The House of Prayer
This should be a sobering word. Especially to the prayer movement.
The house of prayer...the real one ... can't be approached any way we like. The point isnt to get people into the house of prayer. The point is a place to overflow in desire for more of God and to respond with more conformity to him.
The house of prayer doesn't fix your life. It is intentionally designed to kill it. There can be only one God. To come in to His presence requires I relinquish my own dominion.
The house of prayer isn't supposed to feed the flesh. It actually challenges the flesh. Ultimately, it is the perfect environment for sanctification...to really change ... but it only works for those who actually want to change.
It has to be approached with sobriety, humility, faith and joy.
You can't proselytize people into the place of God's presence....the real place...you can only lead them there by example. David said the Lord was a Shepherd, not a goatherd. One leads by going first, the other pushes and convinces.
The first apostles prayed their way into a house of prayer reality, tarrying 10 days until the Lord did something.
If the Lord doesn't build the house, the work of the builders is in vain.
My goal isn't to get people in to a house of prayer...my goal is to keep myself in it. Eventually, I'll be surrounded by others who feel the same, not because they were convinced by man, but because they were hungry to change... hungry to be humble.
The main problem the modern church has suffered is that it desired to win the world but was willing to forfeit it's soul to do so. The failure of the church in our day is it wants "people" to go into a place it is unwilling to go itself. It preaches the leadership of Jesus, but then embraces the strength and leadership of people. It preaches conversion, but refuses to repent itself...to lay down it's own strength and let the Lord. It fights as though Jesus' kingdom is on the line. It isn't. He has already overcome.
Jesus overcomes the world, not me. My job is to let Him overcome me.
If we were more concerned with our own sin than the sins of those around us, we would see church differently, and the world differently. I want to change. I want to be more internal than external.
Jeremiah 7:1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2“Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!’ ”
3Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4“Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’
5“For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,
6“if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt,
7“then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8“Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
9“Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know,
10“and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’?
11“Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the LORD.
12“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.
13“And now, because you have done all these works,” says the LORD, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer,
14“therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
The house of prayer...the real one ... can't be approached any way we like. The point isnt to get people into the house of prayer. The point is a place to overflow in desire for more of God and to respond with more conformity to him.
The house of prayer doesn't fix your life. It is intentionally designed to kill it. There can be only one God. To come in to His presence requires I relinquish my own dominion.
The house of prayer isn't supposed to feed the flesh. It actually challenges the flesh. Ultimately, it is the perfect environment for sanctification...to really change ... but it only works for those who actually want to change.
It has to be approached with sobriety, humility, faith and joy.
You can't proselytize people into the place of God's presence....the real place...you can only lead them there by example. David said the Lord was a Shepherd, not a goatherd. One leads by going first, the other pushes and convinces.
The first apostles prayed their way into a house of prayer reality, tarrying 10 days until the Lord did something.
If the Lord doesn't build the house, the work of the builders is in vain.
My goal isn't to get people in to a house of prayer...my goal is to keep myself in it. Eventually, I'll be surrounded by others who feel the same, not because they were convinced by man, but because they were hungry to change... hungry to be humble.
The main problem the modern church has suffered is that it desired to win the world but was willing to forfeit it's soul to do so. The failure of the church in our day is it wants "people" to go into a place it is unwilling to go itself. It preaches the leadership of Jesus, but then embraces the strength and leadership of people. It preaches conversion, but refuses to repent itself...to lay down it's own strength and let the Lord. It fights as though Jesus' kingdom is on the line. It isn't. He has already overcome.
Jesus overcomes the world, not me. My job is to let Him overcome me.
If we were more concerned with our own sin than the sins of those around us, we would see church differently, and the world differently. I want to change. I want to be more internal than external.
Jeremiah 7:1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2“Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!’ ”
3Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4“Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’
5“For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,
6“if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt,
7“then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8“Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
9“Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know,
10“and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’?
11“Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the LORD.
12“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.
13“And now, because you have done all these works,” says the LORD, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer,
14“therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
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