Lord I Will Not Cease Till You Bless Me.

Lord I Will Not Cease Till You Bless Me.

HHM Pastor Jim Parisi March 16, 2003

In the next few weeks we are going to make an greater effort to start to sow the seeds of revival into the rich soil of our hearts, and this community.

We are going to start by praying for Gods Presence and His Fire of Revival here in Hermosa Beach.

Righteous Prayer… is A place of total communion and surrender to God

James 5:16 The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Prov 15:29 - The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.

Pray is profoundly simple and simply profound

We need a passion to pray and travail before the throne of God

Where there is no vision the people perish…

Where there is no passion the church perishes

Today we are going to start to ask God to unlock the secrets of Prayer

More then that we are going Him to make us more like Jacob and be persistent in our petitions to the Lord

Not letting go till He blesses us.

We are going to Grab on to the Lord and keep pressing Him till he blesses us with a full blown revival here in the South Bay

Till our homes and families are blessed…. Till we fulfill our call here

Wrestling with Him through the night if need be till he blesses us.

There is a scripture in Genesis, A time when Jacob had a situation with his brother Esau.

Gen 32:24-8 24 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. 26 And He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks." But he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!" 27 So He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob." 28 And He said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed."

Jacob was telling him this man "I will not let You go unless You bless me!"

I’m staying on you like white on rice till I receive my blessing from you

It was a moment of Importunity for Jacob

Importunity: Im’por’ tun’ a’ tey: 1 : when your need can be troublesomely urgent : or you are overly persistent in request or demand

People have always been importunate even from birth.

A baby’s cry when it is hungry or has other needs is importunate.

Not till you feed it satisfy it’s need will it start to quiet down

When is a situation importunate?

Getting to a hospital emergency room bleeding and the doors are locked

Are you going to walk away quietly…….. or start banging on the doors and yelling … Hey I have an emergency here open up.

It’s a matter of utmost and extreme urgency like a phone call in the middle of the night… Don’t you just hate those

Importunate is being persistent demanding unrelenting annoying harassing irksome pesky

Jacob wasn’t letting go of the man till He blessed him.

And he did get blessed

And not with out a price he because would limp for the remainder of his life.

Then God blesses him and renames him Israel… a memorial of a name for a man that had wrestled with God.

Taking time from what you want to do.

and seeking the presence of God is always going to cost you something…

Tell me what great thing that has been birth without it costing someone or something of great price or pain.

Look at the cost of the situation with our troops being sent overseas.

Who knows what the final cost may be for all of this?

Lives, money and the bundle of problems that comes after war.

Prayer is a “Labor of Love” for us, to our God.

You can pray for days and weeks… even months and years for something.

You may want to Curse the day you were born while doing it because it’s not happening in your time.

But when it’s in Gods perfect timing.

When the blessing arrives.

you forget about the pain and the cost.

You forget the time it took.

Let’s look at this from a natural standpoint.

John 16:21 A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

She no longer remembers the anguish forgets all she has just went through