All Categories

The Reshaping of the Church

4/2/2020

We are now just over two weeks into our national “go home and stay home” order, precipitated by the global Covid-19 pandemic. People are finding new structures and rhythms for their “stay at home” lives, the shock of the cascading changes is wearing off, and the realization that this is not just a pause, but a full-blown reshaping of society, is sinking in.

I come from a theological position that believes that God is in control, yet not just in a general but disengaged way, rather in a very active way, shaping, maturing and positioning His Church for His glory, regardless if we are going through times of prosperity or calamity. While we must weep with those who weep and keep engaged with the very real suffering that is all around us, this lens means that even in this current crisis, we look to see where and how God is actively moving. What is He redeeming, what is He birthing? I find that looking for the work of the Spirit doesn’t just encourage me, but it inspires and directs my intercession, as I seek to “bless what God is doing”. I’m sure you too, find that your heart encouraged and your spirit activated in intercession, when you observe the hand of God at work.

Over the last 12 years I’ve had the honour of leading a large, national, interdenominational house of prayer (on Zoom), and at the same time, chairing Ears to Hear (the Canadian Network of Prayer Ministries). These two ministries have provided two unique widows into the Canadian Church. One window is a view into trends in the Church, and the other sees where the emphasis in intercession has been over the last number of years.

So here are a few things, right in the midst of the Covid calamity, that I’d like to share with you. Places where I can see the Spirit moving, reshaping the Church in extraordinary ways in this hour. Of course it’s bigger than what can be shared in a simple blog post, but I’ll try to hit some of the macro changes. And what I’m observing now is where I’m leaning in in intercession, as I believe that these trends could very well be laying the ground work for unprecedented renewal of the Church and revival in our generation.

A Shift Away from Consumer-Christianity

To the grief of many pastors, over the last years, the trend has been towards “consumer Christianity”, where Christians have developed the habit of picking and choosing what they like from an assortment of churches and ministries. It comes from having being discipled by our culture where anything we want has been available to purchase or experience with a click of a mouse. But the downside spiritually, is that we reject what makes us feel uncomfortable, what challenges our flesh, what calls us to commitment or service. We have become like children allowed to pick whatever we want from the buffet, so we’ve heaped up our plates with desserts and left the rest. It’s a trend that is absolutely toxic to discipleship, it refuses accountability and treats the Church like a form of entertainment that we engage with as long as it pleases us (but not a minute longer).

Covid has changed this. Churches are now unable to deliver that commitment-free, carefully designed Sunday experience for the whole family that has come to be expected, even demanded. In a time of high need and stark isolation, churches been reduced to running services online, and suddenly the pursuit of spiritual entertainment and excitement is irrelevant in the face of our immediate need for connection and care. Yet the kind of connection and care we crave right now only comes by being known, engaged, and committed to a church family, not by being a consumer. The Lord is giving us an incredible opportunity to break out of the toxic pattern of consumer-Christianity and shift back into healthy church structures which enable us to grow as disciples. Praise the Lord!

A Restoration of Sabbath and Spiritual Disciplines

A second aspect of this reshaping is the restoration of the sabbath rest that we haven’t had time for, or given ourselves permission for. The driven-ness of our society which values success and productivity above all, has seeped into the Church and many of us have unwittingly adopted a similar lifestyle pace with less than two or three hours of downtime a week. When we do have free time, we quickly fill it out of a fear of boredom or the stigma of being “unbusy”. Our kids keep similarly full schedules as we anxiously push to ensure their academic and athletic success, assuming this will lead to career success later on in life. But this pace has not allowed for the biblical rhythm of sabbath or the vital practice of spiritual disciplines (such as reading, meditating, and the studying of scripture, waiting on God, prayer, intercession and unhurried communion with Him). Our lack shows, we are spiritually anemic and easily overwhelmed.

The Covid crisis has abruptly interrupted this unrelenting busyness. If we are not a healthcare worker or in a similar frontline industry (which most of us aren’t), we’ve been sent home. While some are able to work from home it’s shorter hours without the commute, others have been laid off, still others have been quarantined because of possible exposure. Many of us, (likely most of us) are being forced to rest.

Sabbath is not just an old religious idea from the Victorian era, it’s a powerful statement of dependence on Jesus. Taking a day off doesn’t mean that you don’t have work to do, it means that you trust Jesus to enable you to do it in a shorter amount of time. It’s willingly handicapping our productivity to make more time for Him, and trusting Him to make up the difference. But without sabbath, our lives become increasingly unhealthy and self-reliant. The Lord is giving us a reset in our lifestyle pace as well as an opportunity to explore and establish spiritual disciplines that we’ve avoided in the past. If we lay hold of this moment, we can grow in relationship with God in ways we’ve never believed possible. Going forward, this development of the inner life in God, cultivated by spiritual disciplines and strengthened by sabbath rhythms will have profound effects on the maturity, holiness and resilience of the Church. Praise the Lord!

A Deliverance from our Hyper-Independence

A third aspect of reshaping, is a jarring deliverance from our radical, (even hyper) independence and a lifestyle marked by our worship of personal freedom. In its place the Lord is calling us back into biblical community oriented around home, family and neighbourhoods, but not isolated communities, with raised drawbridges disconnected from the rest of the Body of Christ. No, rather, interconnected, linked across regions and nations. So it’s both the restoration of parish-type Christianity, but with the addition of the new virtual connections that are powerfully linking us and uniting us globally.

This process of reshaping will take a while to adjust to and will be both refreshing and wrenching. Suddenly families with children are in lockdown together which, even though this can be very difficult, also creates a genuine opportunity for connecting in deeper ways simply because of time and proximity. Everyone is homeschooling so parents are hands-on and engaged with their kids in all their areas of strengths and weakness. Secular ideologies that have been quietly eroding the Christian worldview that parents have sought to instill in their children no longer have a platform of influence during this moment of reset. Pray for families that we emerge from this lockdown season closer than ever, rather than hanging on until we can escape from each other!

In our desire to protect our society from Covid, seniors have being highlighted as the most vulnerable demographic and suddenly they are not just being seen, but very intentionally being cared for. The Church has long sought to create a place of honour for our “fathers and mothers”, but the prevailing “your value is in your beauty or your productivity” ethos of our society has splashed into the Church, often leaving our seniors marginalized. But now God has used this pandemic to restore seniors to a place of being cherished and honoured, enabling the Church to carry on upholding this value as Covid fades. Like the restoration of sabbath, honouring fathers and mothers provides a huge well of blessing that God wants to uncap. This new focus creates an opportunity for them to be authentically knit into our communities.

We can also see the effect of spending all our time at home by the shift in how we think about our neighbours and neighbourhoods. We’re starting to think about the command to love our neighbours as actually having an immediate application of loving and caring for the people that live beside us or near us. There is a new sense of neighbourhood cohesion and responsibility. This is impacting non-Christians as well, as many are now watching out for those that have needs to lend a hand. But for believers, it has an additional spiritual dynamic and this awareness of neighbourhoods is activating prayer and ministry, if you like, we are being called into a very real pastoring our neighbourhoods.

The reshaping of our focus around families, extended families and neighbourhoods creates massive opportunities for the Church. It’s a moment to guide our people into intergenerational, authentic, Christian community, marked by the presence of God, where people are known, welcomed, and loved. In this age of radical independence— vibrant, missional, communities centred on Jesus become an extraordinary apologetic for the gospel, just as they were in the book of Acts.

“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Act 2:46,47

Communities, as we see in this Acts passage, also provide the most effective way to care for a harvest. We are all longing for harvest, but the Father doesn’t want any to be lost once they have received Christ, so our independence really needs to be reshaped into community. Over the last 2-3 years there has been a glorious national crescendo of intercession for harvest, for souls— could it be that God is ready to answer this cry in a massive way?! If there is a great ingathering in coming days, these communities will be the very best way for us to lead new converts into becoming mature disciples. Praise the Lord!

The Gift of Humility

In addition to the intercession for souls, over the last year (in particular) there has been a very strong intercessory focus on humility. I have been in hundreds of prayer meetings where humility has been a partial or central focus. God has heard our prayer! Covid is being used to humble the world. Remember, He gives grace to the humble, so consider the wonderful way He is redeeming this crisis! With this unprecedented humbling, He’s setting us up to receive extraordinary grace! The wealth and strength we have taken for granted and leaned on— is tottering, shown to be no match for a teeny virus. We are being delivered from the intensity of narcissism, as vanity and image—obsessing over how we look—seem, in this new reality, shallow and foolish. Our heroes are now masked and gowned in sterile protective covering, they’re the frontline medical workers, not perfectly photoshopped Hollywood celebrities in up-to-the-minute fashion. The great celebrities of sports and entertainment have lost their platforms. Humility and transparency is becoming the new normal. Praise the Lord!

An Awakening of Prayer

Perhaps the most important change is that the Church is rising in prayer. Within the last week there have been four different days of prayer called by various groups, nationally, regionally and internationally, but not only are days being set aside for prayer, churches, stripped of many programs, are turning to prayer and instead, gathering online, establishing a new culture of intercession and dependence on God. Individuals are also praying with new consistency and earnestness. Regardless of our experience in prayer, the Church is being tutored by the Spirit in this hour and given grace to grow. We are face to face with our need to pray and the grace of God is here to powerfully enable us.

Because of the overwhelming changes and the humbling that this crisis has brought, it is no longer odd or awkward to ask someone if you could pray for them, so Christians everywhere are stepping into this opportunity. Even in the public square that was so hostile and offended by prayer a month ago, prayer is being welcomed and respected. Look around, see the prayer awakening that has begun like a mighty groundswell! Praise the Lord!

If we put all these pieces (and others we didn’t mention) that are emerging in this hour together, we see the building blocks of a glorious renewal of biblical Christianity with the potential for a massive revival. New levels of commitment and discipleship, a restoration of spiritual disciplines, holiness and a lifestyle marked by dependence and trust in God, the reorientation towards Christ-centred community— all these pieces infused with deep humility and much prayer. Wow! Let’s not just pray for Covid to end and for the mitigation of the suffering, but let us in this hour also loudly bless what God is doing as He reshapes his beloved Church for her finest hour.

by Sara Maynard

14 Comments

Our World has Just Changed

3/14/2020

30 Comments

Responding in Intercession to the Covid-19 Crisis

While there is no shortage of blogs and social media posts talking about the Coronavirus pandemic very few are giving counsel on how to pray other than - pray for those that are sick and pray for the pandemic to end!

While these are of course primary focuses for prayer, I want to suggest that there may be more at play here than is immediately obvious. It actually might be that the Lord is strategically using this international crisis to radically disrupt the status quo so that He can move in unprecedented ways. I’m not saying He caused it, but I am saying He can use that which was intended for evil - for good, and for the salvation of many (Gen 50:20). If you agree with me, let’s endeavour to discern how to pray strategically so that the Church can be strengthened and step into this unique moment, seeing great advances for the kingdom of God!

Let’s think first about what’s happening in the hearts of our fellow Canadians.

The post-Christian world has suddenly been confronted with it’s vulnerability and it’s mortality. Our secular society has been barreling down the road, self-assured and confident we had no need of God and that the Church was a relic from the superstitious past. Suddenly things look different. The world has been brought to its knees, humbled by a teeny virus. The sense of security we have had in assuming we live in a healthy, safe, environment, as well as the security many have found in their steady jobs and investment portfolios has been shattered. Anxiety is everywhere and escalating. That sense of security will not be regained in short order, if ever. Like in in the days of 9/11, our vulnerability has been exposed. The world has changed.

With this in mind, how do we partner with God’s purposes in our prayers?

Before we pray, I believe it is vital for every Christian to find the place of peace in God, otherwise our prayers become driven by fear rather than faith. It’s not enough to tell ourselves not to fear, we have to spend whatever time we need to with the Lord and His word to meditate on His care for us, the security we have in Him, the reality of the resurrection, and of course His ability to heal. This global moment is a test for the Church. We can only move into the good works He has for us if we set our trust solely on Christ. Whether we get sick or not, whether we live or die, whether we have prosperity or are financially reduced— He has us. This trust in His goodness and faithfulness, has to so permeate us, that it brings us into the rest of God— that place of abiding in peace and joy, even in the midst of the storm. If you are not there, why not set this article down right now and spend time with Jesus.

From that place of peace, let’s move into faith.

Remember, that the Lord could have had you born in any age, at any time in history, but He chose for you to be alive right now. You have, in a very real way, ‘come into the kingdom for such a time as this’ (Est 4:14). You are formed and designed for advancing the kingdom during this global crisis. The Lord predestined good works for you to do before the foundation of the world (Eph 2:10) and some of those good works pertain to this hour. Don’t fall into the world’s mindset which is only considering self-protection and self-provision, but rather, consider how can you (in wisdom) serve those in real need right now, even if it involves having to trust God with our lives in greater ways. How can we love our neighbours in meaningful ways?

The reports we are getting out of China involve testimonies of the Church in revival, fearlessly serving and caring for those in quarantine and gathering daily for communion and prayer because they have little fear of death. The influence of this kind of demonstration of the gospel, in such a counter-culture manner, cannot be quelled. It will change China. It is like the, seemingly insignificant, mustard seed thrown into the garden that grows against all odds to overshadow all the other plants. In Korea, again, the Church is stepping into the need, boldly going out into the streets to distribute masks at the request of the police.

In Iran, another global hotspot, BBC reports that 54,000 prisoners have been released to combat the spread of the virus in the prisons. We have to wonder how many of these are political prisoners, Christians and dissidents that the Lord has just arranged to have sprung for this hour! Remember, the fastest growing church in the world is in Iran right now! God is sovereignly turning for good, what the enemy meant for evil. He is doing it overseas, He can do it here.

So let’s get down to intercession! Here are some strategic prayer points:

Pray that fear doesn’t gain access to the heart of the Canadian Church, but rather, that we grow in a deep abiding trust in Jesus, a trust that will serve us so well even beyond this crisis.
Pray for revival! Pray that the fresh awareness of mortality and the feeling that so much is beyond our control right now would draw hearts back to faith who have fallen away. Pray that this crisis massively softens and humbles hearts across this nation. Pray it creates a wide-spread hunger for God and the peace He alone brings.
Pray for the increase of the gift of healing in the Church.
Pray that we shift away from our focus on temporal, earthly values and reorient to value what really matters. The Lord is seeking to use this situation to set many of us free from idols. Pray as well that the revelation of the resurrection becomes prominent and dynamic as it was in the early Church, breaking our fear of death.
Pray for those who personally or as businesses, are suffering significant financial losses, or layoffs. Pray that the Lord would provide for them and we would all continue to choose generosity.
Pray for compassionate evangelistic strategies to be given to the Church. Ask the Lord to show us how to best serve the spiritual, emotional and even practical needs of our communities.
Pray for Spirit-led outreach and care for the elderly who are at higher risk of infection and already prone to both isolation and fear. Could many be brought into the kingdom in the last years of their lives? Could the Church beautifully serve this demographic in this hour?
Pray for the Church to be more united than ever as we share resources and help each other be bold, creative and wise in our evangelism and service.
Pray for an activation of intercession to tip us into a true move of God. We cannot worry and effectively pray at the same time, so let us practice the principles of Phil 4: 5b-7 “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
And of course, pray for the Covid-19 pandemic to be supernaturally arrested by the hand of God!

by Sara Maynard

30 Comments

Learning this Season's Language

2/13/2020

2 Comments

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. 1Pet 2:9

Intercession has been flowing with the same language, (Come Holy Spirit, pour out your power and glory, reveal the Fathers’ heart...) with strength and fluency for the last long season. Some of these phrases, (and many more like them) have become so familiar that they effortlessly roll off our tongues without us ever having to search for the right words. I liken this to going for a run on a forest trail that you have travelled a hundred times or more. You know just how to skirt the boggy parts, duck the low hanging branches, pick up the pace on the inclines. You know the trail inside out and could run it with your eyes closed.

For many of us, praying for revival is like this.

But something very fundamental has changed.

Prophets tell us that we are no longer in the era of the Church just receiving the Father’s love, but in a new era, where he is calling us into maturity and holiness. The emphasis in this new era is on the fear of the Lord and the causal way we have treated sin is no longer something he will overlook. Has his nature of mercy and grace changed? No, of course not, he’s simply calling us closer to himself. This is a really good thing! "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Heb 12:14. Of course, we'll always keep praying for the love of God to be poured out, that goes without saying, but the Lord is now adding to us a new focus in prayer.

We're running a new trail in prayer

When we start down this new trail to pray for this glorious holiness to grow in the Church, we quickly find we don’t know how to run this path! We stumble, we're awkward and clumsy, perhaps we even struggle to see the path we're to run as it’s become so overgrown. Maybe you can relate to this, maybe you find you run out of vocabulary very quickly when the topic of prayer turns to holiness. Why is this?

I believe the reason behind this phenomenon is that we don’t have a true vision of the beauty of God’s holiness, in its full, stunning, brilliance and jaw-dropping glory. We’ve experienced the touch of his love, and can go deep into praying for that to be poured out on every heart as it has been on ours, but many of us haven’t experienced his holiness.

Because an experience with his holiness is not something that has marked us— in its absence, we insert, instead, what we know — legalism.

Who wants to pray for legalism?! Not me!!

Legalism and holiness are light years apart, but we confuse them with each other when we haven’t experienced an encounter with God’s holiness. Legalism is man-centred, works oriented, a rigid bondage, which snuffs out life and joy. It’s much more about all the things you can’t do, leading you into a smaller, restricted life rather than one full of abundance. This is man’s sad, fruitless, imitation of God’s holiness.

But God’s holiness is beautiful, expansive, without any shadow of darkness or deception, full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit and absolutely glorious. In the presence of this holiness we are overwhelmingly aware of how carnal we are, how far we have to go to be transformed and sanctified, how influenced and shaped by the world we are— but at the same time— we are aware of the power of His merciful love that holds us like an irresistible magnetic force in its welcoming embrace. (“I am dark but lovely” SoS 1:5).

This combination of revelation: his holiness, our unholiness, his mercy and compassion, his provision of the imparted righteousness of his Son— leaves us trembling before him — before his cross, in worship, humility and awe. This changes us, and awakens a love for God that we’ve not know before, as well as a genuine sense of recoiling from wickedness and a deep sorrow over how it has ravaged us all.

So the reality is that many, perhaps most of us, have never had a meaningful encounter with God’s holiness, even though we have with His love. This leaves us ill-equipped to pray for a move of holiness and the fear of the Lord to sweep the Church. Without this personal experience to draw from, we find it hard to articulate its goodness, or genuinely, passionately, long for this kind of move of God to revive the people of God, (1 Pet:15,16).

Perhaps this is where we need to begin

Perhaps asking God to show us his holiness, in its noon-day-sun brilliance and beauty, is where we begin. Then going deeper, in prayer and biblical meditation (reflection), to gaze upon how he is absolutely Truth in every dimension of that word, how he is absolutely pure in every motive, action, word and intention to the core of his being, how he is astonishingly humble, how he is perfectly loving. Consider these and more, as we meditate on all the aspects of his holiness (Ps 29:2).

No one else is holy like he is, and seeing his holiness in even the most fleeting glimpse creates in us an insatiable longing to be like him, and for the Church to be free from the tragic destruction and defilement that sin brings.

This sets us on a path to run in prayer. The longing that is birthed by seeing his holiness begins to express itself in intercession, in groans, then in words. We pick up the pace and as prayer begins to flow, repentance is easy rather than extracted from us as it would be if we were praying in a legalistic way.

Here running this new prayer path, our faith soars as we see a vision before us of a Church that is a radiant, pure, “fit helpmate” for the sinless Son of God and we find we have words we have never used before in intercession that are now flowing passionately from our hearts.

Hallelujah! He’s giving us a new language to intercede for this new season, a season that will be marked with a revival of holiness.

Sara Maynard

2 Comments

Seeing The Leaves of Healing

1/16/2020

5 Comments

Revelation 22:2 has been identified as a scripture that prophetically defines, at least in part, the call of the Canadian Church to serve the nations.

"THE LEAVES OF THE TREE WERE FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS"

This scripture identifies our primary national gift/calling and it opens a window into the promise of spiritual abundance that the Canadian Church has received from the Lord. In this moment, in the drama of the nations, we need to see this promise clearly so we can be activated into this unique gifting and calling. It’s a moment we don’t want to miss.

In order to really function in this calling however, we need to understand it. We need to believe for what God is truly giving us, we can’t afford to just run with assumptions. If we’ve misunderstood and jumped to conclusions, even if we are fervent, prayerful and sacrificial, we end up asking amiss, (Jas 4:3), and this can cost us dearly. It is often misunderstanding what God has promised that leads to disillusionment and “hope differed” (Prov 13:12).

In the last blog post when we looked carefully at Ps 72:8 and considered its context, in the same way, it’s also important that we understand the context of our Revelation 22:2 promise.

Where is it? What’s happening? What does this same image communicate in other passages of scripture? Let’s dig in! We find our promise is right at the end of the book of Revelation, in the midst of the description of the New Jerusalem where the tree of life gives forth its fruit every month. You might remember the tree of life, we first encounter it in Genesis as a type (a symbol) of Christ. It’s eating from this tree that gives Adam and Eve life, and it’s this tree that they are separated from when they sin. The tree of life can also be a symbol of the cross, where Jesus’ saving and redeeming work provides —in exchange for our lives diseased by sin— His incorruptible life. But it’s not just a personal redemption, here in Revelation at the restoration of all things, the tree of life is providing the nations with fruit for feasting and leaves for healing.

How we long for this day!

So if the tree itself is a symbol of Jesus and the cross, where does Canada come in?
How then could this be a promise for the Church in Canada?

A SPECIAL GRACE FOR HEALING

First of all, this is a promise that the Church in Canada has a special grace for healing, as a part of our spiritual DNA. Healing of hearts, bodies, relationships, spirits, and more! This means when we see God moving in our nation, in big or even smaller ways, we can expect to see a strong theme of healing. It’s a spiritual gift from God that has, and will continue to, manifest in the Canadian Church.

This means we can and should knock, seek and ask in prayer for healing to flow from every church, every network and denomination, and from the life of every believer! Receive a bigger vision of healing than just physical healing-- but let’s keep contending for the sick and injured to be healed!

AND TO THE NATIONS

Secondly, this gift of healing is also a responsibility, a call to minister the leaves of the tree of life, (the leaves of Jesus’ gospel) to broken hearts and lives from around the world that have come to Canada.

As well, we take these leaves into nations as we are sent out. It’s both. Caring for the nations as they come, and carrying Jesus, as His servants, to the nations. What an honour and what a joy!

But with both of these applications, (healing as our spiritual DNA, and our call to carry healing to the nations) -- it must never become about us. That can sour the gift.

IT'S NOT ABOUT US

The Canadian Church cannot be exalted in this story, we must decrease in our national ego and our national self-life, to make more room for Jesus’ glory to increase. Remember Paul, who called himself the “Hebrew of Hebrews”(Phil 3:5), then went on to declare that what ever was gain for him (he included his Jewishness in this listing) he counted as rubbish for the sake of knowing Christ (Phil 3:8).

Being Canadian is wonderful, but Canadians, or even Canadian values and culture won’t ultimately heal anyone. It is only Jesus, His grace and power. We may be the vessel at times, but we are merely jars of clay, not the glory that the jar contains. That glory is the presence of God. We may have a rosy view of all things Canadian and see kingdom values in our desire for peace and our cultural politeness, but don’t let that turn to a form of national self-righteousness, where we subtly believe we merit God’s gifts to us.

If Paul considered being Jewish was of no value, how can we assert that being Canadian somehow makes us worthy? Let’s, like Paul, always make sure it’s Jesus who is glorified, honoured and proclaimed in every opportunity we have to minister. It’s Jesus the world needs, not Canada.

A PROPHETIC MOMENT

With hopefully a clearer vision of what our gift looks like, let’s notice that we are in a moment right now where the Church in Canada has an invitation to bring Jesus’ healing to nations. The world’s eyes are on Iran and because of the tragic loss of life in the recently downed Ukrainian flight 752 there is a sudden awareness of the link between Canada and Iran. We can’t let this moment get lost in the noise of international turmoil, it’s a strategic place where the Canadian Church can step in with Jesus’ healing.

How? Consider these ways:
SERVE

Seize every opportunity that we are given to minister grace and healing to the families and friends here in Canada who have suffered this great loss. Perhaps the Church in Edmonton is being called to give leadership in this, as many of the bereaved Iranian-Canadian families live there.

PRAY

While connecting with bereaved Iranian friends and family will be a unique assignment for a small sliver of the Church, all of us can step into fervent intercession for the Church in Iran right now. Two major factors are converging: the unprecedented growth in the Iranian Church in spite of intense persecution, and secondly, the unprecedented upheaval and growing protests which could result in a change of government. Get a prophetic vision of Iran experiencing the transformation of Jesus’ gospel and begin to intercede! Seize the moment in prayer!

Lastly, contend in prayer for the Iranian communities within Canada. If revival swept through these Iranian enclaves in Canada, it would bring a direct impact on Iran, fortifying and resourcing the Church in Iran through the strong bonds of relationship.

CARRYING THE GOSPEL MEANS IT CONFRONTS US TOO!

As we pursue an activation of our gift: bringing healing to the nations that comes from Jesus’s life and redemption, (not just Canadian niceness or peacefulness) we can expect that carrying the gospel will confront our hearts as well.

We simply can’t function in this gift if we are anti-immigration or biased against other ethnic groups that have moved to Canada. I’m not advocating for open borders, but as Christians, those that are coming to Canada legally need to find the warmth of the Church’s generous embrace and welcome. “Welcome the stranger” — it’s a part of the gospel. If this is not fully our heart, we need to repent and realign ourselves with the call to authentically love our neighbours.

The two major prophetic promises God has given our nation are phenomenal! If we believe them, live into them, contend for their fullness we will find our true national destiny and our hearts will overflow with the goodness of God.

Sara Maynard

Read the other two posts in this series: Removing our Cataracts, Seeing His Dominion.

5 Comments

SEEING HIS SEA TO SEA DOMINION

1/9/2020

5 Comments

“May He have dominion from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth!” Ps 72:8

Without question, when we lift our eyes to see the powerful prayer of Ps 72:8 inscribed on the arch of our nation’s Peace Tower— the very front door of Parliament— we know this is a verse that has particular application to our nation.

Then when we also discover that this same verse was the inspiration for Canada’s original name of the “Dominion of Canada” it adds a whole other level of confirmation, indeed, this is a promise from the Lord for Canada! It is a promise that generations of Canadians can confidently trust will be fulfilled.

However, as we pray for the fulfillment of this promise, isn’t it vital to understand what we are actually asking for? If one of the reasons that prayers are not answered, is that we have “asked amiss” (Jas 4:3), then it seems very important that we line up with God’s intent, what He wants to give us through this wonderful promise. Yet as I travel all over Canada, and have done so for nearly 20 years, I hear a wide range of interpretations and expectations as to how the fulfillment of this promise should look.

In our last blog post we considered the need to have our vision renewed by washing our spiritual eyes in the scriptures (Restoring Our Vision #1). We talked about the importance of being Jesus-focused and handling His promises to us in a truthful, honouring way. This means not plucking promises out of their surrounding context nor imposing our ideas of what they mean upon them.

LIKE US-- JESUS WAS TEMPTED

Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness to do just that, to use the promise of God (Ps 91:11) to force God’s hand. Even though God had promised to provide angels to protect, yet this promise was not given to be leveraged for a power demonstration. Holding the promises in their context and in the greater story of scripture doesn't diminish them, it lines us up with God’s true purposes, so that we can pray and ask with extraordinary faith, seeing wonderful answers.

So the context of Psalms 72:8 matters. It is a Psalm which is written for King Solomon’s coronation, but also is a prophetic, Messianic Psalm. It speaks of Solomon and Jesus at the same time. It’s this weaving together the earthly kingdom of Solomon and the coming Messianic kingdom of Jesus that made it so hard for the Apostles and early disciples to understand that Jesus had no political aspirations.

DON'T LET YOUR LONGINGS DISTORT HOW YOU READ GOD'S PROMISES

But it wasn’t just the large number of OT promises for a Messiah to come and sit on David’s throne that created this expectation, it was also the desperate desire of the Jewish people. As an oppressed people, they longed for freedom. They longed for the glory days of David and Solomon’s reigns where there was might in Jerusalem, prosperity throughout Israel and respect coming from all the other nations. Right up to the time of Jesus’ ascension, the disciples still viewed the kingdom of God through this political lens. “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6)”

Yet Jesus had a bigger plan and much better good news.

Jesus’ kingdom is an upside-down kingdom where those that want to be great in the kingdom become the bondservant of all, where you gain your life by loosing it, and where you find it is more blessed to give than to receive. These are not new thoughts, I’m sure you’re all nodding your heads in agreement. But not as commonly considered is that His kingdom is also an inside-out kingdom. A kingdom where He reigns, not by the iron rod of dictatorial oppression that the Romans imposed on Israel, but by winning our affections, capturing our hearts. His rule comes not by an outside imposition, but a life freely surrendered. He leads by winning the hearts of men and women who become consumed with love for Him.

So to truly pray this promise of Ps 72:8*, in a way that is consistent with Jesus’ kingdom, we can’t distort it to assert that Canada will become a politically Christian nation, imposing Christian morality and values on a largely secular population, (even for their own good). This is misunderstanding the word dominion and ascribing secular political power to it, selling this promise short.

It’s also forgetting that we are in the “now and not yet” age of the kingdom.

Rather, dominion, when applied to Canada in this age, refers to the scope, or range of Jesus’s influence. May it be —from sea to sea in our nation— that Jesus would have sway over the hearts and affections of the majority of Canadians! This is a promise for amazing revival. Pause there for a moment and let that sink in. It’s a picture of Canada loving God, I can’t think of better news for our nation, or a better promise to believe for. We’ve already seen tastes of it, in regions as moves of God have historically swept through parts of Canada, like the 1850s when Methodism was so prevalent in Toronto, that the city became known as “Toronto the Good”.

AND EVEN MORE OF JESUS' RULE TO COME!

There will also be a day of the total fulfillment of this prayer, when Jesus returns and every knee bows. In that day His kingdom will be in Canada from coast to coast as in every other nation. But that day is not yet, He is still giving Canadians a choice to love and obey Him.
So as we pray, let’s shift our focus off of just getting Christians in politically powerful roles as a way to see this promise fulfilled, and let’s set our prayers towards seeing a great move of God sweep our nation which captures the deepest affections of Canadians, turning their hearts to give Jesus their utter devotion in unprecedented numbers.
Let the glorious promise Ps 72:8 bring renewed fire to our prayers— the promise that from sea to sea, the hearts of vast numbers of Canadians will be His.
Lord may it be in our day!

Sara Maynard

* Psalms 72:8 is most accurately translated from the Hebrew as a prayer or a blessing: “May he have”, rather than a declaration of “He shall have”.

Haven't read Part One of this blog series? Click here for: Removing Spiritual Cataracts

5 Comments

Restoring Our Vision - Part I

1/2/2020

9 Comments

As the new year of 2020 is spread out in front of us, full of possibilities and promise, it is a perfect time to take stock. A time to consider what has been fruitful (I don’t just mean productive, but that which has led us closer to Jesus) and a time to consider what might have been not as fruitful. In the natural, winter is often a time of pruning, a time where the long and leggy branches that consume the plant’s energy are trimmed off.

Thinking back on 2019, the most significant event for the Canadian prayer movement was the election. It was hotly contested and very emotional. The Canadian Church as a whole prayed and many intercessors united in various rallies, joined the multiple fasting initiatives and gave themselves to the work of intense intercession. Yet the outcome of the election was very different than many (most) were expecting, leaving believers confused, heartbroken, even disoriented.
We can compartmentalize this event, even commit it to God and move on, but how will that effect us the next time we are called to pray for an election or like event? If we don’t address the confusion honestly doesn’t this give an open door to doubt and unbelief? I believe it does.

This new blog series is to speak into this and help us to continue to confidently pray regardless of the political landscape. In this three part series, we will look at Canada’s two most well-received prophetic promises, and use them to reorient ourselves around what God has indeed promised to the Canadian Church. These promises have been discerned and confirmed by leadership across denominations, and we can trust that God has spoke through them. However we need to see them clearly and truthfully, not skewed with our desires projected on them. As we look at them again, we can be confident that they paint a picture of what the coming moves of God (and yes, there will be many) will look like in the nation of Canada.

Before we begin, there is a prophetic picture that has recently come through times of intercession, which I believe will set the stage.

CATARACTS ARE BEING REMOVED
This is a prophetic picture of older eyes which had developed cataracts, now receiving eye surgery and being able to see the brilliant colour and clarity again. The scriptures talk of Eli, the old priest who raised Samuel as having eyes that were dim (likely with cataracts 1 Sam 3:2), the contrast is Moses, whose eyes did not dim at all as he aged (Deut 34:7). These two leaders of Israel had vastly different walks with God, and their capacity to see was impacted by that reality.

Cataracts are a particular problem to older eyes, they creep up on you, gradually dimming and dulling your vision.

For some of us, who have been holding to a vision of revival in Canada for years, even decades— could it be that we are now seeing a dulled vision? Do we have spiritual cataracts? Have we lost the intensity, vibrancy, and clarity of a vision of the Church on fire with the love and power of God? Do we see in the spirit God’s vision of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of souls turning to Jesus, not just for a momentary experience but for glorious transformation? It’s a vision that sees what's coming-- the glorious features of revival, in 3-D like clarity: the crushing weight of sin rolling off the shoulders of so many, the joyous dance of the lost being found and the fame of Jesus spreading unstoppably through their lives. Do we have eyes to see? Do we see the vision of the presence of God coming and settling on the Church in such a way that hours and hours are spent on our faces in worship, repentance and awe. Is our vision of revival in need of a renewing?

WHAT ABOUT OUR VISION OF JESUS?
Have we also gotten comfortable and familiar with looking at Jesus, assuming we know what He looks like and unaware that our vision of Him has dimmed? If we are not awestruck with His beauty, His compassion, His humility, His power… we need to see Him with clearer eyes. If gazing at Him through the scriptures doesn’t profoundly move us to adoration and a desire to surrender everything to Him, we need our spiritual eyesight restored.

If this rings true for you, ask the Lord for the “eye surgery” that is needed to restore vision. This is something He’s offering right now as He’s speaking through this prophetic picture. But cooperate with Him for the restoration, it’s not just going to be a zap, it’s going to be a process. It begins with seeing Jesus afresh, so soak yourself in the gospels and the epistles — look deeper at who Jesus is, your spiritual eyes will begin to open again (Eph 5:26). From there, He will show you how He desires to move in the nation, leading His beloved Church into the glorious fire of revival.

With a fresh vision of Jesus and revival as a starting point, we are going to look carefully at the two promises of Psalms 72:8 and Rev 22:2 over the next two weeks. What has God promised us through these two words? Have we assumed they were offering us something that they weren’t? Even if this is the case, the good news is that the gospel is the best news imaginable! Our human dreams of what's best are always inferior to the greatness of God's plan. If we have misunderstood these promises, be comforted with knowing that the truth of what they offer is better than our miss-understood version. Hallelujah!

So join us next week as we open up Psalms 72:8 and rejoice in what God has promised Canada!

Sara Maynard

9 Comments

IT'S TIME TO DIG CANALS

9/10/2019

0 Comments

A VISION IN PRAYER FOR CANADA

We posted this word on Facebook and it was so well received, we thought we would also share it here.

In early August, during a time of prayer for revival in Canada, I had a vision. I saw myself working as a labourer digging out and building canals in the City of God, to prepare for the next revival. It was happy labour, full of anticipation and purpose.

Canals create structures for the water to fill and beautify the city, they give the whole city easy access to the water. The canals in the vision were lined with cement, so the water stayed clean and the boundaries of their banks didn’t crumble. I heard: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.” Ps 46:4

Then the scene changed and I saw the city without the canals. A great flood came in and the water had no where to go to be retained, so it receded and in its wake — a tremendous destruction.

I knew implicitly that God was longing to pour out a great flood of His Spirit, but was holding back because we hadn’t prepared. If revival came now, we would not be able to steward it well. Yes we could have glory meetings, but wouldn’t be prepared to disciple the harvest. He is looking for us to build for what is coming, not for the level of water we experience now.

Then the Lord began to identify the specific “canals” He wants built and prepared.

The canals He showed me were: the gospel, (really understanding it and applying deeply it in every area of our lives) / maturing in use of gifts / biblical leadership with accountability / consistent heart healing / spiritual disciplines including deep prayer lives / community / theology / missional focus / servanthood / etc. Many of these areas we haven’t built into our churches in the deep robust ways we’ll need. It’s been easier to be shallow.

He’s asking us now to invest intercession and labour into the building of these canals as well as interceding for the outpouring, so we can genuinely host an outpouring, and preserve every drop of this precious water for generations.

Sara Maynard

0 Comments

Praying in a High-Stakes Election - Part III

8/29/2019

5 Comments

PART III

Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save. Ps 146:3

This is our third and final blog post in our election series. In this blog we will consider the final spirit seeking to influence the Canadian Church more intensely during these days, leading up to the current, high-stakes, federal election. This spirit has an insidious influence that we need to be aware of and refuse to be entangled with. It’s the spirit of idolatry, which is right now aggressively pushing for the idolization of government.

When we think of idolatry, we might think of images crafted to represent demons that people bow down to. Perhaps our minds go to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who refused to bow down to such an idol in Babylon, or the early Christians who were martyred because they refused to burn incense while declaring their statement of worship: “Caesar is Lord”. But idolatry is more pervasive and more fundamental than these simple examples that (I trust) most of us have been able to avoid.

DO WE NEED TO WATCH OUT FOR IDOLATRY?

Idolatry is the worship of a god that is not God; but worship goes beyond bowing a knee, singing a song or burning a pinch of incense. It’s revering, ascribing power to, submitting your life to, depending on — it's placing something (anything) in the place that God should rightfully hold in our lives. This makes idolatry the most common and the most grievous of sins. It’s not just misplaced affection, it’s so much more. It may not even be a conscious decision, it may be something we have drifted into without noticing. However, this sin has profound ramifications. According to N.T. Wright, when we commit idolatry we actually hand the idol the power that it uses to enslave us.

When we act, speak, and consider the government to be the highest power in our nation, we are tacitly declaring “Caesar is Lord”. Let’s be alert so we don’t stumble into this. Only Jesus is Lord. He is able to work out his will and bring forth his kingdom in spite of the raging of the kings of this world, he is Lord of them — he is Lord of lords. His name is above every name, his kingdom eternal and unshakable. He is not distant and removed from us, he is present and engaged.

GOVERNMENT IS ORDAINED BY GOD

Government is an institution ordained by God to guide, secure, bring order and justice in a nation. It has a place that God has given it. Government reflects the culture of the nation, including the spiritual culture, and this is most especially true in a democracy. The Church is called to be engaged and concerned about the government, to be prayerful and present. But when we focus on government in an inordinate way, either in our prayers or with our attention, this could well reveal that we have placed too high a regard, too high a dependence on the earthly power invested in government. If having a Christian Prime Minister is the ultimate goal of your prayers, rather than joining with creation’s groans (1), the prayers of the Son of God(2) and the biblical prayers of the Apostles(3) for the maturing and thriving of the Church, you may well have stumbled into this trap. You could be looking to the wrong source for change. Depending on the wrong power. The Church is the light of the world and God’s vehicle for extending the kingdom.

LORD, HELP US CHECK OUR HEARTS!

Another heart check that can be used to gauge if we have allowed this spirit to distort our priorities, is to consider the state of our heart toward the lost. The lost in general, and the lost who are active in the political arena. How tender is our heart, how central in our prayers are these ones who don’t yet know Christ? Does Jesus’ love and burden for souls trump our reaction to politicians or pundits from a party we would not support?

Am I saying just do “churchy” things and don’t pray or get involved in government? No, not at all. Am I saying the outcome of the election doesn’t matter? Again, no— it matters a lot. But I am saying let’s just keep this focus on government in its place and don’t allow the enemy to push our zeal into the place of idolatry. Let’s make sure the enemy doesn’t shift our hearts to trust the earthly governments of man, expecting them to be the vehicle to bring forth truth, righteousness, or security.

If you feel you have crossed this line and have stumbled in this way, don’t despair. The Apostle John teaches us that we all sin and that Jesus provides the remedy that we keep applying to our lives: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1Jn 1:8,9

This is the path of sanctification, the path that we all walk to become more Christlike. The path with no shortcuts.

If we are swept along with this spirit and engage in the same idolatry as the world around us, then where can they look for hope? Where can the world look for light and truth? Remember, we are of a different kingdom and God has given us this moment as a great time to shine.

1. Rom 8:22,23
2. Jn 17
3. Col 1:9-12, Phil 1:9-11, Eph 1:16-23 and more

By Sara Maynard

5 Comments

Praying in a High Stakes Election - Part II

8/22/2019

0 Comments

PART II

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. James 3:16,17

Last week we began our three-part blog series on the spiritual climate of this election season and the importance of recognizing the enemy’s agenda against us. We talked about a “spiritual swirl”, which is a way of describing the increased intensity of the demonic influencing how people think and react. Our first focus was on fear and how we need to be attentive to the ways this could be impacting our hearts, and thus our prayers. If you haven’t read that first installment, you can do so here.

The second focus and the topic of today’s blog is noticing the increase of accusation and its twin— blind loyalty— as tools the enemy is using to promote selfish ambition, which leads to division. One of the twins, (accusation) can only see the negative and the other (blind loyalty) will only admit to the positive, and although this might sound good, they both have, at their heart, the motive of selfish ambition, so blind loyalty is not at all the same as true honour.

WATCH FOR THESE TOOLS OF THE ENEMY

Accusation and blind loyalty, driven by selfish ambition, are feeding the spiritual swirl in the political campaign. It’s not hard to see them in action. If there is a candidate from an opposing party, they are met by severe scrutiny, every association, every action, word, or even the things they don’t do are mercilessly criticized. However, if they are from our favoured party, not only are they generously given the benefit of the doubt but blind loyalty pushes us to deny their obvious faults, even to the point, in extreme cases, of an irrational promotion.

However, accusation and blind loyalty are not just found in the political arena, these can actually splash into the Church and influence how we see each other, how we treat each other. Particularly right now, let’s be vigilant! Selfish ambition is more subtle and hidden when it’s in our midst, but as James teaches us, where it exists, it opens a door to darkness.

We can be enticed to divide and promote our “tribe” at the expense of others. Our “tribe” could be our denomination, our generation, our gift-orientation— those most like us. We can start looking at our tribe with rosy glasses, seeing only how God is using and blessing us, seeing only our strengths and virtues. This leads easily, if we are not careful, to believing that we are at the centre of what God is doing, and our language shifts into referring to our tribe as the forerunners, the remnant, the cutting edge of where God is going. We stumble into, on one hand, a similar thinking as the blind loyalty of the political arena, and on the other, an increased critique of those that are not our tribe. As we slide down the slope into accusation we see many more things to be disappointed in or concerned about in other parts of the Body of Christ.

We think to ourselves: surely these glaring shortcomings must disqualify these other tribes from being used of God or being groups that he would pour out his Spirit upon. We begin to believe: if they were truly walking closely with the Lord, they would be more like us!

TRUTH AND HOLINESS MATTER

Now I am not saying that there aren’t some very real sins and issues in the Body of Christ, nor am I saying that orthodoxy doesn’t matter. Absolutely that is not the case and obviously, some have blatantly compromised morality, while others have strayed from the truth into deception and liberalism. But within our huge family of those who hold to an orthodox faith and are earnestly following Jesus as his disciples, let’s not allow this tribalism to divide and diminish us.

A VERY GENEROUS GRACE

Let’s watch for the subtle drift towards spiritual elitism and accusation. It aligns us with the spirit of the world, making us vulnerable to be caught up in the spiritual swirl of the hour. It grieves Jesus, who’s longing for us to walk a different way, a way where we see the whole Body of Christ with a clear eye of reality and with very generous grace. It’s his longing that we resist the swirl trying to pull us to separate in subtle ways, and fight, in our hearts and in our intercession, for deeper, authentically humble, unity.

By
Sara Maynard

Next Blog Post August 29th - Part III- Idolatry of Government

0 Comments

Praying in a High Stakes Election - PART I

8/15/2019

12 Comments

PART I

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Rom 8: 35, 37

The federal election is almost upon us and the nation has been plunged into a high-stakes, emotionally-charged campaign season. Over the last 15 years or so the Church has become much more active and engaged in the political arena, so election awareness is at a high level in the Body of Christ. Christians are following polls, joining the campaigns as volunteers, praying, and even fasting for godly outcomes in October. This engagement in the public square is really important but as we do— let’s keep watch over how it could be affecting us. Let’s be absolutely vigilant that we don’t get swept up in the strong current of the spirit of the world that is raging right now and lose our footing.

This is part one of a three-part blog that I am writing to help us (I’m speaking to myself too) stay in a place of Christ-centred peace and joy, as we actively participate in the election season. I believe we should participate fully, but with a radically different spirit. We are citizens of another kingdom and this particularly dark time desperately needs God’s light, truth, and peace shining through us. Let’s seize the moment to walk out our witness.

RESISTING THE SPIRITUAL SWIRL

How we want to begin is to step back and notice the spiritual climate that exists in the nation right now, and discern where the enemy is sowing into it. He is creating a spiritual swirl. He is empowering his strategy and using people’s strong emotions and desires to increase this swirl’s intensity. He is also using godless ideologies as vehicles to sow lies and deception into the thinking of the nation, ultimately to increase the war against Jesus and His Church. The swirl we can all sense is marked by fear, intimidation, criticism, accusation, offense, division, and posturing for power. Noticing these features of the spiritual climate is the first step towards being alert to how these can be inadvertently impacting us, and make sure they don’t.

Have we noticed an increase of these in our lives or our church communities? Do we find ourselves reacting more strongly than we should, saying things we normally wouldn’t, being caught up in emotions that normally wouldn’t drive us? Perhaps we have, but it could also be that we have acclimatized to the heightened influence of the spirit of the world to the point that we have a hard time seeing it. When you live in a city that has a high elevation, you acclimatize to the lack of oxygen, but when you first arrive, the thin air affects all you do. God help us not to be acclimatized to the spirit of the world!

With this in mind, what should we watch for?
I’d propose that there are 3 main things we want to be vigilant and on guard against, particularly in this season. I’ll drill down into each one through this three-part blog series.

DON'T GIVE FEAR A FOOTHOLD

Let’s begin by looking at fear.
Fear ranges from a low level, simmering-on-the-back-burner anxiety to an outright terror that totally paralyzes us. It is the antithesis of faith, challenging, undermining, and sabotaging faith whenever it gains dominance in our hearts. We must be especially vigilant to not give it that place of access in this season because fear is everywhere. It may not be identified as such but it is fear that is adding gasoline to the fiery political rhetoric around climate change, immigration, gun control, pipelines, abortion, carbon taxes and much more. It’s on both sides of the debate that surrounds these issues and the Christian community is just as vulnerable to its assault if we don’t clothe ourselves in Christ.

Fear for our children to come under ideologies that oppose our faith, fear of the “media mob” and the persecution they can bring as the nation shifts to a more overly anti-Christian culture, fear of loss of prosperity and opportunity as our nation’s finances fail through poor management, fear of the loss of religious freedom as we seem to be moving into uncharted territory where scripture is inches away from being considered “hate literature”, fear of losing privacy and security as bad actors in the tech world become more and more aggressive. Much is at stake in this election and fear is everywhere.

TURNING TO JESUS WHO BREAKS ANXIETY

While identifying how fear is touching our lives is the first step; turning to Jesus for help is the second.

As we turn to him it’s a turning in faith (committed, trustful, reliance), not staying in the grip of fear and pleading, contending or decreeing for him to deliver us from the anticipated disaster. This is a vital difference. Trusting him means we come out of agreement with the anxiety. Yet so much prayer these days is staying in the anxiety and thus is driven and fuelled by fear. In contrast, prayer that turns to Jesus in deep trust and faith recognizes his ability to change governments, but also his ability to take his people through the most wicked governments or ideologies and continue to pour his goodness, redemption, life, and kingdom into their lives, in fact, at times in accelerated ways. While the outcome of the election is important, it’s not do or die, Jesus is the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

This thought (of Jesus's Lordship) is not new for most of you, and most (I trust) will agree that Jesus is Lord, he is well able to care for his people at any time, any nation. Maybe just remembering this truth reorients us out from under the spirit of fear and brings peace to our hearts. Making this shift for most is a simple step of repentance and reorientation, choosing faith, although it can also include asking Jesus to rescue us from anxious thoughts if they have overcome us. He'll help us make this shift to a place of trustful faith if we ask.

Trusting Jesus is not being passive, but it does mean we come out of agreement with the raging swirl of anxiety that is everywhere. It means we become empowered to walk in the opposite spirit, being kind and gracious to those who politicly oppose and slander us, praying with great compassion for those who see themselves as our enemies and living in sabbath rest.

I invite you to check in with your heart and notice if you have agreed with the fear and anxiety that is trying to get access to you. If so, also notice what stirs it up in your life— is it reading political commentaries on social media, is it conversations about certain topics, is it a daily habit of reading or watching all the news, maybe it's receiving fear-laden prayer requests that makes you vulerable. You don’t have to hide, but guard your heart. Guard your faith. Turn your trust to Jesus again and watch peace and joy return.

Watch in the next couple of weeks for the upcoming blog installments, important alerts to help us discern the traps being set for us in this high-stakes election season. We are praying that these will help us all to walk through this time in highly effective, joyful prayer.

by
Sara Maynard

Next blog post coming August 22nd - The Spirit of Accusation. 

12 Comments

<<Previous

The Reshaping of the Church

Our World has Just Changed

Responding in Intercession to the Covid-19 Crisis

Learning this Season's Language

Seeing The Leaves of Healing

SEEING HIS SEA TO SEA DOMINION

Restoring Our Vision - Part I

IT'S TIME TO DIG CANALS

A VISION IN PRAYER FOR CANADA

Praying in a High-Stakes Election - Part III

PART III

Praying in a High Stakes Election - Part II

PART II

Praying in a High Stakes Election - PART I

PART I

Authors

Archives

Categories