Jan 13 - Pressing into the Cross

After about 45 minutes of prayer and worship we started really praying on the theme of the cross. I got a picture of Gideon's army. He started out with a large army but God kept sending men home until he had a group that was committed to him. I got the feeling that this was a word for the church. There are a lot of big programs that are designed to get the most people involved. We have been really geared towards the numbers. But I felt that God was saying we had skipped the first step which is embracing the cross. We have taught people how to prayer, and fast, and even do healing and worship ministry. We are trained in the bible and theology, but so few are trained in embracing the sacrifice of the cross. And this is the first step. Really its the only step. Jesus said pick up your cross and follow me. Before following him even starts there is the picking up of the cross. But we've skipped step one and run along to the other parts of following him. There was prayer that our dreams, hopes, ambitions, good desires and bad desires be given to the Lord so that we could be completely devoted to his calling. We read a passage from 2nd corinthians where Paul states that he felt the sentance of death upon him but he knew that the God who raised Christ from the dead would bring him through. He said that God is leading us about in a triumphant parade even though it looks like we are dying. To some this is a life giving aroma of sacrifice to God. To others this just smells like death. I felt the need to pray for a bigger vision. I asked that God would give us an idea of what a couple men and women totally devoted to God's plan and with no expectations or bagage of their own could accomplish, or, rather, what God could accomplish through them. I prayed that God give us a glimps of that. That we could have practical understanding of what stands between our current state and that total commitment. What little things had we conceeded to as just something that would never change? Are their things in our lives that we have just accepted as normal that are actually sins that God wants to remove. Are their greater levels of devotion and prayer that he is calling us to? How do we get to a point where we have to tear ourselves away from prayer because we might stay up all night!? There's a bigger picture of what God can do in his people if they will get rid of all of their small plans and wait for his big instructions.