August Update

First of all thank you so much for your faithful partnership. Each month is bringing me closer to fully realizing my desire to be full-time at the House of Prayer. This summer has been a whirlwind of activity. First I helped with CRI training in Canby OR, two weeks later we had the Awakening Teen Intensive at IHOP NW. We had over 30 teens for five days of intensive teaching, worship, outreach and games. It was a joy to see so many teenagers eager to worship Jesus. One night the worship went well beyond midnight.  We will be starting a youth meetings on Thursday nights for 12-19 year olds in September were we will have a teaching time and intercession. I am really excited to see what the Lord will do during these times as we equip and train young people in the knowledge of God and the necessity of encounter and intersession.

 We have also had Outreach Weekends throughout the summer were Tyler Johnson the co-founder of The Dead Raising Team (DRT) in Shelton, WA. His DRT has 8 confirmed raisings from the dead!  Their hearts beat to see others come into their destiny in the realms of power and intimacy with Jesus. During these weekends we focus on going out into the community, praying and serving people.  On the 28^th of July we had our first free car wash in our parking lot. It was a huge success and a lot of fun. We had music playing and served hotdogs, hamburgers and soda for free. As cars came and we talked to people and offered to pray for them, it was great to see God touch hearts and show his love for people. It was cool too when people would ask, ‘what is the catch?’ or ‘how much is the donation?’ at which we said ‘no catch, no donation, did you want a hotdog to go with that car wash?’ We will be doing another free car wash on 25^th of August.

Currently I have dusted my guitar off and started to learn how to play. Right now I am enjoying making music and finding it relaxing.  In the future I hope to help out with worship teams at the house of prayer.

Call to Victory

Recently we have been studying the life of David on Friday nights at IHOP NW. Why David? What sets David apart from other Kings in Israel’s history? David wrote over half of the Psalms, he conquered all of Israel’s enemies, he was a mighty warrior, he supplied most of his wealth for the building of the temple and he set up night and day worship in the tabernacle. Yet most importantly David cultivated intimacy with God through worship which sustained and rooted him in who he was before God. It says in 1 Samuel 13:14 that “the Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart.” David was a man after God’s heart that did not find his identity in being a king or in what the people thought of him, but in who God said he was.

I believe that David learned to worship at a young age while tending his family’s sheep. One of Saul’s servants said to Saul “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful musician, a mighty man of valor, and a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handsome man; and the Lord is with him,”(1 Samuel 16:18). This was spoken of David when he was 17 or 18 years old. I can imagine that David was sent out to tend his family’s sheep for many days and nights at a time. David used his time wisely to cultivate a relationship with God, practicing his harp and sling shot. The Lord gripped David’s heart with an understanding of eternity and God’s holiness. David was obedient to what God showed Him and cultivated what the Lord gave him through writing the Psalms and setting up day and night worship around the Ark of the Lord. David wrote in Psalms 27:8 “When you said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.’”

David was thrust into national spotlight during the reign of Saul when a crisis erupted: Israel went out to fight the Philistines and Goliath came out, challenging Israel to find a man to fight with him. This was no small matter.   If Israel lost, then the Philistines would kill all their men and enslave their women and children; it was a matter of national survival. When David heard the threats of the enemy Goliath, he said to King Saul, “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God,”(1 Samuel 17:36). David had confidence in a living God who was for His people Israel. This kind of confidence does not just appear out of nothing, but is cultivated in winning smaller victories through faith and obedience to God. David had confidence in who God was as a deliverer and protector because the Lord had showed Himself faithful against the lion and the bear.

The small, seemingly insignificant victories today will build confidence and strength for when we have to face more significant challenges.  If David had not been faithful in protecting His family’s sheep from the lion and the bear, (1 Samuel 17:33-37), he would not have been ready to engage Goliath and win. After all who, would have blamed him, if he had lost a few sheep to a lion or a bear? Yet David understood the importance of being faithful in all he did.

David did not just cultivate faithfulness in protecting his family’s sheep,  he also nurtured a worshipful heart to the Lord. God showed Himself faithful to David at an early age. Psalm 27:10 says, “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up.” The time that David spent cultivating worship and intimacy with the Lord would successively impact a whole nation.

When David became King, he established worshipers and singers to sing in front of the tabernacle day and night. “Now these are the singers, heads of father’s households of the Levites, who lived in the chambers of the temple free from other service; for they were engaged in their work day and night, (1 Chr 9:33, 1 Chr 6:31-32,16:16, 16:4-6, 16:37, 25:1,3,5-7).

I wonder what David saw or what He encountered in His relationship with God that motivated Him to build a temple for His God and place worshipers and singers in front the Ark of the Testimony day and night. When God established a covenant with Israel, He gave the blue prints for a tabernacle but never talked to them about setting worshipers in His temple day and night. Nevertheless we know from Revelation 4 that God has worshipers all around His throne. We know and believe that God is worthy of praise and worship. It says in Psalm 100:4 “Enter His gates with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.”

David’s faithfulness to God sets a precedent of wholehearted devotion for us to follow today. David was not just faithful to God in worship and obedience but in skill and might. He was a man of war, if he had not worked on staying physically fit or on his slink shot than he would not have led Isreal into so many victories. David relied on his small victories against the lion and the bear to conquer Goliath. What are your small victories?

Some in the church today have a lax lifestyle of compromise when it comes to daily disciplines; communion with the Lord, victory over seemingly small sins, eating well and exercising. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said that “There are more people converted from mortal sin to grace, than there are religious converted from good to better.” Where do you find your solace, in food or in Jesus? As a church in America, some of us have been lulled to sleep in believing that our lives are insignificant or that a little compromise is not a big of deal. David could have said that as a young boy tending the sheep. Instead he was diligent in practicing the small responsibilities he had been given. The slinger of stones became the slayer of giants and his songs to the Lord in the wilderness became national hymns.  He made himself ready and available for when God called on him, as a result, He brought about a great victory for Israel.  Today we need radical believers, Christians with personal and dynamic relationships with the Lord,  who are fit and ready to answer the call of God.

Crisis Response International training Canby OR

I recently had the privilege of going down to Canby OR to help with Crisis Response International (CRI) training. CRI is a Christian organization that trains people to respond to disasters nationally and internationally. At this training I helped run operations and communications; we trained 51 people in first aid, search and rescue, Ham Radio, Personal and community preparedness and much more.  It was a lot of fun to see old friends. The Lord really used this week to remind me of a passion that He has placed in me to see His bride ready and equipped for times of crisis. Pictures are posted bellow.

For more information about CRI visit www.criout.com

Pictures CRI training Canby OR

  We started the week off with praying for all the responders that came to help run the training.

I worked all week with these two guys, Calvin and Nathaniel, they did an amazing job and helped out with everything from checking water supply, putting up antennas to setting up the simulations

 Mary Leonard! Great picture. Mary teaches on Chaplaincy, Self Care and Critical Incident Stress Management 7(CISM7) the heart of CRI training. 

 Bob Leonard and I ran all support for the training.

 Exercise every morning!

 Yes, that is all there is for breakfast; boiled eggs, fruit, yogurt and oatmeal.

 Ken Husband and bellow is Carrie Husband; amazing couple that set a standard for fitness and health in the Church. They taught exercises every morning.

 Lynne and David Mezzacappa, they are from IHOP NW

 Yup, that is me. Delivering supplies here, there and everywhere.

 Patty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing women that gives leadership to CRI trainings.

 Wake up Bryan! this is our night time exercise.

Father I Desire

Jesus prayed before He was crucified to His Father in John 17, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with me where I am…” I love this part of the prayer because it has been so powerful to me in my life. In our culture people throw words around so much so that they have almost lost their meaning. A lot of times I catch myself saying, ‘I will believe it when I see it.’ Meaning a person’s actions ether validate or discredit what they confess with their mouths.  Jesus says “Father I desire.” What is the power of that prayer, how much can Jesus, the uncreated God, desire something? The answer to this question is what happened less than 24 hours later.  Jesus allowed Himself to be beaten and hung on a cross, all for His desire for us. Look at Him hanging on the cross and encounter the Lord in that place grasp the reality of how much He desires you.

His benefits!

John 13:12-17

After he had washed their feet, taken back his clothes and returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?” you call me ‘Rabbi’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because I am. Now if I, the Lord and Rabbi, have washed your feet, you also should wash each other’s feet. For I have set you and example, so that you may do as I have done to you. Yes, indeed! I tell you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is an emissary greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Jesus asks “Do you understand what I have done to you?” We need to rightly understand what Jesus has done for us. The washing of the disciple’s feet was symbolic of Jesus serving us and making us clean through His death and resurrection.

Psalm 103:2-3 says “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases.”

In Mark 8 when the disciples are discussing their lack of resources Jesus rebukes them and says “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?” He challenges them to call to memory times when He has been faithful.

We need to have the perspectives of remembrance and thanksgiving for what the Lord has done and all His benefits toward us.

What has He done for you personally?

Prayer Rooms!

My driving force is my love for Jesus, wanting to know His heart and love Him with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and wanting others to encounter His love through me. It is because of my love for the Lord and what He has called me to do that I desire to lay down my life and spend my strength to build His house of prayer in the Northwest.

Why a house of prayer? Towards the end of His ministry time Jesus declared, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). The Lord is using houses of prayer all over the America and the world to raise up young people to walk in intimacy with Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to reach people in need.

The Lord’s heart is broken over the injustice and corruption in the earth.  As people that follow and love Jesus, our hearts should break with what breaks His heart. After all, if Jesus did not care for and love us, He would not have dwelt in human form and died for our freedom and healing; He did not just die for us, but for every man, woman and child.  

We need to be people that are connect with Jesus heart for broken people, Christians that cry out in prayer and intercession. We need to cultivate eyes that see what Jesus is doing in the world around us through prayer, so that we can partner with Him, and so that He will release resources of power and healing from heaven. This is the model that Jesus displayed for us: He was connected in intimacy with His Father, and did only what He saw the Father doing. We need to be Christians that display and bring the kingdom of God into every area of society. Bigger churches, more programs and ministries are not the answer; greater intimacy with Jesus—people that have cultivated heaven’s perspective and heaven’s power. Where are the ones that will upset cities and nations for Jesus just as Paul did (Acts 17:6)?

Jesus trained 12 men through relationship; they were his friends that He sowed His whole life into. His time spent with them was not primarily about teaching them a model of ministry, but about knowing Christ Jesus, personally.  In Acts when the Jewish elders and scribes tried the disciples, they “observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

The answer to a lost and dying America is a people who spend time with Jesus cultivating intimacy. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus did not talk about a new model or a new strategy for church growth. Instead He summed up the law and quoted a very familiar scripture: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37). When we are connected to Jesus’ heart in intimacy, inevitably we will have His heart for people that are lost and hurting; we will find ourselves in intercession and prayer for others.

Intercession means “an interposing or pleading on behalf of another person.” An example of this is in Genesis 18 when Abraham stood in front of the Lord four times, interceding for the life of Lot and his family. Another example of intercession is in the life of Moses.  In Exodus 32, the nation of Israel had turned their back on God, they were worshiping a molten calf. Angry with Israel, the Lord decided to destroy the nation and make Moses a mighty nation. Moses responded by pleading with the Lord and reminding Him of His covenant with Abraham.  It says in Psalms 106:23, “Therefore, He that would destroy them (Israel), had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them.”  Moses was a foreshadowing of Jesus. In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses says, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.”  Jesus is the Great Intercessor. In Isaiah 59:16, the coming of Jesus as one who intercedes or stands in the gap is foretold, “And He (the Lord) saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede; then His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him.” Jesus came and lived a life interceding for us, and paid the ultimate price in intercession, that is giving Himself up so that we would be free. The author of Hebrews says about Jesus that, “He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them, (Heb 7:25).” Jesus is our model for a lifestyle of prayer.

When His disciples asked Jesus how to pray He said pray in this way, “Our Father who is in heaven hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:9-10).  Jesus instructs all believers to pray for His kingdom and His will to be done on earth. His kingdom is one of peace, justice and righteousness (Is 9:7).

Jesus is rising up houses of prayer where His kingdom and power can go forth into our cities and towns to bring hope and healing to those in need. I want to be a living example of the Lord’s prayer that His Kingdom, love, and power would flow through me to heal those in need. For this reason I spend time in the prayer room cultivating intimacy with Jesus, studying His life, praying for the northwest and individuals.

Father's Love

In February I was given the amazing opportunity to deliver a Simonette to the IHOP community on at one of our Friday night Encountering God Services. I spoke on the Father Heart of God. While I was working on and developing this message, it dawned on me that since my Father died in 2008, this message has been the single most reality that has brought such comfort to my heart. There have been ups and downs as is true whenever a loved one dies. In my low points when I have cried out because of the injustice of my Father’s sudden death, often all I could cry out was ‘Father God, Abba Father!’ The following is a summary of what I spoke on:
There is nothing that will empower our spirit like encountering the Father Heart of God. It creates a confidence in our spirit and an assurance before the troubles of the future; even in the midst of our failure, we have confidence. It gives us the resolve to go forward with all of our hearts, so that even when we fail and stumble in our weakness, we run to God instead of from God.
Jesus showed who the Father is with everything He did; at the end of His ministry Jesus said to His disciples:
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him. Phillip said to Him, “Lord show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:7-9).
Every time Jesus healed and delivered someone, every time He fed the multitudes and with every parable and teaching He gave; with everything that Jesus did He showed us the compassion and love of the Father. The Jewish mindset of the day was that God was Holy-creator, and very distant and deserving of reverent worship. Jesus revealed a new understanding of God as a loving and compassionate Father. It is because Jesus draws near to His Father that we have free access to the Father heart of God.
One of my favorite parables that Jesus tells about the Father heart of God is the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-24. My favorite part of this passage is when the son is on his way home with his prepared repentance speech; and even when he is a far way off the Father sees Him. This indicates that the Father was watching and waiting. This is just like our Father to be watching and waiting for the slightest turning toward Him. This story shows us that God delights in us while we are still recovering from our failure; He loves us even, in our immaturity. He does not require that we clean up and do right, but embraces and accepts us even in our weakness. When we mess up or get it wrong we can run into His arms. He has a plan for our life to be overcomers.
Amazingly our Father God not only wants relationship and loves us in our weakness, but He also loves us the same way He loves the uncreated perfect Son, Jesus. Jesus when He was praying to the Father just before He was betrayed and crucified: “And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26).
When Jesus lived on this earth during His 3 ½ years of ministry, He would often slip away to pray. The disciples saw this and asked Jesus how to pray. Jesus gave them the Lord ’s Prayer that started by addressing God in a personal way as a Father.
Jesus gives us permission to address His Father as our Father. Jesus showed us who the Father is, and He died to atone for our sins so that we could have a person relationship with His Father. Jesus is our doorway to intimacy and communion with the Father.
Imagine the uncreated Godhead in perfect communion, perfect love between each other since before the foundations of the world. They decide to create man in their image and invite man into the personal communion into that uncreated perfect love. Man turns away tries to be his own god. God sends Himself to earth to become man and then to die for man’s sins; all because He desires us, He wants relationship communion in Love for all eternity.
Father God is not anxious about anything, He sees the end from the beginning and is totally at peace; every moment of every day, we are invited through prayer, worship and contemplation into this perfect communion that the Godhead shares. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God,” (Phil 4:6).

Time in the Word

Sometimes in our daily time with the Lord we can feel dry or disconnected. The following is a method that I have found that works well for me during these times 1: Pick a scripture that has meaning to me or that I have recently been studying. Sometimes I pick a scripture that I have heard recently in
a sermon. I love using this method with the Gospel stories. 2: Before I start I Pray for grace and insight while reading the scripture. 3: I than slowly and gently read and reread the Scripture. 4: When a word or phrase jumps out at me, I repeat that word or phrase, reflecting on
the thoughts, hopes, images and feeling that come. 5: Pray or sing the word or phrase. 6: Dialogue with Jesus my thoughts and feeling. 7: I will end by journaling how this scripture has impacted me. Lastly, with any method like this it is important to find ways to use it in your life and make it your own.

Beholding the Lord

‘..We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit,’ (2 Cor 3:18)

What we look at and think about greatly effects who we are. Jesus talks about this in Luke 11:33-34. He says that our eye is the lamp of our body; the eye here is not only our physical eye, but also to our mind and imagination. Essentially, Jesus is saying we become what we think about and what we look at. When we behold Jesus, which is to meditate on scripture, we participate in the process of going from Glory to Glory; which is the process of becoming more like Jesus.

Jesus is the word of God manifest to us:

“..God’s immense richness is concentrated and focused at this one spot, the humanity of Jesus Christ, so that here, in this single Person, ‘are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’, here ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’, here stands the Eternally Beloved ‘Son’, expressly indicated by the Father’s word: ‘Listen to him!’. .. “ Prayer by Hans Urs von Balthasar.