The Harvest Time Is Here

Notes from Our Worship and Prayer Service for the 40 Days of Hope 3-25-17

After the Worship Alma Patterson shared a scripture that the LORD gave her during the before prayer service, Amos 9:13, “’Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘When the plowman shall over take the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it.’” The emphasis being on this is the time of reaping. Then she shared a dream she had at an early age; in the dream she became aware that she was raised from the grave, startled by being resurrected with the grave before her and that Jesus was beside her. She was perplexity of having been summoned from the grave, with curiosity Alma looked to the LORD to see Him fan His arm and point to a large harvest of crosses. She was perplexed by the dream and often prayed for an interpretation. Earlier this evening she had shared her childhood dream with Jeremiah Leeper and realized the LORD was revealing that the harvest of crosses represented lives that the LORD had touched through her life. She explained that our impact on the harvest as revealed by the Spirit of the LORD is made possible by “Kingdom multiplication”. That the LORD accounts to us those souls that are touched and won by the souls we touch and win. She felt this was revealed to encourage us during the time of harvest, it is not about how many people we minister to and win to the LORD, it’s about discipling then the growth is exponential.

Then Pastor Chris Leeper shared how the news is reporting since all the rain and snow we’ve had in California that the drought is over but the politicians are reluctant for whatever reason to proclaim the drought over. Since the drought is over it is time for the harvest to begin, he shared from Ezekiel 37 on the vision of the dry bones that GOD brought back to life as a great army. He restored the sinews, flesh, and skin but it was not until He breathed the breath of life into them that they became living beings. He shared how today the Body of Christ is full of dry bones and that GOD is bring them back to life because He is raising up a great army for the harvest.

Lisa Williams shared how during the harvest the workers worked 24/7 to bring in the harvest, that it was the hardest and busiest time for farmers and the workers were always on call.

Hadassah Peterson shared from Amos 9:11-15 and Ezekiel 37:15-28 how GOD was not only restoring Israel but this was about Jesus bringing in the Gentiles to His Eternal Kingdom, making one Body of Christ from Jew and Gentile. She also shared a vision GOD gave her similar to Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, in hers the bones were in piles by type of bone. A pile of arm bones a pile of leg bones, etc. And that the LORD took bones from each pile to make the new man, this is representative of the churches taking on certain functions while limiting or eliminating other functions. During this time of the great harvest Christ will be realigning His Body to reflect the fullness of who He is! So that He will be Head of one unified Body of Believers.

Several people prayed along these lines, when I prayed I shared that there was a group of believers who for several years took this time, Lent, and prayed and fasted for The LORD of the harvest to send out labors to the harvest according to Jesus’ command to the disciples, Matthew 9:37-38, and that when Pentecost happened they became the harvesters; and that now that the drought was over it was time for us the Body to begin the work of the harvest. That when there was a large harvest they had to work to get it in before the next rain came and ruined the crop or the sowers would overtake the reapers.

During the time all this was going on Ben and Deborah Monson’s son Samuel fell while climbing and landed on his head and neck. He was in pain, had a fever and wanted to sleep so they were taking him to the ER. This did not happen at the service. Lisa Spicer was texting with Deborah and sharing with us what was going on so we prayed for healing, grace and peace for Samuel and the family. Later before we took communion Lisa shared that Samuel was feeling better and was hungry. We Bless You Father for your love and mercy demonstrated by Your power and grace.

There Is No Body Without Unity

If you are a Christian you have heard some teaching on the Body of Christ and unity. If you are a reader of scripture than you have read Jesus’ commandment about unity and the teachings of the Apostles about unity and the Body. So why is it so hard for us to walk in obedience to GOD in being unified as the Body of Christ (the Church) in the world? I’m not actually going to try to answer that, I’m going to try to explain what it means to be a body.

Think about your body, what a marvelously mysterious thing it is! Medical science has only begun to understand how and why our body is and functions. The truth is, as much as they know there is so much more they do not, but this is not a medical or scientific exploration. For this discussion we must set aside all of that type of thinking and just look at our body as a singular being made up of innumerable parts all with their own unique purpose and function.

Our body is fearfully and wonderfully made! We are the purposeful result of GOD’s creative desire to have a lover. Here is one of the biggest problems we have with thinking about the Body of Christ and being the Bride of the Lamb; we think after our human desires and understandings rather than GOD’s. GOD does not want nor need a lover like we as humans do. 1 Corinthians 13 is the chapter on love and if a married couple live according to that lifestyle they will have a great marriage and love life, but sex is a purely mortal function. There is no sex or need for sex in the eternal spiritual kingdom, and being in the continual glorious presence of the True and Living GOD we will not miss it, Luke 20:27-38.

Stop thinking about the Body of Christ and the Bride of the Lamb (which are one and the same) in fleshly terms.

Our body is fearfully and wonderfully made! We are the purposeful result of GOD’s creative desire to have a lover. Not just individually which is the first relationship that we have with GOD, like being in our mother’s womb. We are not aware of our body just our existence and the feeling of love and protection that we should experience. Then we are born and as we grow and gain understanding we begin to discover our body and its many functions and how to function as a whole being in the larger world in which we exist. This is an ongoing process in life. So our relationship with GOD must grow beyond just our self to include His whole Body.

Think about your body, what a marvelously mysterious thing it is! It functions under many adverse conditions and it functions after traumatic events. It recovers and renews itself and sustains life longer than we expect most of the time. This is of course not always true, many die early deaths for a variety of reasons, accidents, sickness or disease, war, or acts of evil. This is the result of sin in our world, therefore in our lives. Not all people die because of their sin but sin is the underlying cause of death in all creation. All of us know people who have lost organs or limbs and survived and still function normally or mostly normally. Some are born with major defects or conditions and still live and have a reasonable life. Some experience horrific physical events that result in major lose of limbs and or organs and most recover and regain life.

So what am I trying to say? GOD made our body, formed from the dust of the earth and He breathed His breath of life into it in Adam. Then He took Eve out of Adam, remember what the scriptures say, GOD man male and female; then He separated them because He knew man was not a singular being and needed a companion. After that GOD forms all of us in our mother’s womb, writing out the days of our lives before any of them exist. We are marvelously and wondrously made in the image of GOD.

Now that the preamble is done here is what the LORD was showing me this morning in my prayer and reading time.

The Body of Christ is like our body, it was made perfect by GOD who expects us to maintain it’s perfection. But He knows that we cannot without His Spirit so He has given us His Spirit.

Now we, the Church, have done many things to hurt the Body plus our enemy the devil attacks us to keep us sickly, weak, and divided. Being divided is like having an autoimmune disease, we are fighting and hurting our self, therefore we are fighting GOD!

Like many individuals who have lost organs and limbs we are wounded and have festering sores. Festering sores are the deceptions and hatred we have for other members of the Body. They do not let the wound heal and therefore the body cannot recover.

We have lost limbs and organs and wonder why our Heavenly Father does not pour out His anointing for revival and miracles. Our thinking is wrong He has; but because we are not healthy and whole the way He made us we cannot function normally as He designed us.

Like our human body we can live and function after lose and damage but not the same. We can overcome and develop reasonable behaviors and adaptations, but we are not what we should be.

Around the world right now there are calls for unity though out the Church, but if we stay as we are it will not happen and we will continue to be incomplete and inefficient in the gifts and callings for GOD’s Kingdom in the earth. If we really believe the scriptures and want to obey Christ’s commandment to love one another as He loves the Church then we must be willing to lay down our life for the Church (Ephesians 4:32; 1 John 3:16). It has to stop being about us, our ministry, our church, and our denomination. It’s all His and we are only a part of it, He determines what and where He wants us and the function that is our required part to keep His Body healthy and accomplishing His will in the earth.

In the natural our body only has a few organs that it cannot live without; brain, heart, and liver. In the Body of Christ there is only one that we cannot exist without our head, Christ. In our natural body every part and function is controlled by our brain. In the Body of Christ it should be the same, but many parts of the Body have cut themselves off from our Head or believed a lie of the devil that cuts us off from our Head.

Like our human body that we can repair and bypass some functions or replace with artificial or borrowed parts; many members of the Body of Christ have fixed or adapted themselves to make them seem whole; but we are not! My hands have 4 fingers and a thumb each, my fingers have multiple digits and if I lose a couple of them I can still function but not as well. If I lose all of them my hands can still function but not fully. If I lose one or both hands my arms can still function but even les effectively; etc.

We can only be whole and complete and fulfilling the purpose of GOD in the earth when we are truly united and The One Body of Christ. I am not saying that we need to or must do away with denominations, or individual church ministries, or anything like that. What I am saying is that if we maintain our divisions and separations at the expense of unity we will not accomplish the purpose of GOD that He expects us to and we then pass off to the next generation the responsibility to do what GOD gave us to do on top of what He has called them to do. GOD does overcome our deficiencies but He wants to use us as His one united Body in the earth to accomplish His purposes not overcome our deficiencies.

Study Genesis 1 and 2; Psalm 139; John 14 thru 17; Acts 1 and 2; 1 Corinthians 12 and 15; Hebrews; 1 John 4