Last night at the revival meeting, Pastor Ken mentioned that we should have a hunger and thirst of the word of God (1Peter2 vs 2) and that this hunger comes from the Holy Spirit. This took me back to my own experience of when the Holy Spirit put in me a hunger and thirst for the Word.
It was during the Praise & Worship session last term that i had this experience. That day, whilst we were worshipping God with Pastor Luke i could feel in my spirit a strong desire for the Word. If the Bible was edible i could have swallowed the whole of it. From then on my spirit thirst and hungers for more of His Word.
Jesus said ” Blessed are those who hungry for they shall be filled”.Today, I told the Father that i was hungry and then He told me to eat whatever i wanted from His table and be filled. When i tasted His Word, it was as sweet as honey.

On Fireschool today we were learning all about Romans 12 and the focus for me was verses 10-11, that unity brings zeal, which we can never allow to die in us. This is a zeal which is to love God with all I have and thus pour out love.
Verses 10-11;
Love one another with brotherly affection, giving precedence and showing honour to one another. Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor; be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord.

And as we were praying for God to put zeal in us again and also a fire, I felt Him download the following which has become a challenge for me and I believe will be a challenge to others:

You cannot focus on your own desires and pleasures. Your first focus in life must be to seek after God’s own heart, to know what His love is and what His desire is and to live that out. You need to be fire carriers, who burn intensely with His love inside of you, that you cannot contain it, that we would have an overflow out of this, that we could go out into this world and give out what God has given us. You have to love your neighbour just as much as you love yourself. Do you know we clothe ourselves, feed ourselves and protect ourselves and if you do these things for yourself then how much more must you do this for the ones in the world. The poor, needy and unloveable. We need to become an expression of God’s love out into a dying world, that the world would know and praise Jesus. It is time that we see the Garden of Eden in everyone, that beautiful thing God made, and pour out our love in to them, whoever, whenever and wherever.

That is the challenge.

For as long as i can remember, i have confidently and zealously operated in my own strength and attempted to ‘intercede’ and ‘love God’ effectively and faithfully. Having plans, ambitions and desires of my own that i have clung onto so dearly, i have successfully hindered many works of the Holy Spirit in my life, not allowing Him to breathe in as He could. Today, however, i believe was the beginning of the rest of my life. Although i’m not quite there yet, i’ve eagerly embarked upon a journey of surrender in which my prayer has increasingly become “God, wreck my life with your fire for the glory of your name!” i can feel the desires of Gods heart being engraved upon mine as i seek no longer for the experience of a moment, but the passion of a lifetime. A deep awareness of the Holy Spirit branding my heart with a hot poker identifies me as an adopted son and being permanently marked with the sweet fragrance of Christ. Yes the branding process hurts, and as far as i’m concerned it must be a daily occurence. As long as this abandoned, reckless, Holy Spirit inspired radical lifestyle reaps its rewards of seeing the glory of God being displayed in this nation, then i’m certainly prepared to do so. i feel the pull, the urge, the compelling to constantly give up my ways and truly discover what surrender is. encountering Christ to a much deeper level.

Last week we tried something new in our thursday half night of prayer. Pastor Tim suggested we each looked through a newspaper and find something that we really felt God wanted us to pray for. The prayer meeting began and everyone shared their article and how they wanted to pray about it. We got into small groups and prayed as we felt led. There have been many occasions where I feel the Holy Spirit placing desire in me to pray into a specific situation but only a three times where something breaks out of my spirit and comes up out of my mouth as if someone else were using my body to pray through. This was one of those times and I do believe that the Holy Spirit was praying through me. We were repenting on behalf our our whole nation for thinking we are superiour to other nations and races. I really felt that something was being accomplished, like our agenda met with God’s that night. One thing Im learning that when we are praying in prayer house we are not just filling in a time slot or that every little bit of prayer helps but rather that God has an agenda for that time and terrirtory the church needs to take for a specific purpose. At fire school we are still far from where we want to be but are pushing. God keep us from slumbering!!
JM

Well, it is 5am and we have already prayed for 15 hours. We were given the assignment to pray for 24 hours regarding the House of Lords voting on the SORs. These regulations would limit our freedom as Christians in every area of our lives, e.g. work, school, families. It feels like we have been given a brief and are now on a mission. We can not turn back, not disarm until it is accomplished. God is strengthening us to pray. His Spirit refreshes, and we are led to pray effective fervant prayers that avail much!!