(April 7, 2010)

Prayer House News!

No Mid week classes today because it's Family Week. Family week is meant to give you some extra time with your own family or with others. Take advantage of it and do some fellowshipping.

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I Desire Mercy

continued from yesterday

David Ravenhill and I were talking once about the various ministries he has been involved in which include the Kansas City Prophets, with Mike Bickel, the Toronto Blessing, the laughing revival, The Pensacola Revival, which many of us are familiar with. One of the major “prophets” from Kansas City fell morally a few years back. Ravenhill was telling me that his moral issues were in his life for many years and during that time he watched God use him in marvelous ways. We would look at that and say – why would God use a man like that. The only answer that works here is; mercy.

Matthew 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Revivals end result is the lost coming to Christ. Keep in mind that when we read about what Jesus did on earth – we read about the Pharisees and kind of smile at how Jesus put them in their place and yet today – we who have the spirit of Christ dwelling in us and who are supposedly the “spiritual ones,” find ourselves struggling with the same things the Pharisees did.

Our problems with mercy come forth in our false humility when we say things like; “How could God use a person like that?” When we say things like that we are saying in essence; “I could see God using me – but why would he use that person?”

Do you see how we don’t understand mercy? We think people need to earn the right to be used of God. Did God use Balaam’s donkey because it was a more worthy donkey than all the others? Mercy is unmerited favor with God.
When the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners his response was; “I came to bring mercy to men and to do away with the regulations of the law. I desire mercy not sacrifice.”
If you have any degree of similarity to the teachers of the law in the NT then you too will struggle with revival because God will be using people that we might not think should be used.
The law struggles with mercy. The law is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The law believes that everything should be in order before God will bless. But really that is a philosophy that does not come from anything Jesus teaches. That is the former way of thinking or you could call them the basic principles of this world.

continued tomorrow

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Medication: A Merry Heart

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.

I asked for a half dozen nuggets. 'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the teenager at the counter.

'You don't?' I replied.

'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply.

'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?'

'That's right.' So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

(Unbelievable but sadly true...)