RECEIVING THE FATHER’S LOVE:
By Pastor Chris Jordan – November 2007
~ Transcript: Part One ~
This was a very powerful service where the Holy Spirit began to move prophetically, and the pastor set aside his notes to flow with what Heaven was saying.
One of the people in the church e-mailed the pastor and said: “Hi Pastor Chris. Great service this morning…I really felt your heart for the people and your passion for Jesus and the work that He wants to do in the lives of the people in our church…come, Jesus, come! Thanks!”
One of our podcast subscribers from Winnipeg wrote: "I just listened to the Nov25/07 sermon. Sweet Jesus you were on fire. I don’t think I ever heard you like that before. It was amazing just amazing. I was so excited because you were so pumped I just listened the whole time with the biggest grin ever. God bless you my anointed amazing wonderful gifted friend."
LET YOUR KINGDOM COME:
Before we dismiss the kids to children’s church, I want to let you know that I’m a little full this morning, and I don’t mean because I had a big breakfast. I’ve been at a conference for the past few days. Just imagine – three days, 18-20 hours of worship and the word, getting filled up with the Spirit, so I’m a little bit excited today about what God is going to do. Last night, it was the most amazing thing at the Kingdom Come conference in Winnipeg. It was all about seeing God’s Kingdom come on the Earth. During the service last night, as they were giving words of knowledge for people to be healed and receive a touch from God, they did something a little different. If you’ve been around here long enough you know we like new and different things. We’re tired of the usual – no more church as usual. Last night, they called all of the children up to the front – children between the ages of 4 and 12 years old. And these children were praying for the people who were sick, and believing God for them to be healed. And it reminded me of a prophetic word that God had spoken over my life when I was a youth pastor at Bible Fellowship in Surrey. In October of 1999, a prophet called me out in a service and proclaimed this over me:
A PROPHETIC WORD:
“I heard the Lord say that you’re going to begin to experience a moving of the Spirit that brings kids to the place of healing one another, prophesying over one another, you’re gonna see kids go out under the power of God, and you’re going to see a sweeping in… I’m gonna bring revival in the midst of little ones. I’m gonna cause even third and fourth and fifth graders, sixth graders to experience the touch of my grace, to experience the moving of My Spirit in demonstrations.”
SUPERNATURAL BREAKTHROUGH:
And I said, “Yes, Lord, that’s what I want to do.” And that’s what the Lord started doing in our ministry with children and young people. After this prophetic word, we started seeing the Spirit of God moving in a powerful way in our youth group. And one of the reasons we haven’t dismissed the children yet is because this key Scripture really pertains to them to. We’ve been talking about Supernatural Breakthrough over the past month, and discussing how the church today is not all that it was in the Book of Acts. The prophet Haggai said that the glory of the latter house would be greater than the former – that we ain’t seen nothing yet. That what God is going to do in these last days before Jesus returns to the earth is even greater than what we saw in the Book of Acts. What’s it going to look like? I don’t know because we haven’t seen it yet. We don’t have a grid for what it will look like.
OPENING TEXT: When Peter stood up and preached on the day of Pentecost, he said: “But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.” (Acts 2:16-17).
YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS WILL PROPHESY:
For too long we’ve had this idea in the church that we’ll just send the children off to Sunday school and give them colouring books, and when they get older, then we’ll challenge them to give their lives to Jesus Christ. But I believe we’re living in a day and an age where if we don’t grip the hearts of these young people with the reality of Jesus Christ, we’ve got an enemy who’s doing whatever he can to target these children to try to pull them away from faith in Jesus Christ. So we can’t just sit back and say, “We’ll just baby-sit them while they’re children, and we’ll wait until they get older.” We believe that God has a plan for young people, and that God will speak to them – that children and teenagers can hear the voice of God and do great things in the Kingdom of God. God said, “I will pour out my Spirit on everyone – your sons and your daughters will prophesy and hear My voice.”
YOUTH MALL INVASION:
One of the things I’ve asked my son Caleb to do today is to share with you a testimony of an encounter that he had with God in his life at a youth camp he attended three or four years ago. He would have been about 7 or 8 years old at that time. This was during the time that God was pouring out His Spirit in our youth group, where young people were hearing God’s voice, where we started sending young people out into the malls to get a word from God for people. One of the girls in our youth group, a 15 year old girl named Sharon, had a dream from the Lord of a man that she was going to see in the mall. She went into the mall, found the man sitting on a bench, had a prophetic word for him, and it was just amazing the things that we saw happen there. These teenagers started prophesying the word of the Lord, praying for sick people to be healed, and people who didn’t know Jesus were getting saved. So Caleb, tell them what happened at this youth retreat – how you encountered God.
CALEB’S GOD-ENCOUNTER TESTIMONY:
Caleb: When we were in worship one night, I had a dream that there were angels all around me – in front of me and beside me. And the angels were protecting me.
Pastor Chris: So you saw angels at the age of 7 or 8? Some of you hearing this story say, “Oh, that’s impossible. People can’t see angels.” Read your Bible! Do you know how many people encountered angels from Genesis to Revelation? Angels, angels, angels – they were everywhere. In fact, Jesus said that all children have at least two angels with them at all times! (See Matthew 18:10). But most of the time, angels are invisible. Tell us what these angels looked like, Caleb:
Caleb: They looked like adults in white robes, and they were shining and they were all around me. It was weird.
Pastor Chris: It was pretty awesome, hey? Thank you for sharing that.
A REVELATION GENERATION:
Now let me tell you something. You might ask, “Do you really believe that your son saw angels?” Absolutely. And I believe that we’re going to see more supernatural manifestations in this generation among young people. Do you want to know why I believe God is going to speak to young people in this generation through dreams, visions and angels? Why they’re going to see into that invisible realm? Because this is a visual generation. That’s how they receive information. The TV, multi-media, computers, video games. It’s all about what they see. And I believe this is a generation where God is going to show things to young people. They’re going to see things in the spirit realm. So when your children come to you and say, “Mom, Dad, I think I saw an angel,” don’t say, “Oh that’s ridiculous. All that Bible stuff doesn’t happen any more.” But let’s have a spirit that says, “Really? Tell me all about it.” And believe it! Let’s be believers, and not doubters, amen?
RELEASING THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY ON THE YOUNGER GENERATION:
So children, are you ready? We’re going to pray for you, that this Scripture in Acts 2:16-17 will come to pass, that they will be that last-days, prophetic generation that God is calling them to be. So let’s pray for this younger generation. Father, we thank you so much for our children. We pray that you would grip the hearts of this generation, that they would be fascinated with the man Jesus Christ, that you would give them a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge of you, that they would know you in such a real way. That they would hear your voice, they would dream dreams, see visions, and that they would have a heart and a passion to know You. And that just like Daniel 11:32 says, they would be a people who know God, are strong, and carry out great exploits, in Jesus’ name, amen! God bless you as you go to children’s church!
THE BIG IDEA:
The Church in the Book of Acts was a prophetic church – that is, they clearly heard the voice of the Holy Spirit on a regular basis. We need a supernatural breakthrough to begin to engage the prophetic realm today.
(At this point in the service, I put my notes away that I was going to preach on “Engaging the Realms of Revelation).
THE FATHER’S HEART OF LOVE:
Friday morning as I was in a session at the Kingdom Come conference, the Lord started giving me a prophetic download. One of the things the Lord started speaking to me about is what I want to share with you today. So those of you who came because you heard we were going to be talking about prophecy, come back next week and we’ll go through the notes then. But I really feel like there’s something the Lord has put on my heart to share with you for today. I believe that God wants to release something prophetically this morning. The last song the worship team sang this morning was, “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever,” and what I believe God wants to release this morning is a revelation of the Father’s heart of love for you. So that was amazing that the worship team ended on that song – I love it when the Holy Spirit does things like that. It’s God’s way of confirming His Word and saying, “I’m here, and I’m doing something.”
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY IS THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS:
As Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus, his prayer was, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Eph. 1:17-18). You might ask the question: Why do we need to engage the realms of revelation? Why do we need a spirit of prophecy? Why does the church today need to be a prophetic church like the one in the Book of Acts? This Scripture says that we need a spirit of wisdom because that spirit is a revelation in the knowledge of Him. Revelation 19:10 says, “Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Why do we prophesy? It’s a testimony about Jesus. It’s to help us get to know Him better. And it’s not just about, “Here’s my sermon of the week from my book of ‘52 Sermons for the Year’,” dry, dusty information and theology alone. No – this is what it’s about: It’s about the Spirit of the living God wanting to communicate to our church today.
A REVELATION OF HIS LOVE:
This is the prayer that I’m praying for you, that you “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19). One of the things that I believe God wants to release here today is a revelation of the Father’s heart of love for you. God wants to reveal something to you about His Father’s heart. Because we’re living in a generation today – if there was any one word to describe this generation – it’s a fatherless generation. Young people today are growing up without fathers, either because dad has left or abandoned them, or maybe he’s still there, but he’s not really there, because he’s too busy working. And there’s a generation that’s growing up without a knowledge of their natural father’s heart of love, and because of that, there’s this challenge that comes in trying to relate to God as Father. People say, “What do you mean to say that God is Father? I don’t get ‘Father’. I don’t know what that means.”
MY STORY – PART OF THAT FATHERLESS GENERATION:
And many of you know my story, how I grew up in a family where my parents were divorced before I was five years old. I didn’t grow up with an earthly dad. I didn’t know what it was like to relate to a father. I was a part of that fatherless generation. Now as I got older, when I was 10 years old, my mom remarried, but my step-father was strict, legalistic and by the book. He was a good man, yes, and I knew that he loved me. But the love and physical affection, that father’s heart of love, was not something that was modeled for me. So when I became a Christian, there was a challenge to try to relate to God as Father. And yet we know that Jesus said, speaking of earthly fathers, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11). He said, “You’ve had earthly fathers, who have modeled a certain amount of good things,” and maybe you’ve had a good dad, who showed you love and affection and communicated his heart to you, but Jesus says, “How much more does your heavenly Father want to communicate His heart to you today?” So we need to pause to take a moment here to pray, that God would do what only He can do by His Spirit.
A PRAYER FOR A REVEALING OF THE FATHER’S HEART:
So Father, we’re asking that you would pour out your Holy Spirit. I thank you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You. Lord, I pray that you would help me to communicate your Father’s heart, that those who need to hear this message, that there would be a breaking that would come in their hearts, that where there have been barriers and boundaries that have held them back, where they have not been able to break through and have a relationship with You, to know the One True Living God because of poor representation of an earthly father, or maybe because of abuse or neglect, or abandonment, or rejection, God we pray that all of that would be broken today, and that there would be a revealing of your Father’s heart of love, in Jesus’ name, amen.
A HEART FOR THE FATHERLESS:
A couple of years ago, Liza and I took in a foster son. Let me give you a little bit of background surrounding that. At our old church, Bible Fellowship, I led a revival prayer meeting early Tuesdays at 5:30 am. Every week we would come and pray for the church, the city, the nation, and say, “Lord, we want more. We want you to come, we want you to move.” One Tuesday morning, a mom brought this prayer request to our group. There was a young 12-year old native boy whose mom had just passed away, and he had grown up not knowing his dad – he grew up without a father. He had been in foster care for several years, and had been in a number of different foster homes already. This mom wanted us to pray that the Lord would open the doors for him to get into a home with a Christian family. And as we started praying for him, the Lord spoke to my heart about taking him into our family. So I went home that day and I didn’t share that thought with Liza about taking him in, but we started praying together for him. And as we prayed for him over the next couple of weeks, I knew that we had four children in our home already, so I said, “Lord, if this is something that you’re calling us to do, then YOU tell her! I’m not saying anything.” Because I didn’t want her to do it just because I had said we should. And sure enough, over the next couple of weeks the Lord started speaking to her heart, and she came to me and said we need to take this young boy into our family. He had just turned 13 the day that he moved into our home. So we brought him in, and as you can imagine he had a few challenges, and though he was a good kid, he was a little rough around the edges. But here was a young boy who had grown up without a father. Now, because his mom had recently died, he had a hard time relating to Liza as a mother-figure, fears of, “If I get attached to you, will the same thing happen to you as had happened to my mom?” There was a neat thing that happened though, as he really began gravitating towards me. There was something within him that was so hungry for a father’s love. And I had that opportunity to model the father’s heart of love for him, and to show him the love of the Heavenly Father. Psalm 68:5 reveals God’s heart: “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation.”
OVERWHELMED WITH THE FATHER’S LOVE:
We had him in our home for about nine months, and during that season of time, we had our annual youth conference The Filling Station that we hosted at our church every spring. During the afternoon session of this conference, as I got up to minister the Word, I had my message all prepared, and I was going to talk about being thirsty for more of God in our lives. So I got up, but as I grabbed the microphone, here was this young boy – our foster son – in the front row, on his knees worshipping God and perhaps encountering the love of the Father for one of the first times in his life. And as I stood up in front of hundreds of young people, I just started weeping. I was weeping not just for this young boy, but for this fatherless generation of young people who are growing up, not knowing the love of a father. I was bawling, sobbing. And I started praying, “Lord, these young people don’t know your love. They don’t know the love of a father.” And I called our senior pastor, Steve Witmer, to come and pray the father’s blessing over these young people. And what I think we need to do in the church today is to help these young people – youth growing up in single parent families – to come to know the love of God as Father. And we need fathers in the church – those men of God in the church who know the love of God themselves who will come alongside of these young men and women, and be a father to them.
A couple weeks ago, I had a young boy over at our house – a boy from a single parent family in the community. A single mom had asked me to spend some time with him. He was having some struggles with the fact that his dad wasn’t there, and not having a father figure in his life. And as I started sharing with him and asking him questions about how he was feeling, this young boy just started crying because he didn’t have a dad around – because he didn’t know his father. The haunting questions of, “Why? Why did my dad leave? Why did he abandon me?” It’s time to get real in the church, and realize its not just about, “Rah, rah, rah, there’s victory in Jesus!” We’re dealing with a generation of fatherless young people, primarily – but there are adults who have grown up too not knowing the love of father. And this is why we need the spirit of prophecy – to reveal the loving heart of our Father God to people. That people would come to know the love of God the Father, that they would know His heart of love for them.
GOD LOVES YOU – YES, EVEN YOU:
The simple message I want to share with you is this: It’s so simple, and I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but it’s this: God loves you. God loves you. And you need to hear that today. But you say, “I’ve heard that my whole life. I was raised in the church. I learned that song in Sunday school – Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” But you need to hear that today and know that God the Father loves you. God’s Word declares:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39).
NOTHING CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM GOD’S LOVE:
Sometimes people think, “Well, I’ve been so bad. I’ve done so many wrong things. How can God love me?” You need to hear these words: NOTHING can separate you from the love of God – not even your sin. But you say, “Wait a minute Pastor Chris, that’s not what I was taught. When I grew up in the church, I was taught that God loves good little boys and girls, but he doesn’t like the bad ones so much.” But what does the Bible say?
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8). The way God showed His love for us is – while we were still sinners – rebels – enemies of God – He said, “I love you so much, in your sin, that I’m going to send my son Jesus to die for you.”
THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION:
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (Romans 8:14-16).
One of the things the Lord wants to release today is that Spirit of adoption – that you would know that you’ve been adopted into God’s family. Sometimes we act like we’re foster kids who’ve been brought into God’s family, and we don’t know how long it will last. We think we’re his kids today, but what if I do something really bad tomorrow? Will God abandon me, reject me, just like my natural father did? Is God going to be too busy for me, just like my natural father was? But adoption is different than having a biological child. Adoption says, “I choose you. You take on my name, the rights, the inheritance, everything that’s mine is now yours.” That’s the Spirit of adoption. As children of God, we’re heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus (Rom. 8:17). We belong to Him, and we’ve been adopted into His family. And one of the things about adoption, is that it can’t be undone. God will never stop loving you. Once you become a child of God, you never stop being a child of God. But you say, “I’ve messed up Pastor Chris, I’m so far away from the Lord, how can I come back?”
THE STORY OF THE PRODIGAL SON:
“A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ’Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.” (Luke 15:11-12). What was he saying here? Basically he was saying to his father, “I wish you were dead,” because that’s when the inheritance was to come, after the father died. Verse 13 says, “And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.” He went and wasted his share of the inheritance. He did every wrong thing that could be done. Everything the father said not to do, he went out and did it. And then finally, his money was gone, his friends were gone, and he ended up in the mud with the pigs, and in the midst of the filth of his sin, the Bible says, “But when he came to his senses, he said, ’How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” (v. 17-19).
See, maybe some of you have known the love of the Father, but you’ve just wandered away in your lifestyle, in the things that you’ve done, and it’s time to come back to the Father’s house. And notice when the son returned home, that the father was watching from a distance, and even before the son made it to the house, even before the son got out his penitent prayer, “when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (v. 20). Some of you need to know that loving embrace of our Heavenly Father, because it will set you free.
CHAMPIONS AND PRINCESSES:
Every night when I tuck my children into bed, there are two different prayers I pray for the kids. When I pray with the boys, Caleb and Austin, in their room, I always pray and make this declaration over them and say, “You guys are champions. You are mighty warriors.” Because how many children have grown up without the love and affirmation of a father that says, “You can do it.” Our children got their report cards this past week, and Caleb had gotten his before the other kids, and he had done really well. He excels academically, and I said, “I’m so proud of you, Caleb.” A couple of days later, our younger kids in the elementary school got their report cards, and Austin said this to his mom, “Do you think Dad will say that he’s proud of me, too?” And our son doesn’t always do as well academically as Caleb and Victoria, but there was something in his heart that said, “I just want to hear my father say he’s proud of me.” And it didn’t matter whether or not he had received straight A’s. As we were walking through the mall yesterday, I said to him, “Austin – I saw your report card, and I want to let you know that I’m so proud of you.” He smiled. How many kids grow up without that loving affirmation of a father that says, “I love you, I’m proud of you?” We need to hear the Father’s blessing.
When Jesus was baptized, “the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17). You need to hear that word today. You are God’s beloved son or daughter, in whom He is well pleased. God wants to release that Father’s blessing over you. And so I pray for my boys and say, “You guys are my champions. I’m proud of you.” When I pray for my daughters, Victoria and Hannah, it’s a little bit different. I say, “You are my princesses. You are beautiful.” And there’s something in the heart of every girl that wants to know that she’s a princess. That wants to know that she’s beautiful, special, loved, important and valuable, that someone cares about her. This morning I want to pray and release the Father’s blessing over everyone.
PRAYER FOR THE FATHER’S BLESSING:
• FOR THE BOYS AND MEN:
Father I thank you so much for these mighty men of God. I thank you that you have called them, and every one of them belongs to you. I thank you that you have chosen them, and I thank you that they are mighty men of God, men of valor, men of faith, men of victory. They are Champions. I declare that these are your beloved sons, in whom you are well pleased. And I thank you that it doesn’t matter how much they’ve sinned, how much they’ve fallen. You hear the hearts of those who say, “Lord, I’ve messed up, but I’ve tried to live right,” and you know how many times they’ve stumbled, and yet you’ve always been there to pick them up when they’ve fallen, to grab their hands and say, “You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Father, I thank you right now for releasing that Spirit of adoption, that they would know that they are sons of the Most High God, that they would know that they belong to you.
• FOR THE GIRLS AND WOMEN:
Father, I thank you so much for these daughters of yours. I thank you for these beautiful princesses. I thank you that these are your daughters, and you are well pleased with them. I pray for those who have never heard the loving words of the Father spoken over them, those who have never heard those words of affirmation that say, “You are my beloved daughter, you are beautiful, you are special, you are precious.” Lord I pray for those that are even now dealing with that spirit of rejection, those who did not grow up knowing the love of a father, I break that rejection off of them, and I pray that you would release that Spirit of adoption, that they would know that they belong to you, that there would be a renewed confidence and sense of belonging in their hearts, that they would know that, “I am my beloved’s, and He is mine.” That they would know the love of the Father, and know that they are accepted in the beloved. To know that you have created them, that they are exactly the way that you intended them to be. And so often there’s this spirit in our world that’s always comparing, always trying to measure up to this person or that person, or this model or that model, and we just break off those images – those images that did not come from You. Those are false images that say, “You must look this way,” to be beautiful or accepted. We break off those images in the name of Jesus, and I thank you for releasing new vision, a new sense of identity, that knowledge that they have been created in the image of God, that they are exactly the way you have created them to be, that they don’t have to be taller or shorter, or skinnier or fatter, or anything other thing, but exactly the way that you have made them. And I thank you Lord that you don’t make junk. So Lord we break off those negative words from their lives that say, “You’re stupid, you’re ugly, you’re a failure, you’re not good enough.” Holy Spirit, I pray that you would lavishly pour the love of God into their hearts, set them free from that rejection, fear and abandonment. I thank you that you are their Heavenly Father, you will never leave them, you will never forsake them, and they are yours now and forever. Surround them with your love, and in Jesus’ name, amen.
A PRAYER FOR RESTORED HOPE AND DREAMS:
How many of you would agree we need the spirit of prophecy in the church? There’s a couple of other things the Lord put on my heart to minister on this morning. There’s a few of you who have lost hope. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy.” Some of you, there’s been a hope in your heart that has been shattered. There are things that you have been hoping for, expectations of certain things that you thought would come to pass at a certain point in your life that have not yet happened. And maybe it’s been something that you’ve been praying and seeking God for, but it hasn’t happened, and that hope deferred has made your heart sick. There’s a frustration in your heart, and I believe that God wants to release new hope for you today. Some of you even feel in your heart that the more you pray, the worse it gets. God, I break that off of them right now, and I pray that along with that spirit of faith and desperation that has been praying and crying out, Lord I thank you for Hebrews 6:12 that says that we inherit your promises through faith AND patience. So I pray that they would not give up or hold back, that they would not say, “Well, I’ve been praying for so long – for years even – and it hasn’t come to pass yet.” Lord I pray that you would give them new hope, a new focus on Jesus, that they would get their eyes back on you. That they would not forget in the darkness what you spoke to them in the light. I thank you also Lord for a releasing of new dreams. That they would not lose heart. Take courage! Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you! And I thank you for this, in Jesus’ name, amen.
There’s another group of people who have had dreams in your heart that have not been fulfilled. You’ve had dreams maybe even for ministry, you thought the Lord was going to use you in a certain way and do certain things, but the dreams haven’t come to pass yet. You’ve set those dreams on a shelf or abandoned them. Father, I thank you for a release of those dreams. Lord, you are not a God who gives dreams and then takes them away from people. I’m reminded of the story of Joseph in Genesis 37 – how you gave him dreams, but it was years later, after going through the pit, and going through the prison, before he finally came to the palace. I thank you right now that there’s a time where you speak and give dreams, and there’s a time period between that time and the time the dream comes to pass. So I thank you for a peace and patience in heart right now, and a re-igniting of a passion for dreams today, in Jesus’ name, amen.
A PRAYER FOR THOSE CALLED TO FULL TIME MINISTRY:
There’s one more thing I had on my heart that I wanted to pray for, and that’s for a releasing for those called by God to go into full time ministry. Now you’ve heard me say before that every Christian is called to be a minister. We’re not all called to full time ministry, but we’re all called to minister full time. You may not be called to be a pastor, preacher, teacher, evangelist, prophet or missionary. That might not be your full time job. We’re all called to be in ministry full time – whether you’re a business man or women, or a student, we’re all called to minister full time. But I sense in my heart that there are those that the Lord is calling to full time ministry. Father I thank you for those right now that you have placed your hand upon. This call to full time ministry is no greater than any other call, but I believe that there are those that you want to release to full time ministry right now. I thank you for those that you have placed your name upon, that you have called to do the work of the ministry. Give them the wisdom and open doors of opportunity they need. Lord, prepare their hearts for the task that you have called them to do, in Jesus’ name, amen.
BEHOLD THE LOVE OF GOD:
Wow. God is good, amen? I haven’t got to my notes yet, but that’s all right I think – God has been speaking here. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.” (1 John 3:1). What does that word behold mean? It means to take a look at. Behold – take a look at – focus your eyes on – the love of God. Let’s pray: Father, I thank you so much for that powerful verse. And I pray that over the next few weeks, that there would be a beholding in the hearts of your people. That they would behold, take a look at, the manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God. That’s who we are! Father, we thank you for that. Lord, open our hearts, not just to know the truth, not just to hear the songs and stories, but open our hearts to know and experience the love of God. We thank you for that, in Jesus’ name, amen.
VISION 2008 – NEW BEGINNINGS:
We need the spirit of prophecy to be released in the church today. We can’t do church as usual any more. We can’t just have services. We need to actively go after this generation who are being attacked and led astray by the enemy, and we need to capture their hearts and see them fascinated with the person of Jesus Christ, with a God who loves them. The vision the Lord has given me for 2008 is new beginnings. It’s going to be a year of new souls saved, new freedom, new hope, new beginnings.
Chris Jordan is the lead pastor of Beausejour Community Church in Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.
For more sermon outlines, and online audio sermons, go to www.beausejourchurch.ca.
