Renewed Hope

A New Focus

This morning while I was before the Lord and was talking to Him about the responsibility we have for all the aborted babies and this pressure that is arising in this nation to increase the availability of abortion right up to and after birth, He spoke to my heart and said. 

" Look at your own heart. How often have you killed people with your tongue and even now Christians are profaning abortionists and those who have abortions rather than crying out on their behalf and interceding for them? How often have you killed your neighbor with negativity and spoken against the president or governor or those serving your nation in the Congress?  The root of division in this nation is rooted in the failure of My people to come to repentance for their own sins. How often have you killed your pastor or other people in the body of Christ with your tongue and if you were good enough to keep your tongue did you in your heart speak that which is not in alignment with what I say about those people? "


I admit that I am much prompted this morning in my conversation with the Lord by the recent prophetic message R. Loren Sanford sent out in two parts...not what came out in the email today, though it too is powerful and focused on the responsibility we have as  His people to humble ourselves, and seek His face and pray.....and turn from our wicked ways.

I admit when I see the force of division rising across this nation that I am often bewildered. I live in Washington State where a potential candidate, who is himself from the left, is determining whether to run in the next presidential election. I see daily the division that is present in the news out of Seattle. Sadly, Truth is never the issue, but whether or not one side can "win".  And yet the Lord calls me to repentance for my own propensity to "compete,"  to get attention rather than in obedience and love to serve one another. There is no repentance for the nation and the state or my family or friends unless first I deal with my own issues. Then I can intercede and repent in various ways for corporate situations.

Several years ago I listened to one of those nationwide calls for prayer when people around the nation called in via some kind of connection so we all heard the individual prayers.Throughout that time of many prayers, there was NO call for repentance, no repenting only praying for and praying against. Another group I have frequently been apart of easily try to bind various forces in the name of Jesus, again without any sense of humbling ourselves or seeking His face about what He is doing.
And I do realize that they, like me, really have not been open to being taught the way of the Lord as it relates to these issues.

I wonder also about healing in the body of Christ and how it is related to personal and corporate repentance? How often do we pray for healing for fellow Christians according to our doctrine or biblical pattern, without spending time "humbling ourselves and seeking His face?"  Do we know what His  perfect  plan for that person is and what the perfect timing is? Have we bothered to seek His Face knowing we are so prone to operate out of patterns and teaching rather than by the Spirit of the Lord?

I was reading something this morning and it spoke of being more sensitive to the move of the Spirit of the Lord.  Oh how I long for that and am praying into that.  It is so easy for me to do what is "right" avoid what is "wrong" or   do "what I'm supposed to" without regard for what He is doing as revealed by His Spirit.  I agree with what  R. Loren Sanford mentioned this morning in his Prophetic Moments:...I don't need "revival"  I need awakening...need the dead areas of my thinking illuminated with His Light, the Light of His love for me and for this world.
Last night my husband and I watched an old movie about some priests in Ireland. The lead actor..the leading priest made the comment that "at The End  the only thing that will matter is LOVE."  Now he was not speaking about a ooey   gooey feeling or emotion but that deliberate choice to honor and treat people with the care and concern that Father has shown us in Christ Jesus!! And he was struggling with his own failure to love like that!  We too  wuxas Christians are often as guilty of  such perversion in 2019 as the world. Yet we easily rail against the rise of such pouf as if we somehow were better than that!
It is time we wake up as believers in Christ Jesus, and let His light shine upon us and within us......His glory shining upon us will illuminate in us what we can't or haven't chosen to see...and in the light of that Love, we will be free to let go of the guilt and shame that has held us in attitudes and behaviors that keep His love from being seen in this increasingly dark and chaotic world.
Meri Ford   February 1, 2019