“My house will be called a house of prayer.” Mt. 21:13

Jesus wants His house—our bodies—to be a 24-7 house of prayer. Therefore, a solid understanding of praying the way Jesus prayed is an essential cornerstone in living Coram Deo. Much of living coram Deo entails communicating with and keeping in step with Christ’s Spirit.  This means we are not just sitting before His face; we are moving!  We are carriers of Christ!  As His body, we are sent ones carrying Him into situations, doing what He would do if He were here in the flesh.  We are His voice, hands, and feet.  He says to us, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” (Jn 20:21)  
In our marriage with Christ, our vows are mutual; “Wherever you go, I will go.”  Where He leads, we go.  But the negative of that is true, too: where we will not go, He cannot go.  Therefore, the Spirit’s abiding Presence rests on those who are willing to go where the Jesus of the Bible went: to pray for the sick, lonely, lost, and oppressed. 
Terry Teykl says in his book Praying Grace, “When we pray, we are grace dispensers.  We are compassionate love conduits for God to flow through us.  We say, ‘I think your situation can change, God does miracles.’” (Teykl 2002)  Compassionate prayer is embracing their problem as if it is our problem.  He goes on to say the Holy Spirit inspires within us the abilities of Jesus, so we can be his branches.  We don't have to produce anything or make anything happen, we just usher people straight into the Father's Presence in prayer and let the author of life touch their needs.  The pressure is off us, because He's the one who provides.  We are not the source of power, we are just the conducting agents through which that power flows. We are conduits of grace connected strategically to both God and the need:  

“Jesus did not come to let us taste the wonders of heaven, only to lock them away forever when he left.  No!  He came that we might have life abundant right now. He prayed to the Father, ‘Your kingdom come and be established on this earth just like it is in heaven.’  And then he showed us that our job in the process is to pray, inviting God to move and work in our lives and the lives of those around us. We are called to be branches of this same Jesus, bearing [the same] fruit in His name.” (Teykl 2002)
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” (1 Pe. 5:5-7)  

In seeking grace before God’s face, humility is to be desired above all things, because God only gives grace to the humble.  God either resists us or boosts us.  The choice really is ours.  We need to replace the false humility of a martyr with the true humility of a child of God who grasps how much we have at our disposal because all that we have is His.  

The Lord placed this parable on my heart to describe the kind of humility He is looking for.  What if my husband and I were to go to another country into the mission field where we didn’t need to keep our house, cars, etc.  Assuming everything was paid for, what if we decided to bless the socks off of another family and give it all away to them.  Of course it would be a fantastic time of rejoicing for all of us; for us, because it is so great to be in a position to bless, and for them, because it is great to be blessed!  However, what if after several years we returned to find this couple living as if they were where they were because of their own effort and expertise?  What if they had forgotten that all they had was purely due to our blessing and grace?  If we had had  foresight, we would not have exalted them in the first place!  Well, Jesus has that foresight, and He sees perfectly into the heart of man.  He will not, cannot, exalt those who fail to remember the source of their well-being!  He will not lose one of us to pride; therefore, He cannot pour out His gracious blessing until we remain grounded in true humility.   

We see this message in the life of Joseph.  God showed Joseph how He purposed to bestow unheard of, undeserved merit upon him so that Joseph could be an instrument of blessing and salvation to God’s people.  It was as if Joseph could not help but be puffed up with “look at me” self-importance.  He then went through several waves of prosperity and pits until God trusted he would not take credit for the abundant provision and wisdom that Joseph could now wield.  The same applies to us.  Until we take our eyes off the multi-colored cloak of self-importance and fix them on Him, (coram Deo!) we can’t be trusted to wear the royal robe of authority and privileged blessing as the King can set us over His Kingdom.  All that He has is ours!  

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

“If this abundance and overflow is not true in our life, it is because something is awry—we have an evil stronghold that is robbing us called the spirit [attitude] of poverty.  The Lord did not just give enough; He gave an abundance, more than was needed.  That is the attitude that controls those who are abiding in Him, who live by His Spirit." Rick Joyner            

Jesus asked, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” (Lk 22:35) He wants His followers to live without fear of lack by taking our eyes off our own purse and putting them on Him. Jesus wants us to walk in the same liberty He walked in on earth: to know that no matter if we’re at the end of our own resources, He is there padding our heavenly purse with gifts according to the generosity of the King of Kings.  “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” (Rom. 8:17)  He wants us to simply know that we know that we know that His grace is sufficient and abundant at all times:

“And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation].” 2 Co. 9:8 AMP

Rick Joyner writes that grace is the most powerful thing in the universe.  When we are clothed in the mantle of grace it shows we are sons and daughters of the King—the dread champions who prevail against every power of darkness.  We only have true strength to the degree we abide with the King in all His grace.  It is the same mantle that clothed Jesus, Who in the days of His flesh said, “By myself I can do nothing.”  Jesus was poor in spirit, and therefore the Kingdom of God belonged to Him.  The same is true of us; when we grasp a correct understanding of what it means to be poor in spirit and identify ourselves as buried yet seated with the risen Christ, we come to a place where all things are possible.  In spite of our weakness, all that He has is ours!

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

CORAM DEO MONDAYS with MARISA
November 18, 2013

“For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Eph 4:8

The word for “salvation” or “saved” in the Greek is “sozo.”  It means “to make alive” and “to make healthy.”  In the contexts in which it is used, it implies spiritual, inward, and physical salvation.  The word “sozo” is used not only when He saved (sozo’d) people from sin and sin’s bondage, (Acts 2:47, Ro. 8:24, Ro. 5:10, Heb 7:25) but also when He saved people from sickness, (Mt. 9:22, Mk. 5:34, Lk. 8:48-50, Jas. 5:15) when He saved people from destruction, (Mt.8:25, 2 Tim. 4:18) and when He saved people from demonic oppression. (Lk. 8:36)  The finished work of the cross supplied “all grace” for all sozo needs.  He came to bring divine enablement mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually—any part that has been lame or crippled. (Pickett 1998)  In other words, the Biblical concept of salvation overlaps into the total deliverance of the whole man.  Now keep in mind these things Jesus sozo’d us from as we read this verse whose familiarity and future tense application has caused us to lose sight of its day to day relevance:

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”  Eph 2:4-9

It is by grace we are saved (sozo’d) through faith.  Let’s stop.  We have applied this truth for our sozo need of forgiveness of sins for eternal life.  Now let’s apply this truth for our whatsozoever needs.  What areas of our body, soul, and spirit are in need of wholeness?  Begin taking steps of faith in His ‘all grace’ by taking a moment to write down these areas and asking for His salvation to come.  God created all parts of us and wants to apply His healing balm to all areas of our life.  We are powerless to sozo ourselves.  Therefore, day by day, we must persist in yielding to His grace.  

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

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Ro. 8:32)

Walking in the light of the abundant grace before His face is not most Christians’ daily experience.  As is the single theme throughout Coram Deo, the reason for this is that we are not living boldly before the throne of grace before His face to obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)  Another reason is that we do not know how to be patient farmers abiding on the Vine from which ‘all grace’ flows, “Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”
 (Jas. 5:7-8) 

If the total fruition of God’s grace does not come instantly we shrink back in disappointment and unbelief.  We quit believing in the abundant nature and kingdom of our God “who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Ro. 8:32)  We panic and become like the stiff-necked Israelites who spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the desert?  When he struck the rock, water gushed out, and streams flowed abundantly.  But can he also give us food?  Can he supply meat for his people?” (Ps. 78:19-20)  How is it that we confidently trust God’s grace for eternal life, but we lack that same confidence for our everyday small ‘all things’? That is where, like the Israelites, too often put God to the test: “for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.” (Ps. 78:22)

His honey grace is a sticky irritation to Christians whose lives are still fueled by pride of life. (Wimber & Springer 1987)  It gets all over us, prohibiting us from going our own way, in our own time, and taking credit for our own life.  We want to be our own healer, master, savior, provider, comforter, sanctifier, purifier, path finder, and all-sufficient one.  Yet those names are reserved for God. Like manna, grace cannot be stored up, but must be gathered every morning. Walking in coram Deo ‘all grace’ is a matter of waking up smart each morning and looking up at the face (as reflected by the names) of our freehearted Giver, saying, “Jesus, Name above all names, come be all Your names in my life today.” 

Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.htmlNovember 11, 2013

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” 
(Ro. 8:32)

Walking in the light of the abundant grace before His face is not most Christians’ daily experience.  As is the single theme throughout Coram Deo, the reason for this is that we are not living boldly before the throne of grace before His face to obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)  Another reason is that we do not know how to be patient farmers abiding on the Vine from which ‘all grace’ flows, “Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”
 (Jas. 5:7-8) 

If the total fruition of God’s grace does not come instantly we shrink back in disappointment and unbelief.  We quit believing in the abundant nature and kingdom of our God “who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Ro. 8:32)  We panic and become like the stiff-necked Israelites who spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the desert?  When he struck the rock, water gushed out, and streams flowed abundantly.  But can he also give us food?  Can he supply meat for his people?” (Ps. 78:19-20)  How is it that we confidently trust God’s grace for eternal life, but we lack that same confidence for our everyday small ‘all things’? That is where, like the Israelites, too often put God to the test: “for they did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance.” (Ps. 78:22)

His honey grace is a sticky irritation to Christians whose lives are still fueled by pride of life. (Wimber & Springer 1987)  It gets all over us, prohibiting us from going our own way, in our own time, and taking credit for our own life.  We want to be our own healer, master, savior, provider, comforter, sanctifier, purifier, path finder, and all-sufficient one.  Yet those names are reserved for God. Like manna, grace cannot be stored up, but must be gathered every morning. Walking in coram Deo ‘all grace’ is a matter of waking up smart each morning and looking up at the face (as reflected by the names) of our freehearted Giver, saying, “Jesus, Name above all names, come be all Your names in my life today.” 

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

“Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” 
Lk. 15:31

Living coram Deo means living in a state of expectantly asking for and boasting about the exceeding riches of His grace.  He wants us to live each day boldly declaring, “TODAY by grace I am saved through faith, and that not of myself.  TODAY’s provision is the gift of God, not of works, lest I should boast.”  No matter what our current trials may be, He wants us to be so full of honey grace that our poised lives shout the gospel message: we are alive and attached to the Father of every good and perfect thing Who says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” (Lk 15:31, underline added)  When we receive what we are freely given, then we are able to freely give it out. (Mt. 10:8)  We are to “Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” (Mt 13: 16 MSG)  Now that’s spreading the gospel!

To understand the magnanimous statement, “All that I have is yours,” is to understand how many resources the King of Kings has at His disposal.  His ALL is ALL there is!  His ‘all grace’ means He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” (Eph. 1:3)  According to the riches of His grace we are blessed, chosen, holy, blameless, adopted, accepted, redeemed, and forgiven. (Eph. 1:3-8)  Not only that, but all wealth, wisdom, strength, and power belong to Him—He is the very source of all created things. (Rev. 4:11, 5:12)  If you and I were to give someone all that we have or bless someone according to the riches of our grace (bounty), it wouldn’t go far.  But when the King of King gives all that He has, that’s never ending abundance—superfluous, more than sufficient, what is above and over, superior and advantageous.  Because Jesus became our curse, His throne of grace is like a honey pot of blessing that is tipped over and never stops flowing.  The Bible says, “For you know t
he grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Co. 8:9)  We trade in our all for His ALL.  Not fair, but that’s grace.  

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

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every [all] good deed.” 2 Co. 9:8

Did you notice all the all’s in today’s verse?  Webster’s definition of “all” is “any whatsoever; being the utmost possible; everything being taken into account and everything else; in any and every way; to any extent.” (Webster 1984)  However, most Christians’ concept of grace is not this generous.  Grace is seen as a pretty, yet innocuous word to say at the dinner table, and grace is understood to be there at our initial salvation experience: “by grace you have been saved through faith.” (Eph. 2:8)  But the implications of God’s ‘all grace’ span vastly beyond our entry point and into all of our “any whatsoever” things, times, and needs.  In order to live coram Deo, grace needs to become our favorite feast that we freely find before His face for all things, for all times, and for all needs.  

Grace is “charis,” which in the Greek means, “favor, acceptance, unearned benefits; what we cannot do; the bounty and free heartedness of the Giver.” (Zodhiates 1990)  Grace is the bounty of heaven dripping down like honey on any whatsoever we cannot do.  Grace is stepping aside so as not to settle merely for what we can do, but rather make room for Him to “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Eph. 3:20)  God’s ‘all grace’ poured out in our lives is like discovering a tool on the computer that allows us to do in 10 minutes what would have taken 10 hours!

By faith in His ‘all grace,’ we can declare daily, “I’m in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things,” even if that means we appear to be stumbling forward more than backwards in life.  Grace is having what we need when we need it for any whatsoever He leads us to do, even if we’re “surrounded and battered by troubles…not sure what to do…spiritually terrorized…and thrown down…to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us.” (2 Co. 4:8-9, 7 MSG)  Christ in us wants His grace to freely flow so that we are whatever He wants to be through us.  It is to God’s glory (i.e., Jesus is seen) when ordinary clay pots bear His extraordinary fruit. 

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

Fasting is renouncing the natural by turning to God to invoke the supernatural. When Jesus came out of the desert after fasting for 40 days He, “returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.” 
(Lk. 4:14)  

Fasting evidently was one of the keys to unlocking the power of the Holy Spirit to flow through His life, for when He returned He began His ministry of empowered, miraculous compassion.  How does this apply to us?  Jesus told the church in John 14:12 that we would do the works that He did, and even greater works.  The works that Jesus did began with fasting.  Jesus specifically used the word “when” instead of “if” in Matthew 6 when He instructed the Church in three Christian disciplines: “when you pray…when you give…when you fast.”  The early church set for us the example of moving out of the natural realm through fasting.  They regularly depended on the Holy Spirit’s supernatural revelation and power to lead them.  And they knew humble fasting released His power, making them instruments through which He was invited to work without hindrance. (Prince Fasting 1986)  

Fasting breaks down barriers in our carnal nature (e.g., self-will of the soul and self-gratifying appetites of the body) so that the Holy Spirit can work unhindered in His fullness through our prayers.  There is an area of God’s will and provision for each of us that can be appropriated only through prayer and fasting.  Simply put, no other part of God’s provision is a substitute for fasting.  Derek Prince uses the following diagram to illustrate this.  The whole triangle ABC represents the complete will of God for every believer.  The unshaded area DBCE represents the area of God’s will that can be appropriated by prayer without fasting.  The smaller shaded triangle ADE represents the area of God’s will that can be appropriated only by prayer and fasting combined.  
    
Many of God’s choicest provisions for His people lie within that top shaded triangle.  (Prince Shaping History Through Fasting 2002)  Fasting was an important part of the life of Jesus’ and the New Testament Church, and it should be an important part of our life.  Yet, many Christians today don’t fast for one simple reason: we just haven’t been doing it!  Give fasting a chance to personally show you its benefits. 
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“No desire of the human heart is safe unless the natural heart is first satisfied by God.”          - Oswald Chambers


There is an unholy trinity at work in our midst: the devil, our flesh, and the world.  Self-sufficiency and pride of life epitomize the character of the unholy trinity.  Fasting is a powerful and extreme act of defiance against the main thing this trio would have us do: rely on any source other than God.  

One of the most amazing patterns I’ve seen after having fasted regularly now for years, is that when I fast even when I can’t afford to because of all the things I have to get done, somehow it all gets done!  Like the promise says, “all those things get added unto me!”  When we fast, even when it seems we can’t afford an empty gas tank, we tap into God’s supernatural fuel and resources.  When we empty our pockets of our scant fish and bread, the Lord of abundance takes that offering and multiplies it so that we have more at the end than we did at the beginning!  David wrote, “I humbled my soul with fasting.” (Ps. 35:13)  When we humble ourselves before His face, it qualifies us for the provision He wants to pour upon us, for God opposes the proud but exalts the humble. (Prince Fasting 1986)

The abundance that has been poured out during my regular fasting experiences, have overcome that core fear of laying down my life; instead, I fear not laying down my life.  When we seek Him and His kingdom business first, He takes care of ours.  Fasting is the one discipline that we can purposefully engage in to experience the principle of true humility firsthand: “I am the power outlet, you are the plug; without Me you can do nothing.”  Fasting tangibly illustrates the Christian life is all about—the great exchange of our meager life for the power of His resurrection life

Fasting reveals the mystery underlying God’s economy: when we lay down our life, we find it.  So often we mindlessly default into living for ourselves.  We give into the pressures of life when we are not regularly and purposefully seeking His face.  We so easily become like the disciples who told Jesus that they would put Him first once other things weren’t so pressing (Mt. 8:22, Lk. 9:60).  At our very core is the fear that if we don’t live for ourselves, we will miss out.  Fasting on a regular basis is like pre-scheduling a tow truck to snatch us out of self-absorbed ditches and get us back on the track of purposefully seeking Him and living for Him!   
                                     
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html

“There are simply no shortcuts to His Presence, and the surest path…is found in the powerhouse combination of prayer and fasting…Fasting is a choice for God and against the flesh.  When you fast you are making a conscious inward decision demonstrated by an outward act that you want God’s power to flow through you, not your own.” Mahesh Chavda

The message of Anna’s life is that when we abandon ourselves to a spiritual lifestyle of ministering to the Lord with prayer and fasting, which trains us to perceive Him by the Spirit, we will be rewarded with knowing Him and seeing Him. (Pickett 1998)  We see this in Scripture in that only a few people recognized Jesus for who He was even as an infant.  One of them was Anna.  None of the religious experts who were wise in their own eyes ever saw Jesus for who He was.  God as an infant was already declaring that we will only know Him by the Spirit!  We can only truly see His face—see Him for who He is—in Spirit and in truth, or not at all.  Therefore, we must train our hearts to live by what is unseen.  Fasting is a lost key to successfully doing this as seen throughout the Bible, but has been misplaced by the Church today. (Prince Fasting 1986)

Mahesh Chavda, who has completed twenty-nine 40-day fasts and numerous other long-term fasts (and has lived to tell about it!) says, “If you are not in the Spirit, then you cannot see the things of God and experience His glory.  If you will pay the price to seek His face in prayer with fasting then you will experience a life transformation as you literally put on the strength of the Lord and the power of His might!” Cornelius in Acts 10:30-31 is one such example.  He was a man who prayed and fasted for more of God.  As a result he was the first Gentile to believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit.  (Chavda Power of Prayer and Fasting  1998, 107) 

Too often, we Christians are so carnal-minded and so sated by the things of this world, even good Christian works, that we lose our taste buds for what is best.  But just as fasting sensitizes our natural taste buds, it also quickens our spiritual taste buds for discerning His Presence and other things of the Spirit.  Fasting comes with the reward of heightened spirituality, which means we become more sensitive to Him than to even our natural senses. 
                                     
Adapted from the Coram Deo Secret
http://www.marisarickerson.com/coram-deo.html