Seeking God's Presence: Transforming Lives and Communities

While I do hope that you're enjoying this summertime and all of the nice warm weather that we're having, I just want to share with you something. Charlotte and I are on vacation, and we will be back in a little while to Lion of Judah. We love you all so very, very much.

Today, instead of us being in the studio doing a program, I felt like the right thing was to have the very last program of a Wednesday night that Dr. Roberta Miranda favored us with being with us in the studio. This was after a beautiful outpouring of God's Spirit that we had just the Sunday before this program was recorded.

As you watch this, I pray that your heart will be touched as we have this interview that includes not only Dr. Miranda but also Larry Lane, who had done the seminar on transformations in America and literally around the world. Watch this and enjoy seeing Dr. Miranda again. God bless you.

The Holy Spirit, illuminate us, instruct us. We want to hear from you, Lord. We also want to acknowledge that you're not the only one who has to do all the dying. We acknowledge that part of that crucifixion process involves me. It involves each one of us. It involves Congregation Lion of Judah. It involves your church all over the world. The crucifixion of Christ is not some historical event that took place 2000 years ago simply to be registered and celebrated year after year.

We believe, Lord, that you are calling us as well to be crucified. You are calling us as well to die to all the things that we love and appreciate and the things that we are so invested in. Father, we are laying all of our wealth, whatever it might be, at your feet, like that Rich Young Ruler. You are asking us to let go of all that is important to us and to lay it before you. We are choosing to do that, Lord, as a church, as individuals. Whatever plans we may have had about the future and so on, we choose to abandon them right now.

Father, we choose to fall to the ground as that proverbial grain of wheat in scripture and to die before you. I pray that you will bring Congregation Lion of Judah to that place of yielding to you and to your plans. Bring us to that moment, Lord, where we simply let you sit on the throne and we relinquish our claim to individuality, to independence, to any kind of right that we might have. We let you sit in the throne of our lives, of our church.

I'm so grateful to have Pastor Roberto Miranda with us again today. Pastor, we're so glad to have you here. Thank you for making this so significant for us. It's always significant when Pastor Miranda comes into our Wednesday evening program and ministry because he, of course, takes such responsibility, particularly in the Spanish weekend and week out. We're glad for you to be able to be here. Welcome, and just greet the people.

Thank you, Brian. I'm delighted to be here again with all of you and looking forward to the Lord speaking to us, first Brian and I, and then our being able to transfer his message through all of you. It's just a joy to be here, and we're looking forward to this week of activities and of just remembering the Lord's extreme sacrifice during this Passion Week. So greetings, and good to have you with us.

Well, you know, Pastor Roberto, it's one of the things that I really would like for us to explore because we've just come out of something of a very significant weekend where God was moving upon our entire congregation. In fact, we didn't even stop. For some of you that might have missed this, I just would invite you to go back and take a look at our live version of the services that took place this past Sunday. We started rolling a little bit before nine as far as the recording was concerned, and it went on over five hours non-stop because God was moving in such a significant way.

After that weekend in particular, although I'm not even sure how to describe all of what was going on, except that God, by his presence, had really pricked our hearts and moved us into a greater sense of determined passion after him. Pastor, would you just kind of pick up on that and maybe share a little bit about what your observation of this was as God was moving really throughout that entire period of time?

Yeah, Ron, I'm still reveling and feeding off of what took place on Sunday. You know, many years ago, the Lord, I believe, spoke to me and to others that one day will come when our two services will simply roll one into the other without interruption. We usually have, you know, one hour between the two services, and this is what we have seen every once in a while over the years. We have had something similar, but this past Sunday was extraordinary.

Of course, we had the benefit of having Larry Lane with us, and many of us were able to participate in his teachings over the weekend. I think that prepared us and made us very sensitive to the need for a touch from the Lord, a visitation from God, and the need to just hunger and seek more of his presence. So I think there was a lot of that as well.

On the other hand, I also think that when we open space for the Lord, as we did before even the service, and we take time to seek his face and express hunger and honor him by inviting him insistently to come into our space and to manifest himself, he, you know, surprise, surprise, he shows up and he responds.

I think there's something to be learned there more and more. I think we are slowly getting it that we need to open up exceptional moments outside of the routine of the service for the Lord to come and do what he will. I think that's one of the lessons that we need to learn more and more as we express our hunger for his visitation. We need to break the routine, and we need to make ourselves fragile. We need to take risks and open space for him to do what he wants to do.

You know, I think we saw that on Sunday in a very special way.

Yeah, and Pastor and I were just talking a little bit before the 9 A.M. service, and this is coming to mind. We've talked about it briefly, but you know, there was a little bit of a lament in that I saw in Pastor Roberto, and I was resonating with it as well in this sense. Let me describe it. In our 9 A.M. service, and of course it is early, people have to get up and they have to do things and prepare to be there. But there's almost like, you know, I wouldn't want to call it lethargy, but a laxness, and people kind of dribble in.

There's not that same kind of dynamic that happens. When the service didn't stop at 11 o'clock but went into a responsive, really an hour of just people praying, repenting, responding to the Holy Spirit. I had to slip up because I was doing the audio for the video for the second service that was starting at 12 o'clock. But I saw these men, the Spanish men. I mean, there had to be 20, 25, 30 even in this circle. You can go and look at it because it's in that one long video just in the middle there of it. They were just standing there in a large circle, and they were praying and interceding and going after God to be able to come into the service and just continue to move.

I've said repeatedly, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I have said repeatedly that there is this jealousy that I feel in my heart when I see the Spanish people coming to the altar as the service gets underway and the people are really pursuing God. I know there's a difference that is there culturally. I just understand, we understand that there is a difference between Anglo culture and the Hispanic culture. But I tell you, God responds to hearts that are in pursuit of him, and I am jealous. I tell you truthfully, I am jealous for that kind of a heart-level response.

What I feel like I just want to actually, and I'm going to say this to the men. It can be for the ladies as well, but I'm going to say it specifically for the men. Getting up a few minutes early, making a choice to just set your internal clock to be able to be there 15 minutes early to be praying, to be setting a tone, to be pursuing the heart of God. Why do we do this? Why am I even asking this? Because I know that it is more than just leadership. Leaders like Pastor Miranda, I see him there waiting on God and greeting people and just stirring the things of the Holy Spirit in his heart before the services.

I want to join that, and I'm asking you to just think with me and inquire of the Lord how you can just change. It's a decision to just kind of put in your mind that clock that gets you to a place at a specific time and be there with us for at least 15 minutes before the service to be able to be pursuing the Lord, pressing into God, and getting a hold of him.

I think I'm talking a little bit too much.

Yeah, I think you're on to something. You know, I think also we should ask ourselves whether we are perhaps entering into a Kairos time of God's move for our congregation. We have some momentum. We have the blessing and the amen of God to our initiatives more so than normal. We may have some traction, and it's a wonder. It's a question that I posed to myself, but you know, I think it's not just totally rhetorical. I really believe that we might be on to something and that we need to push through and use that momentum that we might have right now to take time to be before the Lord, as you're suggesting, Brian.

Earlier, you know, one of the things that I did on Sunday was to say, you know, we got 10 minutes or seven minutes. Instead of just looking at ourselves, why don't you come forward, those of you who are here, and then begin to pray? You know, because sometimes those actions, they break through something. They're prophetic acts that God attempts to and responds to. So when we decide to get out of the normal, you know, God then responds.

So I invite us to do more of that without turning it into another routine. But you know, in this moment, I think God wants us to do that. So yes, I mean, maybe we should take a few minutes before the official beginning of the services and then get this light switch mentality out of our heads that somehow it's 9 A.M. and then we begin. You know, the Lord doesn't have that kind of internal clock in his being, so we should be open to the Holy Spirit more.

Yes, I mean, we should be more diligent because there's a responsibility that we have. God reacts to us. It's not just him being sovereign, doing whatever he will. We have a part to play in this move of God.

That's really what we're talking about, and we're inviting you to be participants with us. God works with people. It's not just individuals. God works with groups. The classic of this is they were in one accord in the upper room. When they came in that one accord, the Holy Spirit descended. You know, the Holy Spirit could have descended at any given moment in time, but there is something about coming into that Kairos moment, coming into that touch of God's Spirit that is really significant and important.

Pastor, I'm going to just share a little bit of an interview that I did with Larry Lane prior to his teaching. He came on Thursday, and we did some walkthrough, talk-through about how things were going to be happening on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday. I was able to catch a little bit of time with Larry to be able to share with our congregation here. I'm going to roll this video, and then we'll pick it back up, and we'll just respond and talk a little bit about what God did this weekend.

This week we had a friend come who we got to know a little bit, Larry Lane, who was part of the transformation ministries that was here this past week. You probably heard him on Sunday if you were here at the services, but we know that God was really designing this weekend for this community, Lion of Judah, but much, much more than just our church. We are just thankful for what a deposit God, by his Holy Spirit, has left through this man, Larry Lane.

Larry, I'm so glad to have you here with us at our prayer table. Thank you for joining us.

Good to be here. We talked a bit about the fact that you came from upstate New York, and that region is right on Lake Erie, correct?

Yeah, absolutely. Lake Erie, Lockport, Ontario.

Yeah, just Lockport, and it was part of the Erie Canal system.

Yes, and there were a lot of things that are there back in the history. In fact, I'm sure if we kind of unwrapped it, it would tie into some of the revivals that happened there back in the mid-1800s, right?

Right, and those kinds of outpourings. But Larry is the CEO of the Sentinel Group, which is the ministry that we have most of us have gotten to know through transformation videos that have been documenting the things of the moves of God's Spirit down through the years, literally across nations. I know that it's not just to do with North America even, but it's broader, and God has used you.

Can you just share a little bit about how you personally became involved with George Otis Jr. and the beginnings of the transformation weekends as we are experiencing and what it is that God has been doing through that to impact regions and churches and ministries? Just kind of unpack that for us.

Okay, I'll make a quick history because you mentioned me growing up in Lockport, New York, and that's really where I got my first taste of revival. I would call it revival with a little "r," a local renewal in my dad's church, but it profoundly impacted me so much that this thing called revival just burned in my heart, and I went into the ministry.

But always on my heart was, what is this thing? Can we see it happen again? Fast forward, I'm pastoring a church north of Sacramento in Chico, California, and that's my burning heart. God has been doing some things there in the community, and it caught George Otis's attention somewhat because he is one who's a pilgrim looking for places where God is at work so he can capture those stories and retell them.

So I spent 20-some years there as pastor, but then my heart was so burdened to see community transformation and seeing the need that I resigned my church and just went off on my own. I wasn't sure what this was going to look like, and a year after I did that, George contacted me. He had started a teaching arm to the ministry besides creating the documentaries and asked me to be part of that, so I gladly joined.

I've been part of that, but these documentaries, the first one that came out in '99, have been seen by well over 50 million people. We know stories where these stories have started a new story of transformation of revival. We can name places around the world if someone got a hold of one of these and it triggered the hunger, triggered the hope that God could do it in their place like he did, he saw on the video.

It's our hard passion to be a catalyst, to be ones that bring hope that God is still at work, still does these amazing things, and to help communities prepare themselves for what they can do to see God move.

I think, you know, people don't know statistically, they see it anecdotally, that the church is hemorrhaging this generation. Absolutely, we are losing them. I mean, we can point to a toxic culture that is luring them away, but the reality probably is more of a case that they haven't seen the reality of the living God growing up in the church as a Christian. Something that would grab their heart, something that would say can make a great difference in their lives.

Part of the blame is just the weakness and the anemia of the church today, so I'm not willing to prepare the ground for the next generation. I'm going to be part of it too.

I love that. I really do. No, and in fact, I think there's biblical precedent for that. I think when you look at Malachi 4:6, it's about the older generation turning their hearts to the younger and the younger turning to the older. We have so in the church separated the generations to our harm. That's a whole other bunny trail to go down.

But these stories, if I could speak to, because there's so much being shared about and expressed and desired for and talking about revival because people look at the incredible desperate situation we see in our nation and people recognizing that there isn't political hope now. There isn't hope we can find through education. Only God can.

But our tendency is then to create big events. We're going to have the problems out there, and we're going to get together in a big event. We're going to talk about the problems out there, and we may have some big event prayer and so forth. But here's the truth, friend: no true transformation or revival has ever begun in a big event. Never. It's always a small kernel of desperate people.

In many ways, that's good news. You know, I don't want to sound cynical, but you and I have been around quite a while. We have seen so many large events that promise so much. Yeah, and we've celebrated the event, and it was good. I mean, there's nothing wrong with those things, but they always fell short of creating what was hoped for, and that's a real genuine awakening that would sweep through a city of regeneration.

So one of our mantras that I think is very critical to understand is that revival is always personal before it's corporate. Before God's going to take your city, he's got to take your heart. Your heart.

There are so many of us, and I'll put myself in that category, that live in too much presumption in our walk with God, and there may be things that we need to repent of that we haven't really considered if we're going to get serious about this.

All of these stories, you can't pick a story, and we've studied nearly a thousand different stories, both contemporary and historical, looking at what created what started it, what happened, and they always start at that same place. Someone has to get incredibly hungry, incredibly desperate, and be willing to pay a price to pray, intercede, and cry out to God and do business with God themselves.

Sometimes we think that, well, look at my community, such a needy community. God will come visit us. But God never attaches himself to needs. He attaches himself to people—humble, broken people. That's who God attaches.

Now, we think it's the needy community because often it's the devastation in a community that leads to the desperation that is necessary to see a transformation. So we assume that it's the devastation, but it's not. We have too many examples of stories of great revivals that the community wasn't devastated, but the people of God recognized the backsliding or whatever.

I'll give you an example: the Hebrides. That's a great one. One of the great revivals from 1949 to 1953, post-World War II, the community was concerned, particularly a couple of dear old ladies named Peggy and Christine Smith, that the young people coming back from the war and the emperor had lost interest in the church, seemed to be spiritually drifting. There was no devastation in the community.

That's all it took. But these people knew what God can do because of history, revivals in that area, and they just began to cry out to God. You know, I could give that whole story, but time doesn't permit. But the reality is then Duncan Campbell came, and a profound movement of God that started with a couple of ladies and a group of deacons praying spread through those islands.

So powerful was the presence of the living God over those islands during those years that ships passing by would get close to the islands, and conviction would fall upon people without a word being prayed because of the manifest presence of God that was over those islands.

That's what we need. We don't need a new program. We've done all this stuff. We need him—the transforming presence of the living God—to come into our communities, and he'll do that when he finds broken people, hungry people crying out to him. That's who he'll attach himself to.

Wow. You know, I believe that God wants for us to be able to be those people, and I don't think that it's just localized with any given setting or city. I am believing that there is going to be an arising wherever you are watching this program from. You know, Larry, we've had people—it's really interesting. Charlotte and I had done a number of these programs back on our own, even before we were doing things specifically with Lion of Judah.

The greatest hunger seemed to come from nations like Pakistan and India and regions of Africa because there seems to be a resonance—that's all I can say—a resonance in the hearts. But we're believing that God is calling this city and even our church, and I'm really not wanting to just kind of load up on our church because I know that God works in communities that are really across the board.

It doesn't matter what church, per se, you're going to. We're jealous for God to move in our community, but we don't want God to move in an exclusive sense. We really want God to move in that broad sense where a sweeping revival touches the hearts of people literally in many churches across the board, and that's what we're believing for and praying for at this hour, at this time.

I know I explained to you that we're having this as a prayer meeting, so I'm going to just ask that you begin just lifting every voice in prayer and praying for that outpouring to happen. We need the Holy Spirit to be resident here with us, and I know you've already labored because this is post what's happened. You know, we're recording this part of the program prior to the seminar, but I know that God has moved in that seminar. I know that he is moving, but we are believing that God, by his Holy Spirit, is going to surge through this city and region.

Would you just help us get there in prayer?

Thank you, brother. Father, I'm so thankful that you have left us a record both in your word and through church history of your incredible visitations and movings. As we come to you in prayer, we don't come to you in a vacuum that is just left up to our imaginations and wishful thinking. But God, you have done this again and again.

Father, I know as I've read your word and studied these things that it's never your reluctance; it's always our resistance. Father, I just pray in your name, Jesus, in this great city that has known historically great moves of God. It was built on a foundation, a spiritual foundation that, oh God, I pray that you'd raise up those people who will say, "Give me revival or I die," that they will cry out to you for their own hearts and lives to align themselves to be heard by you.

You'd raise up those people in this fellowship. Raise them up in other fellowships. There may be a cry that comes up out of Boston that touches your heart. Oh God, I pray, have mercy on this place. I know iniquity rises from this city daily, and yet, oh God, may the prayers of the saints come up as a sweet offering to you. Hear our cries and pour out your Spirit, we pray, that Jesus Christ, as it was said in Ephesus, would be held in high honor in the city of Boston.

I pray. Thank you, Larry, for being with us, and thank you for taking time. Thank you for investing in this city of Boston. I do believe that God has brought this moment into existence for his eternal purposes to be manifest.

We're going to head back to the regular part of our program, and thank you, Pastor Roberto, for just taking it from this point.

Yeah, you know, Brian, one of the things that I found refreshing about Larry's presentations throughout the weekend was the counterintuitive nature of what he presented to us. You know, often we think of preparing for revival with, you know, these large meetings and the noise and the hype and all the dynamism and the joy of worship and so on and so forth that we sometimes have in our churches.

But I think Larry presented a slightly different perspective, which he also brought into the Sunday sermon—this idea that for God to visit, sometimes there needs to be a time of weeping before the Lord and of seeking his face and of being broken and becoming a soil that is prepared for the grain of wheat to come and to fall and to, you know, give fruit later on.

But this idea that we need first to humble ourselves, we need to come to this moment of desperation where we come and cry out before the Lord. We acknowledge our poverty, we acknowledge our sinfulness, we acknowledge our insufficiency before the Lord—the fact that we do not merit his visitation often, that we have done all that we could even to, you know, show him away in a sense.

When we come to that moment of recognizing our humanity and our inadequacy and we come to that boiling point of desperation of need and crying out to the Lord, that's when the Lord responds. I believe that, you know, even that brokenness that we need to come to and that boiling passion for the Lord, I think it has to even come as a gift from God for us to feel that.

Even there, we need him to bring us to that point. But I think that that's really, there's an intuition there that's really important that we need to feel that sense of inadequacy, and we need to cry before the Lord. I come back to what Joel says, you know, let the priests weep at the altar.

There are moments to rejoice, of course. There are moments to move around and to jump and so on and so forth, but then there are moments to weep out of poverty, weep at the state of our nation, weep at the state of our church, and provide then a broken vessel or just an empty vessel that the Lord can then pour his anointing on it because he's not going to share his glory with anyone.

I think, you know, he wants to hear from us that, Father, we don't deserve it. We don't have what is required. Only you can save us and come in and rescue us from where we are. I think that's the message that I got from Larry throughout the weekend and then when he preached on Sunday as well, the message that he entitled "Somebody Has to Die."

Yes, yeah. You know, that's not often what you expect from revivalists. You know, you expect another kind of a... and I suspect that that kind of message could fall flat in some American congregations that are Pentecostal and charismatic, but it really is of the Lord. This idea that we need to humble ourselves. If my people humble themselves, I will hear from heaven.

I think God is telling us something there. We need to cry out before the Lord. We need to come before him, humble ourselves, and have that need. I was reading a writing from A.W. Tozer just this week where he speaks about that God responds to those that are really hungry for his presence.

Tozer draws this comparison between Jacob and Esau. Now, Esau was the natural recipient of God's blessing. He was strong, he was, you know, he was the first son, the firstborn, and so on and so forth. He was the one who was indicated to receive the blessing of God and to channel the blessing of God into his people.

But Esau had a fatal flaw, which was that he was just too satisfied. He wasn't hungry for the blessing of God. He wasn't too much into spiritual matters. He underestimated the importance of what he had received and of drawing close to the Lord. Jacob, who was, you know, the kind of his very name talked about being a schemer, he was not a person to be trusted.

He was not the person that you would want your daughter going out with on Saturday evening, and you know, he had sort of something of a reputation. I think his name expressed it all—the schemer and supplanter. But he had something which touched the heart of God, which is he was hungry for God. He wanted the blessing. He was passionate, and I think he knew also where he was at.

So, you know, that's why God honored him and blessed him and had, you know, his destiny before him. I think we need to do the same thing. We need to come before the Lord. By the way, you know, as you explore Jacob's journey after he's fleeing from his brother, he's ashamed because he has done something dishonest to get the blessing.

You know, he's fleeing from his brother. He's then sent into exile for how many years? And in that process, God breaks him, God prepares him, but God humiliates him, humbles him, and then he's coming back. But in all that process, you see the visitations of God as well—the revelations of God, you know, in Bethel, in Peniel, in Mahanaim.

I don't know how you say it in English, but these places where God appeared to him and revealed himself to him, changed his name, you know, broken even physically, more with that limp that left him limping for the rest of his life. So you see this mixture of, you know, breaking, humbling, desiring God, and then God responding to that.

I don't think we have to be perfect. We don't have to have it all right to have a visitation with God. God wants to visit us, but he does expect for us to cultivate that hunger. I think part of what we need to do in these days is to say, "Lord, bring us to that moment of brokenness. Bring us to that moment of awareness that only you can save us. Bring us to that moment of absolute desire for your presence," and I think God will respond.

I think we're at that moment where God is leading us there, and we need to take that very seriously. So I think for this time of Easter week, we need to keep both the Friday of crucifixion and the body going into the earth of Jesus and the Sunday of resurrection intertwined.

If we are seeking a resurrection of the American church, of the world church, a visitation of God, the power that we are seeking, the refreshing and the renewal of God's people for the tasks that lie ahead for us in the 21st century, if we're seeking that resurrection, we need to have a crucifixion, and it has to start with me. It has to start with each person in our church.

We have to become aware that you and I have a role to play in what God wants to do. We need to lay ourselves like a grain of wheat. We need to fall to the ground. We need to examine ourselves. I hope that this week, you know, maybe you can, as you hear us, you can take time to, you know, I spoke against lament a while ago, you know, but no, there is a place for lament.

There is a place for us to lament our situation and to know that, yeah, we need God's grace, and we are in dire straits as a church and as individuals as well. We need to cultivate a sense of desperation. We need to cultivate a sense of our own poverty, and we need to cry out to the Lord.

So I suggest that this week, you know, we take time to maybe fast a bit, to humble ourselves, to, you know, the Hebrews use this idea of rending our garments and pouring ashes over our heads. You know, let's find a way to do that, maybe not as dramatically, but in that spiritual sense of the word, and to cry out to the Lord to humble ourselves and to despair of our own condition and to confess that only by God's coming in can we have a change.

But I think that we're in a good moment. I think God is leading us to that recognition, and we should not miss the opportunity. And you know, again, we'll be doing some of that on Friday. Of course, Friday night, we're having this bilingual service. We had another bilingual service just a week and a half ago, two weeks ago.

I don't doubt that maybe that time that we chose to fast and pray has something to do with where we find ourselves, this momentum that we seem to be acquiring because that's the way God works. But this Friday again, we're having a time of unity, both the size of our congregation, the Latino and the English-speaking. We're going to be coming together for a time again of prayer and of worship together in a time of travailing and crying out to the Lord.

I think we need to use this time very judiciously so that the Lord will move. So I want to invite all of you to come on Friday. We're going to be seeking the Lord's face. I mean, no spectaculars. I mean, we just want to come humbly and see what the Holy Spirit is going to do.

So I think it'll be a good time for us to use this Friday, you know, this Friday of the crucifixion of Christ, as we think of his passion and pray about it, to continue pushing into this moment where God is calling us to. So I really want to call out to all of you: come Friday night.

That's the price to be paid. There is a price that will be paid. We have to make ourselves uncomfortable. Bring your children. Let's come together as a people and cry out to the Lord for a visitation in preparation for a Sunday of resurrection. The two, they go together. Let's keep them together.

I think God is saying that to us: the Friday precedes Sunday. Let's not rush into Sunday. Let's go through the process authentically and spend time also clamoring before the Lord and acknowledging our own death, our own poverty before the Lord.

You know, I just am wanting to draw us into the scripture that I felt in my heart to be able to share, and we're going to look at Luke chapter 18, verses 31-34. I'm reading this from the New King James Version of the Bible, and it says, "Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again.' But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken."

Pastor, if you don't mind, I'm just going to read on to this other portion of scripture. It was the prophecy and the word of the Lord that was coming through Isaiah in chapter 50, and this is verses 5 through 7, again from the New King James Version of the Bible.

"The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who plucked out the beard. I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me; therefore, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed."

You know, Jesus was not ashamed to be able to go up into Jerusalem. He was not ashamed of the cross. The disciples in that portion of Luke 18, they were so misinformed, and they so misunderstood what Jesus was pointing to and talking to because a little bit later on, they get into this whole thing where they're arguing about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and who's going to sit on the right hand or the left hand. They were just seeing kind of the glory of the hosannas that were coming.

Jesus understood that it was going to take a tremendous price, and he was going to pay it. People, Jesus paid that price for us, and in a certain way, we know that the work is done. We know that the grace is there, but in a certain way, there is a price for each one of us to pay that we are called upon to embrace and not run from.

It's not just about the glory that we're going to receive when we see him face to face. It is about the desperate need to be able to bring others with us, to have a care and a concern for those who are lost.

Pastor, I'm going to ask if you would just begin our time of prayer and just take us for the rest of this time, wherever the Lord is really leading this conversation and this prayer time. I believe God wants to really bring breakthrough. I believe that this week that we call the Passion of the Christ requires that we enter into something that's different that maybe some of us have resisted.

I know I resist wanting to change or be different or really pray, whatever it might be. I'm going to ask that our people, you who are watching, pray with us. As I've said a number of times, I'm kind of saying it more regularly because of this being a broadcast that you can stop and start, and you can pause. If God is talking to you about praying on some given point, don't you worry. You can press pause, and you pray until you gain that sense of assurance in your soul that you've completed the assignment in prayer that God has on you, and then you can press play again and just pick it up and continue on.

But Pastor, would you just take us and begin to lead us in prayer?

Thank you. Yeah, Father, we acknowledge that we are at a particular moment in the move of your Spirit in our church, in the city, and even in this nation. We want to enter into that moment. We want to embrace it. We want to open our being to your purposes at this particular moment as you are speaking to us about certain things that you require and expect from us as well.

We pray first of all for understanding and discernment that we might hear from you clearly what it is that you expect from us. So Holy Spirit, illuminate us, instruct us. We want to hear from you, Lord. We also want to acknowledge that you're not the only one who has to do all the dying. We acknowledge that part of that crucifixion process involves me. It involves each one of us. It involves Congregation Lion of Judah. It involves your church all over the world.

The crucifixion of Christ is not some historical event that took place 2000 years ago simply to be registered and to be celebrated year after year. No, we believe, Lord, that you are calling us as well to be crucified. You are calling us as well to die to all the things that we love and appreciate and the things that we are so invested in.

Father, we are laying all of our wealth, whatever it might be, at your feet, like that Rich Young Ruler. You are asking us to let go of all that is important to us and to lay it before you, and we are choosing to do that, Lord, as a church, as individuals. Whatever plans we may have had about the future and so on, we choose to abandon them right now.

Father, we choose to fall to the ground as that proverbial grain of wheat in scripture and to die before you. I pray that you will bring Congregation Lion of Judah to that place of yielding to you and to your plans. Bring us to that moment, Lord, where we simply let you sit on the throne and we relinquish our claim to individuality, to independence, to any kind of right that we might have. We let you sit in the throne of our lives, of our church.

Father, do it, Lord. We also choose to believe that it is you who is leading us to this realization, to this need, to the sense that we need to die, that we need also to crucify. We choose to believe that this is not just some insight that we have walked into, but that you yourself are bringing us to this moment.

We say yes, Lord. We want to embrace your cross. We want to go deeper into a relationship with you. We ask you to bring us into a state of red-hot, white-hot desire for you. Father, we need you. We acknowledge that we cannot do it by ourselves. We acknowledge that all of our plans and all of our techniques and everything that we have—all of the resources—they're just not sufficient right now.

What is required is a miraculous intervention from you, Holy Spirit. We pray that as you instruct us as to how you want us to move, that you will also give us the stamina and the courage to pursue your call into this next stage of things.

Father, we believe that we're in this moment now where you will move, and so we say, "Do it, Holy Spirit. Intensify your move within history." Lord, the nations need you. The creation needs you. And so, Lord, we say, "Intervene. Move in history. Move in history. Accelerate the move of God in our time."

Father, do what you have promised to do. So here we are, desperate, needy, broken, insufficient, requiring your blessing and your grace. And so, Father, come and do your will. We are open to it. We humble ourselves before you.

And Father, we're just thanking you that you are accomplishing things that no human being can accomplish. You're doing things in our spirit now that is in preparation for what you have designed through the ages. Your word says in Romans that all creation is groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Lord, we know that there's all kinds of fluky doctrines that could manifest themselves around those phrases, but God, we know that it's still true that you are waiting for men and women who have got a heart after you, who are going to be in pursuit of you, who are going to be moved by your Spirit, who are going to be laying their lives down and really becoming tools of your kingdom for this age, for this moment, for this season, and for this time.

Holy Spirit, we just pray a release right now into the hearts of men and women who are able to say, even as we are just crying out before you, that we want to join you. We want to be partners with you. We want to be among those who are called by your name, who are not fearing, not afraid, not holding back, but are literally moving in the strength and the anointing of your Spirit, God, to accomplish your purposes in the earth in this age.

God, we know the earth is groaning. We know that all creation is just living in denial of your greatness. But Father, I believe that you are going to call us to arise. You're looking for men and women, and we're saying we are volunteering, Lord.

We are volunteering for you to be able to come and empower us. Empower us as a community. Empower your church once again. Give rise, Holy Spirit, to the hearts that are crying out to you, saying, "Lord, even so, come, Lord Jesus. Come with your power. Come, Holy Spirit. Come, manifest yourself with miraculous outpourings of your anointing, God, that breaks the yokes."

God, there are so many yokes that are upon all of the earth, but Lord, it is today the day of salvation. This moment, you are wanting to give us that fresh manna. Lord, we're asking God right now, open our eyes, open our understandings, open our hearts to receive and to respond and say, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. We want you. We serve you. We choose you, and we follow you."

Thank you, Holy Spirit of God. Hallelujah. We just thank you that you're going to do this work. Thank you, Father. Yes, thank you, Lord. Amen. You will complete what you have started. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, Brian. What a wonderful time just spending the few minutes with you. I am looking forward to seeing you on Friday at 7:30 at the new sanctuary for us to just work into what we have spoken about. This is the material that we are going to be laboring on, so come and pay the price. We need you there. We want to see you there, and we will just come to put our face before the Lord and to expect a blessing and a miracle.

So we want to see you on Friday evening at 7:30 at the new sanctuary, Congregation Lion of Judah. Thank you for being with us, and we really are thankful for that.

I think one other thing that I just really want to encourage people with, because we won't have another opportunity to speak over the media with you before this coming Sunday, but Easter is always a very special opportunity to invite friends, to be able to find family members.

You know, Pastor, I did hear a little bit of feedback that happened, and I'm just going to address it just a little hint of criticism overhearing certain people doing certain things as we were praying, and particularly in that time afterwards. But in my heart, what I was hearing, I heard people who were repenting. I heard people who were reaching out.

Pastor, you have a grace that is in your heart that is a model of something that I really want for all of us to get because we dare not be critical of others who may be praying or maybe leading out or trying to initiate something. It's very easy for us to become fault-finding with some way something is said or something is done.

But I'll tell you, you know, we all need—and perhaps even we've just got a couple more minutes—but perhaps even you could just address a little bit of why you don't make people be quiet, so to speak, you know, when there may not have everything settled in their soul, and yet they're reaching out.

I hope this isn't a red herring, but I just became aware that there was a little word of, you know, trickling out of a couple of people feeling like, "Well, you know, why are they praying? They don't have this and this going on in their lives." I just feel like it almost needs a responding to in just a teaching moment.

So I, but again, you know, if we are waiting for perfection before we set out to seek the Lord, we're going to be waiting forever. I think revival is messy. We will never get it fully perfect. I think God works through our imperfections. It is an ongoing process, and we have this gracious, loving God who is willing to overlook imperfections and see the sincerity of our heart.

I believe that a lot of congregations don't enter into the move of God because we're too much into the perfection of the process, into control, into, you know, perfect theological consistency. Often there's a pride in that as well. I know because I sometimes I want to have, you know, perfect control of everything. I want to make sure that everything is nicely worked out and neat and so on.

I've had to often put myself, you know, on the cross and say I have to die to that. And so, you know, as we strike out for, you know, the Lord's blessing, not everything is controllable. People don't often know the difficulties that we pastors have in, you know, dealing with just all the complexities of a congregation, all the different types of individuals, the people who are in process, and so on and so forth.

So there's a lot of grace that needs to be exercised, and that's one of the reasons why often God doesn't visit because, you know, there has to be that grace and that patience for each of us toward each of us. And, you know, that understanding that we are all broken, that we don't have it all together. We're like little children probing for something and striking out for, you know, a blessing from God.

Unless there is that fatherly, that loving gaze that sees the imperfection and simply says, "Hey, let the Lord have his way." I'm the first one who needs to be broken before the Lord. I'm the first one who is imperfect before God. Then, you know, God will not move.

I think often that we have to let go of that pride. We have to let go of that sense of control. God is so much more gracious than we could ever be. And so I'm not going to wait until, you know, I have everything nicely packaged and wrapped before I strike out for a visitation from God.

I just, I so depend on his love and his grace that I know there's a safety net on the bottom that covers everything—all the imperfections that we might fall into as we, you know, just let him be who he is.

So I think that's what God is asking us to do. Let's be gracious to each other. Let's be patient with each other. And I just feel like there's different seasons in our lives, and we must make room for that. God makes room for it. You know, there's different places in any of our lives, and if you were to kind of use an exacto knife and cut things into sections and say, you know, this is where I am at this moment, and this is where I am at the next moment, and that, and we would find ourselves being inflated and feeling highly victorious, or we would find ourselves being devastated and completely overwhelmed.

Yet God is able to see past all of that. He's able to see the long line of our lives and be able to bring to us that sense of his continued grace through all of those seasons.

Yeah, not to linger too much on that subject, but I think one of the things that the Lion of Judah can be grateful to the Lord for is, number one, the diversity of people that we have. Number two, the fact that we have a congregation that is in process. We have people who are, I mean, coming from the depths of brokenness and sinfulness and destruction, and those who are, you know, further ahead in the Christian process.

So we have this very diverse congregation, which I think the Lord delights in. And out of that diversity, there will come all kinds of messes, you know. But I think even there, the Lord is glorified. And that is why I think, you know, even as congregations cry out, "Lord, let us have diversity. We want different kinds of people. We want sinners to come. We want the broken to come."

But hey, but do it our way. And, you know, the Holy Spirit says, "Hey, if you're going to live with me, then I won't move." Because that's been the story of the church throughout. I think a church that is bringing all kinds of humanity into itself will have that kind of brokenness and diversity and messiness, and God knows that, and he's very comfortable in dealing with all of that.

We should give others that same kind of, you know, consideration as we give to ourselves because we're a mess also. I don't know about you, but I'm a mess. And you know, that's what enables me to tolerate mess and to even celebrate it.

You know, it's really funny because we look at people who come and are a part of our congregation and very clearly coming out of addictions that are so, so oppressive and so, so painful. You know, we look at that, and we see that. But you know, something came to my mind as we were talking about this, and I just want to share this.

I personally am addicted to chips. Last night, you know, I had this big bag of chips, and I ate down to almost the last time. It's like, you know, just to say, but that's not worse than somebody who's on heroin or somebody else who has an addiction to coffee or somebody else who's got an addiction or some other manifestation of brokenness.

Pride. God's always working on us. It's a journey, people. And so in a certain sense, we need to be able to lighten up, right, and know how faithful God is. And someday maybe I'll get...

Yeah, that's a great time. We need to maybe take a program to talk a little bit about all of that.

Well, we surely will, and we are just grateful that you've been here with us, and we're so thankful for your joining with us. Do continue to pray, and again, really take the opportunities that are before us. Friday night to come and pray and intercede. Sunday to be able to reach out to your neighbors and your friends and people who may be in a back-footing condition. Bring them back. God's waiting for them.

Yes, he's going to use you to be able to invite them and give you the wisdom to be able to do it in a way that really is winsome and has that powerful witness. And allow the Holy Spirit to lead your life.

Thank you so much. It's great to be with you guys. I think the Lord has given us a handful here, a mouthful as well, so there's a lot to ponder there. Praise the Lord, and we're looking forward to seeing you Sunday and other moments as well. God bless you.