WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Good morning everyone, or good afternoon, or good day, depending on when you're listening to this. 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.000 This is day eight of our journey, the joy of the Lord. 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Restful one, I speak to your spirit in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 4 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 Listen with your spirit to the word of God for you. 5 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:26.000 Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. 6 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 This day is sacred to our Father. 7 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8.10. 8 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:43.000 During the reconstruction of the broken wall of Jerusalem, Nehemiah wanted the people to experience the joy that the Father was experiencing, 9 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:51.000 because when they could tap into the joy that God experienced over what they had done so far, 10 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 they would have the strength to walk the next mile and press on. 11 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:00.000 There was a great deal of work yet to be done on the broken down city. 12 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Much social woundedness needed to be healed, and there was much from God's word that they had not experienced. 13 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Restful one, I bless you with knowing the joy of the Lord that is your strength. 14 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:19.000 I bless you with knowing joy in his fatherness in profound and life-giving ways. 15 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.000 I bless you with remembering times when he showed you his fatherness. 16 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:30.000 I bless you with enlarging your spirit to know profoundly and deeply that your father is pleased with you. 17 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:36.000 I bless you with receiving the truth of your identity, legitimacy, and birthright. 18 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:45.000 I bless you with knowing who you are in your father's eyes, and with drinking deeply of the joy that he has in who you are. 19 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 I bless you with absorbing with your spirit the great detail of God your father, 20 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:58.000 and sending an angel to one young woman to tell her that she had found favor with him, 21 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000 and would give birth to Jesus Christ of Nazareth. 22 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.000 Well, Jesus Christ the Messiah. 23 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:11.000 Before that moment, she had no idea of her favor in the father's eyes, 24 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:16.000 how much he enjoyed her, or how pleased he was with her. 25 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:23.000 The joy that the Lord had in her gave her the strength to walk through the difficult months ahead. 26 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.000 I bless you with knowing that kind of joy for difficult times and circumstances. 27 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:35.000 I bless you, restful one, with receiving truth from the life of Gideon, 28 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000 who did not know that God looked upon him with favor. 29 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 Gideon saw himself so poorly that he was hiding. 30 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.000 He had no idea that God knew he existed. 31 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:53.000 But God saw him as the mighty warrior he had designed before the foundations of the earth 32 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000 to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites. 33 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:05.000 I bless you with joy and a touch from God to seal in your heart and your spirit 34 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.000 that you have favor in his eyes, 35 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:17.000 and that he will communicate his purposes for you that cannot be defeated. 36 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000 I bless you with experiencing the joy that your father has 37 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.000 when your spirit rises up and responds to the Holy Spirit. 38 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.000 I bless you with knowing the joy that your father has 39 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:33.000 when he sees that today you are different than you were yesterday. 40 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:36.000 I bless you with feeling the joy that your father has 41 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:43.000 as he thinks out into the future of all the blessings that he has prepared, 42 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:49.000 the surprises, the divine encounters, the unexpected treasures that he has prepared for you. 43 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 I bless you with experiencing the joy of your father 44 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 and his anticipation over the road you are going to walk. 45 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:05.000 I bless you with savoring your father's excitement over your design, restful one, 46 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:11.000 each thing he has placed in you to do your giftings. 47 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.000 As those divine encounters are positioned, 48 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:22.000 as you step up to the process to possess your birthright to be a life giver, 49 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.000 I bless you with experiencing the joy he feels 50 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:28.000 and knowing that the unique person that he has designed 51 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:34.000 is cooperating with him in the works that he has planned for you to do. 52 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.000 I bless you with fulfilling the joy of God 53 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:41.000 who is leading you to do right things at the right time, 54 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.000 in the right way, with the right people. 55 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.000 I bless you with knowing and being so tuned to the Spirit of God 56 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:54.000 that you know intuitively in your spirit what the right place is, 57 00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:00.000 what you are supposed to be doing and how you are supposed to do it. 58 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:06.560 I bless you, restful one, with knowing the joy of the Lord that gives you the strength to press on, 59 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:12.080 go forward, to endure hardship as a good soldier, to accomplish, to fulfill, 60 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:20.080 to prepare thoroughly, and to face pain unflinchingly. I bless you with knowing so profoundly 61 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:26.640 the pleasure that he has in you that the opposition of other people means nothing, 62 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:32.800 that you rebound from disappointment and return quickly to your joy center and your Father. 63 00:05:33.520 --> 00:05:39.600 I bless you with overcoming the pain, sorrow, shame, discouragement, and every sort of negative 64 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:46.480 emotion, and having to make a coarse correction. And I bless you to savor the joy that the Father 65 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:53.200 has in you as you come back to the joy, the high joy level he designed for you. 66 00:05:54.160 --> 00:06:02.240 Restful one, your Father made you. He master-planned you, uniquely designed for his particular time in 67 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:10.080 history. He chose the time in history, the family that he placed you into, and all your days up to 68 00:06:10.080 --> 00:06:18.320 now. His craftsmanship of you and his plan for you will stand before his throne for all eternity. 69 00:06:19.280 --> 00:06:24.800 I bless you with having abiding strength to be where God has placed you, and to accomplish 70 00:06:25.520 --> 00:06:30.560 what he has called you to do, because you are able to drink deeply the joy that God, 71 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:37.760 the Father, has for you as his beloved handiwork crafted for his pleasure and purpose. 72 00:06:38.320 --> 00:06:40.320 I bless you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 73 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:43.440 Oh, Lord, there's so much there. 74 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:55.440 I think for most of us, Lord, we look and identify so much with the things that we've done wrong. 75 00:06:59.520 --> 00:07:05.280 I read somewhere that 80% of what is communicated and received is negative. 76 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:14.320 You told me one time that I needed to be careful what I identified with. Did I identify with you, 77 00:07:15.200 --> 00:07:22.240 or did I identify with my junk, with my failure, with my sin, with my mistakes? 78 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:29.600 Lord, I pray for each and every person here that they would come to a peace of knowing that they're 79 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:33.600 right where they're supposed to be, that they are not on plan, that they are not on purpose, 80 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:41.600 that they are not on plan Q. You don't have plans in the sense of like with all the contingencies. 81 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:46.560 It's not a pick-your-own-path novel that we maybe get to the end, and maybe we don't, 82 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:54.320 that it is a place where you have plan A all the way through, that we can come to a place of 83 00:07:54.320 --> 00:08:00.320 trusting you in that place, and that we can identify with you and who you are. In this case, 84 00:08:00.320 --> 00:08:10.560 the joy is so hard to imagine that you find joy in us now, where we are, warts and all. 85 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:20.000 For so many, it's like once I get to blah blah place, once I get to here, once I change this, 86 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:28.240 once I accomplish that, then you'll be happy, then we'll be happy, and then most of the time 87 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:37.840 that does not happen. I heard many years ago, Lord, that once an Olympic athlete reaches gold, 88 00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:43.360 oftentimes they'll go into a deep depression, because they've accomplished their life work, 89 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:47.520 they've spent their whole life training for this moment, and now it's happened, and now what? 90 00:08:47.520 --> 00:08:59.600 Lord, I pray for each person here to get to have that experience, even if it's just by faith, 91 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:06.640 to believe you, to experience that place where the Father is pleased, 92 00:09:09.760 --> 00:09:17.040 and not, I don't know how to describe it, that way in which you love all of us, 93 00:09:17.040 --> 00:09:23.520 so we're in this just big pot, that you individually love each person here, 94 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:31.760 the person who's listening, you love that individual person, you love everything about 95 00:09:31.760 --> 00:09:39.520 them, there's nothing that you don't know, you love them right where they are completely, 96 00:09:40.160 --> 00:09:47.680 and there's an entire aspect of who they are, and who we are, that we just don't get, 97 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:55.520 we don't understand, we don't see it, but you do, and that we can trust, thank God, 98 00:09:55.520 --> 00:10:01.280 that you are the one, you're the person we're talking about, you're the person we're talking about, 99 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.840 trainer, you're the one that is our God, you're our teacher, you 100 00:10:01.280 --> 00:10:05.280 and you're the person we're talking about, and you're the person we're talking about, 101 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:08.000 are setting up everything that we need to prepare us for what 102 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:17.360 is next, including some of the trials that are in our life. I 103 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:24.200 remember the one time, it's not the only time, but a time that 104 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:28.200 comes to mind, I was, it had been a very long year, I was 105 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:34.440 pastoring some students, it had been wild. And I've been so 106 00:10:34.440 --> 00:10:43.800 busy. I've been traveling a lot, I've been all over. And we were 107 00:10:43.800 --> 00:10:47.040 a, I was, there was an outdoor leadership program, and there 108 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:50.160 was a very, called the final hike, 72 miles, and I went to, 109 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:54.160 I was asked to go and accompany some of the students, and they 110 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:57.920 wanted me to walk the last, you know, overnight portion with 111 00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:01.680 them. And I was walking through the woods in the very back, and 112 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:05.920 we're trying to make our way to the camp. And, and I remember 113 00:11:05.920 --> 00:11:08.760 the Lord for the first time, you know, in that trip, he really 114 00:11:08.760 --> 00:11:16.600 started to speak to me, and I was so tired. He said, Ed, I'm 115 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:26.440 so thankful for what you did with these young ones. I'm so 116 00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:32.520 grateful. You did such a great job with them. And I was a mess. 117 00:11:35.880 --> 00:11:38.440 Well, the God of all the universe doesn't have to thank 118 00:11:38.440 --> 00:11:45.200 me for a thing. The few times that, or the many that I've, I've 119 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:51.920 had the rare experience where I can feel and experience that 120 00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:56.720 gratitude, that love, that appreciation, that approval. It 121 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:02.600 just undoes you. Lord, I pray for more of that. I pray for 122 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:08.200 each person here that they have some aspect of who they are. In 123 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.120 the midst of a trying season, the swelling pride of the 124 00:12:12.120 --> 00:12:16.080 Father, oftentimes when I minister to people, I would feel 125 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:23.200 the swelling pride of you, our Father, over their lives. How 126 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:28.760 proud he was. And just by the speaking of those words, how 127 00:12:28.760 --> 00:12:35.160 people would just come to pieces. Rest for one, God is so 128 00:12:35.160 --> 00:12:40.800 proud of who you are. He's so proud of all that you've done. 129 00:12:41.800 --> 00:12:45.400 He's so proud of the decisions that you've made in spite of 130 00:12:45.400 --> 00:12:52.520 things. He's so proud to call you his son, his daughter, his 131 00:12:52.520 --> 00:12:59.160 beloved one. You are cherished beyond measure. Lord, I pray 132 00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:03.280 today, God, that you would stretch your hands over them. 133 00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:06.800 And whether they challenged them as you did Gideon, where he had 134 00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:12.160 to put out his fleeces because he didn't even believe, you 135 00:13:12.160 --> 00:13:15.280 know, we're not all going to have the experience where it's 136 00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:20.200 you know, Gabriel comes down and we challenge and he goes, I am 137 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:23.960 Gabriel, I'll stand in the presence of God, of our Father. 138 00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:30.120 And then the other part of this, Lord, is that there's a 139 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:38.160 familiarity that was the word I'm looking for a familiarity, a, an 140 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:42.720 aspect of our relationship with you, that Jesus opened up when 141 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:50.680 he called you Abba. There was a, well, she's still alive, a 142 00:13:50.680 --> 00:13:55.560 wonderful woman of God named Judith McNutt. And she's a co 143 00:13:55.560 --> 00:13:57.920 founder of Christian Healing Ministries and a wonderful, 144 00:13:57.920 --> 00:14:05.800 wonderful woman of God. And she, you know, oversaw a house of 145 00:14:05.800 --> 00:14:10.760 prayer in in Israel and Jerusalem a couple of times in 146 00:14:10.760 --> 00:14:15.320 their life. And there's one particular time where they 147 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:18.960 lived in an apartment in an Orthodox neighborhood and all 148 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:22.800 the children would come home one day, you know, at the same time 149 00:14:22.800 --> 00:14:25.880 and the buses will come and, and you would, she would hear all 150 00:14:25.880 --> 00:14:35.040 these children yelling, Abba, Abba. You know, Daddy, Daddy. 151 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:41.280 There's a, and that's why it was so shocking at the time when he 152 00:14:41.280 --> 00:14:48.560 was using words like that. No one had expressed that kind of 153 00:14:48.560 --> 00:14:55.000 relationship with you, Lord. So Father, I pray that Lord, there 154 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:58.400 be breaking down of barriers today. 155 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:07.000 that would stand in the way of anything that you want us to know of an aspect of who you are, 156 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:13.000 and join it in some mysterious way with that, is how we're known in heaven. 157 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:18.000 Again, I don't want to keep... he's just the face I see, Graham Cook again, 158 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:25.000 talking about our inheritance scriptures or talking about our identities in heaven, 159 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:28.000 that we have a name in which we're known in heaven, 160 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:33.000 and a way in which we're known in heaven that we are not known here. 161 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:38.000 But heaven is our reality, not this place. 162 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:43.000 Lord, that more and more we would be able to live from that place and not be defined by our lives 163 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:52.000 or what's happened to us or by the viewpoints of other people. 164 00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:02.000 The longer someone has known us, the more entrenched their beliefs of who they believe us are, 165 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.000 we are, are established, the more intense. 166 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:08.000 It's like a tractor beam. 167 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.000 That's why it used to be said that if you want and you feel like you've mastered your life, 168 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:14.000 go home and spend two weeks with your parents. 169 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:18.000 It's the same reason why Jesus said a prophet is not without honor except for at home, 170 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.000 in his hometown or with his family. 171 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:28.000 He went to Nazareth and he could only heal a couple of people of some sickness. 172 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:34.000 Lord, I pray that there be some pivotal moment, a watershed moment for each and every person here 173 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:39.000 where there is a division, a chasm. 174 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:47.000 It is really to be a new creation into which the place of who we are is so separated, 175 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:52.000 so devoid of how we've been seen by other people and how we've seen ourselves, 176 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:59.000 that there is no going back, that there's a dynamic, there's a genetic change, 177 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:02.000 that there is no going back. 178 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:08.000 I pray right now, Lord, you place your hands upon the heads of each and every person here. 179 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:15.000 Lord, you would place your hand upon their heart and that there be this shift. 180 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Lord, we bless you, Lord, and we love you in Jesus' name.