Showing posts with label congregation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label congregation. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

"I Saw a Huge Rusty Plow Sitting in Many Churches" - Bill Yount, The Elijah List


I saw a huge rusty plow sitting in the sanctuary of many churches. Its size filled the back of the sanctuary to the pulpit. Its pointed blade now dull, rested just short of the altar. The plow seemed ancient and out of place, like it should be in a museum. 
It struggled to remember the glory days when plowing was crucial in the Kingdom of Heaven, for without plowing there can be no planting, and therefore no harvest. The plow knew it was never meant to be in one place this long. (Photo via Pixabay)
Suddenly, a knock came pounding on the door of these churches. A knock so powerful that it shifted the huge rusty plow forward enough to touch the altar. I could then see that this huge plow was made up of the congregation as a spirit of intercession came upon it. The spirit of prayer shook the whole house as fresh heavenly oil began dripping down upon this rusty plow.
The Lord then spoke, "As in the days of old, I am returning to this house with great power to bring in the harvest."
Immediately, confidence came upon the plow as the congregation proclaimed, "I can do this. I can do that. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." A get-up-and-go had come upon us. A pioneering spirit was rising up to take us where we had never gone before: Outside to unknown territories and regions where awesome adventure had been waiting for us. We were about to make history.
Who Was that Knocking on the Door?
I asked the Lord, "Who was that pounding on the door of these churches?"
He said, "It's the lost knocking to get inside My house. But the huge rusty plow was taking up all the room and they couldn't get in. Not one of them. But now with My oil dripping on the plow and the shaking moving it forward to outside the house, a great harvest is guaranteed with acceleration. So much so that the plowman will overtake the reaper." (See Amos 9:13.)
(Photo by Robert Bartow "Harvest" via elijahshopper.com)
"Churches will be filled again with standing room only. People will line the streets to get in as that well-oiled machine moves outside of My house. I will continue to help by shaking the heavens and the earth, releasing My reverend fear into communities and nations. I will continue to get people's attention, for I want no one to be lost. My shaking alone will cause hardened children and grandchildren to run like prodigals into the arms of Jesus."
I used to think to plow the ground first was a long hard season, and then to wait for the harvest was another long season. But I believe this Scripture (Amos 9:13) is saying that the reaping will be in the same season as we are plowing. In fact, we will overtake the reaper. That's acceleration.

ElijahList Prophetic Resources

The plow was V-shaped, having two huge sides on it. The V-shape reminded me how geese fly and how they partner working together, going forward even in adverse winds.
He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit...even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
My Hand is Coming Upon Your Plow
"The blood, sweat, and tears that you have sown will now catapult you to find your joy and strength in the harvest fields: Crack houses, human-trafficking, in fields of addiction, and in the company of man slayers. Where fear abounds, you will discover you are well able to take down every giant in the land. For My hand is now coming upon your plow. I am releasing an electrifying jump start upon it. It is now unstoppable. Don't look back. Don't even look ahead. Look up, for I now go before you and I have your back covered."
Redemption is Coming Upon Your Fields
"Know that your labor until now is not in vain, and though in times past you were weary in well doing, you will be glad you didn't quit.For I am coming onto your fields of labor with redemption. New anointings and unctions will open up new ground and opportunities, for the earth is Mine. Joy will be found in the plowing along with the reaping." (Photo via Wikipedia)
I found this short sermon to be interesting by Charles Spurgeon:
"If a farmer knew that a bad year was coming, he would perhaps only sow an acre or two; but if some prophet could tell him, 'Farmer, there will be such a harvest next year as there never was,' he would say, 'I will plough up my grass lands, I will stub up those hedges: every inch of ground I will sow.'
"So do you. There is a wondrous harvest coming. Plough up your headlands; root up your hedges; break up your fallow ground, and sow, even amongst the thorns. Ye know not which shall prosper, this or that; but ye may hope that they shall be alike good. Enlarged effort should always follow an increased hope of success."
It's time to plow.
Bill Yount
Blowing the Shofar Ministry

Email: theshofarhasblown@juno.com
Website: billyount.com
Bill Yount has been a member of Bridge of Life in Hagerstown, Maryland, for the past 36 years where he is now an elder and a home missionary. He is currently an advisor at large for Aglow International. Bill faithfully served in prison ministry at Mount Hope for 23 years and now travels full-time, both in the U.S. and internationally, ministering in churches and Aglow circles. "Humility and humor" characterize his ministry as he brings forth a fresh word that is "in season," proclaiming the Word of the Lord! 
The shofar (or ram's horn) is often used in his meetings, breaking the powers of darkness over regions, churches, and households. The shofar represents God's breath blowing into the nostrils of His people, reviving them and awakening the lost. Many of God's messages, which Bill ministers prophetically, come out of his everyday life with his family and friends.

To subscribe to The Elijah List go to:http://elijahlist.com/subscribe

Monday, July 27, 2015

Sharing Love From Sweden - FREE TO DO THE WILL OF GOD by Eva Haglund


FREE TO DO THE WILL OF GOD
Eva Haglund, Sweden

A bird flies free without anything hindering it. God wants us to fly free like birds without anyone hindering us. We need to be free from control by anybody else. We need to make our own decisions in what we feel peace in and not let other people rule over us who want to control. We must not do what we do not feel peace in. We need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

There are some people who are very dominant and want to rule over others by controlling them. I am not talking about the usual way of being submitted to leaders you have confidence in but when a person wants to control a person in a wrong way.

There are certain people who want to take over the leadership in a congregation if they are allowed controlled by the spirit of Jezebel. We must not be bound but must say no when it needs said, and not let any one rule over with this spirit.

Christ has called us to freedom. There are certain Christian leaders who do not know the heart of the Father with love and compassion. They have hard hearts and are controlling the members in certain congregations. Some members do not dare leave the congregation or to say no. All leaders do not know God's heart of love and do not have love for the sheep. We need to choose a congregation where the leader/leaders love Jesus and have His love for the people. By their fruit you will know the tree, as Jesus said.

As Christians we also can hear from God. We can get teaching from the Word. We also need good advice from spiritual mothers and fathers in Body of Christ who are mature persons in Body of Christ. I believe there needs to be more spiritual mothers and fathers after God's heart in the Body of Christ. In some congregations there are just young people, but old and young need each other. Jesus says in John 19, "Mother, see your son!" and "Son, see your mother!"

In Proverbs 29:25 is written, "The fear of men brings a snare" but we need to be like eagles who fly high. We all have our unique calling and it is written in Joel 2:8 "They do not push one another.
Everyone marches in his own column."

There are some people who are manipulative and who have egoistic motives. They want to control others. We need to say no when we sense it is wrong. It is more love by saying no because then you can teach that person that this behavior is wrong. It is good to help other people but it needs to be in a right way.
.
Parents ought to be the ones who are the ones who decide and not the children who rule over the children. God wants us to have have our freedom in Christ and not let our wings be bound and heavy.
We also need to tell the truth in situations as Paul did to people.

Esther, Stephen and John were also bold and we can learn from them. There are situations when we also need to be quiet as Jesus was in Mark 14:6, where we read that He "kept silent and answered nothing."

In another situation Jesus spoke as in Luke 16:14: "Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money , also heard these things and they derided Him. And He said to them, "You are those who justify themselves before men, but God knows your heart . For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God." Jesus told the truth. We can also be bold and say the truth in situations, but it is good to have patience and not be angry and condemn anybody.

In Luke 6: 22 is written, "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven. For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets."

We can sometimes get badly treated following God but then the reward is great in heaven. It is good to know when it is tough that God gives back. God is faithful and good to know that Jesus suffered most and suffered this because of His so great love to us.

He gave also His life for all people. We read in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

In Yeshua/Jesus name is salvation.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Love Shared From Sweden

Sweden's Flag

Editor's note: Occasionally I'll get an e-mail which I like to share with you reading this blog and on our other social media connections. This is one I received Nov. 24, 2013 from a friend in Sweden. (I do not share her name.)
I have shared her poems before. This letter really shows a love for the Jews and people in the Church. She also has a pastor's heart, which I admire. May you be blessed as you too read her words, and the poem which follows.

If you would like to share your heart with us too, please write me at loveforhispeople@gmail.com
If permission to share with others is granted too, I will certainly consider posting it! (Please advise.) 

In this letter, whatever is italicized, except for the poem, I added for clarity. I also added the artwork.

Blessings on ye heads!

Steve Martin
Love For His People,
Charlotte, NC USA


Shalom Steve!

Thank you for your letter! Often when you write to a ministry it is my experience you do not get any answer at all. But you answer and that is a comfort.

 I was crying because I was longing to Israel not because of the Jewish people that evening. But I am also crying for the Jews. I pray regularly for Israel and Jews and I believe as you said as Jesus did when He wept over Jerusalem that we need tears in prayers for the Jews and Israel. Also for other people. We need tears in prayers for our relatives. 

I do not have a congregation and pastor/pastors couple just now. Thank you for your comfort. I have many friends but they live in different places but I and a friend also pray that there will come Christians and live close to each other. There will maybe be a new congregation. 

Church for me is not meeting just in a church- building even if we need church meetings but the church is not meant to be the building but Body of Christ and Jesus as the head. We can read in 1 Cor.12 about that we Christians need each other much in friendship -not just meet in any church building but as friends . 

As a usual body has differents parts we need each other with different gifts. It is not meant that a man will be the church as you sometimes see but the Body of Christ standing together like one man. Today there is much unpersonality in Body of Christ as least as I have seen here. 

There can be club when God wants it to be family. It can take time but God do not want club for years, You cannot know all well but if club is all a congregation have then there need to be a change, The relation - friendship with Jesus is however first. He is not impersonal. 

We need to forgive people, not being bitter to anyone and prayer needs for Body of Christ but Jesus say that love we get from God is a testimony to the world. John.17:21. When they see love among Christians they can get saved you understand from this Bible Scripture. We can read in Acts. 2:46 that Christians were breaking bread from house to house. They ate together and had fellowship. We need take that back to the Body of Christ because it has been stolen much from us in the Body of Christ. 

Several pastors do not know the father's heart with practical care and compassion because they do not understand just to take a cup of coffee/tea and talk - have fellowship with people and they do not understand the importance of hospitality. A cup of coffee can sometimes save a life for anybody crushed inside and without any friends I think. People can make many mistakes but it is not good when Christian leadership does not understand the importance of this in their thinking. 


You must not be bitter or disappointed to this kind of leadership. We are all saved by grace but the sheep are suffering when a pastor/pastor couple have a "money car maybe for a million but the sheep nearly have no food or clothes for their children. Our heavenly Daddy has a lot of love and Christian leaders who have not learned to know God's heart so they understand fellowship and importance of practical care need to get their blind eyes open. I think a real revival is when people who has received Jesus live as they did in Acts as in Acts.2:46. 

No one has greater love then anybody giving his life for his FRIENDS, as Jesus says in John.15:13. Jesus showed practical care and had fellowship at the sea in John.21.He likes when we have fellowship -talk with Him and be in his presence -in prayer life. Fellowship with God and fellowship with each other goes hand in hand. 

He gave all He had for us - everything for the sheep. He told us in Body of Christ to wash each others feet as I think not just about to be humble but showing care to each other . 

Many Christians are wounded today and need love. Also the world is full of people who need love. Sometimes a smile can save a life I think. My favorite chapter is Isaiah.53 because I think about how much Jesus suffered because of love.

You told me about the elderly man who got an visa. I do not have Facebook and I do not know if I will have or not. I did not know that you had at YouTube anything. Will look later. (Love For His People YouTube)

Steve & John Ebenezer from Hyderabad, India

Nice an elderly man got an visa (from India, for our Ahava Adventures trip to Israel in Nov. 2013.

I send you my latest poem as I made for a friend some time ago. It's for anybody having pain inside soul, who need inner healing or so.

Thank you for your webpage and showing care to people! Thank you for blessing Israel and the Jews!

Blessings.


JESUS- YOUR HEART WAS CRUSHED FOR ME


The thorns were many on my way.
Suddenly I fell when I thought it could not be worser... 
I thought I were alone and You were in a distant place far away.
Then I realised you had not left me...
You were closer than ever...
You carried me like a precios lamb in your arms...
You saw me - as you counted 
my hairs you saw every tear-every drop on my cheeks...
Your drops of blood you had in Gethsemane you had for me - 
every drop was in deep pain because you knew 
what pain you had to suffer- but you 
did it for me.
You did not open your mouth.
Your heart was crushed for me...


Isaias.53:7, Isaias.40:11, Ps.23.






Friday, July 12, 2013

Ahava Love Letter (#61) - "Get Back On The Boat" - Steve Martin


                          

“Get Back On The Boat”

“Then, without warning, a furious storm arose on the lake,
so that waves were sweeping over the boat. But Yeshua
was sleeping. So they came and roused him, saying, “Sir! Help!
We’re about to die!”

He said to them, “Why are you afraid?
So little trust you have!” Then He got up and rebuked the winds
and the waves, and there was a dead calm.”

(Matt 8:24-26 CJB Complete Jewish Bible)


Dear family of friends,

There has been a lot of rain in our state of North Carolina this current summer season. The local weatherman reported that the 12” above normal level has been the most in the 75 years of their record keeping. Cutting my grass between the falling bullets just hasn’t been working. I can attest to that fact.

As I drove in the pouring rain to my former boss’ house during the latest downpour, to receive his wise counsel about book publishing, I was speaking to another on the cell phone. Flooding was occurring in her home. She conveyed that she felt she had been under spiritual attack lately, and the excess water was the latest incident indicating that.

My response, after listening for about 15 minutes, wasn’t just a quip to “come up with a quick solution,” as they say men do (so we can get on to being the answer to the next problem.)

I said, "Seems like you are in a lifeboat, connected by only a lifeline to the big boat. So get back on the boat.”

It wasn’t meant at all to be a pun, as the rain outside my speeding car might suggest, or as her house foundation continued to seep water through it. I believe I was moved by Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh (Hebrew). She really seemed to be hanging on, connected in her little raft on the mighty ocean, by a single lifeline. She needed to get into the boat, get on the ship, where the rest of the people were safely being cared for. I am speaking about the local body of believers.

Some of you may say, “I am connected,” as her response back to me was.

What? You no longer belong anywhere as a member, due to some incident? But now you do watch your favorite TV teacher/preacher on TV? Or you have a long distance phone conversation with an older saint in your former congregation, and you call that “being connected?” As one would say, “How is that working out for you?”

Explain that logic to me from the Scriptures, which basically commands that we are to be “joined and fitted together” in His Body. 

Sometimes being direct, in your face, sharing tough love as James Dobson wrote decades ago, needs to be just that – a realistic look at where you are at now, and where He actually wants you to be, in experiencing His purposeful life.

We all have excuses why we can or cannot do something. If your spiritual, and possibly natural life depended on it, will you use that excuse to just stay in your little raft? Does that hold water with Him?


If you are as one floating in a raft, hanging onto to the Father Ship by a lifeline, I highly suggest you really ask the Father where you are supposed to be connected, and start pulling on the line in that direction.

The TV man or woman, or the cell phone person, as good and needed as they may be, won’t quite make it in the days ahead for you, when the real spiritual floods come. That hand extended through the airwaves can’t be the one you will need - right at hand.

It is best to be connected, within a ship, with those the Lord intends for you to be connected with. He said so. It can happen. It should happen. When will you let it happen?

Ahava (love in Hebrew) to my family of friends,

Steve Martin
Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc. truly appreciates your generous support. Please consider sending a monthly charitable gift of $5-$25 each month to help us bless Messianic Jews in Israel. 

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©2013 Steve Martin      Love For His People, Inc.  12120 Woodside Falls Rd. Pineville, NC 28134      
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Ahava Love Letter #61   “Get Back On The Boat”

 Date: In the year of our Lord 2013 (07/12/13 Friday 5 am in Charlotte, NC)

All previous editions of Ahava Love Letter can be found on my Blog:    http://loveforhispeople.blogspot.com        

Here are the last few:
Need Money? (#60)
Rejected? (#59)
In Your Building – Guard Against Distractions (#58)
Connections (#57)
Your Name (#56)
Lost, But Not Forgotten Friends (#55)
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (#54)

We Speak To Nations (#53)

Friday, May 24, 2013

Messianic Believers in Israel

Jewish anti-missionaries take on Messianic believers

Thursday, May 23, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff  
The ultra-Orthodox organization Yad L'Achim has long been a thorn in the side of Israel's Messianic Jewish community. Sometimes more than a thorn - Jack Teitel, the Jewish terrorist who almost killed Messianic youth Ami Ortiz, is believed to have strong ties to the group.
Now Yad L'Achim is targeting a blossoming Messianic community in the coastal city of Bat Yam. The local edition of the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot reported earlier this month that Yad L'Achim had received many complaints from residents upset about receiving "missionary material."
According to the article, local Messianic believers had visited homes in the area to share their faith. Yad L'Achim backers quoted in the piece also took offense at the reported recent founding of a new Messianic congregation, which they tried to paint as a "cult-ish" and "secretive" enterprise.
"We have a problem dealing with this issue, because the meetings take place in a private residential home in one of the apartment buildings so that naturally the activity there is very hidden and secretive," said one rabbi.
Oded Raban, a local Messianic Jew, refuted such nonsense, telling the paper that “there is nothing inappropriate in the [Messianic community's] activities ... [there is] no truth in the claims that we behave in an underhand manner. And if it comes across that way, the only reason is that we face such extreme antagonism, that it doesn’t leave us with many options.”
Raban reiterated what many other Messianic Israelis have stressed before:
"We have tens of thousands of believers in this country, and we are all citizens of this state. We are loyal to it, serve in the army, give to it, but our worldview is slightly different from other Jews’, and for that reason, other Jews see us as an anomaly. We, as our Jewish brothers, believe in God and see Him as the center of everything in this world."