SILENCE: Death Of A Prayer Room

BONUS ISSUE           [January 1, 2010]

     I need to tell you that I am stirred up in my spirit. I have been bothered here of late about the Death of A Prayer Room. God give me the thought many weeks ago, and let me tell you I have felt spirits raging against me on every side. I have felt such a cry within my own spirit, I cant even explain it. I have felt such an intimidating spirit to hold us back, to keep us down and if Satan could, just to squeeze the very life from our church.

     Its kind of like the old cartoon, Mighty Mouse. Where the cat would play with the mouse and just when the mouse thought he had got away, BHAM! Down comes the cats paw on the tail and holds him down. Trapped again. The cat is having fun but then Mighty mouse comes and says “here I come to save the day!!”
    
     What does Mighty Mouse do? He whips that cat and uses him as a punching bag until he has had enough and he sends the cat flying to the moon.

     I know the illustration is carnal and humorous but I feel a very urgent and seriousness in my spirit! What is sad sometimes is to know that we as Apostolics, have the knowledge of success but yet we have allowed the struggles of everyday life to distract our walk with God and it has had an effect.

      I cut my teeth on a church pew and I have always known that Jesus was God robed in flesh. I grew up hearing of the stories of the old brush arbors and I can remember Brother “Pop” Daniels talking of how that eyes were touched and they didn’t need glasses anymore. How that Sister “Ma” Daniels would deliver babies still born and they could pray and the baby would be brought back to life. The lame could walk again and the deaf could hear. The blind had their eyes opened. Cancer, Heart-attacks, Stroke, Diabetes, you name it, the list goes on and on. I am sure I don’t have to tell anyone over the age of 12. I know all of us have heard and even experienced these miraculous stories. May be I am about to tip the canoe or cause everyone to jump off the wagon but here it goes anyway.

     These people had a prayer life, they needed something from God. What do we have today? Well we have government assistance if we need it, we have padded pews, conditioned air, more clothes in our 3 closets than we know what to do with. We have so much food we have become a wasteful society to an absurd degree. We heap it on our plates and then throw what we don’t want away. If we don’t like how it looks, we just throw the plate and all in the trash. We don’t have a NEED for God anymore. We have become increased with many goods. No my friend we are poor and retched.

     We have left our first love and our prayer life is evident of it. Now I know this will get in some peoples pea-patch and some may even lash out, but I was always told that if you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that got hit is the one barking. So for those who must bark, bark on.

     My wish and deepest desire is not to upset anyone or to hurt anyone’s feelings but when God urgently lays something on my heart then your and my feelings become secondary. I write this out of love and for each one of us to grow in God.

     If you are headed to work and someone flags you down to tell you that the bridge ahead is out, will you be thankful for them attempting to save your life or will you be angry for them making you late for work?

     We need to heat up the prayer room. Now it is January and there is a cold front moved in. The temperature is in the low 20’s but a physical heating of the prayer room is not what I mean. I mean that we need to pray for God to give us a desire to increase our prayer life and get down to brass tacks. Life is too short to dance with ugly people and its also too short to waste time playing patty cake with Jesus! Oh God, I wonder how close to the return of Jesus are we? How close at hand is the rapture?

     We can be convicted in our spirit and go down to an old-fashioned altar. We can repent of our sins, bring forth fruit meek for repentance, be baptized in Jesus name, receive the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues as the spirit gives the utterance. We can GET ready, but then the question is. . . Can we STAY ready?

     I am not sure even how to write what God has laid on my heart. All I can do is put pen to paper and pray he does the rest. My prayer is for each one to take to heart that this is not my idea, GOD ALMIGHTY urged me to write this, and expediently for that matter. So there must be something urgent and serious in our very near future. I may be shooting at the whole tree here, but understand this, God is telling us to get on our knees and reach out to him. I was praying at the church Saturday and I felt the words come to me, “ tell them, if they will step out by faith and pray I’ll hear their cry”.


     Now is this for our church or your local assembly? I am not the one you need to be asking. Is there something tragic on the horizon? Friend, the answers you seek come from the theme of this writing. What was it Jesus told them? This only comes from prayer and fasting.

     Now I am not here to teach on the “Four Channels Of Approach” or “ The Difference Between Thanksgiving and Praise”. remember that I am the least in my tribe and even the gardener in your church has more knowledge and teaching ability than I. I am merely delivering a message, and doing my part to make Heaven my home.
     If I could deliver that which I wish, it would be that we have such a need to lay aside our distractions, and those things that remove us from the prayer room. Its not the big fox that spoils the vine, neither is it the big sins that will cause us to lose out. We may not fall to gambling, drinking, or TV but it may be that our demise will lie within our own personal lives.

     Was it Khrushchev in the 60's that made the statement "that America would fall from within"? It would not be communism or Marxism but from within our own borders. There has never been a more true statement. Carnally or Spiritually, its the same, If we are not on our guard, then our downfall will be from within.

     We as a whole, have become so intoxicated by the things of the world and our own surroundings that we are failing to see our destruction is coming from within ourselves.

     Samson laid his head in the lap of Delilah and how many times did she ask him where his strength did lie?

     The question to us is, How many times will we lay our head in Delilah's lap and how many times will she ask us where our strength does lie? How many times will it take before we sober up and come to our senses? Or will we have our eyes plucked out by the enemy?

     Let me declare this right now, The Church will not go down defeated. If anyone goes down defeated, it will be the individual who did not heed the call of one crying out in the wilderness.

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Scripture For Your Basket:
Mark 9:28 And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out?

Mk 9:29 And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting

James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

2Peter 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 2Pe 1:6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 2Pe 1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. 2Pe 1:8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Pe 1:9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 2Peter 1:10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

Ac 10:4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

2Pe 3:1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:

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Editors Comments:
     Well I pray that you can dig thru this and find what God is trying to say. I know God has bruised my toes with this, but I am also thankful that HE loves us enough to redirect our steps and keep us on track.
     Oh God, give us a desire to seek your face and that it will grow with each passing day. Also a desire to follow your perfect will without grumbling and complaining. Help us Lord, to pray out of desire and not out of necessity!