I feel like God has started a new work in the church, not just locally but globally, and it’s just now starting to reach my heart as well. Pastor Ken has been speaking to us about living in the supernatural for quite a while, but suddenly this week something of the truth about it dropped into my heart.  I think it started on Sunday morning when Pastor Ken quoted what someone had said to him - that if you preach revival, you get nothing, but preach Jesus and you get revival. That just exploded in my heart and stayed with me all week.  God was saying to me that this is true of all areas of ministry, whether preaching, praying, witnessing or teaching.  Christ must remain the centre and the focus.  I know this is no revolutionary idea; its foundational truth, but it becomes a revolution when you actually live it instead of just know it.  This is what God called me for: to know Him, to love Him, to worship Him.  And that is the simplicity that I came back to when I heard that quote on Sunday morning.  By Tuesday, God had begun to do a work in me and it is wonderful.  I was alone in my car on the way to the prayer meeting, just talking to Jesus and I began to really crave simple relationship with Him again.  Not that I dont have relationship with Him, but it just so easily gets crowded out by religion.  By the time we began the prayer meeting I was weeping, my face streaked with tears.  I felt utterly overwhelmed by a longing for Jesus.  No more ‘do this, this and this and you’ll have revival’.  No more ‘10 steps to national transformation’.  No more manuals and complicated teachings on various religious topics.  I just want Jesus.  Pure and simple.  And He was there, in my car with me, and in that prayer meeting.  His Presence as real as every other person standing there, and so sweet, so tender that I couldn’t even begin to express it.  I re-discovered the purpose for which God had created me - to be a vessel of His Presence.  That was my dream when I was first saved.  Not to keep Him to myself or lock myself away in my room to be with Him only, but to experience Him for myself and to lead others into His Presence.  That, so far, has never happened.  There is an in, but there is no directed output, only a slow leak. 

 What God did next was to restore to me the other part of my dream which I have actually allowed to die over the past few years.  This is where the supernatural comes in.  We were praying on Wednesday for miracles to become normal in the church again and that our minds would become renewed to expect the supernatural as part of everyday Christian life.  As I prayed, the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to me.  He said to me that the Presence and the power of God are inseperable.  That if you desire to know the fullness of God, you must expect the miraculous to take place because this is how God expresses Himself.  What I discovered was that I cry out for the Presence of God, but then dont allow Him to express Himself and make Himself known in the way that He wants to, because there is unbelief in me towards the supernatural.  I used to dream of the sick being healed in the streets, and the miraculous taking place.  When I spent hours each day alone with Jesus, that is what I would see.  That is God’s dream that He shared with me.  But dreams sometimes die.  I believe that in this time, God is sharing His dream with His church again.  I’m not the only one who let God’s dream die in my heart.  And I’m not the only one in whose heart He is resurrecting it.  Its a church thing, and I just happen to be part of it. 

During the half night of prayer, last night, I was very aware of my imperfection, my sin, my fears and my failings.  I found it very hard to be able to meet God and pressed on as hard as I could but felt totally inadequate.  Much to my joy that was not the way father God viewed me and thankfully He broke through to me! - and used that to move me into intercession for a nation who need mercy from that very place of mess that I felt I was in!

I was praying - again for the nation and it’s fatherlessness and I felt God showing me how to pray (obviously crying out for mercy)  as Hosea 14:2-3 says ‘Take words with you and return to the Lord, Say to Him “forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips, Assyria cannot save us, we will not mount war horses.  We will never again say ‘our gods’ to what our own hands have made, FOR IN YOU THE FATHERLESS FIND COMPASSION”‘

He then speaks about healing them!  also in Hosea 2:23 He says that He will call those  who have not been called His people ‘His people’ again!

I started to see the love father God has for His lost nation - and in crying out for mercy and forgiveness for idolatry I became fully grounded in the fact that He says He will call the people of Great Britain - who are not His - His own!  He will show absolute compassion to this lost, rebellious, fatherless nation!!!

Friday was probably the day that brought the biggest revelation to my prayers for revival and the nation for a long time.

We looked into different issues that we could pray about and then it we all presented our find to the group with the action that God was saying could change it.

Luke then talked about Britain being a fatherless nation and I was amazed - when Britain went to war - twice - it was left fatherless and therefore the enemy was able to rob us of our identity.  For the first time ever I understood why I am important to God as one who can stand in the gap.  A few years ago I felt God was speaking over my life that He would give me a mothers heart because there’s an orphaned generation of young people and He wanted to use me to bring them into daughtership and sonship with Him!!! 

Before God could use me to bring others to Him the father I had to become a daughter - a process I’m still on!!!  When I’d been praying on Friday I was about to leave the house of prayer and then the most amazing sunlight came through the window and I sat for a while - I felt God saying ’stay with me for a while’! I did and He was there loving me - as a dad - showing me His amazing love - I asked Him why - He showed me it’s the fuel I need for prayer!  As a fatherless child I find the burden an easy one to take one - however it’s not just the burden that one who stands in the gap must take - it is also the solution also!!!

To pray an orphaned generation into Him I must experience exactly what I am asking Him to do or be!!!  So father God held and healed me some more so that He can use me to heal and bring back others too - and to stand here and cry out that the lost - lonely - orphaned ones in this nation would know His light - His love - His joy!!!

A legendary senior gentleman blessed me with something he shared in a meeting recently. He was being congratulated on 50 years of being married. When asked the secret to this he began talking about the faithfulness of God and mentioned that when God says in exodus 20:14 ‘You shall not commit adultery’, this is a two way covenant. We promise this to the Lord but what is often forgotten is that he promises this to us too!! 

When we look at the ‘commandments’ in this new light it a great blessing and gives us further insight into the sweet love of God alongside his zeal for righteousness and purity! Thankyou Lord JM

It has been a encouragement to learn about Jesus being the ‘Timeless intercessor’. At any time in any day of my life I can be sure that Jesus is pleading before the Father on behalf of the world[Isiah 53:10-12].  When I choose to give myself in prayer, I am just joining with him. The incense of the Jesus’ Prayers is mixed with the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar before the throne! Rev 8:3-5

This is what Jesus has been doing since the fall of man. His death on earth was physical part of his sacrifical life he has been pouring out for thousands of year and still continues to do.

Jesus I honour you and thank you for your continual pouring out for mankind.  Mould and draw my heart to join with you more and more and deeper and deeper.

Isiah 53:11  ‘He[Jesus] shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul….for he shall bear their iniquities and their guilt with the consequences, says the LORD’