Okay, let's try this again. I just recorded an entire message, and then I realized that
my phone had somehow turned off the recording. So let's hope that I can somehow do this again.
Good morning, everyone. It is day 18, and this one is called A Team of Peacemakers.
Wrestle one, listen to your spirit, to the word of God. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth,
peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. James 3, 18. Two are better
than one because they have a good return for their work. Ecclesiastes 4, 9. So the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the son
of Joshua, son of Jehozaddek, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the
people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God. Haggai
1, 14. Wrestle one, it is good to be a peacemaker, but it is even better to be a part of a team
of peacemakers. Two are better than one. Two peacemakers working together can accomplish
more than two working individually. I bless you with being a peacemaker and with your
Father blessing you with additional peacemakers who work together with you to raise a harvest
of righteousness. I bless you with men and women who come alongside you interested in
the harvest of righteousness and not in their own agendas. I bless you with men and women
who have themselves that wholeness, completeness, harmony of all their parts that they are at
peace so that they are able to bring the harmony of their peace along others. Together
you can create a richer, fuller harmony to produce righteousness. I bless you with rare
people of that caliber brought into partnership with you. I bless you with Haggai 1, 14, where
the Lord stirred up the spirit of the governor, the high priest, and the whole remnant of
the people. I bless you with your Father stirring up the spirit of those whom he handpicked
in position of leadership, business, civil government, church, and even peers. These
men and women of peace who look outside themselves will come to you and partner with you so that
you can sow in a peace and raise a mighty harvest of righteousness. I bless you, Restful
One, with people who are seeking to grow other people and bring them into fullness
and completeness to a state of righteousness and harmony. I bless you with people who are
not looking primarily to fix circumstances so that they can walk in greater ease. Rather,
their internal peace will be the objective they are trying to replicate in the lives
of others. I bless you with a multiplied harvest of righteousness in lives, in communities
of faith, and in your culture. May God bless you with men and women who walk alongside
you shoulder to shoulder in harmony, without competition, without control, without manipulation,
without contention. As a team, you can reap a harvest of righteousness that will leave
a verifiable, immeasurable, sustained imprint on the community around you. I bless you in
the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who had a team of peacemakers with him and who left an incredible
harvest of righteousness behind him. Lord, I pray for an inspired prayer because I am
struggling to remember all of the things that I prayed for them earlier, which I trust you
will see through. But the gist of it, Lord, is that we've all heard that you are a relational
God and that you are a relationship unto yourselves. There are ideas or ideals or teachings
or even whole movements that seem to breed a level of independence in the sense of what
we believe right will be right. So if all things are possible in you, then in a way
there's this supposition that comes of we don't really need two people, we just need
to do it with you, that all things are possible with you. We don't really have to get vulnerable
with people, we don't have to risk ourselves in relationships with others because we have
a relationship with you. You are the source of our healing, you're the source of our joy,
you're the source of all of our provision and things, and all of that is true. But it
seems often that because you're a father and you're all about family and you're a relationship
unto yourself, it seems that there's an element of
relationship that is required even if it's not desired.
And that oftentimes when God is wanting to confront
a lie that our history has taught us, or
he's trying to reprogram us, he will send people into our lives
as his representative, as a new record,
for lack of a better term, of what to expect.
Relationships are messy, and I've heard it said that love is
spelled R-I-S-K, risk. Lord, I pray that you give us the grace
to be able to love and to risk, that Lord,
that there would be those people in our lives that
are synergistic. I think true pairings are
synergistic in nature, where the two added together
really in a synergistic way add up to more than just those two.
One plus one can equal three. The Lord that there be a place where we
would be cut free from the old and drawn into the new.
Then as we kind of approach the Christmas holiday and towards the
New Year, the Jewish people, I realize it's
the Jewish calendar, not our calendar, but that there's a process
that they would walk through, which is to identify and
to really look over the last year and to kind of evaluate the year, and then
there was a very intentional process by which they
identified what was to be brought into the New Year,
the new season, and what is to be left behind to make space.
Lord, I pray that you would help us, that you would help us, Lord, to
lay behind the things, the habits, even the relationships, Lord,
that were for a season that aren't for now.
But Lord, that you would help us, that you would really bring
those synergistic relationships, and there are times, Lord, where we are,
that you would give us a, I pray also, Lord, that you would give
revelation to each person here, an expanded revelation of your peace and
as the Prince of Peace that is to umpire our hearts,
and that, yes, you would bring people alongside,
that you would tell them things they've never heard, and then bring people into
their lives that have heard the exact same things, so that they are aligned in
that way. They have a commonality of the
revelation and the understanding in an aspect of you
that they didn't even know anyone else exists, and it's a confirmation of
something that you're releasing upon the earth.
And that, Lord, that we would bring those
other relationships into our lives where they possess things that we do not, and
we possess things that they do not. And just like in a marriage, Lord,
there is the place where we have these shared common things and the things
where we do not.
That each of us brings something to the party, so to speak.
And with that, there's a story I'm going to share, but
I always phrase it as a prayer, like I'm talking to you, Lord, but
I understand this is more of a story, but it's what I came,
it's what came to mind. And that was that there was
several years, I don't know how many, and I'm not going to mention the person's name,
because I don't think this is a private story, but I
don't want to reveal their name. And I was asked if I would, I met
them, spent the weekend, and was asked if I would drive them to
their next engagement. And it was a couple hour
drive, and we spent some time talking, and he starts to tell me a story.
And it's one of those times when someone's telling you a story, and
they're trying to tell you something without telling you something, you know,
like why are they, it's one of those people, they don't ever do anything
for nothing. And he told a story of how they had this
church, and it seemed to be going well. It was
growing, signs, wonders, miracles, all of the
things were happening.
And the Lord came to him and said, I want you to shut it down.
And he said, Lord, why? This is going so well. And he said, because you're not
building what I'm building. And he's like, how?
All these things are happening, all this stuff is happening. And the Lord made it
very clear that this is what he wanted to do. And so
he went to his board, and a lot of which were his friends, and told
them what the Lord told them. They got angry, and he lost a lot of friends over
it.
And it was the primary source of income they had, and so now they're wondering
what they're going to do. And he spent several weeks before the Lord
wanting to know what's going on. And at some point, the Lord tells him,
I want you to pull out a piece of paper, draw a line down the center, write AC on one side and DC on the other.
And at that time, this is a very sharp and he's got a profound mind, this man, he's interested in a lot of different things.
He said, well, I was studying Tesla at the time, not the company, but the man, and was in fact studying power.
And I assumed that this had to do some revelation of AC and DC power.
And and so the Lord said, OK, now I want you to take on the AC side.
I want you to write down all of the names of all of the people that you have an acquaintance with.
Everybody that you know that you have a relationship with in some various way.
And so he got together with his wife and it took them.
Three weeks, let's say, took them a long time.
To think of all the people that they knew, and it was very, very long list.
He'd been in ministry a long time at that point. He started very early in his life and.
And then the Lord said, OK.
Now I want you to take to the DC side and I want you to write down all the names of the people that you would say you have a divine connection.
And while that exercise was a lot shorter and a lot quicker because there just weren't as many.
And I don't remember the actual percentage, but the percentage was very low.
We'll call it 10 percent, but it was very low in comparison to the to the, you know, the other list.
And and so the Lord said, OK.
The AC side are your.
Every time I say this, I lose that term, the acquaintance connections, the people you're acquainted with.
And then you look down that list, he saw, you know, many, many people.
You know that, you know, we're involved in things that he'd done and things.
And he said, and the other side is the divine connections, you know, acquaintance connections and divine connections.
He said, it's the divine connections that you're to build with.
Most people make the mistake of building with the AC, but I want you to build with the DC.
And as he looked down, he realized that almost exclusively the people that he that he had built his church with were the AC connections.
Very few were the DC connections.
And he could also seem to realize, as he looked at the list, that there was a certain effortlessness.
There was something on the fact that when he was together with these DC people, things happened.
A divine connection of the one to be building with.
The Lord told him, OK, I want you to take everyone in the DC list.
Those are the ones I want you to build with.
Those are the ones that you're going to build my things with.
I want you to set up, I want you to contact them all, set up a date and have them all come during the, you know.
And for those that make it, you know that in this season, those are the ones to build with.
And anyone that can't, you know, that at least in this season that you're not called, that they're not, it's not their season.
And he said he contacted, I don't know, 30 or 40 people maybe.
And everyone came in person.
They could, except for one man who was in England and he called it.
And in the midst of that, there was this couple, part of the DC connection, that said there was a woman staying with them that had recently discovered this man.
And really, really felt like they were, she was supposed to be there.
Very insistent.
And he said, okay, she can come, but I really would ask that she kind of be silent because this meeting isn't for her.
So he started to lay out the whole kind of ACDC thing, you know, with them.
And at some point, this woman starts to cry and she raises her hand.
She says, can I share something?
He said, sure.
And he said, you know, when I was really struggling, there was this couple and they kind of took me in as parents.
And I had a really rough childhood and they led me to the Lord and they led me to the place of getting baptized in the Spirit.
And, you know, they were, and that's this couple.
And then there was another couple that was instrumental in me being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And then she points across the room and says,
that's those people.
And then there was another,
he said, there was this time when I was in college
and I was doing my best and I was so poor
and I couldn't feed myself.
And there was a couple that just out of nowhere
just showed up and started supporting me financially.
And she looked across the room crying
and she goes, that's those people.
And she continued.
And there were all these people in the meeting
that she personally had a divine connection to.
And then everybody in that meeting started to get up
and do the same thing and testify about how,
even though this man had no clue,
all of these people that seem disparate,
they seem separate to him,
all had divine connections with one another.
And he was like, I'm a mess.
I was a mess.
And he looked at me as he went to get out of the car
and he said, Ed, in life we have acquaintance connections
and divine connections.
And he said, I believe this is a divine connection.
As life would go about, I meet my wife
and turns out that without me even knowing
that she has a divine connection with this person also.
The point being, I'll shift things to the Lord is,
Lord, I believe that you're desiring for us to build.
I believe from what I see here,
each and every person here is a builder in some respect.
As a matter of fact, I believe that the reason
that they're in this entire, what was a workshop
or intensive and now is a lifestyle,
is that there's a place to build things
that they are not just even equipped,
but there's a level of resting in you,
a level of confidence in you,
a level of understanding certain things
that would be impossible for them to carry
in an unencumbered fashion into the next season
to build what you wanna build.
And part of that building is to bring in the appropriate,
whether it's the team of peacemakers,
but what we're gonna call at the moment, divine connection.
I pray, Lord, that you would bring the peacemakers,
that you would instill greater peace in us.
But just like when the Jewish people evaluate
going into the next year, the next season,
that there be a place, Lord,
where you would highlight those in our lives
that there is a divine connection, not just comfort.
There are many people that I would say we,
but I know for myself that I've met
that I necessarily didn't,
there are people that became very important
in a divine sense to me
that I didn't necessarily initially resonate with.
And people that I really connected with personally,
that things never seemed to really pan out.
I pray, Lord, that the things from the past season
that aren't to go forward,
we don't need to have the relationally cut off,
but Lord, that you would highlight those
that you have brought into our lives
that are divine connections from which you have placed
to build and to reap a harvest of righteousness.
That Lord, that there be a place
where you would really make room,
cutting away things from the past season
for the new things that you wanna do.
We all talk about wanting the new thing.
There's a new thing coming.
We don't know what it is, but there's a new thing coming.
But if we know we only have a certain amount of closet space
and we know that the Lord is gonna be bringing forth
a new wardrobe for us in the natural,
then we have to make space in our closet for it.
And there's an aspect in which,
I have no idea what I'm talking about at the moment,
so just bear with me.
There's an aspect in which we have to first make room
where in the natural, we wanna say like,
well, I'll make room once it comes.
Well, an aspect of the faith, I think,
that there are many people who are in right now,
it's the opposite.
It's that the room must be made first.
And then he'll fill it.
As Ashley would probably say it,
that the structure must first be established
and then God will come and fill the structure.
Sometimes he's the one developing the structure,
but in this sense, what I'm saying is, Lord,
that you would help us to make space
for the divine connections
and all the things that you wanna do
to be able to build and instill in us,
that you want us to build and instill in others,
but that we are all called together
to build what you are bringing to the earth
in this season and in this era.
So Lord, I pray for each one this very day
for greater revelation.
of the peace and the Prince of Peace, but also Lord,
that there would be a distilling, a matriculation,
a drawing to the surface, a highlighting, Lord,
of those people that we are called to be
in relationship with.
We love them, we care about them,
it's life-giving in things, but Lord,
that those that are really the divine connections,
that there's something on it, Lord,
what I would call the synergistic relationships.
So we bless you, Lord, we love you,
and we ask that you be glorified this day in Jesus' name.