Lion Bites – Global Prophetic Alliance – Draw Near

I hear the Lord say, “My dear people, I love you with an unending love. I desire what is best for you as individuals and also corporately. Work together in teams, in churches, in small groups, and family groups, in these ways choosing to follow my precepts. Seek me, in order to see me in the Spirit and to know more about me.

Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands and purify your heart. Be not a people of double mindedness. Mourn and weep for where my church has not taken on board my ways and my wisdom. Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to dejection where you do not listen to my plans and strategies for the kingdom. Humble yourself under my mighty hand and I will exalt you.

I do not promise that it will be easy, but my gifts for you are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Be willing to share these with others. I will not leave you bereft for that is not my way.”

Activation: Reflect on which characteristics of Holy Spirit He wants you to ask for and grow in this week.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James 4:7 (ESV)

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

#lionbites

Friday Morning Scripture (Wk11/2022) – James 4:1-17

Things to Avoid

1 What leads to [the unending] [1]quarrels and conflicts among you? Do they not come from your [hedonistic] desires that wage war in your [bodily] members [fighting for control over you]?

2 You are jealous and covet [what others have] and [2]your lust goes unfulfilled; so you [3]murder. You are envious and cannot obtain [the object of your envy]; so you fight and battle. You do not have because you do not ask [it of God].

3 You ask [God for something] and do not receive it, because you ask [4]with wrong motives [out of selfishness or with an unrighteous agenda], so that [when you get what you want] you may spend it on your [hedonistic] desires.

4 You adulteresses [disloyal sinners—flirting with the world and breaking your vow to God]! Do you not know that being the world’s friend [that is, loving the things of the world] is being God’s enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose [5]that the [human] spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy?

6 But He gives us more and more grace [through the power of the Holy Spirit to defy sin and live an obedient life that reflects both our faith and our gratitude for our salvation]. Therefore, it says, “God is opposed to the proud and haughty, but [continually] gives [the gift of] grace to the humble [who turn away from self-righteousness].”

7 So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you.

8 Come close to God [with a contrite heart] and He will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; and purify your [unfaithful] hearts, you double-minded [people].

9 Be miserable and grieve and weep [over your sin]. Let your [foolish] laughter be turned to mourning and your [reckless] joy to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves [with an attitude of repentance and insignificance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose].

11 Believers, do not speak against or slander one another. He who speaks [self-righteously] against a brother or [6]judges his brother [hypocritically], speaks against the Law and judges the Law. If you judge the Law, you are not a doer of the Law but a judge of it.

12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy [the one God who has the absolute power of life and death]; but who are you to [hypocritically or self-righteously] pass judgment on your neighbor?

13 Come now [and pay attention to this], you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and carry on our business and make a profit.”

14 [7]Yet you do not know [the least thing] [8]about what may happen in your life tomorrow. [What is secure in your life?] You are merely a vapor [like a puff of smoke or a wisp of steam from a cooking pot] that is visible for a little while and then vanishes [into thin air].

15 Instead [9]you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this or that.”

16 But as it is, you boast [vainly] in your pretension and arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

17 So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin.

James 4:1-17 (AMP)

Footnotes

  1. James 4:1 Lit wars.
  2. James 4:2 Lit you do not have.
  3. James 4:2 Possibly a reference to Christ’s statement in Matt 5:22, or to actually doing something that results in someone’s death in order to take what he has.
  4. James 4:3 Lit wrongly.
  5. James 4:5 This verse is difficult to translate, and it seems that James is paraphrasing or generalizing a scriptural concept rather than quoting directly from the Old Testament.
  6. James 4:11 This is not a prohibition of all judgment, nor is it a command to stop using godly wisdom, common sense, and moral courage together with God’s written word to discern right from wrong, to distinguish between morality and immorality, and to judge doctrinal truth. There are many judgments that are not only legitimate, but are commanded (cf John 7:24; 1 Cor 5:5, 12; Gal 1:8, 9; 1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 10); however, you cannot judge another if you are committing the same type of sin.
  7. James 4:14 Lit Who do not.
  8. James 4:14 Lit what sort your life will be.
  9. James 4:15 Lit of your saying.

Lion Bites – Global Prophetic Alliance – Aim High

This is not primarily a call to performance or to excellence. The call to ‘aim high’ is about where you are fixing your gaze. Your aim is about where you set your sights. Where are you are aiming and why?

The issue I want to address is where you are lowering your sights, where you are allowing your gaze, your aim, to be capped. Where are you allowing limitation to influence where you are setting your sights? What are your expectations and where are you adjusting them according to your experiences and your history?

My ways are unlimited. My ways are not bound by anything that could enable the enemy to restrict, constrain, or limit what is possible in and through your life. There are no chains holding me back. I am more than able to do all things in and through you, in accordance with my plans and purposes.

Today, throw off all limitation. Let’s deal with every limiting mindset so you can choose the joy of faith and belief which partners with possibility. Allow me to infuse you with expectation and the unshakable belief that “my God can do anything” … even through you!

Activation: There may be a place of disappointment or pain that God would like to heal you and free you of that has led you to a place of limitation and self protection. Spend time with Holy Spirit, allowing him to show you if, where, and why you may have allowed limitation to influence your decision making, your expectations, and your ability to engage with “God of the possible”.

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Luke 1:37 (ESV)

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:2 (ESV)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)

#lionbites

Thursday Morning Scripture (Wk11/2022) – 2 Peter 1:16-21

Eyewitnesses

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories or myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were [1]eyewitnesses of His majesty [His grandeur, His authority, His sovereignty].

17 For when He was invested with honor and [the radiance of the [2]Shekinah] glory from God the Father, such a voice as this came to Him from the [splendid] Majestic Glory [in the bright cloud that overshadowed Him, saying], [3]“This is My Son, My Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased and delighted”—

18 and we [actually] heard this voice made from heaven when we were together with Him on the holy mountain.

19 So we have the prophetic word made more certain. You do well to pay [close] attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and light breaks through the gloom and the [4]morning star arises in your hearts.

20 [5]But understand this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of or comes from one’s own [personal or special] interpretation,

21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Peter 1:16-21 (AMP)

Footnotes

  1. 2 Peter 1:16 A reference to the transfiguration (Matt 17:1ff).
  2. 2 Peter 1:17 The word “Shekinah” does not appear in Scripture, but has been used by both Christians and Jews to describe the visible divine Presence of God (the brilliant light of the divine), in such things as the burning bush, the cloud and the pillar of fire that led the Hebrews in the wilderness, and the Presence of God that rested between the cherubim over the mercy seat of the ark.
  3. 2 Peter 1:17 With these words God affirms the deity of Jesus and His divine essence.
  4. 2 Peter 1:19 Lit light-bringer.
  5. 2 Peter 1:20 Or For you know.