If it's fire, it's got to look like fire, feel like fire, smell like fire or something.
Welcome to another Raising Home Fire Secret Place training session.
Those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of
the Almighty.
And our prayer and our vision for this time is that you would be further equipped, that
you would be taken into a deeper experience of the secret place, into a deeper personal
connection with God, and that you would experience what it's like in a deeper way to come under
the overshadowing of God.
Bill Johnson says, whatever overshadows you will come out in your shadow.
And you know, the book of Daniel, Daniel writes this, he says, those that know their God shall
do great exploits.
And so our prayer is that you would grow in your knowledge, not just your knowledge about
God, but your intimate, personal, experiential knowledge of knowing God.
And so enjoy this session, God bless you.
Well welcome to another secret place training session.
I'm really excited to be sharing with you what I'm going to be sharing with you today.
I'm going to be talking about a practice that I practice in my personal prayer life that
has really blessed me, that I can trace so much fruit back to.
I want to talk about the practice of declaration.
The fact that your words are a weapon and your tongue is a sword.
Proverbs 18.21 says this, that the tongue has the power of life and death.
When we read through the first couple of chapters of Genesis, we see the first mention of words.
And I don't know about you, but I grew up believing, I grew up being taught that the
primary function and purpose of words was to communicate information to other people.
And while that is a great benefit and one of the side purposes of words, that is definitely
not the primary purpose of words according to scripture or according to God.
We see the primary purpose, the primary function of words in the first couple of chapters of
Genesis where God spoke and things came into creation.
The primary function of words is to create more than to communicate.
This is true.
The world that we are living in today is the fruit of the words that we spoke yesterday.
And the words that we speak today will somewhat, and I think to a large degree somewhat, determine
the world that we live in and the atmosphere that we live in tomorrow.
Words create atmospheres and atmospheres dictate what will naturally grow within that atmosphere.
Our words set the temperature.
Our words set the climate.
Our words set the invisible atmosphere for things to grow in.
Our words are creative by nature.
Our words have the power to pull down or to build up.
Our words are possibly the most powerful weapon we have.
So the first thing I want to say is this.
When you pray, take care what you say because your declaration is powerful.
Your words are powerful.
Your words are creative by nature.
Your words take spiritual reality, unseen reality, and they are one of the tools, one
of the ways that God has given you to take the unseen and to bring the unseen into the
scene.
Everything that we see, the Bible teaches, Scripture teaches, that everything that we
see in the visible came from the invisible.
Everything that's in the natural now came from the Spirit.
And words are one of the ways that we take spiritual promises, spiritual prophecies,
spiritual substance, spiritual reality, and we translate that into the natural.
And our words are like a gate for spiritual reality to come flooding into the natural
and to be incarnated and made flesh in the world around us.
Our words are powerful.
Your words are powerful.
Write that down somewhere.
That's the first point.
The second thing I want to say is this.
Something powerful takes place when you go from just speaking your words to bringing
your language into alignment with what God has already said and what God is already saying,
and when you bring your language into alignment with the language of God.
When you start to speak what God has said and when you start to speak what God is saying,
you go from this.
You go from swinging your sword, which is powerful, to swinging God's sword through
your mouth.
You go from the power of your words, which you just heard me say, Proverbs 18.21 is true.
Your tongue has the power of life and death.
Your words are powerful to tear down or to build up, to create or to destroy.
But when you go from speaking your words to speaking what God has said and what God is
saying and you adjust your language to come into alignment with the language of God, you
go from the power of your words to the power of His words through your mouth.
That is an amazing reality to think on just for a moment.
I could just say this, Selah.
Let's just pause and think about that for a second and think about how that relates
to your prayer life.
This is amazing.
I love the story of Mary in Luke chapter 1, Luke 1.37, the angel says to Mary,
For with God nothing is impossible.
Now this statement is spoken in the context of the conversation that this angel is having
with Mary about, the angel comes to Mary and says, you're going to be with son.
She says, it's impossible.
I'm a virgin.
It's impossible for me to be with son.
And the angel says, listen, it's going to happen for with God nothing is impossible.
And what it literally means in the original language is this, where God has spoken, there's
the word reimer in there, where God has spoken, the thing that he has spoken is no longer
impossible.
Even if it was possible, if he says it, it's now possible.
And the implication is this, that every time God speaks, the resources, the grace and the
power that is required to bring that word to fruition and to bring that word to pass
comes in the word.
When God gives a prophecy, when God gives a promise, when God speaks, his word doesn't
come as a fully grown tree.
His word comes as a seed.
Now the prophecy is like this, when you go to the seed shop, when you go to the plant
store and you buy a packet of seeds, at least the plant stores I go to, often there's a
picture of what the tree will look like if the seed is stewarded properly, nurtured properly
and looked after it when it's at its, at its, uh, when it's come to maturity, the seed will
end up looking like this tree, the picture on the back of the seed packet, the prophecy
and the promise is kind of like the picture on the back of the seed packet.
This is what it will, this is what this word will look like if you look after it, steward
it and take care of it in its mature form, it will look, this is the promise, but the
promise comes to you in a seed form.
And when God gives you a seed, when God gives you a word, when God gives you a promise or
a prophecy, he expects you to see the tree and the seed.
And so you receive the seed and then what you do with the seed determines whether that
seed will turn into the picture on the back of the seed packet or whether it will just
die and remain a seed and not come to any fruition or any level of maturity.
And one of the ways we do that is we water the seed with our words.
I love what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1.18, he gives this instruction to his spiritual son
Timothy and he's talking to Timothy about taking the promises, taking the prophecies,
taking those things spoken over him and, and, um, and not letting them die, but taking them,
nurturing them, looking after them, stewarding them until they come into fruition.
He wants Timothy to reach his destiny.
He wants Timothy to achieve and accomplish his purpose on earth.
And he says, he says this to Timothy, Timothy, I charge you this, sorry, in 1 Timothy 1.18,
this charge I commit to you son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously may concern you
that by them you may wage the good warfare.
And what this, if you look into the original language, what this is literally saying, what
Paul is literally saying to Timothy is this, as a commander over the word, as a commander
over the promises, a commander over the prophecy that you receive from the Lord, um, initiate
military expedition by sending the army, sending the hosts that have been assigned to the word
to battle on behalf of the word.
And this is the truth that that scripture unveils is this, there is an implication and
there is a truth that you can see in that scripture.
And here it is that every time you receive a prophecy, every time you receive a promise,
that promise comes with resources from heaven that are waiting for your leadership.
And as you, as you begin to take initiative and as you begin to take responsibility for
the prophecies and the words that you have been given, um, then those resources are released
into the earth and, uh, and the, the support and the backing of heaven is released to make
war on behalf of the word that you've received.
Anyone can receive a prophecy, but not many people actually see prophecies and promises
through to their fruition.
And one of the reasons behind that I believe is because people aren't intentional to, uh,
to be responsible, to steward the word that they've been given.
And people don't often understand that they have been given leadership over the word
and that heaven, a lot of people are waiting for heaven, but I think heaven is actually
waiting for people to take initiative and take leadership and take responsibility for
the words that they've been given.
When you declare according to the prophecies you've been given, according to the promises
you've been given, when you declare that is, that is making the good warfare, that is
making war.
As you declare the words that God has spoken.
spoken, angelic armies are released, heaven is released, the resources of heaven is released
as you speak what God is saying, heaven is released on behalf of the Word.
And that is an amazing, amazing truth, that you literally have the power in your prayer
life to activate heaven's resources on behalf of the words that have been spoken over you.
And so one of the things that I do in my prayer life is I, first of all, I keep track of the
things that God has spoken to me, either in dreams, or through prophetic words that have
been given to me, or through revelation, or just maybe I've just been reading the Scriptures
and I see a promise that's just in there and it's for all the people of God, it's for all
the children of God, then I'll just take note of all those things that God is speaking to
me and that God is revealing to me, and I'll take note of those things.
I even have a file on my phone of, there's probably about 30 or 40 prophetic words that
I have on there that I listen to quite frequently, and I just keep in my mind all the time, it's
important to keep in mind and to stay aware of what God has said and what God is saying,
so that you can take what God has said and what God is saying into your prayer life and
begin to declare out loud what God is saying, your words are the power to create, your words
are the power of life and death, but when you go from speaking just whatever you want
to say, to speaking what God has said, heaven is released on behalf of the words that you're
saying, you go from swinging your sword to swinging God's sword with God's resources
and with the backing of heaven, and that is truly amazing.
One of the things I do is I make war with my words, and I want to encourage you to do
the same, and we're going to go to an activation very soon, but one thing I do is I write out
declarations and I speak out declarations that are in alignment with what God has said.
And as I do that, I have so many times now, I've seen dramatic and instant transformation
take place and breakthrough take place, and the words and the declarations have so much
effect in the world around me in relation to what has been spoken, what has been declared,
it's been really, really amazing.
So we're going to go into an activation now, God bless you, and I hope you really enjoyed
that session.
Awesome, well hey guys, welcome to the activation.
This is what you're going to need for this activation, again you're going to need a pen,
something to write down on, some space, maybe some music, and the first thing I want to
ask you to do in this activation is I want to ask you to think about, and let's just
give it a number, let's give it 10 things.
I want you to write a list of 10 things, 10 promises that God has given you, 10 prophecies
God has given you, they can be promises, prophecies, or they can just be truths that you know God
has invited you to walk in.
So I want you to write down a list of 10 different promises or prophecies or realities that God
has invited you to walk in.
I just want you to write down a list.
Okay, thanks for writing down that list guys, and now what I want you to do, if it isn't
in this format already, I want you to write that list into a declaration that you can
declare out in your personal prayer time.
So just go write that into, put that into words that can be a declaration that you declare
out in your prayer space, something along the lines of, I declare that, fill in the dots.
Okay, that is awesome.
Now the next thing I'm going to ask you to do, and this is your homework, but this is
really important, is I want you to take that declaration that you've just written out,
and I want you to make a plan to, in your prayer times this week, for the next 7 days,
I want you to faithfully, out loud, declare that out every day for the next 7 days.
And I want you to take a note of what begins to shift and change in your life as a result
of declaring that declaration out.
Okay, so that's my homework to you.
That's the activation.
God bless you, and we'll see you next week.