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July 7, 2014
Dear Praying Friends,
When we committed this year to consecrating our hearts more fully to the Lord I was deeply moved and encouraged by your email responses expressing that this was the very word the Spirit had already been speaking to your hearts. It has been my most earnest prayer for all of you, as we have walked so many of these journeys together over the past seven years, to experience newer levels of intimacy and communion with our Beloved Lord with each passing year. He is faithful, loving, compassionate, gentle, tender and true. He is always with us. He has never left us nor forsaken us. He is always drawing us into deeper levels of intimacy with Him - tenderly stripping us along the way - so we can experience the fullness of His abounding love and abiding life. I pray that in the midst of daily life, and the challenges and trials you may be facing this year, you have stayed true to the path of that "inward devotion of His Presence," and have enjoyed increasing levels of fellowship with the Lord in His Word and in prayer. I pray also that the Holy Spirit has already been preparing your heart for another 40-day journey coming this year (more information on that in next week's email!).
As we continue through this Year of Consecration we read, in the Book of Exodus, that the rites of consecration lasted seven days. In the Scriptures the number seven has symbolic significance. Seven is the number of completion, fullness, and perfection. When our Creator completed the work of Creation He rested on the seventh day and blessed it and made it holy (Genesis 2:2-3); He called for the seventh year to be a Sabbatical year (Leviticus 25:4); and appointed seven annual feasts (Leviticus 23); in the Book of Revelation we read of seven churches, seals, and trumpets; and Isaiah writes of the Seven-fold Spirit of God (Isaiah 11:1). Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho by marching around the city seven times for seven days, with seven priests carrying seven trumpets (Joshua 6). On this seventh day of the seventh month we have been invited to participate in a seven hour fast by the ministry of Anne Graham Lotz, which culminates seven days of prayer (see Urgent Call to Prayer 777). I pray we will be encouraged, as the Holy Spirit confirms through the many like-minded calls to pray and fast in recent years, that our ever-present Lord is faithful in His pursuit to knock on the door of our hearts desiring to come in and feast with us (Revelation 3:19-20). May we be encouraged, in the spirit of Acts 2:42-47, to unite together in these corporate times of prayer and fasting - to "break bread" together and to pray in one accord and allow the Lord to "complete" the work He has begun in us, as we submit to these times of emptying so He can make us a vessel fit for filling us with more of His glorious life.
In this Year of Consecration, may we allow the Lord room to purify and cleanse our hearts more fully so we can become a fit habitation for His Holy Spirit to dwell and through whom we will become vessels overflowing with His adoration and praise. Let us consecrate our hearts to His and live a life of devotion, worship and service to the Lord that is worthy of His holy, glorious, and majestic name. May He be pleased in our response to His call to consecrate our hearts to His this year!
"Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the LORD your God.
Keep My decrees and follow them. I am the LORD, who makes you holy."
(Leviticus 20:7-8)
A special invitation to participate in the new HOLY 40-Day Prayer and Fasting Devotional Email Journey will be sent out next week. May our hearts be open and responsive to experience a fresh glimpse of God's Glory this year:
Close your eyes and open your hearts as you listen to
the great declaration of our Saviors' love.
Click HERE to "listen" to a special Video Message
"A Glimpse of His Glory"
(We have become more of a "seeing" rather than a "hearing" church.
We have become increasingly distracted by, and devoted to,
the world, rather than fully devoted to God.
Our Shepherd wants us to know His voice and have ears to hear
so we can experience the blessings and security of walking in step
with our Faithful Guide. For those
of you who have participated in these devotional journeys
you have personally experienced the divine fine-tuning of the hearing
that is accomplished during times of fasting.
As we consecrate our hearts more fully to the heart of God
may our ears be more open to understand and discern
His voice alone! He is all we need!)
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