How Do I Enter In And Receive God’s Presence & Healing More Deeply In And Through Intercessory Prayer ?
Chef’s Menu For Today
Prayer Meditation
A Prayer to Overcome Defilement
As we come before the Father to pray through Scriptures relating to David’s Covenant and the issues surrounding defilement, we are mindful that The Father’s desire for us to come into His presence, to wait to hear His Voice and commune with Him. He delights in us also sharing our heart with Him, and hearing our voice praising Him and trusting Him with an open and soft heart.
Let us Pray Ps 95:6-11
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Beloved let us enter into the Rest of the Lord by Faith and NOT resist His invitation:
Isa 30:15-16
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
Matt 11:28-30 Jesus called to His disciples as He calls to us all now…..
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Beloved let us respond to Jesus calling us in this hour that He is purifying us as His Bride, for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done, which is for His Healing and Salvation to prevail. If we have gone through the deep trauma of defilement such as occurred to King David’s daughter Tamar, when she was raped by her elder half- brother Amnon, in 2 Samuel 13, often it is very hard to forgive. He had lusted after her and deceived her, then turned against her with hate, leaving her desolate. The trauma she and so many have experienced can be deep and intense. Too many times we bury it, and a bitter root can grow in our hearts, so when anger is triggered in us that causes negative words to spew out of our mouths, that results in the defilement of many.
In Heb 12:11-15, the writer speaks of the Lord’s desire that through hard trials, suffering and difficulties we will overcome with the peaceable fruit of righteousness by the Holy Spirit which needs to be a deliberate decision of our choice, founded on the word of God, acknowledging He is our Higher authority.
14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
Also, there are many in the church who have been hurt or their trust had sadly been abused, and many are sitting under false teachers who are being defiled by a false gospel.
Jesus spoke to the Pharisees in Matt 7:15 Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing , but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
Math 15 :17-19 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
If we are not able to forgive the evil and wrong done against us by receiving God’s Forgiveness and Grace to process through the trauma, then too often wounds in our spirit, emotional hurts and resentment in our soul can lead to long term unforgiveness and grief that keeps us trapped in offense.
So, let us pray for God’s forgiveness, grace and mercy to prevail, that we can turn to Jesus and humble ourselves before Him and be His disciples. Let us allow Him to enter into our hearts, like King David did in Ps 51, to show us the Truth in our inner most parts, to expose what is hidden under our masks and self-protections, so He can Heal and Restore our wounded hearts as we allow Jesus to guard them with His Peace. Phil 4:6-9
Psalm 51 a Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and David had let defilement spiritually enter into His family line:
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
. . . . . . .
Heb 13:20-21 Benediction and Blessing
20 Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
Ephesians 3:14-21 NKJV
14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.
Ima Odutola from: Light and Grace Ministries
To Listen to Ima’s Message and Prayer on “I’m Blessed And Can Not Be Cursed” via YouTube: Click Here
Anchor Scripture:
Numbers 23:20 Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.
A Prayerful Meditation with Olivia Helmore
New Wine and Oil Meditation
Receiving the Lord’s Remedy for our Defilement
What does defilement say?
This week we are going to receive together Jesus’ healing remedy for defilement.
Defilement comes in because of unrepented for or unforgiven transgressions. It feels like being broken down, with no comfort. We may be influenced by the defilement of another. When someone has been used unrighteously for someone else’s gain, defilement springs up.
Defilement says: I am no good for anything anymore; there is no good thing left for me.
There’s both the act of defilement and the state of defilement. We may have an experience of being defiled by another, or we may be influenced by the defilement of another in our family. We may be influenced by the defiling actions of someone else, or we may have defiled another, consciously or unconsciously.
The state of defilement is the hangover from the actions of defilement. In this state, we feel there is no hope left; justice seems very far away; we cannot see a way back to wholeness. All transgression is defiling, because we were made to live in wholeness and purity all our days with God, nothing interrupting our righteous communion with Him.
God is very near to the brokenhearted. We may not see very clearly those parts of us still ruled by defilement. Because defilement says we must hide our face.
The time to stand
There comes a time when we must stand in the victory of Jesus. The time when we commit to stand by faith in the purity of the redemption story He is writing through us and for us. We may still feel broken down from transgressions we’ve witnessed. Yet the gifts of forgiveness and repentance are ours to exercise, to secure the freedom He purchased on our behalf.
How do forgiveness and repentance relate to defilement? Forgiveness in Jesus’ way is a choice and action in our heart posture towards a person. As followers of Jesus, we understand the forgiveness of our sins was and is a gift for which we could give nothing in exchange except our lives and our love.
God purchased the right to forgiveness on our behalf. He made an exchange with Himself. The Son gave his life to secure our access to forgiveness. When I forgive someone, in my heart I commit to the person’s highest good, that they would know the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord towards them in their sins. This includes full acknowledgement of the hurt and wrongs against us but includes the crucial decision to release the final judgement over them to the Lord, knowing if they are confronted with their sin and God’s mercy, Jesus’ forgiveness extends to them also.
We claim by faith forgiveness on their behalf, knowing that God will work all things for our good and His plans for us to give us hope and a future. When we turn our hearts to forgive, when we’ve been defiled by another, sometimes this is our most important, needed act of repentance – of changing our minds.
Sometimes God says it is now time for you to overcome the power of transgression in your life through applying faith in the victory of Jesus over the consequence of others’ sin in your life.
Though we may not have been responsible for years of loss and pain and grief for things we suffered through no fault of our own, God wills for us to stand, and He is able to revive us.
What keeps us from entrusting our defilement to Jesus?
Sometimes we just haven’t known God amid our deepest pain and brokenness. We might distract ourselves from going through that suffering again. We might feel entitled to resist the Lord humbling us to the point of allowing Him to lead us through the valley of the shadow of death. And our wrong judgements about God’s heart towards us might be preventing us from drawing near to Him in our grief.
Many of us identify with a performance mindsight, and this is baked into our practical theology. Growing up, our parents may not have encouraged us to entrust our brokenness to the Father. So we go around assuming what is needed: to hide our shame, to not speak of others’ defiling actions or ways we’ve defiled ourselves through submitting to unclean seductions or pursuing false comforts.
God doesn’t need our righteousness. He needs us to know He is trustworthy, and He wants us to give Him our shattered hearts and see what He will do to restore us in His time. Though others have transgressed our vulnerability, our innocence and God-given dignity, the Lord is willing to heal our incurable wound.
Sometimes our sins have so accumulated we feel we have no right to approach God and ask Him for the remission of our sins. Yet who are we to say that any sin committed against us or by us can stand between us and the love of God.
We must cast down the mindset which makes an idol of our suffering, saying it is more powerful than the One who redeemed us from the grave.
How does the Lord will to transform our defilement?
Defilement entered in with shame, blame and condemnation. We may have taken the shame, blame and condemnation of someone else and lived like it was ours to carry. But the mercy of the Lord lifts all shame, blame and condemnation from others’ defiling actions off our shoulders and replaces it with His easy yoke that says: to Him are all things and His heart is towards us.
He will do the thing we cannot on our own behalf. He will redeem what can be restored from our past and He will build anew the things He has in mind for us. He has prepared beforehand the good works that we should walk in and He says greater things will we do, because He is with the Father now, and His Holy Spirit is shed abroad in our hearts, uniting us as He was with the Father so all men may know, as they see we are one in Him, that He is Lord and all things belong to Him; all things answer to Him.
No transgression is more powerful than His redeeming love on our behalf. His love is jealous to secure our victory over the power of transgression in our lives. He remembers the things we dare not even recall. The pain we cannot bear to witness again in our hearts, He has reckoned with.
He emerged victorious, having taken on Himself the load of all transgressions; of all unclean seductions; of all defiling actions, to us and through us. He knows the state of the heart of man, that of ourselves we can do nothing to redeem what was lost through sin.
We are far from hopeless now – we have the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. He has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And it is good for us to be satisfied in Him as we partake in the daily bread of His Word for us. It is good for us to partake and satisfy ourselves in Him, to rejoice and be glad for the good news that He has secured the victory.
Each time we receive His Word to us afresh, all things are made new; He renews our sight, He revives our body, He redeems our past, and nothing is too dark. Nowhere is too dark for Him to encounter us.
Confessing the Word
He knit us all in our mother’s womb and every hair on our head is numbered. At the cross, Jesus accounted not only for the sins of our past, but also paid the ransom price for our futures. He accounted for all things we would need to mature in love, hope and faith as one body submitted to Him, restored to Him.
There is room in His heart for each one. So let there be room in our hearts for one another. Lord, help us to agree with you in making room for one another in our hearts, that when we come, needing grace, feeling bereft, grieving in a state of defilement, without comfort, that we are a safe people, as You are, for the broken to come and lay down their burdens at Your feet for You wear the Victor’s crown.
Your enemies scatter. The darkness scatters before You. You gather Your people to praise You with one voice. Though You were tempted with all manner of unclean seductions the enemy had to offer, You resisted and overcame.
The enemy had nothing in You. Because You lived as a perfect Man, the sacrifice You offered to the Father was sufficient to ransom all men, should they receive You by faith. There is nothing which can stand in the way of Your love for us if we turn to You and ask You to help us change our minds… if we release others from the burden of having to restore us when only You can.
Lord, thank You for the principles of Your kingdom: justice, mercy and humility; that all of these work together. Though there is a part to play for us in seeing that justice is done in Your way in this earth, Your mercy and humility are our hedge, covering and protection, from so fearing suffering that we defile others, by refusing to repent or forgive in our own hearts.
Lord, You said that You came to seek and save what was lost. You said You came to save the world, not condemn it. Help us to believe. Help us to abandon ourselves to You, knowing that You can redeem the worst things that have happened. Only You can.
Lord, would You take the reins of justice from our hands, and cause us to do the works that You have prepared beforehand that we should do. Would You remove every distraction, even if it comes bearing the resemblance of a good work. Would You remove every excuse in our hearts we find not to enter into the fellowship of Your suffering.
Lord, past hurts cannot keep us from the victory of Your love and truth on our behalf. Would You restore the good report of Your complete victory over our sin, so that our mouths bear the fruit of Your kingdom; our hearts believe in the goodness of Your plans; and our ears are ready to receive the witness and testimony of Your perfect grace in our family’s lives.
Would You keep us from being a stumbling block to others by any means, through our own unforgiveness or unrepentance. Would You help us to entrust the darkest places in our heart to Yours, knowing that You are able to carry us to the very end, and You will restore us as You lead us day by day to the place You are preparing for us.
Thank You Lord for the things ahead. We know no mind has seen, no ear has heard, the things You are preparing for us. Your promises to us are good and You alone in all heaven and earth are as good as Your Word.
Lord, help us to receive the gift of faith in our hearts. Help us to apply it well. Help us to contend with You for the fulfilment of Your promises for us today, in the midst of temptations to turn aside, to comfort ourselves with less than what You have for us.
Help us to believe that Your heart of rest is for us and that we are allowed to cease from our own works. You long for us to enter into Your rest. You sat down at the right hand of the Father, having finished the power of transgression at the cross. Your sacrifice was sufficient.
We have access to the rest You have secured; to the peace You secured through Your victory. Help us to appropriate Your victory to every broken-down part of us which says its wound is incurable.
Would You release us from the grief of being broken down. Would You release us from the shame, blame and condemnation of others’ defiling actions, of our own defiling actions.
May we seek forgiveness where we need to. May the posture of our heart be ever open to exercising the gifts of forgiveness and repentance.
May You build us up, restore our minds, and open our hearts to convey the goodness of Your kingdom, available now to everyone willing to open the door of their hearts to the One who stands and knocks.
Thank You for visiting our hearts, for communing with us, for removing the veil from the eyes of our spirit man so we can perceive the sufficiency of Your sacrifice, the completeness of Your victory, and the unsurpassed hope You secured for us and our future.
We commit the ways of our heart to You. We humble ourselves before You, knowing You alone can redeem what was broken through transgressions.
We ask You to cleanse the temple of our bodies, that the living waters that proceed from within us will truly make salty waters fresh, as befits Your people.
Help us become worthy stewards of our calling in You, that we can minister well to others broken down because of unrighteous seductions.
Lord all things in the world are passing away: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Let none of these be found in us. May their secret hiding places be found out, and all roots of bitterness dug out from the garden of our hearts.
Lord, please remove from us the complaint against You, of why did You lead us out of Egypt only to cause us to continually struggle now.
Lord, mature us to the point of evermore complete dependence and trust in You.
Our inheritance as sons and daughters of the Most High King is to do Your works, receive Your words, go where You are. Help us to rejoice in the part You have given each one.
Help us to bear with one another as we contend for the fulfilment of Your promise in our lives, as we contend to know for ourselves the victory You secured over the power of transgression in our life.
Help us to count no one beyond the manifestation of Your victory in their lives.
Lead us by Your still waters and guard us as we entrust ourselves to You, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
You are the One who gives songs by night. The things we could not bear You have borne in Yourself and You have borne the cost of redeeming us from the transgressions of our past and restoring us to evermore abundant living according to Your good purpose for us and the world.
Help us to know and receive Your peace, which comes after the vanquishing of our enemy, which You have finished. Help us to steward this peace, to express it, to shine it forth as a light on a hill, conveying the good news, that there is One who has reckoned with the cost of restoring all from defilement.
Your Word over us is final. Help us to hear, receive, believe and confess, not being ashamed of the cross, but praising the One who has called us near and given us His righteousness as a garment that covers our nakedness and makes us fit for the wedding feast of the Lamb and the bride, His people who have made themselves ready through walking in the good works He has prepared beforehand that we should walk in.
We are all Yours. The earth is all Yours. All power is Yours. Without You we can do nothing so help us to abide. Wash us clean with Your Word and purge us by the refining fire of Your Spirit, that we should not be disqualified, or build in vain, through refusing the gift of Your healing for our defilement.
We commend our suffering to You because You have known it all already and considered us precious enough to die in our place. Would Your Word bear much fruit in our lives to the glory of our Father and would You help us turn many to righteousness.
Help us to know Your gift of righteousness in exchange for our defilement, from the inside out, that we may be safe stewards of the Word, to deliver the good news of Your freedom to Your sheep in season and out of season.
Thank You for calling us by name. Thank You for causing us to recognise Your voice. Thank You for choosing us and causing us to receive Your kingdom as children, secure in the knowledge You are trustworthy and though sin be found in the heart of every man, You cannot deny Yourself. You are Faithful and True. You are the remedy we need and always needed for the transgression and defilement we’ve committed and experienced. Even so, Lord Jesus, let it be in our lives, Amen.
Ps Jeff’s Special Today: “Neglect of the poor”
You and I are to turn from this failure to reach out to the poor and repent if this is an issue. Paul cites in Galatians 2:10 how he, James, Peter and John, supporting him, also wished to give to the poor: “They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing that I was eager to do.” This is followed in Ephesians 4: 28: ” Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”
Being candid with yourself and the Holy Spirit, is this neglect of the poor an old issue needing to be confessed? And then repented of ? Do you think His Word is only for the disciples 2,000 years ago? Do you have any residue of a residue of neglecting the poor as an issue for such a time as this? Was it connected to your upbringing as a child? Was it a family pattern in any way?
God bless you as you seek His Holy Spirit Wisdom and Comfort on this issue. May you go forward on His path, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1).
