Why does it seem so easy for the "bad guys" to win and have powerful influence? Jesus said the road to destruction is wide. The spirit of the world is a strong magnetic current. By default, humans fall into its demise when they do not have an earnest heart for God and what is true and good. God wants His people to prevail; however, it is not by our power and might, but by His Spirit!

Hello friends!

I have more  than conquered my overwhelming fear of podcasting! So much so that now I am now addicted to it, ha!  Why am I addicted to it? Well, creating a podcast takes about 30 minutes from start to finish, whereas writing 1-2 pages can take me all day! I guess I am not quite as much of a perfectionist when it comes to speaking as I am with writing! Therefore, I am able to express messages that heretofore where only shared in scribble shorthand inside my journals. I think podcasting has given me such a great sense of freedom and release since I am able to communicate without getting bogged down like so often is the case with writing! 

I recently noticed that some bloggers are including their podcasts on their blog! So I am going to give that a try too! I hope you enjoy them! I read all comments=)

  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” Jn. 14:12 

For much of Bridal history, the Church has neglected the treasure of the Holy Spirit. We have been more like yawning, waxing and waning crescent moons instead of full moons!  Churches have been trapped in people-based orbits, instead of Presence-based orbits.   We’ve been posturing to gain converts with our moon surface only dimly lit by razzle-dazzle glitz, religious regiments, worldly trappings, captivating performances, fancy buildings and programs, etc.  But we must resist the vain tradition that suggests that the plan of God was for the Church to begin with flaming fire and end up in a fizzle of faithlessness. (J. Taylor 1972)  

Many Christians are beginning to embrace the call to be full moons and are reaping unbelievable harvests in fulfillment of Christ’s promise of John 14:12. This promise was linked to the fact He was sending the Holy Spirit.  Those who are embracing the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit without fear of man have seen documented cases of the dead being raised, cancers cured, the blind and deaf being healed, the demonically oppressed set free, and paralysis lifted.  The results of people seeing that Jesus really is alive and the same as yesterday have been staggering.  For example, Reinhard Bonnke at last writing saw 34,000,000 Africans come to Christ in just 3 ½ years!  Todd Bentley saw over 300,000 people come to Christ in just one crusade alone.  The house churches in China have exploded from zero Christians in 1970 to tens of millions believers in just 40 years. 

The promise of power/light outside of our own selves is available for those who seek to be full moons.  The world, which is growing into thick darkness, will then be drawn to His glory, just as a full moon is most distinct at night, resulting in an end of age harvest.  See here:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.  Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Isa. 60:1-3

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/books.html

“The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.” Ro. 8:11

We Christians are born again moons.  We are born again to reflect the Son’s light.  As such, our heart’s continual cry should be, “Lord, I want to be a full moon.”  We are to live with our eyes riveted to His face: “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light.” (Lk. 11:34)  We are clay moons and have nothing in us to make us shine except the treasure of the Spirit of Christ in us.  “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (2 Co. 4:6-7)  

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, which literally means we are the “holy of holies,” the place where God’s visible glory comes to rest. (Zodhiates 1990)   We are living, breathing, walking, talking arks carrying His Presence.   To the extent that God is in heaven on a throne is the extent that He is in our inner being on a throne!  Even His very Kingdom is within us. (Lk. 17:20) Jesus promised believers that from our “inner most being [womb] shall flow rivers of living water [the Spirit].” (Jn. 7:38 [Greek])  We are the womb of God upon the Earth releasing actual power from the Holy Spirit as seen in Ephesians 3:20, “according to the power that works within us.” (Sheets Intercessory Prayer 1996)  

From the time Christ ascended and the Holy Spirit descended, God ordained that His power, which brings life, healing, and wholeness to the earth, would forevermore only flow out from us, Christ’s Church-Bride.

Jesus is the same today!  And 1 John 4:17 says “as He is, so are we in this world.”  We really are the body of Christ.  If individually and corporately we would resolve to be full moons by orbiting His Presence without eclipses (hindrances!) the body of Christ would look more and more like the Jesus of the Bible.  Jesus would be more famous in our time than He was in 33 AD! (Cain & Kendall 1998)  

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“Your kingdom come and Your will be done.”

When we pray the Lord’s prayer, let’s resist reciting it in a “stained-glass” voice as if it’s irrelevant pretty poetry! (D. Jeremiah n/d) Let’s understand that the Lord’s prayer was showing us that prayer is a holy rebellion to the status quo. (Teykl 2002)  He was the divine intruder and wants us to be also through prayer! (Wimber & Springer 1987) We are to pray according to the Father’s heart by saying, “Father, YOUR will [not the devil’s] be done!  YOUR kingdom come [not the devil’s] here on earth.”  

When Jesus said “NO!” to storms, He wasn’t rebuking His Father in was He?  No!  He again was demonstrating that what is happening here in the seen earthly realm IS NEGOTIABLE THROUGH PRAYER! (Teykl 2002)  You say, “Well that was Jesus.  Jesus can rebuke a storm, but I can’t.”  However, in the same passage Jesus rebuked the disciples for their little faith, implying that they could have done the same.  

The Jesus of the Bible established Christianity as the only religion that does not subscribe to fate.  We subscribe to faith that confidently prays for God’s undeserved mercy and grace in all situations.  The Lord showed me this witty comparison: Christians have turned the word FAITH into FATE.  All the major false religions of this world, which the devil himself has fathered, have at their very root FATE.  And that religious devil has subtly injected his poisonous philosophies into Christianity.  Religious fatalism suggests that we must acquiesce to “whatever may be may be.”  While it sounds so spiritual to accept and be at peace with everything that happens, and is in fact considered the ultimate barometer of a person’s faith in many churches, fatalism is perhaps the number one thing keeping Christians from following the steps of Jesus and the early believers.  

Early believers powerfully demonstrated the King’s Presence within them day by day and turned the world upside down.  That’s true FAITH!  However, today’s believers have been taught to yield to the events of an upside down world and call it God’s will.  It’s time for us to take FATE out of our FAITH. They walked in a clear understanding that their great commission was to pray and then demonstrate all that the last Adam, Jesus, had faithfully returned to the Father.  It is essential to return to true Biblical faith if we are to live coram Deo and follow in His steps.  

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” Jas. 5:16  AMP

Today’s verse shows that our continual prayers make God’s tremendous power available.  Surely God wouldn’t want us to waste our time asking for something like his Kingdom and will to be done if that was going to happen anyway?  No.  Because He gave authority over the earth to man, He therefore must be asked before He will move on the earth. (Joyner The Torch and the Sword 2004)  God’s pattern has always been to release His will through man.  Andrew Murray said, “God’s giving is inseparably connected with our asking…only by intercession can that power be brought down from heaven which will enable the church to conquer the world.”  John Wesley said, “God does nothing on earth, save in answer to believing prayer.”  Our prayers distribute the uniting and disuniting power of the cross.  

Our pattern for praying as God’s representative here on earth is Elijah for he is the one referenced in the above James 5 passage.  Elijah was a human just like us and knew that it was God’s will to send rain, yet he had to persist in asking for God’s will in heaven to be done on earth seven times.  Seven is the number of completion, indicating we must pray it through until we see God’s will accomplished on earth.  Like Elijah we are to pray expectantly looking for results.  When we are tempted to give up and say, “It must not be God’s will,” we must ask ourselves, “What would have happened if Elijah had given up after just one prayer or on the sixth prayer?”  Like Elijah, our cumulative prayers make tremendous power available.  We must ask and keep on asking.  We must seek and keep on seeking.  We must knock and keep on knocking.  All the while believing that we have received, but that we just haven’t seen the results yet.  That’s how Elijah prayed, and he is our model.  Our prayers are likened to filling the incense bowls before His face and are poured out when they are full. (Rev. 5:8, 16:1)  Jesus gave the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18 to illustrate “At all times, we ought to pray and not lose heart.”  A lack of endurance is probably the single greatest causes of defeat in prayer.  (Sheets Intercessory Prayer 1996) So let’s pray with Galatians 6:9 in mind, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38

As important as serene, contemplative praying before His face is, Scripture shows us this was not the only way Jesus prayed.  Jesus also often engaged in an opposite kind of meeting that was aggressive and disuniting.  Not with His Father, of course, but with the forces of darkness.  We see in the Scriptures where He communicated (prayed) out loud directly to the binding agents of the devil’s kingdom in order to loose or separate humans from his grip.  With words, He met with whatever was binding someone’s body, mind, or spirit saying, “Be gone!” and “Be loosed!”  The Bible says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy [loose] the devil’s work.” (1 Jn. 3:8)  Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, had authority to loose the works of the devil with His words.  As carriers of Christ bearing His name, we’ve been given the same power and authority. (Lk. 9:1-2, Lk. 10:17-19, Mk. 16:17)  

Now that Christ is in us and because of His total victory on Calvary, our spoken words (the sword of the Spirit) make that same loosing effective: “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will have already been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have already been loosed in heaven.” (Literal Greek translation of Matthew 16:18, 19)  While this kind of authoritative praying “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12) seems extreme and unlike prayer as we know it, it is in fact how Jesus did it and is defined as prayer as we see from the context of Mark 11:23-24,

“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.  Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” 

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

"Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Lk. 5:16

The word prayer means “to meet.”  Just as Jesus needed to meet often with the Father one on one without distractions, so do we.  He demonstrated that prayer is a uniting, communicative meeting, involving the exchanging of ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings.  “Ministry to God must come before ministry to people.  The role of the priest is to minister first to God, then to people.  The way we minister to God is by praising, worshiping and communing with Him in prayer and meditation.  The way that we minister to the people is allowing the overflow of what we have received in our time alone with Him to pour out into the lives of others.” (Alves 1998, 24)  This kind of prayer communion is part of the oneness Jesus wants us to have with God as seen in John 17:20-21: “Just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us.” Communion does not have to end when we go back into the world.  Like Jesus, we can remain available, sensitive, and obedient 24-7—coram Deo!  If we want to live coram Deo, there really is no way around routinely entering into this kind of contemplative prayer.  It would be like trying to be married without ever being with and talking to each other.  
  
Contemplative prayer can be defined as moving from information to intimacy.  For instance when we meditate on a short Bible text, we need to then let it bring us into the Presence of the Word who authored it.  Contemplative prayer is about finding that place before His face where we are centered in the Father’s love and then staying there.  Some have called this “soaking in the Spirit.”  Henry Nouwen defined this kind of prayer by saying, “It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us…the real work of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me…to discover there the small intimate voice saying: ‘You are my Beloved Child.’”   During contemplative prayer, it’s essential that we know we are free from expending energy trying to earn His love.  When we make this connection, everything requires less of our energy and releases more of His.  While resting in Him enables us to do more and more for Him, let’s remember, “Failure to recognize the value of merely being with God, as the beloved, without doing anything, is to gouge the heart out of Christianity.” (Piorek  2005)

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed." S.D. Gordon 

Prayer is the straw from which we suck His honey Presence from the Rock. (Dt. 32:13)  Prayer is daily gathering the honey grace grahams of manna: “give us this day our daily (not day old) bread.” (McGill 2005)  Prayer is persistently asking, seeking, and knocking for the all-that-He-has-is-ours-feast before His face with great expectation that He will give us bread not stones, fish not snakes, and eggs not scorpions. (Mt. 7:7-12 & Lk. 11:9-13)  Prayer is aggressive faith in action that resists the devil, buffeting all his fiery darts, refusing to believe anything other than God is for us and will grant us justice from our adversaries. (Lk. 18:1-8)  Prayer is a tenacious coram Deo bulldog that lays hold of our blood-bought inheritance until “His kingdom will in heaven is done here and now on earth.”  Prayer is the timely application of the blood of Jesus to every doorpost of our lives to drive out destroyers from our midst: “deliver us from the evil one.”  Prayer is keeping loving fellowship with God and man freshly transparent: “forgive us our debts as we forgive others.”  And prayer is abiding on the Vine of fruitfulness so that Christ’s love and power to demonstrate that love can flow through us. Everything is based on Presence of Jesus.  

Romans 8:26 says, “We do not know how to pray worthily as children of God.” (Phillips) The full verse says, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” While we are responsible to take up the rod of prayer, the Holy Spirit picks up the rest of the burden.  He “helps” us, which literally means “to take hold of together with.”  The famous verse that comes right after this passage is “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.”  The word “and” in this context clearly shows that all things working together for good is conditional upon our praying with the partnership of the Spirit.  It cannot be stressed enough that the good purposes of God are achieved only through the prayer relationship.

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html