Monday Night 3/16/09

How he loves us!

This night was real, simple and all about God. Tonight, I was so excited and honestly surprised by the worship that we engaged in. It was in spirit and in truth. Although the Casen Cruz band is always awesome, and I really mean that, everyone in the room was committed to worshiping God in truth. It looked like everyone felt warmth on their hearts as they continue to give to God praise. I love it when we really worship, when our hearts are connected and emotions are there because we feel and know more of the love of our God!

We then prayed Romans 12:1 "Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will." We prayed that we would walk this week in worship... our actions, our thoughts would all be our act of worship to God. On top of that, we prayed for faith that we not live conformed, and restricted by ourselves but that we would be obedient and full of faith!

I pray that the furnace would have opportunities to be broken, to serve, to love this week!

-Josiah and crew

Sunday Night Prayer Meeting

As I opened up the prayer meeting on Sunday night I challenged everyone to really take ownership. I felt like I was supposed to be more of a prayer manger than a prayer leader. I asked each person to listen to the Lord and ask about what we were supposed to do. To be honest, if no one came to me I was prepared to have God-time for the whole two hours. I didn’t want to just go through the motions. About halfway through the prayer meeting I received a note about Psalm 52:9, “I will)give You thanks forever, because You have done it, And I will wait on Your name, for it is good, in the presence of Your godly ones.” We all gathered up front and began waiting on the Lord. We were silent, no music, no voices, just waiting and allowing the Lord to focus our attention. Out of that time we began to simply declare the things that God was revealing to us about himself. I loved this. It went on for nearly half an hour, still no music; just people taking turns declaring things about the Lord. This led to a time of powerful worship. I loved it because it felt so focused on God. We were not going through the motions, we were worshiping the Living God!

Saturday Morning Prayer :)

This morning we enjoyed the snow and crisp winter air as we entered the prayer center building! IT was wonderful and made me feel like I actually live in Colorado!

The majority of our prayer time was focused on lifting up the soldiers in Iraq and those who will be sent to Afghanistan. I am very thankful for the sacrifice that these men and woman make so that we can live in the evironment that we live in today.

To make a long story short, this past week I got to encounter some of my neighbors and learned about their family situations. It was amazing! During this time I learned that a woman who lives very close to me is married to a man in the armed forces who has been absent for many months fighting in Iraq. In his absence this woman has walked through many hard months as she is pregnant and preparing to see her child while at the same time missing and desiring to see her husband. The homecoming of this soldier was this past week and the date of the baby's delievery was the day of his return! I know that the child, a boy, has been born and that his Dad has arived home to see him! What a great sacrifice to leave and risk your life with mother and child back home! There are so many stories like this im sure and some do not have as happy ending. Though pain is present in this world it leaves us not void or absent of hope. Hope triuphs over all, endures all, and believes for all even the unseen things that seem impossible. Therefore, I long for the return of the Lord, but also believe that in this age the blood of Jesus is more powerful and can extinguish the anger, rage, malice, envy, jealousy, and thirsty for power that exsists naturally in the human heart. As the bride of Christ, we can be restored and purified so that all authority given to the son can be made manifiest through us, that we may proclaim the exceptable year of the Lord and through words establish the kingdom and will of the Lord through total dependance upon the Holy Spirit. Jesus is ALIVE!

Wednesday Night Prayer! HEAVEN!

I had been so excited this whole week. Sunday hit i knew something huge was going to happen. Prayer started and something big was happening. I just kept on saying the Lord is going to break through this place tonight. He's really going to move tonight. So  I felt the Lord said just put away everything and just sit and wait. We did this and as i sat there i remembered how excited i was throughout the week because i knew God had been preparing something. He then showed me. It wasn't a vision of the present or the future but of the last 4 days. It was what the Lord had been doing..."He was preparing gifts for us. For the last 4 days he had been running all over the place, finding supplies, putting things together, wrapping/ unwrapping. Sweat was dripping from his face. He was running all around putting gifts together. Anticipation filled him and he just finished the gifts for us right before prayer started. So the Lord then said share your vision with them after you ask them what their greatest need is right now. He said "don't worry, i already prepared my gift according to what they are going to ask for" lolol. So then i asked everyone to write down their greatest need and to trust me and BELIEVE in where im going with this. They wrote down their greatest need and then i shared the vision with them. Everyone was so excited and filled with anticipation. I then said the Lord only asks a gift in return and that is repentance. So in a way we were exchanging gifts. We got in groups and started praying over one another. The next thing i know people are speaking prophecy over one another, crying, people were falling to the ground. There was confirming prophecy all over the room. I dont think i have ever seen so many tears at one time. We prayer for the first 2 hours. The room was so thick with the presence of God. Everyone was sprinting around, or crying, or just passed out HAHA JOY JOY! It was 11:00 and i said if anyone needs to leave u can, but we are just getting started. The Lord is about to rip this place open. I said i feel this a chance to go beyond the finite and the known and lets press. I also said that there will be a special annointing for sleep and quickly prayed for supernatural rest (by the way, i talked to a lot of people this morning and they said they had received eternal rest! Hallelujah!)  So next, we needed to get on our knees in surrender. Just get on your knees and pray, yell, cry, laugh, rejoice (because the joy of the Lord was in the room) be silent, scream, praise. So we did, and immediately the joy of the Haven OVERWHELMED us! Everyone just started laughing, rejoicing, screaming, crying. Then after about 10 min of this it died out. then i felt the Lord say "No! theres More! I have food to eat that you know nothing about. this is a chance to enter into the unknown"  So i said to everyone "guy's the Lord just gave us all gifts and filled our plates to the overflowing and now we are stuffed, but this is what the Lord is saying "We can end it here and reflect on our full stomachs right now or we can press beyond the finiteness and into the inner chambers of the Lord. So it picked back up. Everyone just started moaning, groaning, crying, yelling-asking for more. Then we finally started playing worship and everyone stood up dancing. Then all of the sudden, as if one body, we all stopped dancing. Everyones jaw dropped and eyes were bulging (I kid u not)  THIS IS WHERE HEAVEN RIPPED OPEN!     It was as if an invisible veil, or wall was just removed and we had stepped into the private courts of the Lord. Everyone felt and knew it! Now FIRE was in the room! Everyone said it was unlike anything they have ever experienced before (and I mean that)...No one had ever experienced such depth and thickness (at least thats what everyone told me)...There were several times I actually 100% thought that Jesus was actually in the room. I stopped dancing to start looking aroundthe room. His presence was so thick, i literally though the roof was on fire! and im not just saying that to describe pretty christian talk or some metaphor or something! We actually thought Jesus was walking around the roof was on fire! We danced and worshipped and received for another 2 hours! People were dancing and all of the sudden collapsing to the ground and started weeping. People were sprinting laps around the chapel! I heard cries and moans in ways i have never heard before! It was like dancing in the inner court for over an hour. HEAVEN RIPPED OPEN IN THAT ROOM LAST NIGHT!!!.............. This is how the last 5 weeks have been since retreat. There is something happening here, some sort of annointing i have never come across. Its become FAMILY and we all love eachother and we are COMMUNITY. Its as if the last 5 prayer meetings, people havnt been coming to pray. Its as if there coming because Jesus and the Kingdom of God is coming. Its as if we are ENCOUNTERING JESUS AND THE KINGDOM EVERY WED NIGHT!!! The Holy Spirit is overflowing the room!!! We ended at 1:oo am and keep ending between midnight and then so im looking for another worship leader to take over the second 2 hours. let me know if you guys know anyone :).................................................................... Last night the roof blew off! HEAVEN was RENDED and if there were trees in there, then they would have caught on fire. if there was water in there, then it would have boiled- ISAIAH 64:1-2

The Magic Carpet Ride

Hey gang,
Saruday Night was our second attempt at having a prayer meeting completely focused on prayer request from people outside of theFurnace. The results, I belive, were amazing. When we were praying for others, there is little room for abstract spirtial jargon that gets in the way of what the heart is saying. It's hard to pray "God restore so-&-so's family" without saying just that. Also, when I hear people pray for others with pasion and belife, it increases my faith and gives me hope for my friends who are in dire situations. all in all, good job. i won't be here next week but when i get back we'll do the thing then.

peace

Monday Night March 2nd

Sorry for blogging two days late!

Monday Night was incredible due to our beloved DLA group!

DLA recently went through (I think) two different events this last week. At one of them, they were trained on how to give encouraging, prophetic words from a team from Washington. I don't know all of the details, but I was approached by Dan Perkins and Joe Couch asking if they could bless the furnace by giving us each individually encouraging prophetic words.

It was such a blessing. It wasn't weird, or pushed but it was right on. During the first hour, they took people out individually to meet with a group of DLA students who prayed and gave words of encouragement specifically about their true identity in Christ. I was blown away by how God spoke through them! It was powerful for many including myself. I walked away changed!

I am excited to see the furnace and DLA walk in their true identity.

-Josiah

Sunday Night Prayer Meeting

Prayer meeting tonight was great. We started by simply reading through the book of I John. There book consists of five packed chapters. I John is all about God's love, our response, and overcoming the world. It was fun to just read the scriptures together. We then went into a time of worship. CJ Hock introduced a song that he wrote that the Lord has placed on his heart over the past couple of weeks. It was fun to see people pressing in and worshiping even when they didn't know the song. It was all about God's power to break chains and set us free.

The rest of the night we prayed about Jesus. We prayed verses that were about Him and we prayed verses from passages where He spoke. I felt like it was important for us to really focus on who Jesus really is. We worshiped hard, went long, and had a great night!