Three Who Got Something Good at the Tomb

From Carolyn Dowd's Easter Sunrise Sermon...

• Mary Magdalene's hope was renewed.
• Peter received a second chance.
• John received a reason for living.

John Loren Sandford - Elijah Among Us

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Unfortunately, many times what God intends when He speaks through His prophets is aborted because His people do not respond in faith and obedience. Sometimes God’s first and best will is not done because we interfere. If His will were always done, our Lord would not have commanded us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

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Whenever God promised something good is coming, duck! God is most likely going to humble and prepare your heart first. Sometimes prophetic blessings do not come because we fail to pray consistently until the blessing comes to pass. [regarding Dan 10] Don't leave your “angel” stuck halfway. Pray your prophesied blessings all the way to fruition.

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Job 31:32 “The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveler.”

More verses on Hospitality:

• Matt 10:41 - receive a prophet, get a prophet’s reward
• Gal 6:7 - sow & reap
• Matt 6:9-10 - lay up treasures in heaven [via good deeds?]
• Luke 24:28-29 - Emmaus road “constrained”
• Heb 13:2 - entertained angels unawares
• Gen 18 - Abe entertained God
• 2 Same 6:11 - Obed-Edom hosted the ark

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The people knew this principle and prayed that a holy man might come and stay with them.

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This is also why Jesus sent His disciples out without provisions and extra clothing (Matt 10:9-10, Luke 10:5-7)

2 Kings 4:10 - The Shunamite woman who made a room for Elisha

Job 31:16,17,19-22,32

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Sirach 2:1 “My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing..”

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[Story of Gladys, healed of lung cancer] But the people were not glad she had been healed! This would mean that God was real and that all of their sins were upon them.

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Bill Hamon, Prophets: Pitfalls and Principles:

The line between pronouncing God's genuine prophetic judgments and ministering out of a wounded heart or spirit of rejections is a thin one.

[Judgment] is an area most susceptible to presumption and carnal judgments rather than the purity of the Holy Spirit.

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When a sheep does not walk closely enough, the shepherd breaks its leg.

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Many students of prophecy believe they know how to decipher verses about the end times. They know what “seventy weeks” means, for example, and have charted history in clever timetables that seem to “fit”...

These studies walk close to divination because they try to see what God has kept hidden.

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The Lord said to me, “John, before I came the first time, all the biblical scholars thought they knew who I would be and what I would do, and they were all wrong.”

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Do not make your prophecies happen... wait for the Lord to engineer His own answers — do not try to make your prophecy come true.

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Very seldom have I received any revelation from the Holy Spirit that was not connected to some immediate need while serving Him.

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The secret of abounding or suffering is found in losing your life for Him, until you literally do not care what people thing about you.

All your security is vested then in His love for you, and ambition withers and dies like a plant that no longer finds nurture.

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Numbers 12 - Five Ways God Speaks to Prophets (in order from least clarity to most):

• Dreams
• Visions
• Dark Speech
• Mouth-to-mouth Directly
• Aloud

Three Levels of Visions:

• Only imagination seems involved
• Imagination plus cognizance of the Holy Spirit’s involvement
• Physically-opened eyes like Stephen

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You have no authority unless you are under it.

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When the Lord makes a list, He normally begins with the most extreme. For example, in a list of negatives, He names the worst first.

Recommended Reading

Bill Hamon - Prophet's Personal Words
Ernest Gentile - Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy
Michael Sedler - Stop the Runaway Conversation
John Paul Jackson - The Veiled Ploy

Positive Results of Troubles and Trials

• 1 Peter 1:6-9
• Romans 5:1-5
• James 1:2-3

We retain:
10% of what we hear once
40% of what we hear twice
60% of what we hear three times
50% of what we see
80% of what is acted out

N. T. Wright - The Challenge of Jesus

Chpt. 1, p. 31

This is not a task simply for a few backroom specialists. If church leaders themselves spent more time studying and teaching Jesus and the Gospels, a good many of the other things we worry about in day-to-day church life would be seen in their proper light. It has far too often been assumed that church leaders stand above the nitty-gritty of biblical and theological study; they have all done that, we implicitly suppose, before they come to office, and now they simply have to work out the “implications.” They then find themselves spending countless hours at their desks running the church as a business, raising money or working at dozens of other tasks, rather than poring of their foundation documents and inquiring ever more closely about the Jesus whom they are supposed to be following and teaching others to follow.

Chpt. 2, p. 37

[Three options open to the Jesus who had their geographical deliverance, but not their political or theological deliverance:

1. Quietest: Separate/hide and wait on God, like the dead sea scroll writers at Qumran
2. Compromiser: Suck it up and prosper, like Herod or Matthew/Levi
3. Zealot: Fight, like Simon Zelotes

Jesus was not any of those.
] He went back to Israel's scriptures and found there another kingdom-model...

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If His way of bringing the kingdom was the right way, then Herod's way was not, the Qumran way was not, and the Zealot way was not. And the Pharisees, who in Jesus’ day were mostly inclined to the Zealot end of the spectrum, were bound to regard Him as a dangerous compromise.

Three Main Thrusts of Jesus” Kingdom-Message:

1. The End of Exile
2. The Call of a Renewed People
3. The Warning of Disaster and Vindication to Come

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Isaiah 6:9-10 is quoted in all four gospels and Acts:
Matt 13:14-15
Mark 4:12
Luke 8:10
John 12:40 Acts 28:26-27

Mark Buchanan - Your Church is Too Safe

Comments on John 1:14 (,,,full of grace and truth)

Good news is always show-and-tell.

God pulled out all the stops to create creation. How much more to create new creations?  To accomplish the first, God spake. To accomplish the second, God came.

"Full" - not one more drop of truth or grace could fit in Him.

He bursts at the seams with both.  Everything He is, everything He does, drops truth, exudes grace. There's never a moment when Jesus runs short on either. If Jesus were facing an enemy, or dealing with disappointment, or saw a beautiful woman, or was betrayed by a friend, or met a gay man, or was given a million dollars, or whatever, what He would say and what He would do would be the perfection of grace and truth.

When we speak truth, it should be so grace-soaked, it's hard to reject; when we show grace, it should be so truth-soaked it's hard to accept.

Rosaria Butterfield - The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

Sexuality is more a symptom of our life’s condition than a cause, more a consequence than an origin.

Importantly, we don’t see God making fun of homosexuality or regarding it as a different, unusual, or exotic sin. What we see instead is God's warning: if you indulge the sins of pride, wealth, entertainment-lust, lack of mercy, and lack of discretion, you will find yourself deep in sin — and the type of sin may surprise you.

Homosexuality, like all sin, is symptomatic and not casual — that is, it tells us where our heart has been, not who we inherently are or what we are destined to become.

Sin is not a mistake.  A mistake is taking the wrong exit on the highway.  A sin is treason against a holy God.  A mistake is a logical misstep.  Sin lurks in our heart and grabs us by the throat to do our bidding.

Lorretta Kelley - Dream Stealers

When you commit your works unto the Lord, even your thoughts will be established.

Delay does not mean denial.

You cannot transform another's life - only God can do it.

Fatigue can steal or kill your dream... you gotta learn to say, "No!"

Not everyone will support your dream or vision... you gotta be careful who you tell it to.