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28th February 2009
MINISTERS
LEADERSHIP RETREAT 2008, GBOKO, NIGERIA – A RESUME
The
MLR retreat was preceded by a
three-day Summit of Nations with the theme: “ARISE,
EAT
Because The Journey Is Too Great For You”
(1 King 19:7) between Dec 7th – Dec 10th.
The practical take home point for those of us from
the UK and
Europe is that it is time to
sit at the feet of Jesus to learn of Him, to eat of
the Bread of Life because the time of His visitation
is at hand. The work before us when this revival
breaks out, will be enormous. Unprepared vessels
will be overwhelmed. There is a sense of urgency as
if the Lord was saying “Prepare
thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop
thee not. ”
Indeed there is a sound of abundance of rain.
The first three
days was followed by the main MLR 2008 with the
theme: “You Will See Greater Things…………………..”
between 10th and 14th
December. The background to this statement was that
Nathaniel in declaring the generation of Christ and
His Sovereignty was because Jesus gave him a word of
knowledge, which astonished this astute man (John
1:48-51). So the “greater things” promised was not
greater “gifts” or “wonderful works” but a
fresh revelation of the Son of God. Jesus said to
Nathaniel, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see
heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man”.
The take home point here for me is that my prayer
focus must be, “Lord, that I may see the Heavens
open and a fresh revelation of my Master and
Friend!”
With this
background in focus at the Fishnet meeting on 28
February 2009, we went through some of the the SON/MLR messages on DVD. The
first titled, “Wake Up, You Man of God” dealt
with the heartlessness of Jonah in deliberately
wanting
Nineveh to perish and
grieving when the people were saved. In “Hearts
Too Narrow For Revival” we saw Elijah waited
almost too late to deliver Israel from famine (2King
6:33). He nearly lost his head to the sword of the
king.
Next we saw in “God’s
Verdict on the World System ” (Dan 2:31-45) that
the fascinating but imposing, oppressive and
intimidating image which the world system wants to
paint to us has no basis. The head of gold, chest of
silver, abdomen and thigh of brass, legs of iron –
all are standing on iron mixed with miry clay. The
awesome image the world confronts us with, has
neither base nor basis, and certainly no enduring
foundation! I must see myself as a lively stone. The
stone cut without hand will be bring to crumbling
this intimidating image and its opposition to the
Kingdom of
God and His Christ within
the United Kingdom and beyond. Finally we saw “Experiencing
New Beginning” (Mk 5:35), with the exhortation to cross over to the “other side”. This is
because the manna that sustained the wilderness
journey has ceased, but we will eat of the fruit of
the land of promise in this same year of greater
things (Josh
5:12).
We rose from the
meeting with a sense that we must follow this stream
of instructions from the Holy Spirit. We cried unto
the Lord to take away our narrow hearts and give us
a new heart. We asked for mercy to identify where
the feet of clay lies in our situation. We told the
Lord that we will cross over.
In practical
terms, it was clear to us that we need to sit at the
feet of the Saviour in discipleship. We saw
discipleship as God’s provision for shaping us into
usable vessels. Faith rose in our hearts that
surely, surely we will indeed see greater
things…………..Amen.
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