Sunday, August 14, 2011

Hosea 5 Revisited

Hi folks, I ran across this post (below) I put out on Facebook in March and I thought perhaps I should share it here for the sake of prayer for the region. Below, I mention a dream I had regarding Hosea 5. I am revisiting it because I realized that a trusted friend pointed out verse 4 as a key verse and of late I'm beginning to get some understanding:

4 Their deeds will not allow them
To return to their God.
For a spirit of harlotry is within them,
And they do not know the LORD.

How did I land on that again? because I can't shake Revelation 2:1-7 as a word for Long Island for a few weeks now

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. 6 Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.

As best as I can figure, the works/deeds we are to return to are: the first (protos agape) works — the "first" works which flow from "Abiding in Love" (John 15). Jesus is referred to as the "prototokas", the proto-type/first-born of creation in Colossians. If God is Love (agape), then, in essence HE is the Protos Agape.

Honestly, I'm convinced we are to be a people who are head-over-heels in love (agape - not eros or philos) with God and abounding in (agape)love for one another. We can not be or do this without going back to the Prototype... Jesus Christ. This "protos agape"is not exactly just “feel your first feelings” love but intentionally cultivating intimate relationship with the archetype - The Protos Agape - Jesus, and seeking Holy Spirit to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of HIM.

I believe these "protos agape" deeds come from knowing, in a very real way, the One Who loves us and all that moves His heart; caring for what and who He cares about- moving with Him as He moves. It comes from being a student of His Heart and knowing that we are, moment by moment, being loved by Him/Abiding in Him and He in us. It comes from resting in Him and then, flowing from that, comes “faith which works by love", i.e., works flowing from "our (protos agape) first love". Look at the Hosea passage again:

4 Their deeds will not allow them
To return to their God.
For a spirit of harlotry is within them,
And they do not know the LORD.


The issue was that their "deeds" WILL NOT allow them to return to their (personal possessive) God. Why? They did not "Know" the Lord (Intimacy is absolutely implied). (Note: clinging to our own broken "idolatry"; deeds of personal iniquity for comfort is also a snare and another part of this but not really the main point of Hosea 5)

Could it be that our deeds are getting in the way of our "knowing" God? Could it be that because we do not "Know" God, our default is to do the religious sort of deeds that make us feel like we're doing our part as "priests" (the point of Hosea 5) while missing HIM altogether? Could it be that we must walk out of our religious persona (an aspect of slavery/bondage) and return to the One Who loves us (The Protos Agape).


Hosea 6:7 " I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. ..." The Message


I don't claim to have the full understanding of the dream or the biblical passages .... I'm just thinking that perhaps there is a word of encouragement for the Church on Long Island and some direction for prayer. We can do an awful lot out of our need/desire to be acceptable to God. We can allow our flurry of "busy " activity in the church/marketplace mask the idea that it is really just drawn from "harlotry/idolatry" where we get our sense of being loved/acceptable from somewhere/someone other than God. Maybe our idol is a leader who we hope will recognize us, church activities and even works of justice - really just about anything/everything can jump into that spot .... BUT God must be our repeated choice for that spot. That is "overcoming".

Don't get me wrong, "Do mercy, love justice and walk humbly with Your God" is my prayer. I am quite confident that God REALLY cares about the issues that bind Long Island/NYC and deeds of mercy, justice and generosity are key. However, I believe that the proto-type or launching position of every one of these Kingdom activities are best engaged in and most effective from the vantage point of cleaving to/clinging to/abiding IN Jesus and Jesus in us.

I'm beginning to believe that God really is Love and abiding in His Love is where it is safest to choose "the weakness" of prayer and acting in faith so that His strength can actually be manifested. From that posture, His Presence is ALL. His Love is expressed in strength/power; power that comes from His presence - rooted in loving relationship and expressed in faith.

We probably need to ask ourselves, have our deeds prevented us from knowing our "True Vine"... our protos-agape (First Love)?

At the HoP we've been praying for Long Island to re-focus on Jesus and re-establish or nurture that relationship so that we have the reward of being over-comers. All that being said, will you make yourself a cup of tea/coffee and read the post below. Then, knowing God has granted this to us, please join us in praying First Love into Long Island/NYC? <3 t



Present musings of prayer - March 5, 2011
Friends, I honestly believe that the Lord is speaking to the Church. I sent the following note to someone and then just read the attachment from Sean Feucht who was passing on a word from England. I'm including my portion of my note so you have a track record of some of the thoughts in the House of Prayer and the context of the England "word". Yesterday we were praying through the "new sound" topic and the Lord was showing us that it was not a new, cool "music" from Heaven but it was the song of cleansed hearts that had returned to God, maintained love and justice and were waiting upon God. (Hosea 12:6)

My dreams, our prayer meetings, the books I have been led to and one circumstance after another have been leading up to this. The Lord sent me a dream awhile back and in it He sent a messenger to tell me, "The Lord has granted to you Hosea 5." In the dream, it was in the context of interceding for mercy to avert a giant plane crash. I have been puzzling over it ever since because it is not an easy word. I am guilty of all that is written there....really everything that Paul addresses in Romans 1 & 2 and then some. I have repented repeatedly but I know there is repetitive compromise in my thoughts and inner man and that is the key that is broken for me and the bondage He is wanting to unlock and set me free from.

As a matter of course, I have been praying for myself and others every day for months now (along with the Ephesians prayers), "Lord, I pray that your Light, Your Love and Your Truth will penetrate my heart, my thoughts, my inner man and let your light shine throughout my inner man so it shines through me and there is no place I keep hidden from You and make us at peace with Your love." He is doing just that. Now, as I think about the dream and others like it, I believe that what He was saying is that He is granting repentance and forgiveness over these issues and then positioning us to pray with appropriate fear before Him and without haughtiness or judgment for the region so we restore one another with gentleness. I believe that He is helping His Bride step free from the deceptions we have comforted ourselves with and as we stand in overcoming faith, we will not be in fear as the shaking continues and instead will be an effective ambassador to the world. It is His mercy that He is extending to all. I believe that The Lord is graciously removing Egypt and Babylon from our hearts. We have been praying for the Church on Long Island/NYC but more so for ourselves first that these paradigms would be removed from our hearts and lives. He is showing us Mammon's hold on the Church, NY and ourselves.... As He cleanses Egypt, He is showing us that what is in the natural is speaking of the spiritual. Egypt is symbolic of bondage, slavery, oppression, fear and control. It is the idolatry of death - making a name, fortune/fame, identity for ourselves. The principle of Babylon is religion/religious spirits, idolatry, judgment, a haughty spirit, independence from God and building a (religious)community in our own strength and based upon our own self-righteousness and charisma - clearly all of which is without Him.

He had us steeped in this yesterday in prayer. The day before I was in 1Corinthians 6 where Paul writes that we must clean out the old leaven and be strengthed by Christ overcoming as the Passover Lamb and then yesterday I landed on the scripture in Hosea that says "But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always." Hosea 12:6. He's so Sweet and Kind and terrifying in His Holiness.... Thanks for understanding.


A thought of present meditation >>>After David and His mighty men were ransacked in Ziklag and they had grieved and wept thoroughly for all they had lost (their women, children and all possessions) David strengthened himself in the Lord and then inquired of the Lord as to whether he should pursue the Amelekites, the Lord said "Pursue, for you will surely overtake them, and you will surely rescue all.” 1Samuel 30:3ff I love you, t



From: Sean Feucht
Sent: Sat, March 5, 2011 4:05:49 PM
Subject: Word from England
Hey friends -

A fiery and prophetic word one of our guys in Leicster, England had just yesterday! I feel there is something on this and so I wanted to pass it along for you to pray/seek God into.

Leicster is on track to be the first Muslim majority city in Europe and God is igniting a blaze there right now that will be hub for all of England!

Lets read, pray and press into this word!

Sean
hi Guys,

the Lord's been impressing a word to me i feel i need to pass on-

it comes out of reading 2chron 14-15-16

word of the Lord march 2nd

i believe there are a number of key things here the Lord wants us to see and implement in the current season we are in its a long read but God is in it and i urge you to read and listen to the lord as you do this is a key year of preparation God is shifting out the old to make space for the new just look at the news!

2Ch 14:3 For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high
places, and brake down the images, and cut down the groves:

the Lord is calling for a deeper consecration our confidence must be rooted in Him alone all we do must be rooted in intimacy with him alone,

2Ch 14:4 And commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers,
and to do the law and the commandment.


As leaders we MUST call the people to seek the Lord and walk in purity as we prepare for what the Lord has began to release

2Ch 14:5 Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and
the images: and the kingdom was quiet before him. 6And he built fenced
cities in Judah: for the land had rest, and he had no war in those years;
because the LORD had given him rest.


personality performance based worship must be cast aside, God and God alone must be the focus of our praises the new song of the Lord will begin to dominate worship so his people are move by him instead of a favorite melody or nostalgic memory of a past move or encounter,
2Ch 14:7 Therefore he said unto Judah, Let us build these cities, and make
about them walls, and towers, gates, and bars, while the land is yet before us;
because we have sought the LORD our God, we have sought him, and he hath
given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered.


the cities of Judah(praise) must be fortified, this applies on a personal corporate and city wide level as a people we must be a people of his presence and nothing else, God is not first on the list HE IS THE LIST!, secondly as we move forward the Lord is going to begin to raise up cities of praise were worship will become central this will begin to create glory spots were all expressions of church will see growth regardless of denomination style and stream

The Lord is already moving and bringing breakthrough, the places were this will be sustained will be the places that put seeking God at the centre, as opposed to programs and conferences, as things get fuller this will become increasingly challenging Like Jesus we must honor God’s presence above what is presence is producing, we must guard against addiction to the works of God above the presence of God!
2Ch 14:11 And Asa cried unto the LORD his God, and said, LORD, it is
nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no
power: help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go
against this multitude. O LORD, thou art our God; let not man prevail against
thee.

The places God is going to move is not dependent on how strong or weak a church or ministry is rather it hangs on how they value his presence
2Ch 15:7 Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your
work shall be rewarded. 8And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy
of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out
of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had
taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the LORD, that was
before the porch of the LORD.

2Ch 16:10Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house;
for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some
of the people the same time.

1. how the church responds to the prophetic in this season will have major implications on where God moves, some settings will need to repent for rejecting and even persecuting true prophets and the prophetic before they enter in, those who fail to do so will like Asa be crippled in their walk and fail to see the promise.

2Ch 15:10 So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third
month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 And they offered unto the
LORD the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred
oxen and seven thousand sheep. 12And they entered into a covenant to seek
the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;

1. there is a growing movement of redials, people who dedicate themselves to seeking God at an entirely new level of intensity these will gather from across streams not for a conference but simply to seek God and much of this will take place on a grass roots level,
2Ch 15:10 So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third
month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 And they offered unto the
LORD the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred
oxen and seven thousand sheep. 12And they entered into a covenant to seek
the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;
13That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to
death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. 14And they sware
unto the LORD with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and
with cornets. 15And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all
their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of
them: and the LORD gave them rest round about.

these meeting will be a long way from seeker friendly, they will be messy long and loud and the more radical the message the more they will thrive this will have an impact on main stream church in that everything will be pushed up as a result in some settings there will only be one or two who are truly seeking God but they will infect those around them.

2Ch 15:16 And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he
removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and
Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

i felt the Lord saying the church must honor her fathers and mothers but not tolerate idols of the past the way God moved yesterday is yesterday we must not be governed by the past rather in should be our starting place some things simply need to be cut off and cast aside what was must make space for what is and what shall be old structures must be cast out to make space for the new Maachathites = “pressure (literally she has pressed)” we must not allow the past shape of church to become restrictive to her future

IHOP-LI: The Ark House of Prayer
Montauk to Manhattan: Every House a House of Prayer
http://www.IHOP-LI.com
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/IHOPLongIsland
http://burn24-7.com/locations/usa/long-island/
http://gworship9.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IHOP-LI/
Love is on the Loose

No comments: