Out of course and why we need to adjust the degrees.

A while ago I heard a pastor tell a story that made me think of the church of Laodicea again.

Many years ago this pastor and his colleague had been attending a conference in Norway and were heading home in a small plane. They each had their flying license in those days and were pretty confident of their ability to be pilots as well as pastors. They had locked the route on 290 degrees and expected to reach Stockholm after a couple of hours.

Suddenly they were contacted by the control tower at the airport they had just left.

-          “You are out of course”, the voice said.

The pastor thought it was odd because he was sure they had the right course and they called back and told the tower “we are on 290 degrees”. Ok?

-          No, you are out of course, the voice continued. You are set on 292 degrees.

The pastor and his friend thought it wasn’t anything to worry about; just a minor trifle. The voice was once more heard over the radio.

-          Yes, it doesn’t matter now; but in two hours’ time you will be in Murmansk, Russia.

They hastily adjusted their course to 290 degrees and reached their expected destination.

The church of Laodicea and the other churches mentioned in the book of Revelation had good intensions to reach their final destination but somehow they all were in one way or the other “out of course”. They were all warned and they were all given the chance to adjust “the degrees” to the right course and they all were promised to find a new position after the heart of God.

The church of Laodicea was content with her course. Her faith, her righteousness and her view of how life in Christ should be lived, was in a nutshell “just fine”.  Nevertheless; Jesus wasn’t happy with the  journey of the church.

 - Make adjustments! You are out of course!

^{Rev. 3:“18}  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich;

and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness;

and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

White clothes in the Bible symbolize righteousness. In the Old Testament God gave instructions how the clothes of the High Priest should be woven. He mustn’t wear clothes that were a mixture of wool and linen.  It had to be entirely made of linen.

Righteousness from God origin from only one kind of “fiber”; the salvation through Jesus Christ.

What was it, that the church of Laodicea mixed with the “linen”; the righteousness through Jesus; that made Jesus call what they were wearing “shameful nakedness”?

When Adam and Eve had done the devastating mistake in the Garden of Eden it says they covered themselves with leaves. Suddenly they were naked when Sin had entered between them and God.  What covered them then; some fig leaves wasn’t enough to make them stand blameless before God. They hid from God in their leaves and what could cover them was a sacrifice where blood was shedded. God made the clothes himself but another creature had to pay with its life. We can’t make our own righteousness; the fig leaves don’t cover our shameless nakedness, only the blood of Jesus does.

 Dear Reader 
Why don't you take some time and do some home work now. 
Look up the following verses in the Bible and think  about if you are wearing "fig leaves" or the righteousness through Jesus Christ. And also remember; There is still  grace on earth for the one who seeks the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (in Context) 2 Corinthians 5 (Whole Chapter)

I would also advice you to start reading the entire  Gospel of John. Take notice of everything Jesus says and underline it. Read it till you know it by heart. My best advice ever to you dear reader
Sincerely yours, Ida

Prayer Warriors, Part 2

Jesus told a parable to show that "at all times [men] ought to pray and not to lose heart" (Luke 18:1-8). In other words, if you are not praying, you will lose heart. Most of the things I pray for I have to persevere and pray through to get the answer. God desires to see something deeper come out of my prayer time than just answered prayers. He wants me to become like Jesus, so he arranges battles that are character-forming. Not only will they ultimately change the world around me, but they'll change me first. This is what all true prayer warriors have discovered.
When we picture a prayer warrior, we usually envision a great-aunt or grandmother. I think that every family has one. You never find them looking into a crystal ball to know the future for little Johnny; they are at the throne of God creating Johnny's future in prayer. They are not wondering if Mary is going to make it; they are praying her through to victory. They do not have time to lament Harry's drinking problem; they are storming Heaven to see him delivered.
Prayer warriors are the most frightening, powerful, demon-chasing, world-moving beings on earth. In truth, they are co-creators with God! They look at astrological predictions and rebuke them. They never wonder about the future because they are too busy creating it. Prayer warriors are positioned by God to stand in faith for their families and churches and cities. Prayer is stronger than kings and mightier than armies. Prayer is the most powerful force on earth.
I remember when my Dad surrendered his life to the Lord. For ten years prior to that, during our visits, we clashed intellectually about God. Then one day he arrived at our home "armed" with an argument many use against God. He said, "If there really is a God, why doesn't He always answer prayer?" He was secure in his position, and I was tired of the argument. I went into another room for a few minutes and prayed, "Lord, You've got to give me an answer."
When I returned, I could see that Dad felt he won this round. I love my dad very, very much, so this is what I said: "Dad, forget all the people that you think didn't get answers to prayer -- you yourself are an answer to prayer! You are alive today because our entire family daily prays for you." (He was very overweight and smoked a pack of cigarettes daily.) Then I continued, "But let's experiment. You say God doesn't answer prayer; we say He does. So for one week we won't pray for you, and we’ll see what happens."
I can't remember ever seeing my dad turn so pale. He looked over at Mom and said, "Hon, tell the boy not to do that." Then, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead, he said to me, "Okay. What do I have to do to keep you praying for me?"
In three minutes he went from not believing in prayer to begging us to keep praying for him. I said, "Dad, the only way I'll keep praying for you is if you pray right now and give your life to Christ." The Lord answered my prayer.
Prayer anchors us in God's strength for our battles. Each of us knows prayer works: we are saved because someone else prayed for us! As we look at the miracle of our own conversions, we gain confidence in God's help and ability to transform others.
Luke 21:36 tells us to be "praying [in order] that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." When Jesus says this, He is not talking about the Rapture. Every time the Bible talks about standing before God, it is speaking of a position of anointed authority and commissioning. Elijah stood before God as did Gabriel (1 Kings 17:1; Luke 1:19). One who stands before God is an attendant to the Almighty. When that one decrees God's Word, it comes to pass.
Nothing is Impossible
Jesus said, "With God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). God has called you to be a prayer warrior, starting with prayer for those you hold dear. Christ is in you, and He ever lives to make intercession. All you need to do is open your heart to Him, and prayer is going to come forth. Look around you at the landscape of life. God wants you to release, through prayer, His future for every need you see. He shows you what is wrong so you can pray for things to be made right. Why waste your energy criticizing people or situations that are wrong, when your prayer can change them!
The Lord our God in the midst of us is powerful. Our weapons are mighty to pulling down strongholds. Stop thinking of yourself as unable to pray. That is a lie out of hell. You are a prayer warrior!
There was a time when that great-aunt or grandmother was younger. She was just like you, and God showed her the needs around her. His grace came, and she made a decision not to judge but to pray. She did not start off strong, but she became strong. Now it is your turn to make that decision to be a prayer warrior.
Lord Jesus, You said that the armies in Heaven follow You, and Your name is called "the Word of God." Help me to not only believe Your Word, but pray it in the power of the Holy Spirit! I accept that You have called me to be a prayer warrior. By Your grace, I receive a new anointing in intercession. Amen! 
Author Francis Frangipane.  
The preceding excerpt is from the book This Day We Fight, by Pastor Frangipane. This book with associated audio resources are currently on sale. Please visit our online bookstore.

In the meantime ...

Prayer Warriors, Part 1
(En Español)
In our rapidly changing times, people are desperate to know the future. Barely do we adjust to the last changes when totally new realities explode into our world.
In answer to the common fears spawned by change, society has been inundated by a plethora of occult and demonic sources -- fortune-tellers, astrologers, psychic hotlines -- all pretending to be able to peek into the mystery of tomorrow. Indeed, how many otherwise intelligent individuals glimpse, at least occasionally, at their "astrological signs" and try to get an edge on knowing the future!
Why anyone would consult someone who cannot predict his or her own future is beyond me. These fortune-tellers almost always live in poverty. Their ability to predict the future should at least work for themselves, should it not? They could invest in the stock market or pick the right lottery numbers. They cannot even predict or better their own fortunes, yet people go to them for discernment.
Tremendous Power in a Christian!
Christians must realize that God condemns this demonic, fleshly probing into the unknown. He has called intercessors not to wonder about the future, but to create it through the knowledge of His Living Word and prayer! Our Father gives us access to the future right now. You ask, "How do we know what to pray" The Lord Jesus told us plainly, "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:9-10 KJV).
We can look at the conditions of the world and faint or look at the possibilities of God and take faith. To bring revival is to pray for the reality of God's kingdom to be made manifest on earth. Jesus was not offering His disciples a millennial prayer focus, for that rule of God's kingdom is coming whether we want it to or not! No, Christ calls us to pray for God's kingdom to manifest itself in our world today.
How will tomorrow look if God answers the prayer Christ gave us? Read the gospels. What we see in the life and power of Jesus Christ is a faith picture of God's kingdom. Jesus said that we can have that same full manifestation. In fact, He actually commanded us to pray for Heaven's release!
The Prayer Womb
The reality that God has planned will always manifest first in the prayer life of His intercessors. When you hear from God and then pray His Word, you are having an impact on the as-yet-unformed essence of life with the Spirit of God Himself! This is why God calls us not only to know His Word, but also to pray it. We must go from intellectualizing God's Word to being impregnated by it.
I know that many churches have special areas where intercessors can pray or people can meditate. Maybe we ought to change the name of such places from "prayer room" to "prayer womb." Everything good and holy that we see manifested in people, in churches and in life is first conceived and then birthed in the womb of prayer.
We have answers to prayer all around us. The place you are living in is an answer to prayer. When you asked God to lead you to the church you should attend, your current church became God’s answer to your prayer. Similarly, your attendance and participation are answers to the prayers of your pastors and intercessors.
Paul wrote, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might" (Eph. 1:18-19).
If you are a Christian, a power accompanies your life that is greater than great: the "surpassing greatness of His power." It is not human power but the actual "strength of His might." God demonstrated this "power toward us who believe" first "in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:19-20).
In other words, the power of God’s might is His resurrection power. What does resurrection mean? It means that things that look dead, smell dead and act dead can be touched by God and raised to life!
Now think about it: The resurrection power God has given us is the same potency He demonstrated when He raised Jesus out of the grave. Right now, because the strength of God Almighty is attached to our prayer lives, we can look on things that are absolutely dead and pray forth eternal life!
Our mission is to bring resurrection life to situations that are dead. If the devil challenges your prayer, remind him that you are seated with Christ "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come" (Eph. 1:21). Christ's authority is final. But not only did the Father put "all things in subjection under His feet," He also "gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23).
Notice how the Lord uses anatomical metaphors to explain the downlink of authority: Christ is the "head" of a "body" that has all things put under its "feet." This is a most profound understanding of our role: What the Head, Christ, has attained, the feet of the church walk out. In other words, God has positioned the church as the living bridge between the terrible conditions on earth and the wonderful solutions from Heaven!
As we truly, passionately and accurately submit to Christ in prayer, the kingdom of Heaven steadily enters our now prayed-for world. The key, of course, is to know Christ's Word, for our authority does not originate from ourselves, but from the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). What we have is revelation and submission. But as we submit to the Word and persevere in prayer, the future is changed and conformed to God's will.
The devil knows that if he can keep our prayer lives silent, he keeps God’s hand distant.

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The preceding excerpt is from the book This Day We Fight, by Pastor Frangipane. This book with associated audio resources are currently on sale. Please visit our online bookstore.

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Back to Laodicea ... in a moment.

Dear Reader
I'm going back to Laodicea and will finish what I set out to write ... but not just now. If you are out there and visiting this blog from time to time;  and know how to pray in the name of Jesus ... then say a prayer for me too.

Se you in a moment
Take care
Ida

Psalm 91

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
5 You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only look with your eyes
and see the recompense of the wicked.

9 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge —
10 no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
12 On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the adder;
the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

14 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
15 When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

... of first importance

Salvation through Jesus Christ isn’t mixable with “salvation” through other religions or self-imposed righteousness. God has given HIS salvation to man the way it is given; through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and it isn’t negotiable.  Salvation has been through the refiner’s fire on Golgotha and nothing can add to it.

1 Cor15 says:

The Resurrection of Christ

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

^*3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^[a]:

*that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ 

*that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^[b] and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Emmaus

Read Luke chapter 24

³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”