The need for changes in our church services becomes more evident every day. We will experience these changes by waiting on the Lord and by interceding to see the true apostolic vision for God’s Kingdom brought forth.
It is possible to follow patterns of intercession and worship that brought former changes, and still miss today’s goal that God has in mind.
Intercession and worship should be the adequate spiritual stimulus for a breakthrough to God.
In our services we must be free and maintain our liberty in Christ, but some impose their liberty upon others. The way we worship as a body of believers is different, than how we worship at home.
But some worship in a church service in a way that draws attention to themselves. Such freedom can be oppressive to the new believer, and it falls short of the fullness of the Lord.
We should consider newcomers rather than please ourselves. If we follow a form of intensity in a church service without being truly intense toward God, those who are going through deep problems may be torn up instead of opened up. If they are not shown enough love, they may leave. If we start to drift into such a pattern, let us change immediately.
ENCOUTERING GOD
It is easy to miss an encounter with God by following a habit pattern, but we must encounter Him. We are to touch Him. We are to be lost in His presence. Waiting on the Lord must have priority. We must have meetings with Him and encounter Him in our worship and intercession.
A brokenness in our spirits must come forth. It is always a dangerous sign when people are not weeping, with their hearts tender and reaching into the Lord.
There should never be a service in which we fail to meet God. People will see the physical surroundings more than they will feel God if we slip into religious ruts.
Let us always keep open and flexible to change, because the Lord will search our hearts today concerning that which was right a month ago.
During difficult times of facing problems together, we are driven to work, to pray, and to believe for breakthroughs together. Then it is good for us to express our liberty in ingenious ways of intense intercession to constantly reach higher into God.
But after we achieve a spiritual breakthrough, we may slip into a routine of intercession. We become conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs, which were scientifically conditioned to drool when a bell sounded that was related to the time when they were fed.
We become conditioned to seek blessings in a particular manner. The first time we met God, certain things happened. After we have met Him in certain ways, we become conditioned to believe that if we act that same way again, we will automatically meet God.
This does not necessarily follow. This is the danger that happened to some of the denominations. They went through particular mechanics, thinking they were going to receive a blessing.
Later they fainted spiritually because they sought the blessing more than the Blesser. They had developed systems and patterns to follow without having the communion and oneness with the Lord. Let us not allow any former way that we have moved in God to become an empty pattern.
When we face difficult situations together which require strict disciplines, a harshness may come into our relationships. Although we may need rules in order to have the best ways of working together, we also need a greater flow of love among us.
Our love for one another is more effective when we touch God. Our burdens must be mingled with His love. Even our personal family relationships must not fall into patterns. We need to relate to each other as God’s servants, rather than for our personal needs and benefits. After a spiritual relationship is established between members of a family, they need not be austere toward one another; they need only to keep their relationship right.
When a husband and wife make special efforts to see a oneness created, it may be a time of real discipline. They may establish their oneness with fear and trembling, mingled with their love. Afterward their oneness should not be neglected, but the tender disciplines produce a way of life that is close and filled with communion.
Intense expressions of intercession have thrust us into a new dimension of God’s Kingdom. Intensity is not an end in itself, and it is not meant to be a pattern. It is a means to project us into the presence of the Lord and to keep us there.
Intense intercession for its own sake is ineffective. Our focus must be on reaching the Lord. Let us have such a flow of love in the house of the Lord that the newcomer sees brokenness and tears as we wait before the Lord and love Him. Let us be a people whose basic focus is to adore the Lord and to worship Him.
Today’s end-time move of God began with a focus on worship. Then our worship developed into a pattern in which nearly everyone could sing psalms well. But there were times when God could not be found in the worship because we had developed a form. If we had continued in the same pattern of worship, we would have rapidly become another denomination like other movements. God stopped us. He inspired intense intercession. Then we focused on intercession. But even what God inspires will be a problem if it becomes a pattern without His presence. Now we are again focusing on worship. Let us change in our worship. Many of the songs that we sing are fine, but they should not be the whole of our worship service. There is not enough depth in them so that people can really reach in and touch the Lord. We learn our songs too well. At first, they are wonderful; we are blessed by them. Then they become a pattern. Everyone soon knows how to sing along with the instruments without meeting God.
The problems with our ruts are not of God’s doing. He gave us the means to get out of them and out of ourselves to meet Him. If our past worship and intercession had been all God-oriented, we all would be in a greater liberated state. No pattern of intercession is effective without our breaking through to touch God. We must touch Him. We have failed in our worship service unless we touch Him.
I grew in the Lord singing certain songs, but I no longer meet God in those songs. So I would look for new artist and found that some artists are merely showing off. There is not the presence of God in in what they sing. They have memorized them too perfectly. People tend to work things down into a groove. We must break loose from this tendency, in order to have a tender walk with God.
We are missing a walk with God if all we are doing is taking care of church business in certain areas. These are not the prime objectives. They are only side issues that God wants done, but we strive to see the house of God filled with His glory.
THE CHURCH SERVICE
People will meet the Lord in our services because His presence is with us. His anointing is with us to minister to them. Breakthroughs have already happened. We are moving in God, and we have moved along with a growing capacity to see our need.
Our awareness of the Lord and His overwhelming presence is the only way to effectively change. We come to services to change, but any patterns and programs that we use will not necessarily effect those changes.
People are met in services because God meets them, not because our methods reach them. God has truly blessed us: the family spirit prevails among us, and we are able to adapt ourselves to each other; people come for God to meet them, and then we see them walk in one step after another together. God has met us, but we can miss what He wants to give us now.
We must bring God’s presence into every service. We do not need a pattern to break through to God; we need a broken spirit. Intercession and worship services should be well-executed, but they are mechanical unless our spirits break before the Lord. Brokenness ought to be in all that we do.
Let a strong conviction be in your spirit to press into the presence of the Lord in every service. Stop and analyze everything you do. If you are not meeting God, do what will help you break through to Him.
This is the way you will change. Changes come, not through a pattern of intercession or of waiting on the Lord only to get answers, but because you are exposed to His presence. If anything becomes a mechanic toward a certain goal, and you are not meeting God, beware of it.
In the wilderness, Moses made a bronze serpent. The people who had been bitten by snakes were healed when they looked at it (Numbers 21:9). It was a good means of touching God, but the people continued looking at that brazen serpent even when no snakes were biting them. The people made it an idol to which they burned incense for hundreds of years until finally it was broken down and destroyed by Hezekiah (II Kings 18:4).
The second time you do something, it is easier and more mechanical. If you drive to and from a certain place often, you soon know every turn without giving it a conscious thought. If someone were to ask you what happened along the way, what you saw, or how many different streets you took, you probably would not remember because you drove by habit. Likewise, every time you do something that you did in a previous service, you are in danger of producing a rut by going through certain motions. We must constantly fight against becoming mere creatures of habit.
THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR AWARENESS OF THE LORD
These are the days of our awareness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the days of the Parousia, His presence. Let us do more than set up a few little ways of getting things done. Let us stand in His presence, like Elijah, who declared that he stood in the presence of the Lord (I Kings 17:1). This was Elijah’s focus. What about all the secret keys he knew? Amazingly, Elijah had no set pattern for his miracles. He performed them out of a spontaneous revelation from the Lord.
Some Christian healers will send you a handkerchief anointed with oil if you send them money. What did Jesus do?
In John 5:19 we read that Christ did what He saw the Father doing.
Mark 7:33 tells us that He put His saliva on a man’s tongue and healed him, enabling the man to speak plainly.
In John 9:6 we read that He spit on the ground and made a clay which He put on a blind man’s eyes and healed him. Jesus did things that no one wants to make a pattern of. But He performed a miracle that brought glory to the Father each time. There was a release every time. He never set up a pattern for anyone to follow.
Today we do not put clay on a blind man’s eyes and tell him to find his way to a pool to wash. When Jesus moved, religious patterns and habitual ruts were broken. The Pharisees followed the letter of the Law, but they missed God.
Let us fight the patterns of Babylon that make ritualistic religions instead of a contact and walk with God. In our thinking and in our worship we must be delivered from Babylonian ways completely, so that we do not create another Babylon ourselves.
Our hearts’ cry must be to meet the Lord. Let us approach every service in faith that God is with us. During our intercession and worship we should always feel the presence of the Lord and be ready for changes.
The Lord is preparing us for an outreach to the world, bringing multitudes into His presence. Rather than seeking new methods, we should desire the overwhelming presence of the Lord in the services.
There is a reproach against the liberty of today’s New Testament church service. When people come to a service, they will be reached only by the presence of the Lord. I wonder if God intended that we would win people by the methods that we use. Is not His anointing in the services and on His Word that we speak the only influence we have? We must transmit His Word under the anointing to the people. We are privileged, beyond any generation, to have the Living Word committed to us and to have the potential of the Parousia, His presence, in every service.
Seek the Word of the Lord. Seek His face. Prepare to step a little closer into His presence. Seek for a brokenness in your spirit. The Lord is pleased when His people weep before Him, broken but still reaching to Him with intense faith. “Help us to have more love for Thee, O Lord, and more faith in Thee!” Believe for this in every service, and there will be breakthrough after breakthrough. It is always an effort to do this, but we must be ready for changes. Let us expand until we embrace, in a service, as if interwoven in a fabric, all that God has wrought among us. What a thrill and a wonder it is to hear the Living Word come and to see everyone participating with faith to flow in the Word.
A new way of services is coming. The principles of the Kingdom are being laid out, and they are very different. How difficult it is to unlearn something after you have done it for a long time. It is much easier to learn it right the first time.
After we have broken through to new concepts, newcomers will meet God without having to unlearn old ways. They will enter into deeper worship. But later on, they too will have their own problems of falling into ruts and patterns. This is the same basic problem that we all fight. We will always fall into ruts if we do not seek the presence of the Lord.
The presence of the Lord is always an issue. You must bring His presence into your work. All that you do must be done in the Lord. Reading and listening to the Living Word will help you to worship and practice the presence of the Lord.
Your relationships with others will be problematic if your relationship is not with the Lord first. You cannot automatically create a oneness with another person except in the Lord, by first reaching out to be one with Him. Then your relationship is at ease, overcoming any offense in your thinking about each other. Oneness with another then comes on a higher plane where it is effective.
Doctrines should not be an issue; rather, let our communication in love be the issue. If we are of one heart, the world will know that God sent Christ into our midst to manifest His very presence through us. God plans to do something on the earth through us, but it will not happen automatically. We will manifest only as much of God as we focus on Him. As a brokenness settles upon us, the Lord’s blessing and anointing will also be upon us. It will not diminish if we keep hungering after Him.
The first two rungs of a ladder are not much to worry about; if you fall, hopefully you will not be hurt. But a fall from the top could be serious. A mountain climber must be careful that every step is the right one. So, also, as we come into sonship, every step that we make should be absolutely led by the Spirit of the Lord. Let us come into services asking the Lord, “What do You want? We want to meet You!” Then let us move into a flow of worship, singing songs which have been carefully selected according to what the Lord wants, rather than because they have a good beat.
In our services, the emphasis should be on that which brings us into the awesome presence of the Lord. People must meet God in the services.
Let us seek to live in the presence of God like the men of God in the Old Testament who had outstanding qualifications. In Exodus 33:11, we read that Joshua “departed not out of the Tabernacle.” In verse 18 Moses prayed, “Show me Thy glory.” After being in the presence of the Lord, he came out veiled when he faced the people. Samuel continually waited on the Lord, and everywhere he went schools of prophets came forth. For hundreds of years afterward, the school of prophets was still a dominant force.
How does a prophet come forth? A prophet does not instinctively know how to do certain things and follow certain methods. Above all, a prophet has to be open to know the Lord and to know His Word. Let us have this goal.
Our worship and intercession will become “as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal,” unless we flow in God’s love and take another step in Him. It is dangerous not to take that next step, just as it is also dangerous to fall back. If we flow in love, then everything we have gained and moved in will be effective. We must love and become a family in God. Faith and love and obedience are qualities that can grow, and God is demanding growth.
The apostle Paul said, “Your faith grows exceedingly, and you abound in love” (II Thessalonians 1:3). With faith in your heart, believe that what you have will increase. Use enough faith to ask God for more faith. You have enough love to start with, and it will grow as you use it. Stand in God’s presence. Believe Him. Love Him. Break through to Him. Remember that you come to services to meet God. When you meet God, you become aware that many of your problems were divinely imposed on you to fence you in, so that you would start seeking Him. He provokes you to seek Him by putting you in a corner.
God grant that we will love Him so much that He will not have to put us in a corner before we seek Him with all of our heart, that not only in the midst of troubles will we be crying the prayers that reach Him. God grant that out of the midst of blessings we will worship Him. Abraham walked with God. He was always making an altar, always worshiping God—not because of trouble, but because he loved God.
Whether we have problems or not, let us come to services to meet God. Let us leave our problems in His hands. The closer you come to God, the more your problems will melt away. Problems loom up and become oppressive according to your relative distance from God. The further you walk afar off, the more susceptible you are to other problems. The night Jesus was betrayed, Peter followed afar off. Soon he denied the Lord, swearing, “I do not know Him” (Matthew 26:74). Peter never believed that this would happen.
If you follow afar off, you will get into trouble. Under pressure you could be shaken from your walk with God if you are walking too far from Him. Things will go wrong for you until you stand in His presence. All you need is to draw into His presence, and your problems and barriers will relatively diminish. I used to think that I had a list of questions to ask God if I could ever really talk to Him. Then one day I stood in His presence, and I was no longer questioning.
Set your heart to draw near to the Lord. Set your mind and your spirit to work as usual, but believe that it will be different today. Stand in His presence. Break through to His plan for you today. Though you may pray about many needs, let it not be the same. Press into God. Approach Him with all your heart. Fall on your face before Him. Renew a broken, contrite heart. Tenderly wait before Him. Walk in His will with grace.
When the Lord sets certain things for us to do, our greatest breakthroughs come in the obedience to His commands. We set our hearts to do what He wants. It does not matter whether we evaluate them as great spiritual works. If we are obedient in every little instance, we will abide in His love; and even our family spirit will become stronger.
You will love as deeply as you determine to love. You will walk just as close to God as you determine in your heart. Yours is the initiative to approach God. Humble yourself before Him and be determined to walk in His ways. Do not submit to your weaknesses; submit to His strength. Do not submit to failures or habits or tendencies to slip into ruts and patterns that are without life. Submit rather to the eternal, manifested presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Aggressively approach the Parousia, His presence, as being attainable in this hour. The presence of the Lord shall fill His house. Aggressively say, “Lord, we bring Your presence into this house. We draw You into our midst.”
Set yourself to love in God. Walk in more of God. Start experiencing and walking in what He has given you. Do not let one Word fall to the ground. Walk in it. Love it. Become that Word.
More of God has been committed to us in this day than to any other generation. But we will not necessarily have more until we determine to walk in all of it. Some people have had very little of God in their denomination, and yet they walk in all that they can. Let us also seek to walk in all that has been committed to us. Let us walk in His Word. As we keep His commandments and abide in His love, the house of the Lord will be saturated with His presence. The further we are from this goal, the more friction, bitterness, frustration, criticism, and failure will increase in our lives. Let us walk close to Him and to one another.