Displaying items by tag: wpc resolutions

The World Prayer Centre team have been like eager students in these first few weeks of 2018. Yet again, we keep saying “Wow” because God is taking us on a journey and we thought you might like to come with us.

As part of our Resolution 2018 campaign which we started at the beginning of the year, we resolved to pray together for the first two weeks of the year in the mornings covering the topics from our campaign:

CONSECRATION
This has been a key element. Many scriptures relate to consecration, washing our hands, changing our robes and preparing to enter God’s presence. We keep coming back to “If my people” and these four acts of consecration:

1. Humble ourselves
2. Pray
3. Seek His face
4. Turn from our wicked ways.

Bill Johnson describes humbling as reflecting on our insignificance and meditating on His significance. Or as the Psalmist puts it “As the eyes of the servant look to the hand of the master, so our eyes look to the Lord our God.” (Ps. 123). Making Jesus number one has always been part of our Christian thinking but there is a new intensity to this, a deeper call to intimacy.

DEDICATION
After consecration, we come humbly to God and dedicated 2018 to Him. We hear a holy call to dedicate all we have and all we are to Him. Part of this is a struggle because we might like to hold some things back, or adopt a wait and see approach, but servanthood is full commitment. We stood at our first Prayershift gathering of 2018, with people from across the country, at Betel in Birmingham on January 13th – dedicating this year of turning to God. Betel is the Spanish word for House of God, reflecting Jacob’s heaven to earth experience in Genesis 28 – a great encouragement to us as we started the year. They have a wonderful track record working amongst drug addicts. What an inspirational place to think of the wonderful transforming power of Jesus and why this call to turn is so vital.

CELEBRATION
We spent a lot of time in the scriptures around 2 Chron 5 – 7. They record marvellous times of celebration as the temple was dedicated. There was a huge wall of noise with 120 trumpets, hundreds of other instruments and multitudes of voices, shouting, singing, and declaring God’s praise. “For he is good, and His steadfast love endures for ever.” As the Ark of the Covenant entered the temple the place was filled with God’s glory cloud. When Solomon prays his prayer of dedication to the Lord the fire came down from heaven. Wow – let our praise be like this! As we prayed together as a team we were reminded of that familiar carol – “Hark the herald Angels sing, glory to the new born King.” Hark is not a word in common usage but it is really saying “listen up” “pay attention” – the King is here.

RECONCILIATION
We met with a group called England Prayer Watch on 4-5th January for a rich 24 hours. God spoke about our hearts being at one with His, and in harmony with each other. This creates a reconciliation and unity. We were reminded that the Holy Spirt fell when the disciples were waiting and were of one mind. In lots of other settings we are hearing God’s call that His people will be one. We are turning from pride, dissension, independence and asking God to forgive us that we have often blocked the work of His Kingdom. Let us be one that we can be effective channels for the Holy Spirit to heal our land.

INVITATION
At Prayershift as we wanted to know if, having done these things, we could ask the King of Glory to come in (Psalm 24 takes us through a process of consecration and dedication). We believe we had the authority to pray for the doors to be opened that the King of Glory may come in. These are not times for half-heartedness. A prayer as straightforward as Thy Kingdom Come can have powerful consequences when we see the dominion of Jesus in our churches, schools, families and communities.

It is interesting to report that we went through this process of consecration, dedication, reconciliation, celebration and invitation with the England Prayer Watch group. There were intense periods of humility as we kneeled and prostrated ourselves, there was a commitment to deepen relationship, serving each other and prophetically standing shoulder to shoulder in a line for our nation.

Finally, there was the invitation –

Lord we need you. Things must break in our nation and only you can bring it about. We welcome you Jesus, the King of Glory, the life giver and nation changer. We proclaim your Lordship; let us serve You in these times. Amen

Steve Botham

Director of World Prayer Centre

World Prayer Centre is calling on Christians across our nation to start 2018 in a different way. This is no ordinary year. It is the year of Turning. There is a trumpet sound telling us to awake, to get ready and to dedicate ourselves to the Lord in 2018.

So we invite everyone with a passion to see the good news of Jesus renew His church and transform lives to join us. Pray through this resolution below as God mobilises His people for His amazing purpose.

1. In 2018 through the power of the Holy Spirit, we commit to be better Disciples of Christ Jesus, Son of God, our Saviour, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
2. We resolve to humble ourselves, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked ways.
3. We proclaim 2018 a year of Turning for the church and nation through our consecration, dedication, reconciliation and celebration.

We are inviting the Body of Christ to join us on our discipleship journey to:

• Turn from anything and everything that grieves His Spirit - pride, unbelief, idols, disunity, self-righteousness, critical attitudes and in humility and repentance…
• Turn our hearts and minds to Him.

As disciples, our desire is to know Jesus more, to keep Turning and being refined.

We believe that 2018 will also be a year when the Church asks the nation to turn - in our proclamation, preaching, witnessing, caring, loving of our neighbours, and in our praying, we are declaring “It is time to turn.”

We shall not invite the nation to turn to religion, or turn to faith, not even turn to the church. We are inviting them to turn to Jesus, the Light of the world, the forgiver of sins, the Lover of our souls who is the only way to a wonderful relationship with God the Father.

Please make this declaration out loud as your spiritual resolution for 2018:

I resolve to be a better disciple. I consecrate and dedicate myself to Jesus. I commit to serve Him, and serve others and to stand as an agent of turning for my family, community and nation.

2018 - A Year of Turning. God says, “If we turn, He will hear from heaven, forgive our sins and heal the land”. 2 Chronicles 7:14

Download a PDF version to use in your church, small group or prayer meeting.