Prayer Room With Pastor P

21/01/2021

One of the first things the Holy Spirit does is He takes the love of God and makes it personal. It's no longer “He loves the world, but does He love me?“. You will begin to realize how precious you are as a person to God. You will know first hand the amount of care, compassion and planning that God has put into your life and how He continues to monitor each and every tiny detail about you. The Holy Spirit makes you feel special, the more you get to know Him, the more you need Him.

17/01/2021

FATHER OPEN OUR EYES👏👏

Oh, Beloved, we get out here as it were, picturing ourselves still in Adam (1), or still in the old creation, and we begin to cry, “Oh God, give me a blessing, Oh God, send your blessing. Oh, if you cannot send a flood, just send me a shower, just send me something.’ Our prayer should not be for ‘God sending me a blessing’, but to ‘open my eyes to what You have done in Christ.’ Not, ‘God send me a blessing’, but ‘open my eyes to the fullness of God in Christ.’ But it is here (2)--IN CHRIST, where God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing (Eph.1:3), with all spiritual fullness (Col.2:9). ‘Father of glory, open my eyes that I may see what You have done in Christ Jesus; that I do not go through life blind, stumbling around, just trying live by feelings, but that the eyes of my understanding be enlightened, and that I begin to look and search out the height, and length and depth; and begin to know what God hath done in Christ. Then begin to live right where I am; just as I am in Christ Jesus.’ That we would not so much be looking for a blessing, but rather manifesting a blessing; not so much looking to be blessed, as looking to bless. Not so much looking to get, but looking to give. Why, we have all spiritual fullness, all spiritual blessings! It is because we are shut off by our own natural understanding to this fullness in Christ, that we are out here in the realm of darkness, looking for something. We are out here continually wanting somebody to bless me, somebody to help me. ‘God help me. God bless me.’ All of our prayer life is wrapped up in that. ‘Lord, we need a blessing.” No! We need our eyes open TO the blessing. That is what we need. ‘God open my eyes that I may see Jesus. Lord, open the eyes of my understanding that I may be a partaker of all that is in Christ; and then in the earth BE a blessing, in the earth MANIFEST all that is in Christ Jesus.’

We must come to understand that WE ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. Then we must begin to live out from there. I don’t care where you may be on this earth: wherever you find yourself, you are IN CHRIST. You cannot travel in the world and get out of Him. Wherever you are--you are IN HIM. Paul understood this. Whether in a friend’s house or in jail, or in a shipwreck, or beaten or stoned, or among enemies or among the Church; wherever he was, this man knew, ‘wherever I am, I am in Christ.’ So, his letters are not the letters of a prisoner of Rome, but a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph.3:1). Paul was not a servant of Rome, but the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not one who is writing to you out of the belly of the catacombs, but one who is writing to you from Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus! He is declaring to the Church: ‘Every one of you are right where I am.’ ‘But Paul, we are not in jail.’ ‘Neither am I. I AM IN CHRIST JESUS. This is a temporary circumstance. I am in Christ Jesus. When the circumstance is good, I am in Christ Jesus. When circumstances are bad, I am in Christ Jesus.’ This is not so to the believer who sees himself in Adam (in the old creation). The Truth is not in him. So, when the circumstances are good, he is hoping that they will get better. He is continually controlled by the circumstances. God is a good God if nothing ever happens to me. God is a good God if I never have to go through a test or a trial. God is a good God if I can always with my natural eyes see something that I think is God. But to this Believer here ( #2) who has understanding of his union with Christ, circumstances come and go; yet he knows that the whole thing is a passing situation. He knows that “his life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col.3:3). When he lives, he is going to live it out from Christ. Wherever he or she is, they are conscious of the reality that ‘Here I am IN Christ Jesus. I will never magnify the circumstance. Whether it is a good circumstance or a bad one. I have learned not to magnify good circumstances; I have learned not to magnify bad circumstances. I have learned to magnify the THE LORD! Let us be a manifestation of where we are--IN CHRIST!

So it is in spiritual matters. There are always balancing truths. There is one thing, but there is something which goes with it, and which keeps it in its right measure, and causes it to fulfil its purpose and to serve its end most effectively. Blessed Sunday to you all 💛

14/01/2021

RELIGIOUS SELF‼️

“I have thought God could use me--my particular gifts and talents. I have thought He should use me, because I had wholly consecrated myself, because I tried to be faithful and earnest, loyal and sound doctrinally, and spiritually minded, with a real taste for heavenly things. I have thought I could pray (and so I could, quite lengthily and wordily when there was someone to listen). I thought I was quite self-sacrificing by devoting my strength to avoid traveling on Sundays, my time by taking meetings and Sunday School classes. I thought I was ‘separate’ from the world by taking no part in its pleasures or pursuits. I thought my much-study of the Word of God stamped me as vastly superior to those who preferred to read ordinary literature. Altogether, I concluded, I must be a very fine creature; very commendable to God and man.
“And NOW--I find that all my years of Christian life and work, I have been dominated by self. It has been “I” not Christ; or at best ‘I’ and Christ, through with much thoroughness of Self, I have tried to talk Christ and even to live Christ. OH, what patience He has had; what toleration, and what wonderful forbearance.
“How could He use that which has been so of the flesh of which it is written “In me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing” (Rom.7:18). How could He hear the prayers of such a Pharisee; how commune with one who was so self-centered, self-satisfied (and ignorant all the time of such a state of affairs.)
“On this day, I take the place of the publican and say ‘God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13), and on this same day, I do with fuller cognizance of the true state of affairs, take my place on the Cross of Calvary; to die to this hideous self, and specially this hideous RELIGIOUS SELF, and say, ‘Lord Jesus work through me, and let it be henceforth, “Not I but Christ,” and I trust that the Holy Spirit of God shall work this out in me experimentally.”
AT A LATTER DATE--I see now He could not use--nor did He need--the gift and talents of my ‘self’. True, He is faithful and good that He was ever mindful of the cups of cold water given in His Name, and many have been the rewards and blessings; but all that has been of His grace. Although prayer has been offered many times and oft, always in the Name of Jesus, always with the recognition of the precious Blood, it has been mechanical and not of the Spirit. It has often been ‘I want, therefore please give,’ and not ‘O Lord, I am one with Thee in everything. Thy will be done.’ Thus there has been an unvarying burden of unanswered prayer. I see now why there has been so little fruit for my labors. I see now why I have so little power in testifying. Where else than the Cross of Christ should self go-- ‘good’ self as well as bad religious self. Thank God there is the Cross of Christ to which one may go and be crucified, and die daily; or rather where daily I may reckon myself to have died in Christ!” (Rom.6:6)👏👏👏

06/01/2021

JUST THREE WORDS!!!!!

Just three little words-- so wonderfully perfect and revealing.
Just three little words--that transformed a murderous Pharisee named Saul into a life-affirming apostle named Paul.
Just three little words--that define the immeasurable gulf between some religious puppet animated by strings, and a life breathed unto eternity in the power and presence of the Eternal God.
Just three little words--that enliven and fulfill the whole intent and beauty of God’s Holy law, bringing heaven within reach of those who are dust.
Just three little words--that neutralize the flesh in man and the spirit of Adam and antichrist that pervades the world.
“To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27).
“Christ in you”--three little words that most churches and supposed teachers sadly negate by their practice, if not their teaching. Three little words that mark that immeasurable and eternal chasm between heaven and hell, truth and the lie, Christ and antichrist, holy and reprobate, heresy and light, doing and being, religion and the hope of glory.
“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom.8:9-11).
So, are we confident that this describes us? We had better be. For many false and fruitless years I thought it did for me, my friends. I foolishly listened to and followed many who thought they had a better way.
Oh how we have strayed, dear saints. Oh how we have betrayed the beauty and wonder of the resurrected Christ. How we have so readily fallen for that first and vicious lie of the improved man, the transformed man, the actualized man. Where then is the power and the quickening to life? In steps, in programs, in might or method or determination or discipline? In redemptive sacrifice perhaps?
And now apparently we need humanism, and psychology, and methods and programs and the consumer economy, and everything else that Babylon offers. Rubbish I say! Three little words dash all of this to pieces. “Christ in you!” Here let me say it again-- “Christ in you!”
Here is the wonder of the Christian life. Here is the power over every unclean and unwanted thing in our hearts and lives! Here is the power and the glory--the power to be, to resist, to walk, to stand, live and love and learn all that the Father intends for us in His Beloved Son. Here is the tree of life forsaken by Adam in that distant garden, yet offered to you and me today.
And yet what have our churches and theologians and gurus done, my brethren? Have they not taught every single one of us in so many sordid and sophisticated ways that--IT IS NOT ENOUGH!!! That we need to eat also from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; that it is in ourselves to be acceptable to the Holy and Awesome Creator who will not suffer the ungodliness of His creation? This modern generation seems hell-bent on “doing Jesus” like they “do” so many other things. But He is not merely another thing; He is the Only Thing! In the Father’s eyes, in fact, there is only His Beloved Son, and all those attached to Him as the True Vine! Until we come to see this, we will try this and try that, and do this and do that, but it will all be dead. So then we will add a stirring soundtrack to it, and vibrant colors and lights to make it seem alive. We will attach strings to make it dance around; but only those who want such things will be fooled.

05/01/2021

WATCHMAN, NOT WATCH-DOGS!!!!

We may, or we may not, be right in regarding this present part of the twentieth century as more outstanding and significant than other times, but we should be blind indeed if we not recognise the tremendous changes that are so rapidly taking place.
This is true in the realm of all the sciences, in politics, industry, and not least in Christianity (we use the word in its broadest sense at the moment). The features will be easily recognisable by those who have eyes and are willing to use them honestly, neither closing them nor putting on blinkers. But it is not only these changes in themselves but their significance that God's Watchmen ought to recognise. A great responsibility rests upon Watchmen, as we know from Ezekiel 33. Note, we say Watchmen, not watch-dogs. It is easy and cheap to take on the role of the watch-dog and yap or bark at any 'suspect', or even bite indiscriminately. It is different to be really able to discern the portents or implications of developments.
We venture to suggest the following as being significant of a time of very great portent. It may be that it is no other or less than the end-time of this dispensation.
If we add one further sign of the times, for the moment, it would be that movement over the earth in which Christians are being tested by fiery ordeal and trial. A large part of the world is already undergoing this "baptism", and the waters are moving steadily on over widening areas. They are moving from the Far East toward the Nearer and Middle East and the Near East.
While Christians in parts of the West can still meet in conference and debate the question: "Will the Church go through the tribulation?", many believers are asking - "Can the tribulation be any worse than that through which we are now passing?" For one it is all objective, future, and doctrinal. For the other, real, actual, and ghastly. It would be more healthy and valuable were we to face the matter from another angle and ask - "Have we reason to believe that the Scriptures point to an end-time in which all artificial supports, 'foreign' aids, external forms, and all that which keeps Christians going from the outside, will be stripped off, and they will stand or fall in so far as they really know the Lord and He is more real than all the accompaniments and things of Christianity?" This will be the ultimate criterion, whether in the increasing spiritual pressure upon believers more generally, or by the force of adversity such as that which is now spreading over the world.
God will have reality. For Him His Son is the only reality. He, as such, is the End, the Amen, and God works all His works toward Him, "that in all things he may have the pre-eminence". (Col.1:18)

“Let each one, therefore, attend to the minute preparation for departure, and be ready!”

05/01/2021

(John 4:23)

“ But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him”
Jesus said to the woman, “the hour cometh, and now is.” Then He dismissed the whole system that had existed up to that time. It was the whole system of Judaism according to the Old Testament. In one sentence, He dismissed the whole dispensation. And He introduced an altogether new order things. What did He mean? Because when He said “the hour cometh, and now is,” He did not mean literally just an hour and so many minutes. He meant that it was the first hour of the new day. With this hour an altogether new day has come. What is the new day? If you would have asked Jesus to put it into a sentence, He would have said, “Well, I am here.” The hour is not just a matter of time but a matter of PERSON! The new dispensation is the dispensation of Jesus Christ. Christ is the new dispensation. “I am here,” He said. You go through the Gospel of John. He is centering everything in Himself: “I am the Way; I am the Truth; I am the Life; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the Vine; I am the Resurrection.” It is a PERSON! It is that which lies behind everything. Christianity is Christ. Christ is Christianity. That is where it all begins and it never departs from HIM! The development of the Christian life is only the development of Jesus Christ in the life.

04/01/2021

11/01/2018

Confession for today!