fasting2011

A Relationship and Not a Formula

There are several things that we can use to enhance the anointing in our lives. Let me say, at the outset of this chapter, the anointing is not a formula; it is a relationship.

 Many are trying to imitate other great men of God. They want to walk their walk and talk their talk, but not out of a relationship with Jesus. They try to use it as a means to have God’s anointing manifest in their lives. For example, some ministers hold a healing meeting so they can have a crowd, not so that they can get people healed.  That’s the wrong motive for wanting to see miracles take place.

 I remember talking to individuals who wanted what Smith Wigglesworth had. They studied his life and found out that Smith Wigglesworth used to wake up at four o’clock in the morning and have communion. Then he would pray for three hours. So they began to do the same. But after a little while, they would wake up late in the morning, realizing that they had fallen asleep, instead of praying.

 This action was based on a formula and not a relationship. It is important to realize that Smith Wigglesworth did not do all of those things in order to have miracles in his life. He had a relationship with the Lord, and then out of his relationship, he ministered and the miracles were the result.

 The Bible says, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Can people tell that you have been with Jesus lately? What Peter and John had was not based on a formula, but rather a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 A Person, Not a Language

I think one of the biggest problems in many Pentecostal and charismatic circles is that people seek a language and not the Holy Spirit. First of all, the Holy Spirit is not a language; He’s a person. Jesus said to the disciples, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:59).  Some people think He said, “You will receive tongues.” What good is tongues without the power? We have many babbling believers today with very little power.

When He told them to tarry for the Holy Spirit, they didn’t know what they were waiting for. If there had come a knock on the door and someone walked in and said, “I am the Holy Spirit,” I am sure they would have welcomed that person and said, “Yes, Jesus said You were coming.”

But on the day of Pentecost, there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind. There appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire and it sat upon each of them. They were all filled with the Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. (See Acts 2:1-4.)   I want you to notice they were filled, then they spoke. They were filled first. Power was evident in their lives. You see, the early church had the substance and unfortunately, the latter church has the formula. Let’s get back to the substance, the tangibility, the heavenly materiality of what the early church had.

Having an Encounter with God

I believe if we would be used of God, we need to have an encounter with Him. Paul talked about how he had seen the Lord in the way. Moses had a burning bush experience. To be honest with you, so did everyone who has ever been used of God.

Job had an encounter with God at the end of his ordeal. God revealed Himself to Job, asking Job where he was when God laid the foundation of the earth. “Do you have a voice that can thunder like me?” God asked Job (Job 40:9). Job finally spoke to God. His words speak for many people, I think. He said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye seeth thee” (Job 42:5). It’s one thing to read the book; it’s another thing to meet the author of the book.

The Life of Prayer

First of all, what is prayer? Prayer is communication and it’s two ways. In many believers’ lives, prayer is a one-sided conversation. They pray, “Give me, give me.”  They are always asking.  Prayer for the believer should not be a religious ritual performed on a daily basis by a Christian who wants to attain a certain level of spirituality. It should be a daily fellowship with our heavenly Father out of love.

Good Morning Holy Spirit

 Benny Hinn

I literally shut myself away with the Word and the Spirit and absorbed what He had to offer like a sponge.  It took time, hundreds and hundreds of hours with the precious Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads your prayer life step by step.  With me, it did not happen on the first day, or the second, or the third.  It was at least six months before I was moving into the depths of prayer.

 The Holy Spirit must become alive to you.  Miss Kuhlman’s staff handpicked the people who sat in the front row because she wanted only positive, praying supporters right in front of her.  When Kathryn Kuhlman appeared, in an instant the atmosphere of that building became charged.  She would often say, “Please, don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, He’s all I’ve got.”  When Kathryn left the meeting, it seemed as though the power of HS left with her.

The change in my life took place when I began to treat the HS as a person.  I would say, “Good morning Holy Spirit!”  From that moment on the Bible took on a whole new dimension.  I would say, “Holy Spirit, show it to me in the Word.”  The Holy Spirit began to open the WOG up to me.

The HS drastically changed my life when I invited Him to be my personal friend.  To be my constant guide.  To take me by the hand and lead me “into all truth.”  The HS yearns for a lifelong relationship with you.  You’ll  learn volumes about people  when you meet them in person.  Salvation transformed me as a person.  But the Spirit had a tremendous effect on my Christian walk. 

As I began to know the HS, I became sensitive to Him and learned what grieves Him and what pleases Him.  What He likes, what He doesn’t like.  What gets him angry and what makes Him happy.  I would keep saying, “Holy Spirit I want to know you.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God the Father and the Spirit of God the Son.  The Holy Spirit is the power of the Godhead - the power of the Trinity.  God the Father is the one who gives the command.  God the Son performs the commands of the Father.  The Holy Spirit is the power of God.  I cannot be in touch with the Father and with the Son without the Holy Spirit. 

The HS is the one who fellowships with us.  In fellowship, there are no requests or petitions in fellowship as there are in prayer.  The HS is the teacher of the Bible.  From my first encounter I would say, “lead me into all truth.”  Would you please show me what this Scripture means.  I must have the HS to accompany my ministry.  

The power became most evident to me when I began praying in my room - all alone.  Day after day, hour after hour, I lifted my hands and said, “Precious Holy Spirit, would You come now and just talk with me.”  As we talked I would say, “Holy Spirit, I love You and I long for Your fellowship.”  And I found out it was mutual.  He longed for my fellowship, too.

The HS is distinct in the Godhead.  He is tender.  He is sensitive.  But because Jesus gave Him to you and to me, He is not going to leave us.  The HS is a gentleman.  He doesn’t enter your room until you invite Him.  He doesn’t sit down until you ask Him.  And He doesn’t speak to you until you speak to Him.  You will never know His power; you will never know His presence until you go and sit beside Him and say, “Wonderful HS, tell me all about Jesus.”

When you know the Spirit, you will glorify Jesus Christ the Son of God because the HS within you will glorify God the Son.  It’s automatic. Only Jesus is glorified in a life that ‘s filled with the Spirit.  Every action of your life reflects what you fill your life with.  If you are filled with the Spirit and you absorb yourself in His presence, you will seek Jesus and glorify no one but Jesus.  The more you commune with Him, the greater Jesus becomes.   Begin by saying, “HS, help me pray now.”  Fully expecting Him to do it.

Three things happened when the HS entered my life.  (1) The WOG became absolute life to me.  The Scriptures became an adventure to me.  (2) My prayer life changed completely.  Gone were the hours of praying, yawning and repeating myself.  The HS and I were in conversation.  He made God real.  He gave me power & a boldness that made me feel ten feet tall.  (3) He transformed my daily Christian life.  What began to happen to me was not natural - it was supernatural.  The Spirit had taken over.  He began to baptize me with a love for people. 

How are you led by the Spirit?  You become familiar with His voice.  You recognize it.  You respond to it.   And the more you fellowship with Him, the deeper the relationship becomes.  I must understand that the HS is God.  The HS is the one who communicates heaven into your heart. The HS takes the voice of the Father and the Son and makes it quiet, lovely, and perfectly clear. 

There are seven meanings for the word communion.  (1) Presence (2) Fellowship (3) sharing together (4) participation with (5) intimacy (6) Friendship (7) Comradeship.   When I began my fellowship with the HS, I talked with Him day & night. Not a day passed that I did not say, “Holy Spirit.  Precious Holy Spirit.”  And we began our time of prayer and communication.

The HS is not a power.  He is a person.  (We pray God anoint me with the HS as if he is a power.)  I need to receive Him as a person.    If you neglect communicating with the HS just one day, it is harder the next time.  You will begin to break fellowship with the Lord.   Don’t let a day go by without a fresh surrender to the Lord.  How do you surrender?  It comes instinctively to a yielded heart. 

So many times I enter my room, lock the door; and just stand there with my arms raised toward heaven.  He knows I love Him; I know He loves me.  And I am waiting with open arms to receive Him.  Many times I stand in my room and don’t say a word.  I just stand there in silence.  Silence is often the best language there is.  When you are continually filled by the Spirit of God your prayer life takes on a dimension you never thought possible. 

There are seven distinct steps in prayer.  (1) Confession (2) Supplication (3) Adoration (4) Intimacy (5) Intercession (6) Thanksgiving (7) Praise.

It is impossible to move into intercession with a snap of the finger.  It does not come instantly because it is a partnership with God that requires a deep and intensely personal relationship.  The Holy Spirit leads your prayer life step by step.  With me, it did not happen on the first day, or the second, or the third.  It was at least six months before I was moving into the depths of prayer.  Scripture teaches that if we are faithful with the little things, God will give us more.  There is no substitute for the filling of the Spirit that comes as a direct result of your prayer life.  It is the power that will affect everything you do. 

I can tell you from personal experience that there comes a point where fellowship of the Spirit becomes so real, so deep, and so great that your words and actions conform to His words and actions.  I am convinced that there is a point in your relationship with the Spirit when the anointing becomes so heavy on you - His presence so close to you - that you can look up and see a vision of God.  A continuing communion with the Spirit makes the difference.  People are starving for a reality that only the HS makes possible.

The reason the church and so many people in it have become so defeated is that it has ignored the most powerful person in the universe - The Holy Spirit.  If you want the anointing of the Spirit to become evident in your life, it begins with an understanding of who He is, how He operates, and how you can enter into His fellowship.

I literally shut myself away with the Word and the Spirit and absorbed what He had to offer like a sponge.  It took time, hundreds and hundreds of hours with the precious Holy Spirit.  There is one thing I cannot do for you.  I cannot wave a spiritual wand over your head and place an anointing on you.  That only comes with a personal deep private encounter with the Spirit.  And it continues and grows with a fellowship and communion that only you can establish. 

I am not to pray to the HS. I can talk to Him.  The HS is the one who helps you.  Ask the HS to be your helper.  The more deeply you know the HS, the more deeply you will know Jesus.

http://www.daveroberson.org/books.aspx#

Summary From Books on Prayer

 John Lake 

John Lake was a man of prayer.  He not only spent time on his knees, but one of his favorite ways of communing with God was by walking and  praying.  He testified that some of his greatest victories came this way.   Perseverance in prayer was one of the things that characterized the life of Lake.  He believed in sticking with things until victory came.  He would pray for people (if needed) 16 to 20 hours plus.  Perseverance in prayer paid off.  Too many times people give up at the crucial moment. Lake would pray as many times as necessary to bring deliverance to a hurting person, whether the problem was physical or spiritual. 

To Lake, the power to pray through to victory was not something to be received and treated as a matter of course.  It often meant sleepless nights and battling with the hosts of unbelief.   Lake had known the need of nights of prayer, and whenever men have been willing to deny themselves their nights of sleep that they might abandon themselves to prayer, revival has followed.  God is looking for intercessors. 

The angel came to John and said, "Pray, pray, pray.  Teach the people to pray.  Prayer and prayer alone, much prayer, persistent prayer, is the door of entrance into the heart of God."   John Lake never sat down but that he had his Bible either in his hand or within reach.

Smith Wigglesworth 

His objective was to be in constant, unbroken communion with the Father. He had spent hours and days fervently seeking God in his early years,His life was a combination of incessant prayer and praise, but later,

 I was led to set aside certain hours of the day that I dedicated to God, as times of meditation, and prayer. Thus a number of months passed, until one morning as I knelt praying, the spirit of the Lord spoke within my spirit, and said, "Be patient until autumn." My heart rejoiced in this encouragement and I continued my practice of meditation and prayer as formerly.

I prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for nine months, and if a man ever prayed honestly, and sincerely in the faith, I did. Finally one day I was ready to throw up my hands, and quit. I said, 'Lord, it may be for others, but it is not for me. You just cannot give it to me.' I did not blame God.

An overwhelming desire to pray took possession of me. I wanted only to be alone to pray. Prayer flowed from my soul like a stream. I could not cease praying. As soon as it was possible to get to a place of seclusion, I would kneel to pour out my heart to God for hours. Whatever I was doing, that stream of prayer continued flowing from my soul.

WV Grant

Before coming into his full ministry anointing, he was one who spent all his spare time with Jesus in the secret place. This man constantly sought God, and fasted on the weekends. He read many books of God's servants in the past and studied his Bible day and night. He would pray for a couple of days until he got answers. He would not leave his prayer room until he got an answer from God. This and Christian work was virtually his lifestyle for fourteen years.

It was fourteen years after I received the Holy Ghost and tongues before I received the Holy Ghost and power.  If God has called you into a full time ministry of healing the sick and casting out devils He usually gives you time to give yourselves to fasting and prayer.  Revival history clearly show, a man or woman of God must often spend years in a "wilderness" of obscurity before they truly come into their ministry. This will often be a place of barrenness, "WAITING" and preparation where they must overcome and endure - all the while being molded and trained by God - if they are ever to reach their godly potential in anointing and empowerment from 'on high'.

Dunn had been desperately seeking more of God and his giftings for some time, when the Holy Spirit told him to pray to be FILLED WITH JESUS and he would also receive the gifts. Jesus spoke to him: 'Don't pray for the gifts. Pray to be more like Me.' "I pastored the Pentecostal Holiness church there for two years before this ministry came to me. I had been fasting, and praying, and I had been reminding God.  I would cry: the tears rolling down my face. I would fast until the preachers in Princeton remarked that my clothes hung on me like a sack, because I had lost so much weight

One day I was just in a big way of praying; tears streaming down my face as I was alone before god. I was asking Him again to give me the gifts of the Spirit. A voice spoke to me and said, 'Just a minute.' And I stopped, and a voice spoke again, and said, 'DON'T BEG FOR THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT, PRAY TO BE MORE LIKE ME.' I said, Why Jesus, I had never thought of it in that manner, what do you mean, pray to be more like you? And the voice said to me, 'THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT WILL OPERATE IN YOUR LIFE, IF YOU ARE FULL OF JESUS.' So I began to pray that I would be just exactly like Jesus.

The next few days, I began to pray as I had never prayed. In about 3 or 4 nights I was lying in the bed again and I was meditating and praising the Lord, and asking Him for help and power in my life. All at once, this great feeling began to come into the room again. "The very room and atmosphere lighted up. There didn't seem to be any room for me there any longer, because God so completely filled the place. As I lay there, I lost all movement of my body other than my eyes. The Great Force of God moved down across my bed, and overshadowed me, and I felt the strangest, and most wonderful feeling. From my very fingertips, it began to move into my hands, and up my arms. I felt as if I were holding 220 volts in each hand, and it began to surge back and forth through my body. Then and there in that room, while this was taking place the old me was leaving, and the new me was coming in. "From that night on my life was different. Many remarked how completely my ministry had changed. I had a positive message - a message, that had fire in it. God talked to me, and told me that if I would preach the message of deliverance, He would heal the sick. He would give me the Power to cast out devils. As I listened to this COMMISSION from the Lord, His power surged through me, and my arm happened to touch my wife's body, and it almost caused her to jump completely out of the bed. That night God began doing things. He revealed to me the people's conditions and diseases through the mighty Spirit of discernment. I found I was a different individual. God showed me things that I thought were impossible for a person to see or understand.

Good Morning Holy Spirit - Benny Hinn 

The change in my life took place when I began to treat the HS as a person.  I would say, "Good morning Holy Spirit!"  From that moment on the Bible took on a whole new dimension.  I would say, "Holy Spirit, show it to me in the Word."  The Holy Spirit began to open the WOG up to me.

The HS drastically changed my life when I invited Him to be my personal friend.  The power became most evident to me when I began praying in my room - all alone.  Day after day, hour after hour, I lifted my hands and said, "Precious Holy Spirit, would You come now and just talk with me."  As we talked I would say, "Holy Spirit, I love You and I long for Your fellowship."  And I found out it was mutual.  He longed for my fellowship, too.

The Holy Spirit is distinct in the Godhead.  He is tender.  He is sensitive.  But because Jesus gave Him to you and to me, He is not going to leave us.  The HS is a gentleman.  He doesn't enter your room until you invite Him.  He doesn't sit down until you ask Him.  And He doesn't speak to you until you speak to Him.  You will never know His power; you will never know His presence until you go and sit beside Him and say, "Wonderful HS, tell me all about Jesus."

Three things happened when the HS entered my life.  (1) The WOG became absolute life to me.  The Scriptures became an adventure to me.  (2) My prayer life changed completely.  Gone were the hours of praying, yawning and repeating myself.  The HS and I were in conversation.  He made God real.  He gave me power & a boldness that made me feel ten feet tall.  (3) He transformed my daily Christian life.  What began to happen to me was not natural - it was supernatural.  The Spirit had taken over.  He began to baptize me with a love for people. 

I need to receive Him as a person.  If you neglect communicating with the HS just one day, it is harder the next time.  When you are continually filled by the Spirit of God your prayer life takes on a dimension you never thought possible.

It is impossible to move into intercession with a snap of the finger.  It does not come instantly because it is a partnership with God that requires a deep and intensely personal relationship.  The Holy Spirit leads your prayer life step by step.  With me, it did not happen on the first day, or the second, or the third.  It was at least six months before I was moving into the depths of prayer.  Scripture teaches that if we are faithful with the little things, God will give us more.  There is no substitute for the filling of the Spirit that comes as a direct result of your prayer life.  It is the power that will affect everything you do. 

SOLITUDE

You will realize as you study the lives of great men and women, whether in the kingdom of God or not in the kingdom of God that these great people had time for solitude.  This is something that the modern generation lacks.  See many people are brought up without the art of contemplation and solitude.  They are surrounded by noise all the time.  Even the music in the world begins to get more and more noisy.    That’s why today scientists tell you that a prolonged hearing of some of the modern rock and roll music can cause deafness.  People surround themselves with noise.  As they grow into teenagers, they always want to be in the crowd.  They always want to be among the crowd.  Always want to be like everybody else.   But great leaders are those who learned how to strive on times of solitude.

People are afraid to be alone.  They are afraid.  They always need to be somewhere.  But aloneness was not designed for loneliness.  Aloneness is part and parcel of every human life that God designed it.  We need fellowship yes, we also need solitude.  Without a combination of both, we will not be the perfect man or woman God wants us to be.  One of the key secrets in Jesus’ life is solitude.  Let me give you some examples of His desire for aloneness.  You see people who are strong, who know their God and who know what they want in God loves to be alone with God.  They love to be left alone with God.  But people who are afraid to be alone with God are people who are filled with noise, that is external noise and internal noise.  Their soul is not at peace.  People who are not at peace in themselves and with themselves are afraid of being alone.  When there are internal noises, you are not at peace in yourself.  You are afraid to be alone because when you are alone, all the external noises quiet down and you can hear your internal noise and you can’t live with it.  But those who are at peace with themselves, at peace with God and with men love the quietness, the solitude because when everything is quiet around them, they can set their quietness on their inside.  And it’s such a delight.  It’s a powerful peace that garrison heart and mind. 

Jesus enjoys solitude and it’s one of His principles.  If you have never practice that before, it may be time to start.  If you want to reach into greatness in God, it’s one of the key principles.  If you are afraid of being alone, be daring, this Christmas, just be alone for one whole day.  For six hours.   You will find that during that time of solitude, you wrestle with your thought life.  You wrestle with the desires of your life until finally you are at peace.  And you come out a stronger person.  There will be solidness in your character that was never there before.  Lets quickly look at the life of Jesus.  Mark 1: 35 “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed.”  

In the gospel of Luke, do you know that the man who was going to announce Jesus’ coming, grew up in great solitude?  The greater God wants to use your life, the greater your life is going to change other lives, the greater your need of solitude because you need to be different and find the difference to bring to humanity.  John the Baptist was going to change his generation and prepare them for Jesus. The bible in the gospel of Luke speaks about his life in chapter one verse 80, “So the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel.”   He was out there in the desert contemplating on the things of God.  That quiet solitude with God away from mankind, building those things in his spirit in his life.  Getting that kind of mental concentration necessary to the kind of leadership he has to bring forth.  Remember God may have a special call for some of your life.  In order to change the world, you must come out of the world.  You can’t change the world within the world.  You have to come out and then change the world.  Come out and live in the heavenly places of the spirit and then you can go back and change the world.  He probably started his life and ministry about the same time as Jesus.  He was probably about thirty years old, which means minus the time that he was a child.  For twenty over years he probably lived in wilderness.  He is different from other people.  He has a destiny.  Is your destiny just to be like an ordinary person in this world?  You could live and die and the world has not changed.  Or do you want to live and die or live and then go to be with Jesus knowing that because of your life society and the world have changed for the good, for the better and for God because of you.  Then seek solitude in your life.   The Holy Spirit can lead you into the wilderness to be quiet and there in the quietness of the wilderness, God deals with your life. Solitude makes strong people.  The lack of it makes weak people.  Weak people are easily manipulated. 

So we are told here that the Lord Jesus continue to seek God’s face every time after great meetings.  That’s why many preachers after they had great meetings at night, and whenever they travel all over in any nation of the world, Eastern or Western is always the same.  The people want to take you out for supper; it’s always the same.  They will say, “Do you want supper?”   Usually you don’t eat before the meeting.  They always want to feed you.  After the meeting, it is time for feasting.  But as for me after a meeting and the Holy Spirit has moved, what I like to do is not sit in a restaurant.  What I like to do is to quickly get alone and just meditate and thank God.  Just be in quietness with Him to enjoy and review all that He has done. So different, not only it’s better for your spiritual health, I think it’s also better for your natural health.

In chapter 5, another statement made by Jesus and here it’s sort of another repetition.  Luke 5: 15-16 “the report went around concerning Him all the more;” Now He was getting more famous.  “And great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.  So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”      In anything of the human life, anything that has touched your life or anything great, the great principles that you have learned from people here and there have always come from the solitude of their lives.   

 As we look at that area, we want to consider two things.  One is that there is always noise out there on this earth.  There are two types of noise that we face.  The noises physically which includes the crowds in people and all those around you.  Yet a lot of people are not watchful.  They just allowed the cares to overtake them and choke the Word.  You don’t have to break the Ten Commandments to lose your productivity in God.  All you have to do is get the cares of this world and they choke the Word.  We have to be very watchful and treat all these things as enemies.  All your jobs on this earth, you do it watchfully.  You have to constantly watch and pray with awareness that these things won’t pull you down.  And you got to say no many times. 

 These are what I call the noises.  These are the soul noises, the things that are there.  The more dangerous noise is the noise in the soul.  Worldly cares occur in your mind and they are the internal noise that are there all the time crying out things to be done.  We have to learn to shut them out and say no, I am not going to do it. 

These are the noises that are out there that we need to cut ourselves from.  Move away from.  If you don’t learn to do that your spiritual life will get choked.  There are a lot of Christians going to church whose spiritual life is actually choked up.  They sing Amazing grace how sweet the soundHe wants us to be free from those noises so that out from our life comes fragrance to God.  A heart undefiled, pure without the cares of this life.  That’s the noise we talk about.  Have you notice that the only way to get out of those noises is to get away.  Jesus likes to draw away from people at the most important junctions in His life.  but the sound that they sing were not so sweet in the spirit because their lives are choked up.  God doesn’t want that. 

You can be alone but not lonely.  Great men and women of God need solitude to develop their strength in God.  If you want to be great in God’s kingdom, you learn to be a servant to serve, but you also learn solitude in God.  You say how does it relate?  Look at it carefully; you cannot really serve properly until you have a relationship with God.  If you are not in relationship with God, your service and ministry is either for self or some other motives.  But when you are in God your service is pure.  .  But if you want to make the right decision in your life, you seek to be alone with God.  In the silence of your soul you find your resting place and you hear your spirit coming forth.  The vast majority is living in mediocrity.  Firstly, this solitude is for God’s special revelation to you.

The Secrets of the Anointing

by Hahum Rosario

Marilyn Hickey - "It takes a foundation of prayer and fasting to have the miraculous in your life."

        The anointing is not a formula capable of being learned.  The anointing is the method of operation for the Spirit of God on earth.    There is a price to pay for those who desire the anointing.  Much of the price is separation.  Separation from people, separation from our own will.  We must separate ourselves from  the mediocre spiritual life of other Christians and give ourselves wholeheartedly to God.  If the anointing is not present in your own life, fast and pray until you have it.  Nothing is more important than this.

       Laziness is one of those foxes that will eat up our spiritual lives.   To keep ourselves in the anointing of the Spirit will require a lifestyle dedicated to the Word, prayer, and fasting.  We have to discipline ourselves to do this, even when we don't feel like it.

       If we want to impact this generation with the demonstration of God's power, we have no other alternative but to separate ourselves from the world and mediocre spiritual life of other Christians and give ourselves whole heatedly and exclusively to the  service of God. Without the anointing, ability will not produce effectiveness.

       We will never be able to flow in the power of the Holy Spirit's anointing unless we are willing to suffer!  The first requirement in order to have the anointing of God is a hunger for God.  The anointing does not depend on one isolated experience.  It must be based upon a constant communion with the Holy Spirit.

       It is impossible for me to live an abundant life without the anointing of the Holy Spirit operating in my life.  I first learned that one of the secrets of the anointing is complete surrender.  Each day, giving myself totally to the Lord.

        One of the truths which I feel completely revolutionized my life and ministry was coming to the realization that the Holy spirit was not simply a "power" or an "energy" but instead, a Person with feelings, emotions, and desires of His own.

        When I learned this, I began to relate to the Holy Spirit in a more personal manner.  I began speaking to Him, asking Him to direct  me from the moment I awoke early in the morning until I went to bed at night.

        If the Holy Spirit is a Person, we must treat Him, as such; not as an "experience" we have from time to time.  A person needs to feel loved, listened to, and appreciated!  The Bible speaks about the possibility of grieving the HS if we fail to treat Him in the way He should be treated.

        At first it was a little strange for me to speak with the HS, but as I broke with the tradition in my mind and began speaking to and worshiping the HS, I began to see spiritual matters with an increased clarity and presence  I did not have before.  The anointing does not depend on one isolated experience which we may have in our Christian walk, but rather, in our maintaining constant communion with the HS.  We cannot continually ignore a person and then run to him when we need a favor. 

        How can one have communion with the HS?  Everything begins with a decision to separate your life from the things that isolate you from the HS,  Making Jesus the Lord of your life is a prerequisite in beginning the adventure of communing with the HS.  Don't feel disheartened if at first you fail to see any results; a relationship is not established overnight.  It takes time, patience, and determination in the study of the Word and in prayer for the HS to reveal Himself to us.  

        The anointing comes through the grace of God not by any personal merit.   THE ONLY WAY TO GROW IN THE MANIFESTATION OF THE ANOINTING IS TO ESTABLISH  A SINCERE AND CONSTANT COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT SO THAT HE MAY GRANT US THE GRACE OF GOD WITH ALL THE BLESSINGS IN HEAVEN.

        The HS is not the goal but the starting point for a life full of power & anointing.  If we desire the anointing of the HS, we must be willing to pay a price.  

        If I want to partake of the benefits and the blessings of the ministry, it is vital that I  have the right attitude toward the Person of the HS, and that I treat Him with the dignity, admiration and respect He deserves.  If you want to know the secrets of the anointing, cultivate your friendship with the HS. 

        All who wish to receive a great anointing of God and impact the masses will be faced with the need to die to their on ambitions and desires.  One of the secrets to living a powerfully anointed life is total and absolute submission to the will of God.

       Man was in conflict and the HS said, "Which do you prefer: to win an argument against that person or to maintain your fellowship with Me and continue to flow in the anointing."   It is essential that those who seek a great anointing understand that Satan will try any means possible to make them sin and embarrass them before the public so people will reject their ministry. 

       The more I pray, fast, and consecrate myself to God, the more I realize my inability to do the work of God.   It is almost impossible for the HS to ignore a man who constantly seeks Him and recognizes that without His presence he is completely inadequate.  Therefore, make it a practice to daily depend on the Lord, and each day you will have the presence of His anointing.

       The person who walks in holiness will have a greater anointing than the person who continually compromises with the world and sin.  Prayer changes natural men and women into supernatural persons.  He who prays learns to know God.  The man who knows how to pray discovers that the secret of the anointing and spiritual power resides in complete dependence on God through prayer.  All men of power are also men of prayer. God cannot entrust His anointing to people who do not pray.  If we look carefully at the four gospels, we will see that J. spent considerable time each day in prayer, seeking the will and the mind of God in order to fulfill His earthly ministry.  J. received all His power and anointing from on High, through prayer, He kept the heavens open during the whole time of His ministry.  J. began His day in prayer and ended it praying; and in between He performed miracles.

       One of the characteristics of a person who is anointed is the power of his preaching.  Anointed, daring preaching produces supernatural results!  Every preacher knows through personal experience that the level of authority in his preaching is directly correlated to the amount of time he  spends alone with God in prayer.  It is in those long periods of communion with God that we are so energized with the anointing from on High that when we stand to preach, we feel like a newly loaded machine gun.  Those of us who have experienced this know that it changes us into a different person, it is called the anointing. 

        We should pray without ceasing until we are invested with great power.  It is normal for an African to pray four to five hours a day!  Anyone who is willing to pay this price will also receive the dividends of a life filled with the power and anointing of the HS.  The power of preaching is not in studying, but in kneeling.  God will still do it today through anyone who is willing to pay the price and put in the long hours in communion, prayer, and supplication necessary to receive power from on High.

        Prayer must be a lifestyle for the person who seeks a great anointing.  Our prayers cannot be limited to the moment before we preach or right after a moment of crisis.  You always acquire the qualities of the person with whom you spend the most amount of time.  The man who spends his time with God in prayer will be transformed into the image of what  he sees, in the same manner Christ was transformed on the mount while He was praying.

        There is one anointing that perpetually operates within the believer, but there is another that falls on a person at specific times and for a predetermined purposes.  There are certain spiritual disciplines necessary to obtain a powerful anointing.  These disciplines do not serve the purpose of convincing or forcing God to do something He has not promised; rather, they are indispensable in preparing the vessel for the deposit of God's power.  If we want our anointing to have substance and remain firmly within us, we must steadfastly seek the daily in filling of the Word with our own lives.  I HAVE LEARNED THAT IF I AM NOT WILLING TO SPEND LONG HOURS SECRETLY PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT, I CANNOT MINISTER EFFECTIVELY IN PUBLIC.  Some of my most powerful services have come after spending hours praying in the Spirit without feeling anything at all!  On occasions when I have noticed the anointing diminishing in my life - even though I am continually reading the Bible and praying in the Spirit - I have resorted to fasting as a complement to increase my anointing.  There is a strong correlation between fasting and the anointing to break the bonds of wickedness. 

        Many anointed men have failed because they did not know that by receiving a greater anointing they would also receive greater persecution.  THE ANOINTING YOU RECEIVE FROM ANOTHER PERSON WILL ONLY BE EFFECTIVE TO THE POINT THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO IMITATE THE LIFESTYLE OF THAT PERSON!   Every transference of the anointing costs time, dedication, persistence, and sometimes even money and material possessions. 

        It is important for those wishing to have a greater anointing in there lives to be cautious of those who want to lay hands on them.  Through the laying on of hands, the spirit is transmitted - whether that spirit be good or evil.  It is crucial for Christians to be wary of their associations and acquaintances with people who do not strengthen their spiritual walk.  The anointing can be transferred by the words we hear.  You can also capture someone's anointing if you read his books or listen to his messages.  The anointing must be demanded in order to be received. 

        Faith accomplished by a stubborn determination is what really helps us obtain what we strongly desire.  Receiving from others does not make us inferior; instead we are more powerful, because in addition to the measure of grace given to us, we can also participate in the measure that God has given to others.  We cannot hope to perform great signs and wonders if we violate the principle of carefully guarding our hearts.

        Laziness is one of those foxes that will eat up our spiritual lives.   To keep ourselves in the anointing of the Spirit will require a lifestyle dedicated to the Word, prayer, and fasting.  We have to discipline ourselves to do this, even when we don't feel like it.

Hosting The Presence of God

 Bill Johnson 

One of the greatest privileges in life is to learn to be a person that God will rest upon. He already lives in every born again believer. But He doesn't rest upon all of us. One way I like to say it is, "He is in me for my sake, but He is upon me for yours." When He is upon us, it especially changes others around us. Jesus modeled this lifestyle in the story of His baptism in water.

When Jesus was baptized, He came out of the water, the heavens opened, the Father spoke, and then the Holy Spirit came upon Him as a dove and remained. "John testified saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him" (John 1:32 NASB). If, in the natural, I have a dove sitting on my shoulder and I want to go about life without it flying away, how am I going to live? Every step would be with the dove in mind.

As we become faithful in learning how to host the presence of the Lord, it is important to understand that there is a tension between two realities: He has been given to us without measure, yet what we enjoy on a daily basis has been "measured" to us according to our faithfulness. In other words, we have access to the unlimited measure of God's presence, but He doesn't entrust Himself to untrustworthy people. All of the measurements are set up on our end of the equation. He typically entrusts us with the measure of the presence we are willing to jealously guard.

We are to become His resting place--the place from which the exploits of heaven are accomplished. For when the Lord rests upon a person, there is actually an atmospheric shift that takes place wherever that person goes. How do you think Peter's shadow healed people? Our shadow will always release whatever overshadows us. When we learn to host the presence of the Lord, we get more breakthroughs by accident than ever used to happen on purpose. That is a possibility for every believer every day.

One of the conflicts we face in learning to host the presence is sometimes found in the very lessons we learned from the previous seasons. Believe it or not, those principles sometimes war against the actual presence of the Lord upon us. We are to use principles to plan by, but we must learn to live from the presence. And if there's a conflict between the two, presence always wins out over principle. For example, I may be accustomed to aggressively pursuing the will of God for my life. My key verse might be Matthew 11:12, "and the violent take it by force." Living by principle has me apply what I have learned up to this point--violent faith. But in this story, the presence of God may be leading me to "receive the kingdom as a child" (Luke 18:17). If you live entirely by principles only, you will make assumptions in certain moments and seasons that are entirely based on Scripture, but they will be in conflict with the Spirit. In this example, both violent faith and childlike faith are biblical. It is the Holy Spirit who knows how we are to respond in each particular season or in a given situation.

We are supposed to be well grounded in what God has said so we can discern what He is saying. It is the presence of God that gives me access to continuous ongoing faith, because faith comes by hearing, not having heard. "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:1). Learning to host the presence of God provides the atmosphere of the heart where faith becomes natural and normal. Let's commit ourselves to become the resting place of God.

SOAKING IN GOD'S PRESENCE

What our ministry is today can be attributed to a period of three months that I spent soaking in the presence of Almighty God. It was a time of incredible visitation when I encountered God in what I call the glory liquid honey cloud of His presence. For about three months there was grace upon my prayer life where for anything from four to twelve hours a day, all I could do was lie and be still in His presence.

I called it soaking. All I was doing was positioning myself away from the clamor of everyday life and seeking God. Not that I wanted to. I began by praying in hunger, pressing in for the power of God to bring me revival. I kept saying, “Holy Spirit please come. God You said if I would draw near to You that You would draw near to me. You said if I would seek You and search for You with all of my heart I’d find You. God I am pressing in violently, aggressively. I’m not letting go.” It was a radical pursuit of God’s presence – crying out, seeking. I was desperately in search of the Lord and I was pursuing His glory. It was a time of holy hunger, a time of extreme anxiety. Mine was a holy desperation for Him as a person and I was determined to be deeper in His glory than I had ever been before. I wanted to experience His presence in way that I had never known and I purposed in my heart to have an encounter with Him unlike any other that I had had before.

I did everything that I could. I prayed in tongues for hours. I mean prayed! With praise, worship, intercession, supplication I would make my requests known to God. When I decided to pray an hour, I would pray an hour.   I was pressing in and I wanted a breakthrough. I wanted God and I knew how to sense His presence but I was never satisfied with where I had been. I wasn’t content with what I had seen. I said, “Lord I want more.” And I pressed in. I was almost in a place of striving.

That was my condition as I cried out in holy desperation, hungry for God before I learned to soak.   I had an injury at work and was awarded compensation with time off work. I purposed in my heart that I was going to seek God in the same way that I worked every day. I made a decision that I was going to treat prayer like a job, eight hours a day. I decided that I would pray as I recovered from my injury.

That’s how I discovered soaking. I found it when I had this God-given opportunity for pressing in, reminding myself of God’s promise that if I would draw near to Him, He would draw near to me. In desperation I yelled, “God rend the heavens and come down.” And He did! He came down to show me that soaking is mainly quietness, listening and waiting.

I have found in my walk with the Lord more power and revelation in quietness than in anything that I’ve done in prayer. I’ve come to understand that there is a place in the spirit that I believe is the highest form of prayer. It’s the silent prayer of the heart. It’s the prayer of silence – contemplation and meditation. It is so high that most Christians never get there. They don’t get over the demands of the mind. They fail to learn how to silence the busyness of their minds and emotions so they can enter in to true communion and fellowship with the Lord through quietness.

In the church today we don’t understand listening prayer. We don’t understand soaking and waiting. There is an art in practicing the presence of God and exercising our spiritual senses. We need to learn how to enter into the rest of God. We don’t know what it means to be still and know that God is God. We don’t know what it means to wait on the Lord. These aspects of soaking were known by some of our ancient fathers such as Brother Lawrence.

During my three months of learning to soak I had very real encounters with the person of Jesus Christ which I will talk about later, but I’m going to switch gears now and begin my teaching about the art and benefits of soaking.

I learned from the lives of Brother Lawrence and Sundar Sing (the famous Hindu mystic who radically converted to Christianity a hundred years ago), as God began to birth my ministry into power. At the end of three months of waiting, basking, bathing, marinating, just beeeeeeeing in His presence I had a visitation of the Lord Himself. He stood behind me and every time I turned around to look at Him He would be behind me. I heard the Lord speak to me in an audible voice as a man speaks to a man. This is what He said. “tonight I will call you into the ministry. You will quit your job. You will no longer work in the saw mill. Tomorrow you will go to the nations. Tomorrow you will go to a city that you do not even live in. I will speak to the prophet in that Mother’s Day, woman’s conference. I will instruct her to call you out and lay hands on you, take up an offering in her conference and give it to you as sign that I have called you into the ministry today.” And then I had an open vision of everyone who was going to be healed in that service and I said, “God how am I going to get an opportunity to do everything that I just saw myself doing? I don’t have all that much relationship with this woman. It’s Mother’s Day. There is another speaker. It’s a women’s conference. I mean, how are You going to put this thing together?” He simply said “Tonight.”

I went to the meeting and in an hour, the power of God came on almost every woman in the room. The miracles began to take place. The leader announced, “The Lord just spoke to me. I am to take up an offering right now and lay hands on a particular person tonight. We are going to pray for him tonight and he’ll be in the ministry tomorrow.”  That launched me into the ministry and became a defining moment in my life. From that point, everything was different and I stepped into my destiny. 

SOAKING AND MARINATING

Now I am going to share with you some thoughts the Lord gave me about soaking and what it means to soak. In Acts 1:5 Jesus says, “… you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Here’s an explanation of that.

Believe it or not there’s an aspect of baptism that has to do with dill pickles! The word “baptize” as it appears in Acts 1:5 is translated from the Greek word baptizo, which is derived from the verb bapto meaning “to dip. It contains the ideas of “dipping repeatedly,” “immersing,” “submerging” (as in sinking a ship), “washing one’s self” (bathing), and also “overwhelming.” 

Nicander was a Greek poet and physician who lived around the year 200 B.C. He is credited with leaving a recipe for pickles and it contained the same Greek word that is used for baptism. The way Nicander wrote his recipe explains a lot about baptism. Here’s what he says:

The vegetable (a cucumber perhaps) should first be dipped (baptism) into boiling water, and then immersed (baptism) in a solution of vinegar. There are two-steps in the process. The two verbs separately call for the plunging of the vegetables in the liquid, but the first is a temporary step and the second produces a permanent change. It’s the latter act, baptism that causes the vegetable to come out a pickle. We can therefore legitimately refer to being baptized as being “pickled!”

Now let’s consider marinating, as done to a nice juicy steak. The steak is so much improved when it’s marinated. After being soaked in sauce for a few hours it becomes tender and juicy. There’s a similarity between marinating and soaking in the presence of the Holy Ghost. Let’s learn how to marinate in the Holy Ghost’s sauce. That means to be in His presence with no thought of self, resting in His glory and letting Him, well, pickle us! Godly pickling takes time, maybe weeks. We may have to soak for a long time before we’re really tender.

These word pictures may help you to understand the meaning of the biblical encouragement for baptism. The word of God is really saying, “Come and be dunked in the river of My presence again and again! I want to immerse you, submerge you and overwhelm you with My presence. I invite you to stay with Me until you’re so changed, that nobody recognizes you when you come out.”

God wants to pickle all of us. I’m eternally glad that God pickled me when I soaked in God’s presence for months. I came out saturated with the Holy Spirit and His power so that I was no longer the man I used to be. Pickling transformed me. I went in a cucumber, and came out a dill.

WV Grant Sr. 

A number of great healing evangelists have been led by God to "fast and pray" for quite long periods in order to break through into greater realms of anointing and communion with God. W.V.Grant Sr, who was a mightily used and anointed man of God from earlier this century, was one such evangelist. Before coming into his full ministry anointing, he was one who spent all his spare time with Jesus in the secret place. This man constantly sought God, and fasted on the weekends. He read many books of God's servants in the past and studied his Bible day and night. He would pray for a couple of days until he got answers. He would not leave his prayer room until he got an answer from God. This and Christian work was virtually his lifestyle for fourteen years.

He had already received the baptism in the Holy Spirit fourteen years earlier, and he spoke in tongues. "Yet, I felt like I had a bow without an arrow, a car without a battery, or a boat without a paddle. I read how Peter did it, but I could not do it. I had the highway map. I was on the right road, but on the wrong side."   " I prayed around the altar. I fasted three days at a time. I testified about a supernatural God. I told people that I had the Holy Ghost. I spoke in tongues to prove it. All the time my heart was crying out, Where are all the miracles the Bible tells us about?"

"I was a director over 13 churches... I saw people saved, filled with the Holy Ghost with other tongues. I saw a few people healed. I preached that we had the Pentecostal power. But where were the results we saw in the early church after Pentecost? I read about 200 books written by Godly men. I read every word in the Pentecostal Evangel for years... After I fasted three days, I still felt empty. That longing surely can be satisfied in some way? Who was putting that longing and searching in my soul?"

"What was I waiting for? Nothing else mattered to me. I wanted to see His Glory. I wanted to see His Miracles. I wanted to see the dead raised. I wanted to see the devils cast out. I wanted to see the deaf, blind, and the mute made whole. Did not God say in the last days the lame man would leap as a hart, the tongue of the dumb would sing, and the eyes of the blind would be opened? (Isaiah 35:5)... John said in Luke 3:16, 'He shall Baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with FIRE'... It was fourteen years after I received the Holy Ghost and tongues before I received the Holy Ghost and power."

"If God has called you into a full time ministry of healing the sick and casting out devils He usually gives you time to give yourselves to fasting and prayer... Then one night to my surprise the Lord appeared to me and told me to go on a seven day fast, which I was willing to do. After the fast was over the Lord appeared to me. I heard the angels singing a song I had never heard. I wrote it down. It was beautiful! It was like heaven. Then an angel just above my head spoke these words, 'In My name shall ye cast out devils, ye shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.' As I began to eat, I felt something like an electric current run out at the ends of my fingers and down to the bottom of my feet. The fire of God was all through my body!"

"But on the last day just about break of day, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. Mark 16:17-18 - 'These signs shall follow them that believe. In My name shall you cast out devils, they shall take up serpents, if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover'... I got up, and walked, and my feet were burning as they were connected to a high voltage wire. The Holy Spirit, and Fire was running all through my whole body from my head to my toes. It seemed like all my strength had been drained out of me, and the strength of Christ had taken its place. For several years since, devils have been cast out, and people healed.

"I had the Holy Spirit for years, but it seemed that now, I was not only filled, but baptized with zeal, compassion, and with the divine nature of Jesus, with virtue, and with the fire ... If you feel like the Lord has called you into a special ministry of casting out devils, then remember this: There are many more things, which are just as necessary as fasting. Fasting within itself will not be sufficient... But when I was called to fast, it was just as real as being called to preach. I was conscious of the fast, that it was the Lord's doing and not my own... It takes a longer fast for one man to be brought to the place where he is yielded to the Lord enough to receive certain gifts in his life than it does for other men. It took a certain amount of days for me to fast and to become so yielded to the Lord; it seemed that all my strength left my body, and the Lord's strength came into its place! Then I felt the virtue and divine nature, and the fire of the Holy Ghost dwelling in my body, which gave me power to meet devils and to cast them out.

"But I still have to be led by the Lord when and how to do it. It is not myself that doeth the works but the Father that dwelleth in me. God will not trust you with a ministry if you do not know the leading of the Spirit. I have talked personally to several evangelists whom God has called into a supernatural ministry. None of them went on forty-day fasts without any food. Since God has given other people ministries of deliverance without a long fast you can take courage and believe for a ministry without fasting forty days..."

1. Forgive all people who have offended me
• Make the choice to forgive them 
• Ask God to forgive them 
• Ask God to bless them as they do God’s will.
• They just don’t know any better.
• I know they love you and that’s all that matters
2. Confession of my sins
• I come confessing my sin of I agree with you, Lord, that I have sinned. I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your strength in my life that I would respond like Jesus in all that I do. 
• Five Categories of Potential Sin 
• Carefully examine your speech
• Ask God to thoroughly search your lationships Think of people you may have hurt or offended in some manner.
• Are you bitter or holding grudges against people who have offended you?
• Are you involved in any improper relationships?
• Do you neglect regular fellowship and meaningful service through your church.
• Are my family relationships consistent with God’s Word?
• Confess any sins of omission and make a definite commitment to obedience
• Resolve to fully repent of any known sin of thought, word or deed
3. Confession of the Blood

• According to the Word of God, I am redeemed, bought back out of the hand of the devil.  All of my sins are completely forgiven and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son continually cleanses me from all of my sin. The Word of God says that by the blood of Jesus my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I am justified, I am made righteous, I am redeemed, forgive and made as if I had never sinned.  Because I have been set apart unto God, Satan you have no power over me and no place in me. By the blood of Jesus I renounce all of your works. I am cleansed by the blood & I proclaim that it is done in the name of Jesus. 

The Upper Room

It's actually in the context of the Upper Room where you'll be empowered by the fire and wind of God to leap from your everyday-life into the harvest fields.  If you can do what the disciples did, you will receive what they received! They waited upon the Lord, expecting the Promise to come upon them. They tarried (in Jerusalem). The Bible says there were about 120 who gathered together in the Upper Room (Acts 1:13–15). They were all in one accord and they continued fervently in prayer and supplication (v. 14).

They were filled with the Holy Ghost, drunk in the Holy Ghost, in the fire of the Holy Ghost, in the power of the Holy Ghost, and 3,000 got saved! Immediately the disciples were released into miracles, signs and wonders! They received miracle working dunamis power. Boldly they carried a demonstration of the power of God into their region and then to the uttermost parts of the earth.

In fact, 'ten days' in that Upper Room really hit me. Our normal prayer life (a little prayer here and there) will not sustain us to be the history makers that God wants us to be. I felt the Spirit of the Lord say, "Todd, I want you to call people into a ten day fast. I want to release what I released in Acts” (See Acts 2:1–4). I felt the Lord speak prophetically to call those of you who are ready, to participate in a ten day fast and to prepare a place and set a time to go and meet with God.

 At Peniel, Jacob's whole life changed because in that place God decided to give him a brand new DNA, and he was never the same again! Still, I believe that one big key to Jacob's total transformation is that he did his part by deciding to purpose in his heart to be alone to meet with God, and he wasn't going to let God go until He blessed him (vv. 22–26). Until something happened! Friends, God wants you to take action and to get a 'Peniel,' your own place to seek Him---your own Upper Room---and wait until something happens.

 So I want to strongly encourage you to fast for ten days. Determine before the Lord what kind of fast---i.e. partial, water and juices, or a Daniel fast, etc. And I am going to ask you to prepare a place, your Upper Room, and remain focused and press in. For instance, if you pray an hour a day every day right now, why not take the ten days to pray three hours a day?

 We need spiritual hunger! The greatest gift and the greatest grace you could ask God to give you is hunger. Look. There are times when God will sovereignly make you hungry for Him. But if there isn't any drawing, you need to stir yourself and take the initiative to purpose in your heart to seek and search for Him. So regardless of whether He's coming or not, go after Him. Get more desperate. Don't be counted among those who are always so easily satisfied or never hungry enough. Or you won't receive the breakthroughs that God wants you to have.

LET'S JUST BE HUNGRY FOR GOD, AND NOTHING ELSE

More often than not we wait, fast and pray because of some external pressures driving us to God. This is good, but God wants us to be in a place where we are hungry just for Him regardless of what is or isn't happening in our lives.

In fact, you can purpose in your heart to cross over the threshold of your Upper Room with an attitude that says: "I am seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." When you do that, "all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33). God will take care of your sick loved one and your other needs. What's more, if you seek God first, maintaining and sustaining the intensity and fervency in your pursuit just like those disciples did, the increase will come. I'll speak more about this increase in a few moments.

But having said that, it's sad to see that after we finally have the manifestation of God's presence, all too often everything starts to fall apart. For example, there is a thriving revival time in God's presence, but it begins to wane, mostly because we don't know how to keep our intensity and fervency for God. We don't know how to sustain and maintain our devotion to Him very well.

THE "UPPER ROOM CHALLENGE" BRINGS GREAT GROWTH

So here's a thought. Just try to imagine what could happen if you fasted even when you didn't have anything to fast about just because you wanted more of God. I'm actually talking about maintaining a lifestyle of fasting, just to be on top of it all! "I am going to fast because I want more of God. Don't need any direction, don't need anybody healed. I don't even need to fast, but I am going to because I want to keep my flesh disciplined to hunger just for Him!"

Now, back to those disciples! They continued, which means there must have been an amount of time that they continued! And what were they continually doing? The answer is they con doing tinued what they had been doing in the Upper Room. Pentecost had already come. But they continued to do what they did to get what they got in the first place even though they were experiencing the overflow of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit! An Upper Room lifestyle was emerging.

NEW LEVELS ARE SURE TO COME!

They were continuing in the word, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and they were praying. So, of course, the revival goes to another level---"Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles" (Acts 2:43). Then fear! When? It came after a season of continuing steadfastly. That means that the ‘fear revival' wasn't there when they received the ‘Pentecostal revival'! [It might have been some months later, maybe even a year, I don't know exactly, but a new level came into what the Lord had already begun (in Acts 2)].

Back to New Testament days! Once again, when did the fear come upon every soul? It came after they continued. After they maintained and sustained and continued to do what they did in the first place to get what they got! Ultimately it was the Lord who not only maintained and sustained what they had, but He increased it and brought it to another level. And it was called fear. Then what happened next? The Bible says, "and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles."

In other words, they were actually asking God to give them an increase of power! They needed greater boldness and they wanted to release miracle-healings, especially in the face of threats and intimidation. Listen! You can't get people healed without being bold! There is a connection between boldness and healing. Bold, aggressive men and women get things done! You've got to get violent! By being violent, I mean being empowered by God and having great godly determination to destroy the works of darkness and do what God tells you to do.

Those apostles (formerly called disciples) were desperate men and they knew they needed to go to another level. So they began to pray with passion. It was the Upper Room all over again! They kept doing what they did to get what they got! They knew they needed another Pentecostal outpouring, and they got one. God's strategy for the harvest!---"And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31).

Another level! Great power and great grace! "And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all" (4:33). Great power and great grace marked the apostles' ministry, to the point that judgments were released (upon Ananias and Sapphira) through Peter, and people sought healing just by being literally in Peter's shadow.

HOLD ON TO WHAT IS RIGHT!

Bold, aggressive, and possessing godly violence, those apostles were empowered by God as they shifted the revival into high gear! So high in fact, the religious clerics jailed them. Now it was time for God to release angelic help. Notice the progression.

But then a problem arose that could have greatly weakened the momentum of the revival and undermined the apostles' determination (Acts. 6:1, 2). But they were careful to guard the ground they gained and they came up with God's strategy to deal with the problem. They would continue to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and not get sucked into what they weren't meant to do (6:2,4).

Now watch the revival go to the next level, again, after they held on to what was right! "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith" (v. 7). Wow! Even some of the religious priests got saved! Hey! Are you hungry to be a history maker like those sold out apostles?

Make a place---your Upper Room---and set a time to enter in. You've got to have a particular place, a ‘Peniel,' which means ‘the face of God,' and meet God there. And wait until something happens! I say that because I've never heard of a history maker that's ever turned cities upside down for Christ by just praying an hour a day. I'm not talking about a little prayer here and there.

Find your mountain top! I am talking about taking up the Upper Room challenge---ten days of fasting and prayer, or more---because it's in THAT spiritual place where you'll be equipped for your destiny.