Working Out Our Salvation

The One Thing that changes everything is sitting before the Lord, inquiring of Him, and gazing at Him, and being transformed together with others that want His leadership.

Because of the separation of heaven and earth, brought on creation by man's impatience and doubt, we do this in faith.

Human heart change is impossible apart from seeing a different way of living.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NKJV — Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I've found the most effective "seeing" and thus, transforming, happens in a prayer room. Because God is infinite, and we are finite, we see more of God together.

Samantha and I don't go to prophetic prayer and worship meetings daily because we are good at it. We aren't. We go because we aren't, but looking at God and saying what we see, what we see both in ourselves and in God, has radically changed our lives.

Sanctification does not happen on accident. It doesn't happen by information or human strategy. It happens by spending time with God and others intentionally participating in a conversation that has power because of the active discipline of inviting God to speak to our hearts, especially through others in the Body of believers.

Being together and looking at God in faith is difficult. It brings out the parts of our heart that we don't really like to recognize... Impatience, distraction, selfishness, shame, fear, jealousy, control etc.

Waiting on God and other people is often beautiful and difficult.

Taking part in a prayer room, which is very different than just worshiping (which easily becomes self -absorptive) will quickly present opportunities to change, as well as the best vehicle for change, which is to "ask and receive."

Much of the division in the church comes from trying to be good apart from the WAY people change, which is to recognize our poverty of godliness, mourn it, and receive the increases in meekness. Just wanting to be good people, and all the pride and shame that fosters, is what is dividing the church.

God will only accept a salvation that has been worked out. No heart change = no real saving relationship with God.

Philippians 2:1-15 NKJV — Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

This passage about Jesus isn't just about selflessness, it's about salvation. We are forgiven AS WE forgive. We reap what we sow. We can't help anyone with their need to see what's true until we deal with our inability to see what's true and real.

How do we work it out? It's easy. Acts 15, and a bunch of other passages, tell us the New Covenant sanctification is worked out in the Tabernacle of David, Joel 2, prophetic prayer and worship that rends the heart, not the garment.

A prayer room is a strange thing.

A worship room that lacks antiphonal prayer is not the same thing. Speaking with God and others in a real and intimate way about what we need is very different than the often sterile and shallow environment created by singing songs we all know over and over at a God we often barely feel, let alone actively listen to and obey.

Prophetic prayer and worship focused on seeing the perfection of God, and our imperfections together and working out our own salvation, individually and corporately... that changes everything. Our love for God and reach for sanctification cannot exist in, and of, ourselves. It has to have a corporate expression, because God loves His family and Jesus has a body. It isn't really about us individually. Feeling God's love individually for real always results in a corporate expression.

Luke 10:25-28 NKJV — And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

How do I practically obey this commandment found in Hebrews 10?:

Hebrews 10:19-29 NKJV — Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

How am I practically spending my time with the admonition to:

-Go to heaven (that can only happen in faith)
-In the humility of my weakness and Yeshua's sacrifice
-Actively (living way)
-Stirring up others to connect with Jesus' love and find the life of good works only HE has for them
-Growing in this more and more as His return unfolds

The answer to this question determines my future forever. Jesus paid the price of admission, but I stll must go in!

In the end, we will see that living the Gospel and spending time getting equipped in the Tabernacle of David are synonymous... Both are about being conformed to the kingdom, or government, of God to find who we were always supposed to be.

Unfortunately, most of the prayer room experiences we have ever heard of were immature... Telling God what to do with some part of the world we aren't in, or some sin we don't do. God is rearranging the expression of the Tabernacle of David all over the earth right now.

In this season, God is advancing and maturing the prayer movement to what it's always supposed to have been: a place to get ready to live in heaven forever, and that heaven is coming to earth.

Isaiah 16:5 NKJV — In mercy the throne will be established; And One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, Judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness.”