Gates of Glory - August - An Urgent Call to Prayer

It's a beautiful thing when the Madison Saints gather to worship Jesus and pray.  Once a month Gates of Glory is held in a different venue, always on the third Friday of the month. Last Friday night the scene was Lighthouse Church on the west side.  Lighthouse is a bi-lingual, Spirit filled body led by Pastors Marcio and Tia Sierra.  Saints from all over Madison showed up at 7:00pm with the express purpose of worshipping God.  

After an extended period of worship in song, one of the leaders was prompted to ask the saints to pray for the nations. From a human point of view the chaos and violence in the middle east looks to have no political or military solution.  So, we appeal to God and the people and leaders of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Russia and Ukraine were lifted up.  Prayers for peace, justice, and protection were offered in earnest.  

We prayed for Jesus to reveal himself (as He has many times in the past) to the terrorists so they would turn away from their wicked ways and place their faith in Christ.  

Prayers were offered for our government leaders who are faced with grave decisions on how to respond to the terrorist threats around the world.

Lastly, Pastor Sierra made an impassioned plea for the church in Madison to stand in the gap with the persecuted praying believers in the middle east, quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14.

The big question is, how will the believers in Madison respond to this urgent call?  Our brothers and sisters and others are being forced from their homes, tortured, kidnapped and killed. Our moral duty is to join them in prayer.

Intimacy With God Conference - Personal Reflections

Last week City Church invited the saints in Madison to explore what it means to have intimacy with God.  All of the messages can be accessed here.  The assumption is that one who is intimate with God is free and empowered to love as God loves, see as God sees, feel as God feels, and to act as God would want us to act to fulfill our God-given purpose in the world.
The Bible promises so much more than most of us experience on a day to day basis.  For example,

• Psalm 16:11 says "you will make known to me the path of life, in thy presence is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures evermore".
• Psalm 36:8 says "they feast on the abundance of your house, you give them drink from your river of delights".
• John 7:38, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, sreams of living water will flow from within him".
• Galatians 5:22, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control".

So it seems that intimacy with God is the key that unlocks to door to these blessings, and many more. The good news is that God wants this too.  He delights in us (Zephaniah 3:17)

I only attended 2 of the 6 sessions so I probably didn't get the full picture.  For what it's worth here are my take-aways:

• If I desire intimacy with God, He does too, it starts with Him. He is placing that desire in my heart.
• If I want intimacy with God, I need to reset my physical, spiritual, and mental systems.  Like when you shut down your computer and restart it 5 minutes later to get it to do what you want.  

There is nothing new here.  Fasting, meditation, in depth bible study, confession and repentance are time-tested spiritual disciplines, Spirit prompted and designed to help us develop intimacy with God.
See Richard Foster's Celebration of Disciplines.

The question is how bad do I want it, and am I willing to pay the price?  The answer is "Of course, He is worth it!"

On Thursday morning Marlene Sorenson talked about a refining, a burning away, a purifying, a cleansing of the things that keep us from intimacy with God.  Things like habits, addictions, apathy, busyness. These things just creep in and pile up like dust bunnies under your bed.  At some point you just have to clean house.

On Saturday Marcio Sierra talked about the need to intentionally remove the barriers to intimacy with Jesus.  "Just repeat His name, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and He will do the cleansing."

I got the distinct impression that Jesus was saying to me, and possibly the church in Madison, "This is job 1.  You pray for revival but you are not willing to seek me with your whole heart.  I am not going to do anything until you repent and return to me." Revelation 3:20