Lisa Great

It’s not just about an emotion or the singing of songs. It is not just about showing up, even though that is important. If we are going to have an impact on a community, a city, a region or even a family, we must learn how to worship.

Worship is a weapon that wields wonders we do not even understand. We stand in church with our coffee cups, waiting for a song we like to be sung, but worship is not a song, it is not enjoyable voices, it is not just sounding good from the platform. It is entering into the presence of the One who is on the Throne.

When we can push past myriad of distractions inside of us, we can enter into real worship, which is not about us but about the Stone upon the Throne. Revelation 4 speaks of a door that is open in heaven and a voice that calls out, “Come up here!” This is language of worship, “Come up here!”

Then in Revelation 5 it speaks of a scroll, seven seals, a Lamb, 24 elders, a song, a voice of many angels, living creatures and a throne. And it ends by saying Amen and they fell down and worshipped. Worship is about seeing, hearing and responding the One that is on the throne. The Lamb who was slain.

Dr. Laura Sanger said in a conference I attended yesterday, “Throne room worship renders the occult powerless in a city.” Throne room worship is not just singing a song with a coffee cup in your hand, it is focused attention on the One on the throne. It is the voice that shakes thresholds and door posts as in Isaiah 6.

Throne room worship is hearts of people crying out in song because of who they saw; remembering and responding to what He did; and this kind of worship is what will dismantle the occult structures in our cities. We must learn how to worship if we are going to see our cities changed. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

The Lord just showed me a vision using the church across the street from where I attend church on a Sunday morning. In the vision I saw the many cars in their parking lot. This church I am speaking of has multiple services and many people attend it. The pastor is amazing and the Lord is moving in that place mightily.

What I saw in the vision was the cars leaving the parking lot after a service. Car after car after car with people inside, who had just left the sanctuary. The Lord showed me the Pastor seeding the people who sit in that sanctuary. The seeds of the Word were being given to those who were in whatever service they attended.

As they left the sanctuary and got in their cars to leave, they were leaving with seed they had just received. Some will take the seed and eat it and it will sustain them until next week. Other people will take the seed and sow it so they can multiply the seed their were given. Others will take the seed and put it in a silo.

Listening to the Lord share these things with me, I then saw how every person that goes to church is seeded and whether they realize it or not, they are carrying seed in the soil of their heart. The Lord showed me the hearts are like fields filled with seed.

Then I heard the Lord say, “Once it starts to rain, the seeds that have been planted in people’s hearts week after week after week, will become a harvest of the likes we did not know was possible.

Friends, people who hear the word are being seeded and once it starts to rain, the seeds they have been seeded with from pulpits all over the world are going to release a harvest of righteousness that is going to blow our natural minds. God wastes nothing. The harvest will be plentiful. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

The eagle nation has been plunged into Babylonian captivity. Hidden in an exiled state, lied to about who they are and what they were created, ordained, called to do and be. But the eagle nation will not remain in captivity. The eagle nation has rising in its DNA, so rise it will.

We have a biblical precedence and pattern in scripture of nations, people and even our Savior Jesus the Christ as having had a place of prominence, then being plunged into captivity.

This plunging happened for many reasons, for Israel it was due to their idolatry. For Jesus the Christ it was for the saving of the world, by taking on the sins of the world. For nations it is because of their sin, their loss of identity, their capitulation to enemy nations.

The eagle nations are rising again. This is a pattern in scripture. Our very own creed said, Jesus died, was buried and rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.”

When you are dealing with eagle nations, eagle people, they may be thrown down, but it is for their molting, their shedding of the old, their dying to self, and their renewing. No eagle nation ever stays in captivity.

Israel came out of Egypt; they came out of Babylon; they came out of Persia; they came out of Greece and they will come out of Rome. We have been in an exile state, but the eagle nations are rising again. New feathers, new strength, same identity, we are eagles.

Look up, for the eagles will not be found in chicken coops, they will be found soaring in the skies above, inviting all to remember they have the DNA of an eagle, so they need to stop living like chickens. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

There are certain words, phrases, statements we make in church or as Christians that just become common language without understanding. The language becomes baked into our culture and we may or may not even know what we are saying.

One of those phrases has to do with the words the glory of God. We talk about as though it is a casual, common, revival thing. We say things like glory to God; we want to see the glory of God; show us Your glory. We sing it, we speak it, we declare it, but do we know what it means?

Yes, we know it means weighty, we know that in the glory people get healed; people get saved; people get delivered; but do we actually know what the glory of God is? Honestly, we say and speak of things we know very little about. But the truth is, God wants us to know about His glory.

Glory: Kavod’s root is kabed — heavy, weighty, substantial. It’s the same word used for a “heavy” famine, a “hardened” heart, an “honored” person. So glory-as-weight isn’t just metaphor for importance; it carries a sense of mass breaking into perceptible space — God’s reality becoming dense enough to register on human senses. (Claude)

God’s reality becoming dense enough to register on human senses. Selah. When the glory of God comes, we will know it, not just on the platform, not just on the pulpit, not just on the anointed one, but we will all know it. Not just in one church, at one conference, in one meeting, we will all know it.

Look at this, the glory has had a trajectory shift from mountain (Exodus 19/24); to Tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 40); to Temple (2 Chronicles 5); to Throne room visions (Ezekiel 1/10); to now the glory of God is going to fill the whole earth (Habakkuk 2:14/Psalm 72:19).

If we are looking for a revival in a church we are missing what God is doing in the earth. The glory of God is going to fill the earth, not when Jesus returns, but in our generation. God’s reality is going to be dense enough to register on human senses.

The glory of God will not just be luminosity (fire, smoke, gold dust, thunder, cloud) it will also be self-disclosure, revealing the nature and character of God. The glory of God is not going to fill the earth with a show, it is going to catch our attention and then reveal to us the character of our God. The whole earth is going to see and know who God is. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

The word shame is used in Psalms and Proverbs enough to catch our attention. If we view shame through our humanisitic, I am ashamed or I feel shame, or even I acted shamefully, as our only understanding of the word, we will miss what the word is speaking in context.

Praying Psalm 71 this morning, verse 1 says, “In You, O LORD, I put my trust; Let me never be put to shame.” I paused in my prayer because I thought how does putting our trust in the Lord cause us to never be put to shame? Questions unlock revelations, the more questions we ask the more revelations we will receive.

Shame in Hebrew in this Psalm means to pale; be disappointed; delayed; become dry; be long; confused; disconcerted.

I was surprised to say the least by this definition of shame, but in context of putting our trust in the Lord so we are not put to shame, it makes total sense. But I would have never defined shame as disappointment, delay, confusion or even being dry.

When this revelation unlocked for me the definition of shame, I realized our trust is in something other than the Lord if we are feeling like we are being delayed, we have become dry, we are confused or disconcerted. This is a hard truth to hear, but it is the truth.

Trust in the Lord alone is where we experience Him as the Fountain of Living Water, which is how we never are ashamed. Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins, one they have forsaken Me the Fountain of Living Water and two they have hewn out broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

If we trust the Lord we will never be ashamed, for He is the Fountain of Living Water, He is the source of all life; He is the headwaters; He is the mouth of the river; He knows the timing; so there is no delay. He is the water so there is no drought. He is crystal clear so there is no confusion. He is eternity, so nothing is considered long to Him.

We might need to get a slight adjustment on where our trust is, for if our trust is in the Lord we will not be put to shame. (Psalm 71:1) Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Here is the irony of prosperity…it is not get rich so I do not have to work, it is increase so I can be a blessing to more people. The more you have the more work you will do. When God blesses you with more friends, there are more text messages to respond to. When God blesses your business with more customers there are more products to produce.

We tend to strive to rise when we are struggling to rise. Prosperity is not a problem, but it is more work. Some people spend so much energy striving to prosper, under the Adamic curse of Genesis 3:17, toil from the sweat of your brow. What we don’t know how to do is reveal a work ethic that produces more work, because to whom much is given more will be added.

More added is not striving for more, it is working in such a way that it says, I can handle more for I have managed what you have given me thus far well. It is not earning anything, but it is not apathy either. Sonship is about inheritance, but it is not something for nothing. Sonship is about relationship. Sonship is apprenticeship, teaching you how to take over the Father’s business.

Psalm 2 says, Ask of me and I will give the nations as your inheritance. If you don’t like to work, you will not like the inheritance of the nations. The more we are given the more responsibility we have and the more work we are called to do. Prosperity is a blessing that adds no sorrow to it, because it is not striving, but it is working.

Friends, God wants to prosper us, He delights in the prosperity of His children, but how many of us have a work ethic that reveals we can handle more prosperity? Prosperity is not so you can sit more, it is so you can serve more. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

We serve a relational God. He is alive right now, seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. When we pray, He hears, when He speaks we can hear Him. He is fully alive, nothing dead in Him at all.

We are created in the image of a living God. He is not made with the hands of man, He made the very hands of man. He made us with eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart that is created to respond. We are as much alive as He is and actually He is more alive than us, for in Him there is no sin.

The wages of sin is always death, not always death in the sense of ceasing to exist on earth, but death to parts of us that lay dormant, unresponsive. If we cannot hear God our ears are deaf; if we cannot see God our eyes are blind; that means they are not functioning by design. They are dead in a sense.

But we serve a God that makes blind eyes see, deaf ears hear and casts our sins as far as the East is from the West. We have access to abundant life here on earth, not just one day when we die and see Him in the sky.

The question is, do you want to live?

Strongs Concordance number 2222 is Zoe (ζωή) translates to “life,” referring to both physical and spiritual existence. It emphasizes the concept of life as a gift from God, highlighting the connection between vitality and divine essence.

One way to come alive is to forgive those who you have felt like they have wronged you. Another way to come alive is to repent, for he is without sin should not cast the first stone. A third way to live is to surrender control of your life to Jesus. A fourth way to live is to sing, songs have a way of calling us back to life.

God is alive, we are alive and the one thing we were created for is relationships with God and each other. Loneliness is a killer; abandonment is a distorter of design; rejection alters the way we think about people; God is perfect, there is nothing crooked in Him. Return to God and watch Him bring others to you. Life is worth living. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Nature is a communicator of truth about God. When we stop to listen to the sounds of creation we will hear the voice of God in a way that is unique to creation.

Birds singing through the heat and cold is a reminder we can have a song in every season, knowing God takes care of us. “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

Watch the way of an eagle in the sky. They make their nest up on high, yet them come low to the lake below for food that they grab with their talons in the water. Imagine the sight they have, to see that fish on surface level and the precision they need to grab it in the right moment.

Last night the rain fell with such abundance, it flooded some areas of our city; created a river in our backyard and on our front street. It only rained for maybe 45 minutes, but the abundance was undeniable. Elijah said, “There is a sound of abundance of rain…it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.” (1 Kings 18:41,45)

If you have ever looked up into the night sky away from the city lights, the stars shine like diamonds on a velvet backdrop. During the day the sun releases light and heat that cannot be contained or controlled. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.”

These are just a few of natures identifiers that communicate what God is. He is the giver of songs in every season like the birds; He has a keen sense of sight and provides for our every need like the eagle; He releases abundance, literally more than we can contain like the rain; and He is declaring His glory to us night and day.

Everything around you is declaring who God is to you! Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

We have heard a lot about spiritual warfare, but we have heard very little about psychological warfare. I believe most spiritual warfare, people encounter, is psychological warfare. We are in a voice war. Whose voice are you going to believe?

Reading Isaiah 36 this morning yielded what I call psychological warfare tactics 101. Everyone of us hears voices that taunt, trouble, poke, pick on and invite us to yield to a voice that is inferior to God’s voice. This happens in our heads, so most people don’t reveal what they are hearing, but it is happening to everyone of us.

Rabshekah, is the title of a high ranking military officer from Assyria. He uses psychological warfare against the people of Jerusalem and Judah. I believe the tactics he uses are the same ones the enemy uses on us today. See if this resonates with what goes on in your head.

1. Speak in a place where they can hear you. ( v.2)
2. Speak the language the people understand (v.11)
3. Question what their confidence is in? ( v.4)
4. Ask them who backs them if they rebel against you? ( v.6)
5. Remind them they can’t trust Yahweh. (v.7)
6. Promise them provision if they follow you. ( v.8 )
7. Tell them God sent you to destroy the land. ( v.9)

Psychological warfare is manipulation that is hard to detect because it speaks truth, but twists it to get you to believe it. The goal of psychological warfare is two fold, one it seeks to get you to stop trusting in God. Two it seeks to wear you out.

Your battle is not against flesh and blood, it is against voices that speak through situations, circumstances and other people. The voices are speaking inside of you, twisting truth to convince you of a narrative that is not the Truth. Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set your free.

Jesus’ voice liberates you and invites you to trust Him and forgive them. The voice of Rabshekah, questions everything that you trust in and erodes your confidence in God and others. This my friends is psychological warfare 101. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org

Did you know it is natural to be a responder? We were made to respond. When a baby is hungry they cry; When a child bumps their head you know it; When a teenager finds out that girl he likes, likes her…We were made to respond.

Negative emotions pervert or pause our ability to respond. Disappointment causes us to stop hoping. Hope is a response. Depression stops our ability to respond, we hear good news but we have no reaction. Anxiety hinders our ability to respond to peace.

Have you ever wondered why the enemy does not want you to respond? Because if you respond, you come alive. Blocking your ability to respond, keeps you in the state you find yourself. When we respond to truth, we come alive. When we respond at a football game to a touchdown, we shout, we clap, we stand, we feel good.

When we respond to God in singing, giving, praying, we feel lighter, we sense the presence of God closer. We were made to be responders. And God is unlocking our ability to respond to good news. Negativity clogs our responders, that is why the news media does not share good news, for they want you clogged not released to respond.

This unlocking of your ability to respond is because good news is all around you and it is only getting better. I heard in prayer this morning, “Pray Psalm 24!” Psalm 24 says, “Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory.”

Doors are opening and will continue to open to good news. I do not know what door you need opened, but pray Psalm 24 is what the Lord is saying. Then get ready for a flood of good news. Rejoicing is a response and God is unlocking our responders, because good news is increasing. Responding to good news is healthy. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org