heaven's tree book club

September 30, 2012
THE   INTERCESSOR  AND   INTIMACY
Today is the last day of September and tomorrow begins a new day. Today is church day and we had a very interesting time and things to share. We picked up four children today and one was a boy named Benjamin. He was very shy and none of the girls wanted to sit with him. I felt sad for him and unsure what to make of the girls actions towards him. The girls are nine and ten and he is thirteen. Then, during dad's Sunday school, we were missing a woman who ended up in the hospital and another person had a cramp in her hand which dad helped through trigger point therapy. That reminded me of how it must have been when Jesus was teaching and then all of a sudden someone had a health issue and Jesus instantly healed them on the spot. During sharing time today one woman shared about her dad's neighbor who fell off of a ladder and ended up on life support. She had shared the previous week about the situation to request prayer. Then she shared this week that the family decided to take him off of life support. Once they pulled the plug, he should have died, but he didn't. They pulled the plug and he revived. This is totally the power of God and the power of prayer at work in this instance. I have been yearning to hear testimonies of God and prayer for a while now but never heard anything like this until today. God's power brings us into deeper faith and worship. I will totally break forth in praise as I hear more of His works in and around the world. We had a lesser miracle but still a miracle nonetheless. My dad said that I know ten times as much Bible as he does and then one of the old ladies says "God choose you". "God use you". "You should teach us". Dad then said that I taught young adults and this church does not have young adults. It is so funny cause there are times when dad says something and moments later God totally proves my dad wrong like today. There was a brother and sister who came in today in their 20s. This was so random and from God. I am the only person between 15 and 45 and now today there were two more. Plus, we have not had one visitor in the five plus months I have been there. The unfortunate thing was that no one welcomed them or talked to them other than dad and the sermon was for the children today and there was no Bible lesson at all today. It is likely they will not come back but if they do it is totally a God thing. When I got home, my bro was watching golf. He would watch golf for a total of seven hours. That took away any chance for sleep because the couch is in that room and I cannot make it up the stairs. I was super tired with next to no sleep. I felt a little frustrated that he had so much golf to watch and I had no place to lay my head. Thankfully I had my paper to finish and I turned in my first seminary paper tonight. It was on the image of God and man. I had dreamed ten years ago of attending seminary and learning about God and being with spiritually passionate brothers and sisters and here I am.   
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. -Mark 12:30
WE ALL SAT on the edge of our seats, nearly breathless. Standing before us was Corrie ten Boom, who had been sent to a concentration camp because her family protected Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution. It was my first year in Bible school, and Corrie had come to speak for our chapel service. She told about her difficult days surviving in that camp and how God sustained her day by day. At the time, I didn't know much about her, but I was immediately aware of the abiding presence of God in her life. Something was different — radiant — about her countenance as she shared how she was able to see God's grace and glory in the deepest darkness because she was so intimately acquainted with Him. She knew the price of intimacy as she spent her days in intercession in that lice-infested prison. Corrie practiced God's presence in even the gloomiest, darkest situation. She pursued His heart at a time when there was no apparent hope of escape or deliverance. Even in such a horrific place, the grace and majesty of God permeated the heart of Corrie ten Boom.
Her message was clear: Intimacy with God will help us to live victoriously in even the most difficult circumstances. But the challenge was also clear: How do we grow in intimacy with Him?"
I have always wanted to hear men and women of strong faith share and speak about their experiences. I don't know any spiritual giants personally, not that in the church there are spiritual giants and spiritual grasshoppers but there are men and women who have a deep faith that I want to learn from. Certainly, we do not grow close to God when we have everything going right. Often at times we take God for granted in those times. When I was an undergrad I was so prideful and my prayers totally had no substance. There is something special about people who are really close to God. I want to know how to live victoriously because my experience is defeat. I feel really down and discouraged most of the day.
"Knowing and loving God is our greatest privilege, and being known and loved is God's greatest pleasure.
- Rick Warren, The Purpose-Oriven Life
What a privilege to become a best friend of God! Have you grasped the reality of what this means?
As a humble cook in a seventeenth-century French monastery, Brother Lawrence was able to turn even a boring job, such as washing dishes, into an act of worship and an opportunity to build his relationship with God. He said, "The key to friendship with God is not changing what you do, but changing your attitude toward what you do. What you normally do for yourself you begin doing for God, whether it is eating, bathing, working, relaxing, or taking out the trash."1 We read in Psalm 16:11,
You have made knoivn to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Following Brother Lawrence's example, let's realize that worship should not be so much an event as a perpetual attitude.
I once read about a man who said that he wanted to learn to pray all the time in every situation day and night. He wanted to live in constant fellowship with God and moment-by-moment companionship with Jesus. This is a holy ambition and motivates me personally to develop this kind of intimate relationship with God. When we pray, we are speaking to God, and when we meditate on God's Word, He speaks to us. We need both as we develop our friendship with God. Practicing the presence of God will give us rest and lead us into a more fruitful lifestyle. But how can we practice God's presence on a daily basis?
Use Breath Prayers. Pray a brief phrase to Jesus throughout the day that you can repeat in one breath. You may want to pray phrases such as, "You will help me," "You promise to never leave me," "I can do all things through Christ,"
I like this idea of the breath prayer. It helps us to know that God is in everything that we do. I once heard a woman that said that she changes daipers to the glory of God. Nothing then becomes mundane when we do it for God. This includes everything not just our job. We do it all for God. We invite God into all of our activities realizing He is with us in every detail. This also helps us watch carefully what we are reading or watching. What an awesome idea to be called friend of God. I think of Abraham and the relationship he had with God. I desire that kind of relationship where God interacts. Prayer, for me, and for many conservative Christians is just about us talking to God. I think the very idea that God speaks is foreign to us. I sometimes hear about listening prayer but don’t really know how to engage in listening prayer. Some say we are silent before God and He’ll speak to our thoughts. My mind tends to wander in silence.

"David was after God's heartbeat for the world. God's desire is that we pursue Him with all of our hearts, just like David did, abandoning ourselves to His purposes and plans.
Are we eager as intercessors to study the heart of God? May God help us to know the secret of such a prayer life that is moved by a passionate, sustained pursuit of the heart, mind, and will of God.
When you and I know the emotions and feelings in God's heart, we can better obey Him. We can walk obediently in His Word and live radically for Him because His love sustains us. We are able to obey God in the long term when we are linked to His power rather than our own weakness. We can live joyfully because we are living in a whole new realm. Psalm 16:11 says, "You will fill me with joy in your presence."
I like the idea of being in tune to the heard and mind of God. We do this by knowing His thoughts from His Word preserved for us. When was God angry? What grieved His heart? What did He find gladness in? God hates sin and I remember that when sin was really bad, it grieved God that He made man and so He sent a flood to destroy the entire earth. Only Noah was found to be pleasing to God and thus was saved. I think any conformity to the world grieves God and especially the culture of sin and the promotion of immorality I don’t know why so many Christians watch secular movies. What fills our thoughts and minds conforms us to it. I see how we want to interact with and be a part of the culture and so on, but at what cost in our relationship with God?

"Without understanding the love of God, it is impossible to serve Him successfully for a long time overseas. Sooner or later the weaknesses in our lives and the heaviness of ministry demands catch up with us. When we pursue God's heart, everything becomes easier because we are walking with and focusing on God. We begin to comprehend His overwhelming love for us personally and the deep pleasure He has in our fellowship with Him. This motivates us to change. Our actions and lifestyles become more Christlike because we see ourselves the way God sees us, and this impacts everything we say and do. We see the beauty of God, and then we see ourselves through His eyes. This enables us to say no to sin and grow in holiness.
Eventually the truth about God and how He loves the entire world moves into our hearts. We then respond to God from our hearts. We experience the love of God in a deeper measure. But we must realize that Satan will always attack our relationship with Christ. He knows that this is the key to all fruitfulness and spiritual victory. When we know the love of God on a deep level, we can conquer any difficulty—even sea voyages. We can face any trial because we can trust our Father to know what is best for us. He will carry us through. He knows us intimately. We are His beloved children."
When we have had a personal revelation of that love, knowing He deeply enjoys us and treasures our relationship with Him, we will be able to live and pray more effectively. The Holy Spirit will guide us in our praying and our "goings and doings." Our faith will deepen and prayer will grow from that fellowship with Him, becoming a greater joy and privilege.
We long for the assurance that God enjoys us. How few of us really know deep in our hearts that God enjoys us! How few of us know experientially that God feels our pain and knows our struggles.
He knows that we are sinners, and He has knowledge of our secrets.
He knows the dreams and intentions in our hearts.
He knows when we feel lonely and when no one understands us.
He alone understands the deep desires and longings in our hearts.
Despite our confusion and weaknesses, God loves us, enjoys us, and believes in us. He treats us with honor and walks through every day and hour with us. When we learn this truth, we are changed forever. Love begins to impact everything we do, including how we pray. We rise up with new confidence. Mike Bickle puts it this way in "The Bridal Paradigm":
The absolute strongest emotion in our being is the craving to be assured that God enjoys us. The power of feeling enjoyed. We imagine God will enjoy us when we are in heaven; we can even imagine God will enjoy us if we are spiritually mature on the earth. But the idea that He enjoys us while we are spiritually immature is unthinkable for many people.3
We long for the assurance that God enjoys us, and then we long to be captivated by God. We have a deep desire in our hearts to be excited and enthralled by the wonder and awe of who He is. We love beauty, and we long to be spiritually alive. We want to experience wonder. We are designed for it in the core of our being."
Prayer:
Father, I want to be captivated by Your beauty and majesty. I want to stand in awe of You. I want to see the power and love which You have exhibited in the past. Sadly, there are times like right now when I am unsure about Your love. Life is a bit difficult now with joblessness, health conditions, and a lack of purpose and direction. I feel lost and alone a lot now. Because of my health, I don’t get out much and feel depressed often. Father, I need Your help and I need the assurance of Your unconditional love.