nice and it just you know it must have hurt i must made a noise and it turned round and it looked at me and i looked at it we were that close to look at each other and then then it decided to just run off and so um and in fact it later i must have walked around the park and i came back the other way along that path and looked again in another place and that same deer was they now again i just stood very still and it lifted its head and it looked at me and then it ran off again i've never gotten in pollock park before there you go no we had one we had one just outside the house down just in front of our neighbor's house the other day when we were walking the dogs and it's funny how they look at you and they almost like watch you and we're watching them it's like when you see seals and they look at you and you look at them and you consider each other and then they decide right i'm off i looked at this strange man long enough well at least you'll have got to put your fixed glasses to use having a good look at the deer and make sure that you can make sure that you can see them and which is good how are you doing oh we're good we're we're surviving still the ongoing house work the building work and they're still in the house a job that was meant to take three days is now on its seventh day i'm believing for perfection number seven god completed creation in seven days they can finish this in seven days you know they're doing a great job but i have to say i had enough of the banging in the noise now and all the dust everywhere and but it will be great it will be lovely when it's finished so yeah we've just been relaxing walking you know sophie who is our daughter she loves to bake and she decided much to our joy she would bake scones and cookies on saturday afternoon so we had a a scone afternoon tea on saturday which was lovely these little things matter don't they what about you you were out eating burgers with hakka well yes yes i for those of you who don't know i've moved in with uh with a friend and has family um and there are little girls she's four called harper i'm uncle sam to her and and we just are we're as thick as the eaves we'll have a good a good bit of play and a good bit of fun well on sunday mom and dad had plans so it was harper and sam day and she came into my room early in the morning and she told me what she wanted to do so there was none of this you know offering some suggestions she was you know uncle sam you're going to take me for a checker nugget yes we'll go we'll drive through and we'll take over she's like no you're going to take me for chicken nuggets and we're going to sit inside oh we're sitting in our first place you know what it's like for a kid she must have thought it was cool going out with her uncle sam sitting and but then after that i'm sure much to mom and dad's delight we did look round some christmas aisles and i let harper choose two things for the house two of which are noisy some nice singing christmas snow globes and a sand figure type thing as well which i'm sure she was uh mom and dad are chuffed with but what what i'm so far i thought that was what uncles are for buying lots of every parent's nightmare sam every parent's nightmare is a noisy toy that god parents or aunts and uncles by and they're like oh we bought a drum great take it home with you please you know we bought a xylophone great take it home with you please because the parents are the ones who have to consistently listen to it so absolutely so i'm sure mom and dad were great but we're happy with that i was chuffed harper was chuffed and we had a great day so i it was fun and i really enjoyed that so i feel very rested actually after after a weekend although i was used as a human climbing frame for most of them i feel actually very rested and really super excited for and the week that is ahead i mean i'm just looking at some of your comments and where some of you are joining from and and all the different things that you're saying here and i'm just noticing just some things that i want to deal with before we dive into the bulk of and the prophetic words that god is saying today and some of you are saying you know someone's saying they're you're in total lockdown at where you are right now as well and the feelings that come feeling like well you're way back at the beginning again and all the emotions that conjures up lots of you just with questions over your future feeling we feeling fatigued feeling a little bit like i'm not too sure what an earth is going on and as i walked up this morning and this is normally what happens i could because i feel like i i know senator jane you'll feel similar as well you kind of wake up in the morning out of the the spirit realm out of the the the encounter realm into the world you know because we spend so much time as we sleep dreaming and and receiving revelation and so as i woke up out of of the dream kind of realm and that spirit realm where god was speaking and bringing revelation i was aware that i sat up both right in my bag into the middle of what felt like a fog or a haze or a mist of confusion and of heaviness and some of you are just saying that there you are feeling down because your your family is suffering at the moment and lots of you are saying you're just feeling uncertain about the future you're not too sure about what the future holds or what's going on well right now we just want a war on your behalf i don't really want to talk too much about confusion we're not here to give it air space but i do want to recognize that particularly right now this day the 17th of november there is a particular heaviness to the atmosphere that is not god initiated this is not a god weight this is the enemy initiated heaviness and you know sarah you're saying you woke up with a deep headache you've got that there and that they're spirits of heaviness the fog of war well we just want to contend for you because clarity needs to come and you know what i believe that even over these next few weeks i know that we're getting tired because it's coming to the end of the year but i do believe that over the next few weeks there are opportunities that god wants to open up to you to make some really good decisions and make some really clear decisions even about 2021 but for you to do that we need to first clear this fog this heaviness of confusion that has come over the people of god even this morning or this evening or or during the day wherever you are joining from just now sarah jane i don't know if you want to add anything on to that if you're sensing or seeing anything and before we jump in and just start to deal with that i i think that um it's exactly what you're saying that that feeling of heaviness that feeling of fogginess and actually a low mood almost like grinding low mood that that has come upon uh i would say probably most people but because we're the people of god we are people of hope we are people with a solution we are people with a place and a person of the trinity of god to go to to get clear from anything that is coming against us from the enemy and so i feel like the word that i have sam is is partly medicine for that i don't know if you want me to go there or wait till you've prayed i think let's let's go for it and go there sarah jane and and really as you're prophesying and to the people i think as you're listening to say the dream prophesy receive it as medicine but receive it as warfare on your behalf as well because we just want to lift this heaviness this fog this cloudiness that has come to you so that by the end of this power hour you feel more able to make the right steps forward because you're more sure of where you're going so yesterday jonah hit us with what you're hearing god said yeah so i heard the spirit of the lord say this morning just as i waited on him lord what are you saying to the church and what are you doing right now he said i have fresh living waters for today i have fresh living waters for today and the lord is saying to us as we come to receive his fresh living waters by the spirit of god in the spirit realm which is tangible which is real that is not just a word that is in scripture but it's actually applied to something that we experience in the spirit there is a refreshing that god is saying receive that is living water that is full of life there is a life that he's saying that is yours in me and there is life that is vibrant in us because of him because of me he said and i think we were chatting backwards and forwards uh before we came on it and it really is that sense of the lord um gently but firmly almost like a father would uh pushing us towards him more and more pushing us towards him as a solution more and more and so i don't know about you all watching but maybe you went for your coffee this morning and thought well that's not lifted this this uh fogginess this morning or your walk or your run or whatever it was because it's a spiritual dynamic that is coming against us and we need a spiritual solution and so the lord is saying come to me for these living waters because everything that is on our front line right now the front line of your lives what do i mean by that the front line of your health the front line of your work the front line of your family or your finances the front line even of your city and and in some cases the nations where we are facing unprecedented times the lord is saying the solution is come to me what did jesus say come to me all who are weary come to me all who are thirsty come to me and i will give you refreshing and i will give you rest and actually the lord is saying we were chatting the other day weren't we about now words of god the word for now and actually the word for now is fresh living water for today so what is fresh living water for today if this is a new subject matter or theme or thought for you we hear in scripture in jeremiah two and seven where jeremiah releases the word of god where god describes himself as a spring of living water we read in first chronicles uh sorry first corinthians 10 4 and where paul's describing how people drank and he says they drank from the spiritual rock that was christ and so there's this sense of there is water there is refreshing there is life that is tangible yes but also by the spirit of god that is living water that we can drink you'll all remember when jesus met the samaritan woman at the well in john 4 and he has this conversation with her but it comes to this culmination of look if you knew who i was you'd be asking me you'd be asking me if you knew the gift of god that was in front of you in john 4 10 you would have asked me and he would have given you living water and i think this is what is the question before us right now or this statement before is that god is saying if you knew the gift that i have for you this morning you would ask me for this drink because i want to pour it out liberally i want to pour it out on you and refresh you and let me say as i received this word this morning i felt that refreshing myself because of course like sam says you wake up you feel the spiritual atmosphere you feel like oh can't shake this off this morning it's yucky you know it needs to go shifts a little bit comes back and the lord says look receive the living water and so um we know this water of life is available to all who believe in christ all who believe in jesus and it brings something tangible it resets us in a refreshing life-giving way and so let me encourage you this morning and i think spam as you've said the confusion the heaviness all of that this medicine for this today right now is available every day obviously because it's from the word of god and we can receive that refreshing every day but it's specific medicine for this heaviness that you're feeling today and i would encourage you just to posture yourself you know posture yourself open yourself up in the spirit open yourself up with your body and say god i receive you as the spring of living water i receive you and i receive that drink because i'm thirsty let's be honest a lot of us are feeling dry a lot of there's a feeling stuck a lot as a lot of us are feeling like i can't even go on to to tomorrow or make that decision that i need to make lord says right now right now receive that fresh living water because it's for you today yeah awesome yeah john do you want to add anything on to that before i just pray for everybody that's watching no i think you go ahead and praise them right awesome so we just recognize and i mean as we started to talk there it's like we just opened up a damn almost with all of you just saying in the comments i feel warner i feel fatigued i feel fear etc etc etc we need to recognize that that's there but you've i want you as i'm gonna pray in a moment to get your warrior mindset on and to start to stand up and say look this might be what i'm feeling but it's not of god and it is not staying and yes i can pray for you but i need you to agree with me to agree with what god is saying where he is saying this heaviness is not mine nor is it yours to carry this confusion is not me or of me nor is it yours to carry so right now in the name of jesus we just speak to every spiritual weight of heaviness demonic weight of heaviness and confusion that has come to the people of god and we say enough right now in jesus name and in the name of jesus i speak to where that confusion has come to try and disempower you to try and discourage you to try and take you a couple of steps back out of the will of god and i say enough is enough in jesus name so demonic spirit of heaviness we pull you off the people of god right now and i want you with that warrior mindset to just feel where it's sitting on you if it's on your head on your back wherever it might be and just say i'm pulling that spirit of heaviness off i'm tearing it off my body where it's come to me and i'm decreeing that i am free and in the name of jesus we lose clarity clarity clarity clarity in the name of jesus and we just decree that it's going to be easy for you to find jesus today that where even this morning as you rose into a fog of confusion and felt like jesus was nowhere to be found even as sarah james prophesied there so well we decree that you're gonna find it easy to see jesus and easy to receive from his living waters that bring the fullness of life to you in jesus name amen sam can i just give one more verse for those of you that are wondering about because we've had a few questions in the chat here about uh what is the living water and i think one of the verses that is really helpful for us to connect and engage with jesus as the living water and i think you want to study that you know you can look at it in your scripture you can study those verses that i gave you john 4 first corinthians 10 and jeremiah 2 and 7 where it speaks about god but there's loads of others but this one i think is one that you just need to hear today john 4 verse 14 jesus said whoever drinks of the living water whoever whosoever whoever drinks of the living water that i will give him will never be thirsty again the water that i give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life well i love that scripture don't you it's so full of life and i would just read that you know receive it for yourself today whoever drinks of the living water will become a spring of water themselves and so it's about receiving today take time get some time away set your diary and clear it for even 10 minutes 15 minutes and just sit and say we see i receive your living water i receive it for myself so important to take time to do that today totally so good so good pastor john you have uh some great and thoughts that i think are so on point for today about loneliness and the medicine to loneliness being friendship with jesus do you want to just take your time and really delve into friendship with jesus and for those that are watching okay thanks thanks son yeah i i i sense around me that within people's lives and hearts and minds there is a chronic sense of loneliness and and the reason for that sense of loneliness is because of the absence of meaningful and deep friendships and that god is saying to us at this time that we need to rediscover our friendship with jesus and how to enjoy it now when i think back years and years ago um in in my sort of early teens um when people preach they always refer to jesus as a friend you know and and yet today we seem to have moved away from that almost that we never hear anybody refer to jesus as a friend and in any longer yes he is many other things he is deliver he is healer and we rejoice in those things that he is and what he does but i think we need to rediscover the friendship that jesus offers us and the significance of friendships and i think the pandemic has sort of thrown up that the significance for every one of us our friend of friendliness that we feel empty inside and because of what has happened and we lack something vital for human flourishing when we do not have friendship on that horizontal level that there is something that that causes ache and pain amongst us now worse than a lack of friendship at the horizontal level it's even more catastrophic when we have a lack of fellowship and friendship with jesus at the vertical level now i just have one verse i want to leave with you and that's matthew 11 and verse 19 and jesus is speaking and he quotes his accusers as calling him a friend of tax collectors and sinners a friend of tax collectors uh and sinners now uh they were really saying that take the most despicable people in the culture in those days and jesus was friendly with them it's very striking isn't it when you when we read through the gospels that those who oppose jesus those who were mostly antagonistic towards him as a person and to the friends that he chose were those who most clearly perceived who he really was or we would say today who he really is remember it was the demons who say you know in in mark 1 24 i know who you are jesus you're the holy one of god and those who were most against jesus had this uh perception of who he really was and yet that label that jesus was a friend of sinners is for you and me today i believe one of unspeakable comfort if we know ourselves to be sinners now what does it mean that jesus is a friend of sinners i have um dare i tell you six points for a deal get through four very quickly and then there's two others to tackle to the end but number one what does it mean that jesus is a friend of sinners i mean at its very least it means that he enjoys spending time with us wow he enjoys spending time with us that must be the sort of bottom line of jesus being a friend to us secondly i think it means that they feel or we feel welcome and comfortable around him we feel welcomed and comfortable around jesus and and my example from the new testament for that is in luke 15 and verse 1 where jesus starts the series of parables which are very familiar to us he says er the writer says there luke now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him all drawing near to them we feel comfortable and welcomed in being around jesus notice that in the gospels they couldn't stay away from him they are at ease with jesus thirdly and you can jot these things down and then go away and think about them yourself he he offers fresh hope that must be why they were attracted and comfortable with jesus as their friend and walking down the street and the the pathways with him he offered them hope in their situation and then fourthly that what what i believe jesus in saying that or owning what other people were saying about him that he is the friend of sinners i think bottom line for jesus he is pulling them into his heart he is pulling them into his heart and jesus knowing him as a friend today pulls us pulls you into his heart now i think for a moment um maybe of a dart board uh if you play darts or an archery sort of target uh and you know this bullseye in in in the center so think of your relationships uh in sort of those relational circles and uh like concentric circles narrowing to the bullseye in the middle there are some people that we know their names but they're really on the periphery of our lives and our thinking and certainly on the periphery of our affections and emotions others you know have moved more into the center of our lives but they are not our intimate friends now moving in towards the center some people are very blessed to have a particularly close friend and someone who really they've got to know who really gets them you know who who can be empathetic in the best sense of that word someone who who is simply a delight to be with and in their company you just love being with them now uh for many people uh our spouses are our closest earthly friends but having said that to you as an illustration of that sort of dartboard and that sort of relational circle of friends i know that that can be uh a pain for some people to think through because some people have to confess that they don't have anybody at the center who is that who they are friendly with to that extent of mutual delight and longing to be there that almost the person has captured something of your heart or you have given them something of your heart and they have received it and they haven't traced over it or anything like that at all but in that relationship of deep deep friendship there is the element of safety because i don't open somebody if i don't feel safe with them but in that safety there is an openness to everything about me that they can know everything about me and they want me to know everything about them now in jesus we have a friend who always enjoys our presence wow he always enjoys being with us he never refuses us never never never he's never too busy he's never too preoccupied you know as we are when other people sometimes want a moment of our time and we find something else more pressing can i make it even more personal you know sometimes when we meet somebody i know we can't do it these days but if we give them a hug and we put our arms around them and we take it that jesus does that metaphorically to us then we can say surely that jesus does not strengthen or weaken his arms around us depending on how attractive or unattractive we might be at that moment well no if there's somebody who we really want to hug well we we bring them nearer and closer to ourselves is jesus like that with us in in his friendship with us are there times where he holds us more tightly to himself and other times when oh maybe we've sort of spent a day or two and we haven't given him any thought at all or we have sinned in some particular way and we feel remorse and we feel guilty for that and we said well jesus i mean his his arms around me are going to be very loose you know but you see his embrace of us is not strengthened or weakened depending on whether we've been faithful or whether in fact we've been fickle whether we're you know whether we're unclean you see the friendliness of his heart for us is something that is fixed and something that is stable and it is so fixed that that for those of you who are more theologically minded i can say to you his friendship of us is as fixed and as stable as his declaration of his justification of us by faith wow new theologians will know that just objective reality okay and as stable and as fixed as that is is jesus friendship and consistently is his hug and his arm around us now i noticed that even our best friends sometimes we are not totally comfortable telling them uh everything about our lives are we that we don't really get at the deepest level of heart trust now i'm amazed over more than three decades of marriage guidance counselling to many many many uh people that have been involved with their lives have been involved in um i then very quickly cease to be amazed that in that situation where there were difficulties with in marriages that married couples as we talked together used to discover things about one another that they just didn't know and they had been married 5 10 15 20 25 years or more sometimes and here they were this married couple beginning to say things because one was probing and leading them on and uh about themselves which would have been um showing an attitude of trust in the other partner that they had never done in that number of years and i used to say to these couples you know we haven't got as naked in soul as we have in our body in our married relationships well you know we we we're on the bodily side oh we're fine on that side but we haven't got naked in knowing and jesus in a very wonderful way wants us really to know him that deeply okay sam oh yeah i mean so good i was actually taking notes there as well just from what you're saying and pastor john i i would like us to be quite practical here and for those of you that are watching to type some things in the comments and as we go because what i want you to do is really leave today having a handful from what pastor john said which was an absolute feast there having a handful of truths that you can use on the daily that will help medicate when loneliness arises but before we do that i just think some of you need to have an honest moment and even say i'm lonely i'm just admitted and sometimes the most liberating thing you can do is just putting language and making almost a saying out loud and with language what is going on inside and some of you may feel as an act of liberation you may just need to write in the comments yes i am feeling lonely and maybe this week you've felt a particular loneliness that you're not used to for some of you you may feel like loneliness uh is something that you have battled with for many years but and pastor john said some things that i want you to then write and say out loud and they are just a couple of lines that i've taken from what pastor john said there and there's about six of them that i think will be true medicine as you see them out loud and you can write them in the comments but more importantly you can i want you to say them out loud and the first one and this is utterly radical three words jesus enjoys me i think that is radical and i think so many of us distance ourselves from jesus because we have felt like we are some sort of inconvenience to him like when we come to him it's more like a line management meeting that our boss wants to have with us as an employee because he needs to do it because he needs to take a box in the monthly books so we come to jesus and it's like well i'll come because i need my monthly checkup because it's the rules but i feel like in some sort of way i'm an inconvenience to him when the truth is the complete opposite jesus enjoys me and just type that out jesus enjoys me the second one again just a handful of words i am welcomed and comforted by jesus i welcomed and comforted by jesus that is revolutionary i am welcomed and i am comforted by jesus and then number three jesus gives me fresh hope jesus gives me fresh hope say that out loud i know you're typing it in the comments but as you type make sure you're saying these things out loud jesus gives me fresh hope and then i'm going slowly so you can catch up with with what it is and i'll try and take them up quickly one of the other shares at a moment so that you have a copy of them jesus pulls me into his heart so that's something that i i pray you know there's that song i can't remember what it is pull me a little closer film take me a little deeper i want to know your heart i want to know your heart sorry i can't remember what song it is but that is uh that one kind of verse that one chorus is is one certainly that i sing over myself and i sing to myself on a on a regular basis throughout the day and i find myself in the morning in particular singing that jesus you pull me a little closer you're pulling me a little deeper feel the invite with that number five just two more i am always safe with jesus i am always safe with jesus and for some of you that is the truth that you need to work with because friendships and intimacy intimate places have not been safe places for you but jesus is and then finally jesus's friendship with me is stable fixed and consistent jesus friendship with me is stable fixed and then consistent senator jane you wanna add uh onto this or or prophesy as you hear and then i wanna change tax slightly for the final 10 minutes uh 10 15 minutes of our hour together great yeah i think they're great i just love what you're uh both saying and some really practical help there simon decrees because we know the power of decrees when we speak these decrees out when we write them down in a place we can see them and speak them out it reminds us of the truth that we've just heard and so for some of us i think a couple of those things that sam you said there one in particular i am always safe with jesus you could feel kind of the the grinding and the niggling about well niggling for some but actually grinding and really shut down for others and i would say if that's you out there watching this that you would like to believe that but you can't because of your personal experience of relationships then i would put this little three words before i have hacked us forwards i choose to believe i am always safe with you jesus i choose to believe that this friendship is uh with you is is a fixed stable and consistent friendship because if you've not had great experience in relationships this is going to be a challenging one to just get like this and so i would just say put that caveat before it and write it i choose to believe that this is truth for my life the things that i was hearing john i absolutely loved your phrase of being naked in soul with jesus what a delicious phrase and i thought oh i love that it's like my you know it's just like all of my senses just like that is a that is a gem of a phrase to be naked in soul before god and before husband and wife and i just love that thank you for that beautiful phrase and i felt like the lord said look our response in prayer could be this i come to you jesus i come close to you jesus and we know that as john was saying jesus is forever present he's forever present in times of trouble he's forever present in times of need he's always there but it's in our hearts i choose to come close to you jesus please hold me now jesus i need you to hold me now jesus and that those words of choice and activating if you will the friendship by coming close to jesus is where we want to be is where we want to get to you and this naked and soul part i just really felt there was such an anointing on that phrase that i felt like we should even respond now and say i want to pray for me you know i open up my soul and i let you know me jesus in this moment i let you know me my soul and warts and all i allow you to look at me and look upon me if you will um and there is a song by the hell says but i can't remember it's not the song you were singing it's another one about explode my soul it's like coming before god and just spending time and actually just like sam saying for for us we put on worship and we get into that place of agreement with the lyrics when they're when their truth and when they're biblically based obviously that we can say god we we respond to this take us deeper explode my soul know my soul know me know me and i let you know me and i let you see me and i felt that was really important to pray those in response to what pastor john was sharing yeah so it's so good and so as we kind of close this particular part of power hour we want to offer an extended invitation and and there's kind of two um it's dreams to this invitation and then pastor john i would love if you could pray and lead on the back of them and the first is for those of you who feel like i need to reconnect with jesus like jesus has become a distant acquaintance even in recent weeks and months and maybe you have known of jesus for years and maybe you once had a deep a very intertwined friendship with jesus but as and as we have shared today you have recognized that there has been a sense of distance put between you both well we want to pray for those who want to reconnect with jesus but we also want to offer and extend an invite to those of you that are watching whether live or later on who want to connect with jesus for the first time and maybe you have been on the peripheries of jesus talk and understanding who this jesus guy is maybe this is your first ever time hearing who he is and you think and you know because your heart is beating i need to know jesus and i need my life to be in his hands well we also want to offer and a and extend that invite that the arms of jesus remember that you are always welcome into the arms of jesus his arms are always open to you and so if you want to to type in the comments and let us know and all right or if you watch afterwards you can let us know that way but i wonder pastor john if you would lead in a prayer first for those who want to reconnect with jesus and those who who know that their jesus friendship needs to be kick-started again and then for those who are wanting to connect with jesus for the first time that this would be a moment where that can take place yes thanks um can i just say as a lead-in just before i pray and that is that my fifth point was this that jesus pursues you jesus pursues you and uh and if you want to put it against the biggest backdrop of god pursuing you of jesus pursuing you put it against the the doctrine of the incarnation and we're coming up to christmas a god with us god sending his son from the glories of heaven to be born as a baby in in bethlehem he was pursuing you and and revelation you know chapter three it speaks about people there you remember that group of people who are miserable and they're pitiable and they're poor and they're blind and they're naked and jesus says to them behold i stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door what will christ do it says he will come in and we will eat a meal together you know you don't have this morning to make yourself somehow presentable to god to get his affection at this moment he comes to you he knocks on the door of your life he knocks he's there he's not waiting until you've tidied something up and maybe you've got this sorted out over here and you've repented enough of something else he is there pursuing you pursuing relationship with you pursuing friendship with you because that is who he is well i ask you as we pray shift your attention from what jesus has done for you okay and that's great marvelous and wonderful but shift your attention to who he is and we think a lot about what jesus has done and i'm certainly don't want to minimize what he has done for us but our comfort often comes in times of pain and distress through who he is but he is the friend your friend and my friend let's let's pray let's talk to him lord jesus christ you are the best friend that we could ever have and we could ever know and we thank you for what you have revealed in your word of who you are and for some of us maybe this morning we've never really started a friendship oh we've been known you jesus on the periphery of our lives and maybe just switching on this morning to power hour has been a a a witness to the fact that yes you're we're somewhat interested but jesus we want you at the very center of our friendship we really want to know you and so in the words of revelation 3 21 we say jesus you're knocking on the door of my life jesus i welcome you who you are who you are come in as my friend for life and for eternity there's lots of things we'll talk about i'm sure there's lots of things you'll want to sort out about my life at this moment but i want you to do that and i want those things to happen in my life in the context of our friendship together father jesus come in and to those of us who need to reconnect with jesus as our friend this morning maybe we we feel miserable maybe we just feel just worn out maybe there is the pain of loneliness and we we've missed the springs of living water and so father we want to reconnect we knew what it was once to be in a friendship with you and we've lost that concept father will you bring that back to us will you realign us again in friendship with yourself will you forgive our wanderings will you forgive us that we've tried living waters in places which are broken wells and broken rivers and broken systems and we know that they haven't brought life and refreshment and spiritual vitality to our souls but now father and jesus we ask that you we might be reconnected by your spirit and that you will witness in our hearts again that we are the loved children of god and jesus is our friend we ask it for your glory's sake and for our joy amen amen amen so we bless you to go on an adventure of friendship with jesus and whether that is the first connection you're making today or it feels like you've reconnected you know a million times we declare that you are going and you are embarking on a fresh friendship with jesus from today onwards and that friendship is going to be a source of life and safety and righteousness and joy and love for for every moment of your existence from this day on just as we finish i really want to kind of send you off with a word that is you know almost completely different in terms of the theme of today but i think we needed to build this strong foundation of um friendship with jesus of the rivers of living water the refreshing that comes from him because god wants to put a remarkable new grace on his church at this time for speaking and for writing and for godly articulation but for us to be able to communicate what god is saying in a way that is skilled first we need friendship with jesus if we're gonna speak the words of jesus to other people we need to first hear the words of jesus that are spoken to us and so that is kind of where we have coming where we've come from today i heard the lord say this morning as i sat just at my desk over there to prepare for power hour i am is filling your mouth with words i am is filling your mouth with words and immediately as he said i could hear this clarion call rise for the people of god and the earth and god was saying it's time for the wordsmiths the poets the writers the communicators to arise and speak the words of i am and speak the words of i am and god is putting on his people an ability to speak but first and i felt it even and normally i don't put kind of a time frame on particular activities that god is doing but i felt that god was saying this week for the next kind of a handful of days till the close of this week and even on saturday there is a time frame for you to hear the strong words of i am speaking to you directly so that you can then bring the strong words of i am to others after that i see god's great recruitment drive to install his exodus task force leader with the responsibility of delivering israel from the hands of pharaoh takes place in the middle of an isolated seemingly forsaken desert that probably felt like it had no end and that feeling i think is symbolic of where many of you feel like you are just now and god did not speak to moses and call him as a leader who was then called to speak the words of i am in the middle of the hustle and bustle of busy christian life moses was isolated in the middle of a desert and one moment happened where god said i'm recruit recruiting you my son you see strangers passing by probably barely noticed an old man tending his sheep in the desert and for years he would have tended his sheep looking after them but he was probably ignored 40 years earlier this unknown shepherd had been a prince big man in a big place with authority and responsibility but that was then and this was now and probably the most recent entry on his resume read something like 40 years shepherd in the desert how is his most recent entry 80 years of age there was a moment that changed him from someone who was forgotten it has been who was leading sheep around a forsake forsaken desert into the leader of the great exodus that was from uh for israel from egypt you see at this time he was once a young handsome prince but now an old shepherd yet one day something happened and he passed by a bush that began to burn and continued to burn but never actually burned up and moses he walked up to this weird peculiar sight yet i'm sure he didn't think my life's about to change and he says in exodus 3 3 i'm going gonna go over there and i'm gonna see this strange sight why this bush doesn't burn up even though it's on fire and he takes off his shoes at the invitation of the eye am and the invisible self-perpetuating self-reliant god spoke to moses out of the fiery bush and identified him as the i am who i am god and change the next 40 years of life and the i am gave moses a voice and that is the moment that we are in right now for the church and let me tell you that is the moment that we are in right now for you and moses he was out of the habit of communication he was probably worn out from the early mornings and the late nights that shepherd life brought with it he probably felt like how do i and how on earth did i speak you know to people how on earth did i lead hundreds of thousands of people when my only friends have been my sheep i'm not used to speaking to people anymore i'm not used to that sort of life yet god said none of that matters now because i am is giving you a voice and that is the word of the lord for you even today that now that he's refreshed you now that he's developed friendship he's saying i am is giving the church a voice again and giving you a voice and this is not just the ability to speak when i was aware of it this morning i was just seeing in the spirit flying around books and novels and songs and poems and articles and and things that are both written and spoken word and projects as well because of what god is putting on his people and he who spoke from the fire to moses would become he who would speak by fire through moses you see moses had to receive the words that came from the fire to then speak the words through him by fire and god confronted and killed the powers of resistance in moses so that through moses he could confront and kill the powers of resistance in pharaoh and in egypt and god is saying even over these next handful of days there is an intensity of my fire for you to hear my words for you personally first so that i can then raise you up to speak my words by fire to other people and psalm 45 one great verse for it my heart overflows with a good thing or my heart overflows with good thoughts my tongue is the pain of a ready writer that your tongue is formed ready and able to say whatever god asks of you in a moment and so as we conclude this power hour which has been packed and we've covered everything from confusion to rivers of living water to friendship with jesus to salvation for some of you and now towards by fire i want you to hear that statement that god said to me at the beginning i am is filling your mouth with his words i am is filling your mouth with his words say to jane i wonder if you can pray for us or release whatever you want to just as we close for our final minute uh for act well and truly packed power hour today absolutely delighted yeah in its key isn't it it's not just one of the names of god i am it's not who he just calls himself it is who he is he is the god of now he's the god of today he is present he is in our midst now he wasn't then he was then he's the same remember yesterday today and forever he's consistent he is who he is now doing what he pleases doing what he wants to do but loving us those people who know him in the process and so i really i was kind of having this conversation with god is this a good time to say this guy but i feel it's important to know actually the the main person who birthed the satanic church modern day got his revelation from a demonic strong man called i was now it wasn't spelt i-w-a-s but phonetically it is i was and so this sense of actually the contradiction and the counterfeit of well i heard that word or i had that word or i had that breakthrough there is a history there is a testimony but the enemy would love us to stay in yesterday not today because there's fresh bread there is fresh revelation there is fresh love there is fresh encounter and experience because god is i am he is present and so lord we say give us a revelation for who you are as the god who is now the god who is today and lord we say we let the i am word and the i am name of god brand our mouths and brand our minds so that god we are burned with who you are in this moment we thank you for yesterday and we thank you for tomorrow but god we pray for today that you mark us with your name i am and we receive that branding we receive that burning so that we can release your word for this moment and for this time fresh bread for today from the god who is i am amen amen amen well thank you sergeant and thank you all of you for joining us for a packed full um journey of a power hour today we're just so thankful to have you along for for this ride that we are on together and we'll see you tomorrow for episode 107 of power our have a great day and we will see you then bye [Music] you

Channel: Global Prophetic Alliance-Glasgow Prophetic Centre

Views: 6,895

Rating: 4.9270072 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: u3oQW15kSH8

Length: 64min 32sec (3872 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020