Wednesday Night Prayer! HEAVEN! 3/11/09

Wow! The Lord once again blew us away! Its like we are not even heading into a prayer meeting anymore. We started off with silence. We put away bibles, journals, all reading. We just sat there and asked the holy spirit to come as we listened to him. We started just letting out words that the Lord gave us. The main one was that of Isaiah 6. Were the seraph touches Isaiah's lips with the coal from the Alter. We felt the Lord was going to touch this body with the hot coal from the alter. He was going to touch us as a whole and individually. So we started off with that and then the Lord changed directions and said get everyone to start repenting for a lack of faith. And if they cant repent for having a lack of faith, then to ask for more. The bottom line was when we walked in we felt the Lord say "if you can imagine what I am going to do tonight or in your mind if you can comprehend how I am going to show up then repent.” Im not really sure what happened next. Everyone just got hit with the sound of heaven. Everywhere I looked people were getting prayer over, crying, or getting knocked out. Seriously getting knocked out in the spirit. Girls were in huddles praying over each other, then they were all laying on the ground just weeping. People were prophesying over each other and left with powerful affirmation and encouragement. I don’t think I have seen anything quite like it. This was the sound of Heaven. This next part was the biggest thing that happened in the prayer meeting. Earlier in the week the Lord gave me a vision that he would be gathering wood. And later in the meeting he would take the wood and light it on fire with the Holy Spirit and it would be a holy and pleasing aroma to him. He said that an actual burning aroma would fill the room. He then told me that we would be the wood. When everyone stopped praying, weeping, getting knocked out IT HAPPENED! I smelled the burning aroma. And that very second, Aaron Thomas ran to me from the opposite side of the room and asked if I smelled the burning aroma. Then about 5 others came and asked the same thing. I couldn’t believe it. A literal Holy aroma filled the room. I immediately turned to Isaiah 46 where it says that trees will be ablaze and water will boil at the coming of the Lord. It was unbelievable. I started to cry. IT WAS PHENOMINAL! The Lord fulfilled the vision he gave me. We then went into worship for another hour. It was like the Holy Spirit was causing a hurricane to blow through. The Lord held us in Worship until 12:30. No one left. Then everyone just laid on the floor all together. The Lord said to me after the holy storm passes through that he was going to bring the dew of heaven just like a morning after a storm. It was that. The dew of Heaven was in the room. Everyone laying around, laughing, with the peace of heaven all around. It was INCREDIBLE! What a night! What a night! GOD I AM OVERWHELMED BY YOU!

PRAYER LEADERS :)

Hey Prayer leaders!
#1 Just wanted to say thanks for loving Jesus and being willing to allow him to work through you! I am confident that he delights in each one of you and that hearts are being affected and changed through each of your obedience and humility to the plan of our Father! Isn't it awesome that Jesus empowers us to love to obey Him!

I have not been to a meeting in awhile so I just wanted to write to say Hi and share with you my thoughts as well as hopefully see how God is moving in you. Regarding prayer meeting I feel much more peaceful, confident, and secure during prayer meetings because Jesus has taught me that I am hidden in the rock. One could say I felt a lot like Gideon in Judges who was chosen by God to do something awesome but felt unequipped and insecure about the word and will of the Lord. He was afraid that what he had to offer was not enough and in all reality what we have to offer God is never enough, we always fall short of His glorious standard! In our flesh we can never fulfill the word of the Lord, but that's why Jesus left us his Spirit who equips, trains, and guilds us to do the work and will of the Lord. Thankfully we have a kind and generous God who knows the weakness of our frame and in our weakness gives us strength and courage to press into and believe upon his promises. Thus prayer was never about striving in my flesh to accomplish the word of the Lord but patiently waiting upon the Lord listening for his will and then proclaim what His spirit revealed. Prayer is neither a preformance nor a ritual manipulated by the will of man but an encounter with Jesus and evidence of the generousity of the mighty king to be glorified through his humble people. Prayer is evidence of the goodness of God and his desire to fellowship with man! So let us believe that those who wait on the Lord will not be put to shame and that we need not be discouraged nor disappointed when things dont go our way, because we are not the way He is our way!
What I have been thinking about...
All day long I am surrounded by words, from friends, family, coworkers, strangers, teachers, tons and tons of words all day long! Yet my heart has the privilege to hide the word of the Lord which lasts forever which does not fade nor is cancel by circumstance! How quick am I to receive the word of the Lord as real truth and promises for me?! Am I more willing to trust in the voice of my flesh, the voice of the professor, the voice to the preacher, the voice of a close friend, the voice of the devil. Who's voice am I listening for and not only who's voice am I listening for but who's voice do I actually believe? Its great to hear the word of God but do I receive it in my heart as truth? Or is their knowledge that has built itself up again the knowledge of Christ? Search my heart and know me Lord discern if their is any evil way, or wronkthinging concerning you, within me. For you are a majetic God able to finish the work you started so prepare your bride Lord for your return and cause us to be united and knit together in love as you have asked that we may bless you and love you like you love us! We love you Jesus.

:) Miss you all I pray all is well!
Lara

Monday Night March 30.

On Monday nights I always feel such a strong pull from the Lord to worship, to show our faces to him and give our best to him. The purpose of getting together as a group in a prayer meeting format is first and foremost to love God in worshiping in spirit and truth. So thats what we did for the first half and it was solid!

We then went into prayer for our generation. Matthew 5:13-14 was our main focus (being salt and light to the world).

On top of praying for our generation, I felt the Lord impress that it was our time to start really stepping out in faith with good deeds, generosity, and serving others. Its time for us to start walking with his power and anointing, and see friends get saved and healed. We prayed that we would have opportunities this week where we could give ourselves and serve others. James says to "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do!"

I look forward to real acts of love spurred by the Holy Spirit! Its exciting to be a fully alive child of God!

-Josiah

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