Dear friends,
I hope this finds you well. In recent weeks there has been an intensifying of spiritual warfare in our area. I have felt it personally and seen many who are being affected by it. I know a number of marriages that are in trouble. Crime has seemingly increased. Our church has been broken into a number of times and people close to me have experienced loss due to burglaries. Yesterday, our mayor committed suicide. I am not a prophet of gloom and doom, but one might ask the question, "What in the world is going on?". The truth is that the kingdom of God is advancing and there is going to be an acceleration of what God is doing here. In a war there is no advance without conflict. As I was praying this morning the Lord laid some things on my heart, I would like to share. It is a call to war.
So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found no one. Ezekiel 22:30
1. God is looking for men and women to stand in the gap. God is calling out intercessors. There are some who have been so beaten down that they have pulled back. They have become pew sitters or bench warmers, but there is still a small ember, a little spark that won't die. There is an unrest in your spirit that can only be satisfied by His presence and being who He called you to be. The Lord says to you today, "Be healed, it is time to take your place on the wall. Little spark feel the bellows of God that you might burn brightly again."
2. Awake from your slumber, Oh church, it is time to arise and conquer. The tyranny of the comfortable has kept us bound in apathy and complacency. The assault has come because we have not taken our rightful place. North Korea and Vietnam were lost because we only tried to maintain a line instead of conquering. Imagine what kind of football team you would have if you only played defense. The gates of Hell are not to be attacking us. We are to be attacking the gates.
3. Difficulties are bringing purity. The intensity of the battle is increasing and it is time to seek the Lord. Pressure brings forth the precious. Loss often reveals that which is truly important. There must a prioritization of what is really important, an extracting of the precious from the worthless, if you will. There must be a purification of motives, a purification of thought and actions. Only the pure in heart can be trusted with true power. It is the pure in heart to whom God reveals Himself.
We are being conformed to the image of His Son. Jesus was and is the Intercessor of intercessors. He stood in the gap for us all. God looked for a man and He found Him in His only begotten Son. Not only did He take our place, but we are being saved by His life. He didn't stop interceding, but ever lives to make intercession for us. Jesus is interceding for us and the Holy Spirit is interceding for us; how can we fail?
Desperate times call for desperate measures and I know God is calling us into the fray. There are some who have been so discouraged that you have felt like giving up. There were times you wanted to quit, but the Holy Spirit in you sustained you. We must be like the woman with the issue of blood, for though she was weak, sickly, and broke she pressed through a crowd to get to Jesus. God is calling you to Himself to be healed, refreshed, equipped, and given new orders.
Some are being greatly shaken; hold fast to the King for when the shaking is over only that which is of His kingdom will remain.
Perilous times may lie ahead, but this is destined to be the church's finest hour. We must respond to the call, for we are not yet prepared for the glory the Lord wants to release on us and in us. The intensity of the struggle is an indicator of the prize to be gained. Rise up, church.
This writing may be an accumulation of random thoughts, but I believe it is addressed to several groups of people. I pray that you will be encouraged and that you will be drawn into deeper intimacy with Him.
Be blessed,
Herb Dean
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
It is to You Advantage
Greetings,
There is awakened in me a great need of being led by the Spirit. Jesus, did only what He did by the power of the Spirit. So it must be with us as well. He told the disciples He was sending them someone just like Him. He said it was to their advantage that He went away so that the Helper could come, the one just like Himself. It is of necessity that God's people be filled and continually filled with the Spirit of God. We cannot walk in the government of God unless we are led by the Spirit. The kingdom of God is in the Spirit, so if we are to walk the kingdom walk we must walk in the Spirit. The kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit. So if we allow ourselves to be led by our flesh, we do not experience His government which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit.
The absence of power in the church is due to the Holy Spirit not being given proper place in our lives. the kingdom is in the Spirit and Paul says that the kingdom of God is not in word, but power. Jesus told His disciples that there were many of them who would not die until they saw the kingdom of God come in power.
There are many today who have projected the coming of the kingdom far into the future. If that is so, some of those guys must still be alive somewhere. In Acts one Jesus told His disciples that they would receive power after the Holy Spirit came upon them. In Luke 24, He told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power, so obviously the kingdom came in power at Pentecost. We don't believe in tarrying much anymore, but whatever it takes we must be filled with His Spirit. In Acts chapter 6 those who were chosen to wait on tables had to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. Should any less be expected of us who serve the Lord and especially, we who preach the word.
What would happen in the church today if everyone from the nursery to the greeters at the front door were filled with the Spirit? Look at what happened immediately after they set the deacons apart. Act 6:7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.
I have shared many times how I asked the Lord one morning to give me something from His word that day and He led me to 1 Samuel 16. It's a great chapter and one I was extremely familiar with. In my pride I kind of thought, "what can the Lord show me in that passage?" I had not finished the first verse when a sentence in the very middle of the verse leaped off the page. "Fill your horn with oil, and go." How many times have I gone out to minister and the horn was empty. The Lord showed me that intimate with His Spirit was necessary in keeping my horn full. He has made provision for us to be continually filled to overflowing, that there is a river. Jesus timing and choices all flowed out of intimacy with the Father.
Our communication, our fellowship is with the Spirit. If you do a careful study of God speaking in the new testament, other than Jesus speaking to Paul on the road to Damascus, it was always the Holy Spirit that spoke to them and gave instruction. The scripture was written by holy men of God who were moved by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a person. He is not a force or power. He can be insulted;He can be grieved; He can be quenched; He can be blasphemed; He can be ignored. As I said earlier, the reason for the absence of power in our people is because we have not given the Spirit His proper place. We have forfeited our advantage and quenched Him by our ignorance and fear. The Spirit is Lord and we must submit ourselves to the Spirit of God in us and bring this flesh under subjection. If you touch a live wire you are in for a shock, unless it is adequately insulated. We have so insulated the Holy Spirit with our flesh that the power is not being released. Many cannot tap into the Spirit's power because they are so afraid to be out of control. Oftentimes we have more desire to be respectable than powerful. Many times Jesus offended minds to reveal hearts.Jesus, being Who He was was dependent on the Spirit. How much more so should we be? It takes more than programs and rhetoric to change the lives of people.
Too long, we have brought men's methods into the church to make up for the absence of power. We have come to a time in the church where we must return to the power of the Spirit. We cannot do the work of the ministry apart from Him. We must return to the basics. Whatever we need to do to be clothed with power from on high we need to do. We are being summoned. There is a lost and dying world crying for help. If
Now is the time to seek the Lord. Repent of those things which have quenched the Spirit, remove hindrances, and ask Him to fill you up. Fellowship with Him; He is your friend, the one along side, the comforter, the Helper, the enabler, the standby, your counselor, your guide. He is your advantage.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen 2 Cor. 13:14
Be blessed,
Herb Dean
There is awakened in me a great need of being led by the Spirit. Jesus, did only what He did by the power of the Spirit. So it must be with us as well. He told the disciples He was sending them someone just like Him. He said it was to their advantage that He went away so that the Helper could come, the one just like Himself. It is of necessity that God's people be filled and continually filled with the Spirit of God. We cannot walk in the government of God unless we are led by the Spirit. The kingdom of God is in the Spirit, so if we are to walk the kingdom walk we must walk in the Spirit. The kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit. So if we allow ourselves to be led by our flesh, we do not experience His government which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit.
The absence of power in the church is due to the Holy Spirit not being given proper place in our lives. the kingdom is in the Spirit and Paul says that the kingdom of God is not in word, but power. Jesus told His disciples that there were many of them who would not die until they saw the kingdom of God come in power.
There are many today who have projected the coming of the kingdom far into the future. If that is so, some of those guys must still be alive somewhere. In Acts one Jesus told His disciples that they would receive power after the Holy Spirit came upon them. In Luke 24, He told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power, so obviously the kingdom came in power at Pentecost. We don't believe in tarrying much anymore, but whatever it takes we must be filled with His Spirit. In Acts chapter 6 those who were chosen to wait on tables had to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. Should any less be expected of us who serve the Lord and especially, we who preach the word.
What would happen in the church today if everyone from the nursery to the greeters at the front door were filled with the Spirit? Look at what happened immediately after they set the deacons apart. Act 6:7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.
I have shared many times how I asked the Lord one morning to give me something from His word that day and He led me to 1 Samuel 16. It's a great chapter and one I was extremely familiar with. In my pride I kind of thought, "what can the Lord show me in that passage?" I had not finished the first verse when a sentence in the very middle of the verse leaped off the page. "Fill your horn with oil, and go." How many times have I gone out to minister and the horn was empty. The Lord showed me that intimate with His Spirit was necessary in keeping my horn full. He has made provision for us to be continually filled to overflowing, that there is a river. Jesus timing and choices all flowed out of intimacy with the Father.
Our communication, our fellowship is with the Spirit. If you do a careful study of God speaking in the new testament, other than Jesus speaking to Paul on the road to Damascus, it was always the Holy Spirit that spoke to them and gave instruction. The scripture was written by holy men of God who were moved by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a person. He is not a force or power. He can be insulted;He can be grieved; He can be quenched; He can be blasphemed; He can be ignored. As I said earlier, the reason for the absence of power in our people is because we have not given the Spirit His proper place. We have forfeited our advantage and quenched Him by our ignorance and fear. The Spirit is Lord and we must submit ourselves to the Spirit of God in us and bring this flesh under subjection. If you touch a live wire you are in for a shock, unless it is adequately insulated. We have so insulated the Holy Spirit with our flesh that the power is not being released. Many cannot tap into the Spirit's power because they are so afraid to be out of control. Oftentimes we have more desire to be respectable than powerful. Many times Jesus offended minds to reveal hearts.Jesus, being Who He was was dependent on the Spirit. How much more so should we be? It takes more than programs and rhetoric to change the lives of people.
Too long, we have brought men's methods into the church to make up for the absence of power. We have come to a time in the church where we must return to the power of the Spirit. We cannot do the work of the ministry apart from Him. We must return to the basics. Whatever we need to do to be clothed with power from on high we need to do. We are being summoned. There is a lost and dying world crying for help. If
Now is the time to seek the Lord. Repent of those things which have quenched the Spirit, remove hindrances, and ask Him to fill you up. Fellowship with Him; He is your friend, the one along side, the comforter, the Helper, the enabler, the standby, your counselor, your guide. He is your advantage.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen 2 Cor. 13:14
Be blessed,
Herb Dean
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Spiritual Synergy
Dear friends,
I hope all is well with you. You are loved. I'd like to share a few thoughts today on spiritual synergy. It is a time where the body of Christ needs desperately to come together. Ben Franklin once told the leaders of the American Revolution ," We must all hang together or we, most assuredly, will hang separately." That is true in the body of Christ as well. A kingdom divided shall not stand. I pray this teaching will be an encouragement to you,
A few years ago at a horse pulling contest, a single horse pulled 4500 pounds. The horse was later teamed with a weaker horse and together they pulled over 13,000 pounds. What made the difference? It's a principle called synergy. Ecc. 4:9 Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. That was an illustration of synergy in the natural, but there is also synergy in the spiritual. Let's look at spiritual synergy for just a moment. Spiritual synergy combines not only the joint effort of the participants, but the supernatural power of God. Look at Deutoronomy 32: 30 How can one man chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them and the Lord had surrendered them? The answer to the first part of the question is the Rock. God can deliver the enemy into your hands.
Synergy mutiplies the abilities of the participants. In synergy the sum of the whole is much greater than the sum of the individual parts. There is a synergistic effect in unity. It is the power of agreement. "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. Matthew 18:20. Individual praise times are good, but get in a group of people of one heart and mind praising God and intensity is magnified. His presence is magnified. It is the same way in corporate prayer. There is power in agreement. Looking back at the horses, they had to pull together for the synergistic effect. What if one horse had dug in his hooves and refused to pull? The other horse would be pulling not only against the weight, but the resistance of the other horse and his output would be greatly diminished if not negated. This happens in so many churches. There is not like vision; some resist where leadership is headed and the ministry of the church is ineffective. It happens, also, in marriage. If the two are pulling together there is great strength, but if they are pulling against each other it cannot stand. Children sense this division and it often leads to destructive patterns. Unity is the place of blessing. Productivity is found in that place of pulling together.
We must pull together or we will be pulled apart. The heart of Jesus is that we become one as He and the Father are one. He wants us to be yoked up to Him. He said,"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." It could be today that you have been pulling by yourself and your burden has been heavy. You are weary from the load. Jesus wants you to yoke up with Him. If you are yoked to Him, you can far exceed any thing that you thought was possible, because when you are yoked to Him there is spiritual synergy and He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. Ephesians 3:20. That power is the Spirit of God.
There is much going on in the spiritual realm right now and it is important that we lock our shields and stand together. We have an old testament promise that when the enemy comes against us one way, he'll be scattered 7 ways. Let's stand together yoked with Christ. Be blessed.
In His love,
Herb Dean
I hope all is well with you. You are loved. I'd like to share a few thoughts today on spiritual synergy. It is a time where the body of Christ needs desperately to come together. Ben Franklin once told the leaders of the American Revolution ," We must all hang together or we, most assuredly, will hang separately." That is true in the body of Christ as well. A kingdom divided shall not stand. I pray this teaching will be an encouragement to you,
A few years ago at a horse pulling contest, a single horse pulled 4500 pounds. The horse was later teamed with a weaker horse and together they pulled over 13,000 pounds. What made the difference? It's a principle called synergy. Ecc. 4:9 Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. That was an illustration of synergy in the natural, but there is also synergy in the spiritual. Let's look at spiritual synergy for just a moment. Spiritual synergy combines not only the joint effort of the participants, but the supernatural power of God. Look at Deutoronomy 32: 30 How can one man chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them and the Lord had surrendered them? The answer to the first part of the question is the Rock. God can deliver the enemy into your hands.
Synergy mutiplies the abilities of the participants. In synergy the sum of the whole is much greater than the sum of the individual parts. There is a synergistic effect in unity. It is the power of agreement. "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. Matthew 18:20. Individual praise times are good, but get in a group of people of one heart and mind praising God and intensity is magnified. His presence is magnified. It is the same way in corporate prayer. There is power in agreement. Looking back at the horses, they had to pull together for the synergistic effect. What if one horse had dug in his hooves and refused to pull? The other horse would be pulling not only against the weight, but the resistance of the other horse and his output would be greatly diminished if not negated. This happens in so many churches. There is not like vision; some resist where leadership is headed and the ministry of the church is ineffective. It happens, also, in marriage. If the two are pulling together there is great strength, but if they are pulling against each other it cannot stand. Children sense this division and it often leads to destructive patterns. Unity is the place of blessing. Productivity is found in that place of pulling together.
We must pull together or we will be pulled apart. The heart of Jesus is that we become one as He and the Father are one. He wants us to be yoked up to Him. He said,"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." It could be today that you have been pulling by yourself and your burden has been heavy. You are weary from the load. Jesus wants you to yoke up with Him. If you are yoked to Him, you can far exceed any thing that you thought was possible, because when you are yoked to Him there is spiritual synergy and He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. Ephesians 3:20. That power is the Spirit of God.
There is much going on in the spiritual realm right now and it is important that we lock our shields and stand together. We have an old testament promise that when the enemy comes against us one way, he'll be scattered 7 ways. Let's stand together yoked with Christ. Be blessed.
In His love,
Herb Dean
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