Tag Archives: Body of Christ

Forty Days of Praying the Word of God: Day 35

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.“

1 Corinthians 12:7-11

Father, I pray that You will stir up the gifts in Your Body. May we begin to rightly walk in the gifting of Your Holy Spirit, boldly, with humility.

I pray that those who have been given the message of wisdom and of knowledge would submit themselves to You and open their mouths to speak what You have given them.

May those who have the gift of faith, and of healing and miraculous power, step out with boldness. I pray that those with extraordinary faith will begin to encourage Your Church, and raise her faith level. I pray for healing and miracles to come forth through the vessels that carry Your gifts.

I ask that You would purify those who carry prophecy, Lord, that they would speak Your words and not their own. Holy Spirit, prophecy to us, and to the world, through those You have filled with the gift of prophecy.

Pour out discernment, tongues, and interpretation as You will, Lord, for the common good.

Holy Spirit, cause Your people to move as one, built up by the gifts You have distributed. I pray that You will make us as an orchestra Lord, many parts working together as one Body. I come against the schemes of darkness that intend to twist the gifts in the Church, to cause harm and not good with what You have given, in the Name of Jesus.

Cleanse us from anything that gives credit to ourselves for what can only come from You. Cleanse us from our need to be seen and heard and approved of by others. Cleanse us from insecurity that makes Your gifts about us, and not about the Body.

Purify us Lord, cleanse us from pride, or anything else that makes what is holy within us to become unholy through us.

In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

raise the bar

I was reading the story of the widow’s offering from Mark 12, and I really thought that’s what I would write about. But then I kept reading.

“As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” Mark 13:1

And all I could think was “we’ve set the bar way too low”. Impressing humans isn’t all that hard.

Got a lot of money? We’ll give you the best seat in the house and oddly enough, we’ll give you free stuff. Because you’re rich and we’re impressed and it makes perfect sense that dinner would be on the house.

Beautiful? Wanna know how impressed we are by your beauty? We will stop eating. Stop. Eating. And we will get cut on, injected, plumped up and rearranged so that we can look like you. Because you’re pretty. And we find that impressive.

Good at your job? So good you’re famous? Well then we’re gonna need your autograph, mister.

And if you’re a star in the sports world…forget about it. We are your best friend. We’ve got your back. Cause you hit that ball like a boss and that impresses us.

If you move us at all, you too can become the next best thing. The preacher, teacher, worship leader we all rave about and secretly wish we could be.

There’s a reason that the bar the world has set for impressiveness is so low. They don’t know God.

The Body of Christ has no excuse for a low bar. 

“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” Isaiah 40:26

We know this God. He lives in us and we belong to Him. He is our Father and we are His children.

He has always been and will always be. He owns heaven and earth. He spoke the world into creation and formed a man out of dust. He can make mountains melt like wax and He gave the seas their limits. Demons tremble and darkness flees from His presence.

He hung every star and He knows their name and He knows the number of hairs on every head and every time a bird falls, He knows.

He brought water from a rock and rained down food from heaven. He keeps the snow and hail in storehouses and He knows where the lightning begins. The sun and the moon, light and darkness…they all obey His commands.

He can feed 5,000 people with a few fish and some bread and have leftovers. He walks on water, tells the storm to calm down and brings the dead back to life.

He stepped out of heaven to take the punishment for our sins. He died for sinners so that He could call them friends.

And because death could not hold Him, it will not hold us.

There is no power like His power and nothing, nothing at all can stand against Him. Nothing is too hard for Him. His Name is above every other Name and in that Name the blind see and the lame walk.

He pours out His Spirit and we dream dreams and we prophecy and we call Him Abba. Papa. Father. He pours out His Spirit and we are changed and we know what we never knew and we see what we had never seen.

He is clothed in splendor and majesty and the heavens and the earth declare His glory and rocks are ready to praise Him if we won’t. Rocks will praise Him if we won’t.

His throne is in heaven and ten thousand upon ten thousand angels encircle Him, crying “Holy!”. And all of heaven is waiting and the day will come when they will wait no more. The seals will be opened and the horses will be called forth. The day of reckoning will come upon the earth.

And those who are His will see their salvation at last.

Beloved, we should raise the bar for what impresses us.