His Rain Falls When We Prepare Our Hearts

 I want to talk about those times when we lead or participate in a praise and worship service in which we feel that God's presence just didn't move. We compare one service to another or one season to another and find ourselves playing the blame game: Yup it was that out of tune guitar, those loud drums, the tired vocalists, and definitely those new songs. It's easy sometimes for us to concoct some crazy-wild explanation for something so simple. I've even found myself saying, "Lord, why? These people needed You to show up...I was dying for You to show up." I don't know if any of you can relate but this is a horrible feeling. You come home and think that you just wasted your time and even worse that you just wasted God's time and probably made Him tear up a bit from how awful that whole service turned out. I've been there and it's because I've been there that I've sought out my Lord's council. I love how he speaks into my heart so clearly. There are specific moments when I've just felt God laugh and I'm pretty sure when I've talked to Him about these things He's been just balling out, shaking His head, ready to just cradle me because the answer is so simple.

*~*~*

(Song of Solomon 1:6) 

Do not stare at me because I am dark,

    because I am darkened by the sun.

My mother’s sons were angry with me

    and made me take care of the vineyards;

    my own vineyard I had to neglect.

(Song of Solomon 2:10)

My beloved spoke and said to me,
    “Arise, my darling,
    my beautiful one, come with me.

*~*~*

What The Lord revealed to me was that we, His children, are the ones who carry His presence and He confirmed this with His Word that says that we are the Temple of The Holy Spirit, His church. We're suppose to be putting the "C', "H", "U", "R", "C", "H" in "church". The only way to do this is through our relationship with God. He is always able to move but we also have the calling to release what He has freely given us. His Spirit is waiting to be releases but if we don't feed our spirit's how can we accomplish this? It's about talking to our Father because His Holy Spirit is with us and longs to be upon all of us, it's about getting into His Word for a fresh and new revelation, and it's about intimate prayer and worship behind closed doors when no one is looking. God is tired of His unfaithful bride who is ravished by many lovers. In Jeremiah 3 The Lord tells His people that "the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen" because of their unfaithfulness. God uses the words prostitution and unfaithfulness to describe our desire to seek another's council and even our own;He refers to anything that occupies the first place in our hearts. 

*~*~*

(Jeremiah 2:13)

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

*~*~*

Do we not do this today? We lean on our own past understanding and at some point stop overflowing because we've traded fountains. We think we can survive with what we know but those moments are when we need The Lord the most. Only He can see a heart naked as it is. When He says He wants a worshiper in spirit and in truth, this is what He's referring to. He longs for His worshiper to lay beside Him and hear His heartbeat and the only way for us to do this is to cultivate that relationship. Sometimes we reach moments where we hide our faces from The Lord and sink back. He's calling out. Talk to Him. He just wants to talk to us. He just wants to love us. Our wells can't hold water but His can. He doesn't want us to struggle or get frustrated anymore. When you prepare your heart's garden He will walk in and spend time with you. Because you know Him He will listen and because He knows You His Spirit will be upon you ready to be released.

*~*~*

(Psalm 132:7-8)

“Let us go to his dwelling place,
    let us worship at his footstool, saying,
 ‘Arise, Lord, and come to your resting place,
    you and the ark of your might.

//We are that resting place that 

The Holy Spirit longs to dwell in.//

*~*~*

 "Learn to steward God's presence in stillness, not just in corporate worship." 

                                                                                           

                                                                                            —Steffany Gretzinger

When we do this through intimate time with The Lord our services and corporate gatherings will be in continuous overflow. His signs and wonders will be there. The fullness of His Spirit is the key and that key can only be given to us through spirit taught knowledge that comes from the secret place. My secret place sometimes looks like a locked room with soft Bethel or Ihop music playing in the background, or a locked bathroom with me kneeling at the foot of the tub, a car ride, or gardening time outside. The one thing that all these locations have in common is that I am alone with God in order to seek Him. You don't need anything fancy just a place where you can cultivate that relationship with God behind closed doors so that when you do life in the open you will be walking in the fullness of His Spirit and that rain will fall no matter where you find yourself.

Stagnant Congregational/Corporate Worship {Wisdom & Revelation}

Congregational/Corporate Worship- An assembled group of people that have come together to respond to God's love by pouring out their love back onto Him through various forms of expression (bowing, dancing, clapping, lifting of hands, singing, playing an instrument, painting...etc).

We gather together in church for that time when feet are freely lifted off the floor, hands are stretched up to the sky as a show of surrender, and hearts are loving as faces are seeking. No matter how your church does Congregational Worship one thing is for certain, and that is that we are in the vulnerable position to love on God. Some churches have choirs while others have bands, some use an organ, while others incorporate electric guitars, and some are a combination of both old and new styles. I have nothing against either but this I do know for sure: God is a God of revelation. Jesus left us the Holy Spirit to comfort us and to reveal to us the treasures that are hidden in the Father's heart. The minute we let conformity depict our church's vision we say to God, "I like what you've done so I'm going to stay here and talk and live in this one thing forever." What happened to sing a new song? God is a God of fresh, new, and constant revelation and His Holy Spirit is always here with us willing to give a new vision to those that are truly hungry for it, for those that are willing. Here are a couple of signs that will let you know if your church has become stagnant, stuck in a vision that God has given them in the past with no desire to move forward. 

• The preachings/sermons have been the same for a good while and are repeated over a period of time.
• New ideas aren't considered and if they are, these ideas take flight but then gradually burn out and all goes back to normal.
• The congregation attends church services but there is really no change in their personal lives
• There is no desire to go deeper, to grow spiritually by fanning into flames the spiritual gifts (wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning between spirits, speaking in different kinds of tongues, the interpretation of tongues) that come from God's Holy Spirit. (2 Timothy 1:6) and (1 Corinthians 12:7-11)

*~*~*~*~*

^{(Ephesians 1:17)} I keep asking that 

the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 

glorious Father, may give you the 

Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so 

that you may know him better. 

If you feel this to be the case in your 

church, turn this verse into a prayer 

and speak it over yourself and your 

church saying:

God, my glorious Father, I ask that 

You give me (and my church) the 

Spirit of wisdom and revelation so 

that I (we) may know You better.

*~*~*~*~*

Every church has a vision but if we want to grow as both a body and a congregation we have to embrace the Holy Spirit's out-pour of wisdom and revelation in all areas (vision, worship, our personal lives, ministry, preachings, age group classes...etc.). A few words can make a difference, one prayer can change it all...I can testify to that. In fact, going a little personal, the church that my family and I attended for 13 years of my life modeled and still models this behavior. It's like they got stuck in time and instead of growing, the exact opposite happened. I pray tough that one day God will touch their hearts and light an eternal fire in their spirits. For years and years the same Spanish hymns were sung, the same sermons were repeated and circled, and new ideas were "politely" ignored. Until...one day God touched the heart of a young 15 year old girl who constantly did all in her power to avoid church at all cost even though her parents were associate pastors. That young teen, by the grace of God alone, was me. Our whole youth group (around 15 teens) packed up and headed off to Discovery Camp in Columbus TX. There, right there, God gave me direction and a calling. After 3 days away from home my return brought on a huge revolution to our church. As we drove back I kept repeating words that even I did not comprehend, "Mom we need to call so and so and get this and that because God wants me to start a youth band at church." Even my mom looked at me in disbelief. After I repeated the same thing over and over again she realized that I was being for real. Now after I repeated the same thing day after day she was sure that it was all God and made some phone calls. In short, from that day and beyond God placed the right people in our midst and confirmed the word that He had given me. Over a six month period a youth group band was formed from nothing, God has a way of doing that. It was something that only God could have done because any type of idea brought forth to the pastors was tossed under the rug or was short lived. The kids and teens were growing spiritually and their parents attended church enthusiastically. Here I learned to be a leader, I learned about instruments and grew vocally, here God showed me that He was going to use me to give birth to true worship in the hearts of others. Now...here comes the vision change and the transition. At age 16 many oppositions came through gossip and unfair acts by the Pastor and his family and my family's eyes and my own were opened to the stagnation in our church. We were contempt and blind to the spiritual placidity and conformity. God was trying to tell us that He had more for us, much more. God lead us to another church where we find ourselves today where we witness the Glory of God fall down. In my case, God was trying to bring revival to my first church and a new vision but God's revelation was rejected there. So God says to me, "You did what I asked of you and because they have rejected me and not you it's time to move on. I have something special for you, let it go and trust me for I have been faithful to you." 

God has been more than good to me and I can say with all my heart that when you give your whole life to Him He guides your every step to give you a hope and a future because all things will work together for your good. Wherever you find yourself right now, ask God to reveal to you what your church needs and how you can help it grow and move forward. The Holy Spirit will show you how to make blossom your Corporate Worship time so that the whole congregation can be open to the desires of the Father's heart. Like I've stated before though, true worship first has to blossom in your heart through intimate time with the Lord so that you can impact all that is around you. God has a special purpose for you, go at it and discover how it is that you can draw your Congregation into a deeper relationship with the Lord so that the Holy Spirit can freely flow as He wants. God is bringing an amazing awakening to our churches and the way we worship Him there,. I can feel it. I know that I am going to be apart of this by God's grace alone, are you?

Remember: Church is a place of preparation. When we worship God in church through any form (music, dancing, painting...etc.) we are simply being prepared and equipped for what we should be doing on a daily basis, and this will ultimately give us a glimpse into what awaits for us in eternity.