A Prayer of Praise and Petition For the Suffering Saints

Jesus woke me up very early with this prayer on my heart for myself and the precious people at my local church and community. I just want to share it with you because although my hands typed it out and my voice spoke it out through a microphone the words are not mine, they are Jesus interceding for those He loves more deeply than we can imagine. I hope you are encouraged and ignited with passion to pray for those who may suffer in ways you don't understand and especially in ways you do.

Dearest Abba Father, Friend and Savior,

I want to bring before You all of us who are suffering today. I pray for all of us who are struggling mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I pray for those of us who are fighting for freedom from captivity to strongholds the enemy has held us in chains with for far too long. I pray for those of us who are grieving loss and longing for intimacy with You. Jesus, I praise You that You are our Deliverer. I praise you that You are our Victory. I praise you that You are our Healer and The Almighty Prince of Peace. I worship You for what You have done, what You are doing and what You will do in our lives because we love You and are called according to Your purpose. Your plans and purposes for us are not to harm us, but to give us a future and Hope in You. I praise You for Your immeasurable Love You lavish on us every day through your continuous forgiveness paid for by Your precious blood spilled from the cross of Your suffering. I praise You for the peace that surpasses understanding and the joy that gives us strength to face another day through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I pray for those who are suffering without the knowledge and assurance of Your Presence in their lives. Please reveal Yourself to them in personal and profound ways that they may receive Your Love and place their trust in You and find the freedom they've been searching for.

Thank You that You never leave or forsake us and for the freedom to worship openly in this country without fear of brutal persecution. Receive our worship now as a sweet smelling fragrance of our love and adoration for You and meet us where we are. Be our God and we will be Your people.

In the precious, Holy, Powerful Name of Jesus Christ our Messiah.

Amen!

When No One Sees Me Fighting

One of the most difficult things about my Christian life is the feeling that people don't really know me. I do my best to communicate who I am to them through conversation, acts of love and encouragement, words of affirmation and service. I try to share my heart: both the struggle and the victories. I am willing to share my testimony with anyone who wants to know, but very few want to know, I feel, and even fewer really want to know the ugly details of the fight I've been through. Perhaps they feel helpless or overwhelmed by it or even triggered into memories of their past they are hiding from. I don't know. It just leaves me feeling isolated.

Its not all bad though because I am a very sensitive person so if they started dumping their life story on me I might feel the same way. It really is God's protection that keeps them from sharing as openly with me as I do, or want to, with them.

But sometimes I want people to know what life is like for me on my tough days. I want them to know that I am fighting the good fight. I am being obedient and standing in faith upon The Rock of Ages. I want them to join me in prayer and encourage me to keep fighting. I want to hear that they see I am doing my best and that it is good enough. I want to be encouraged the way I seek to encourage others. Maybe this is wrong. Maybe I shouldn't seek men's approval. Maybe I should just be satisfied with the voice of Jesus whispering to me in the midst of the battle, "I will never leave you or forsake you. I am your refuge and the lifter of your head. I am He who sees you and Loves you."

But, don't you ever just want to hear it from a fellow human? I'd rather hear it from Jesus any day, if I had to choose one or the other, but sometimes I need human arms to hold me and the physical tears of others to show me they see my pain and acknowledge I am fighting a winning battle. Sometimes I just want to hear someone say, "I'm sorry you were hurt so bad when you were a defenseless 5 year old little girl. I'm so sorry you have had to suffer and struggle so hard just to hang on to a faith that a raging enemy doesn't want you to even believe in."

I believe that is what the church is supposed to be for. We are supposed to fellowship with one another and pray and encourage each other. We are supposed to show love to each other so that when others look on they will know we belong to a God of Love by the way we love each other and them.

Last night when it was too late to text my prayer warriors and family my need for prayer I was forced to fight a very real battle with the enemy. The enemy consists of the world's attempted influence on me, the flesh I won't be completely free of until Jesus calls me home and the powers of darkness and their schemes. I was alone, isolated and afraid (as usual). I thought I was outnumbered and I would surely be defeated.

I got online and emailed my church for prayer knowing they wouldn't get the message until at least the next day. Then I checked my email. There was a message from a member of my church. It was a message of encouragement and a reminder of a man in the Bible named Gideon. He was also forced to fight a battle he felt ill equipped to handle. God told him He would be with him and that despite his being grossly outnumbered God delivered his enemy into Gideons hands. I grabbed my Bible and started reading about this Gideon I'd heard about before but never felt very connected to. Suddenly his story felt very real to me, so real in fact that I spent the next hour on my knees praying, crying out the God my deliverer and claiming His promises from across the thousands of years of scripture. It is full of hope for those in raging battles such as mine.

I put on the armor in Ephesians 6 and I cast my anxiety of Jesus petitioning Him for help and thanking Him for His Love and faithfulness as it says to in Philippians 4:6. I discovered a verse I'd never taken note of in verse 4, too, about rejoicing always in the Lord and letting my gentleness be evident to all. Suddenly the Holy Spirit flooded my mind with all kinds of scriptures and I began to pray them back to Him in a weeping declaration of victory over my defeated enemy. I'll have to blog about my view of Ephesians 6 sometime, but for now I just want you to know that God answered my cry for help. He fulfilled His promises and He gave me peace and the ability to sleep.

I may have been alone in my home, but I was not fighting alone and I was not defenseless. I know that Jesus was there with me and possibly a large gathering of angels with spiritual weapons I know nothing about. Most of all, I had the freedom to use the greatest weapon any of us has...The precious and powerful Word of the Living God. It is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. We are so fortunate to have the freedom to own and feast upon these Holy Scriptures.

Don't ever wonder why I want to worship constantly. God is worthy and I know it. He is everything to me and I am completely dependent on Him for my every breath, my every joy, my every need and my every victory. I love Him in a way I never knew a human could Love. I need Him more than I ever knew a human could need.

Do you know this mighty warrior God who died to to make His power over the enemy available to you? I encourage you to seek Him out because He is the greatest gift, treasure and prize you will ever discover.

Jesus bless you always and may you come to know His massive, unending Love for YOU!

Please Forgive Me

The fact is, I can't control anything. I can't control how I feel most of the time, although I am learning to take control of how I react. I can't control other people and whether they like or dislike me. I can't control life circumstances to a large degree, though I can control my choices within those circumstances. Most of all, I can't control God. I can, however pray.

I am finding that I cannot stop praying. I am so desperate that I pray just about all day long. I would be alarmed by my desperation except for the fact that if it is driving me to "pray without ceasing" than I must be desperate for the One who Loves me more than His own earthly life. That is comforting in some way amidst the uncontrollable feelings of desperation.

We sing about this kind of desperation at church in a worship song called "The Air I Breathe". That is what I'm talking about. To be so aware of your utter helplessness without God to guide you. To be so in tuned with His heart that when you look at your own you see how much is lacking and how far you have to go. But, also, to see yourself through the blood of the only perfect sacrificial Lamb of God and know that in Him you are complete and lacking nothing and you have everything you need to live a Godly life. What is this dichotomy?

Is this what it means to give up our lives in order to find True Life? Is this what Christ meant when He said to deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily and follow Him? Is this what its supposed to feel like when we have the ability to move mountains based on a mustard seed's worth of faith. I'm not sure I even have a mustard seed's worth of faith, but I'm sure gonna pray for it.

No one ever told me how hard being a Christian can be. Somewhere along the line I thought it would feel differently. I thought I'd feel strong and that I'd impress people with my overflowing Love for Jesus. That isn't how it has played out.

I have failed more times than not. I have rebelled more than I ever thought I could. I have hurt people and let people down. I have disrespected my self and nearly destroyed my life. All this while I was claiming to be a Christian. Thank God He knew my heart and that I wanted to act like a Christian should. Thank God that He knew how hurt I was and why I was lashing out and misbehaving. Thank God He didn't give up on me when I deserved it. Thank God for the people who loved me through it all so I could heal and begin to become whole. There is so much to thank God for. Mostly, I thank God for Jesus.

Jesus is everything to me. He is everyone I need Him to be and everywhere I need Him to go with me. He listens to me for hours and hours, day after day, year after year..forever. He lets me be myself with Him. He lets me spew out the poison I feel and then He holds me while I cry about how hurt an angry and disappointed I am in life. Then He gently speaks His Truth into my heart and fills me up with joy, peace, hope and His Love. He makes me want to share my heart with others and what He has done in it. He makes me want to be everything He has made me to be. He makes me want to worship Him at every opportunity and in every circumstance. And I just can't get to the bottom of His Love for me.

He Loves me when I am ugly and act foolishly. He Loves me when I do silly things to embarrass myself. He Loves me when I'm drooling in my sleep and He especially adores me when in my attempts to please Him I get all wrapped up in legalism. Nothing I can do can separate me from His Love. NOTHING! NO ONE! NOT ANYTHING! I am Loved forever without condition.

This kind of Love makes me trust Him when I can't see Him, when I can't understand why I am suffering or why someone I care about is suffering. His Love causes me to trust when there is no earthly reason why I should. It is a supernatural trust that I couldn't even muster up on my own.

Being raped at 5 years old does something to a child's ability to trust people and it does even more to a humans ability to perceive and trust a Loving God. The fact that I believe in Jesus is a flat out miracle and testament to the power of Jesus Christ.

Maybe you have suffered in ways that cause you to doubt or even reject the idea that Jesus is real or that God is Loving and good. I don't blame you. I don't blame you if your ability to perceive Him has been marred by the tongues of those claiming to know and Love this God of Love while they judge and criticize you for your beliefs, or lack of. Maybe you have too many questions an too many doubts to make searching feel worth it anymore.

Can I just do one thing for you before you give up completely on this Jesus guy? Can I just say one thing and then I'll leave you to your own decision? I just want to ask you a question...just one.

Will you please forgive me?

I don't know you. I may never have hurt you intentionally, but it was definitely my sin that affected you in some way. I believe every one's sin affects everyone else. Besides that, I want to repent on my knees before you on behalf of everyone who isn't willing to ask your forgiveness for their sins against you. You are worth it!

Please forgive me as though I am the person who raped you, the child who rejected you, the friend who betrayed you, the spouse who beat you and abandoned you. Please forgive me as though I am the person who molested your child or you. Please forgive me as though I am the person who murdered your loved one, or stole your identity or anything that belonged to you rightfully. I stand in the place of the condemned criminal and ask for your forgiveness. I stand at the pulpit of a corrupt church and ask your forgiveness for manipulating you with scripture to further my career and swindle you out of your money in the name of Jesus heaping on the guilt. I ask your forgiveness as though I am the one who hated you because of your race, your sexual orientation and your political beliefs. I ask your forgiveness on behalf of every one of your worst enemies. I beg your forgiveness for the ways you have been hurt, abused and neglected without mercy. I beg your forgiveness for the ways you have hated yourself and wanted to end your own life. I ask your forgiveness for the one who did end it all and has left you to deal with the life left behind.

Forgiveness is impossible without the grace of God, for me. Forgiveness for such wicked and even subtle sins is not easily given because it hurts so deeply and takes root in our very identity.

Jesus died so that I could be forgiven and I could have the power to forgive others. He also allows me the privilege of asking forgiveness for the sins of others not because it can save them, but because it can open a door to the heart of the one offering forgiveness whether the person who needs to repent is wiling to do so or not.

I have no power to set you free from your pain, but Jesus does and He is knocking at your door hoping you will let Him in so He can Love you the way you've always been wanting to be loved.

Like I said earlier...following Christ is no easy road, but it is the most freeing, the most Truthful and the most fulfilling relationship I have ever had and I am in Love. I don't ever want to go back to the way it was. I just want to spend more and more time with the Lover of my soul and the Savior of my life.

May Jesus reveal His Love and power to you in every way you need it today.