Given March 3, 2019

I go to church at Zion Family Ministries in Wise Virginia and am there each week with a few hundred of God’s people. God is there with us. We fellowship, stand, sing, worship, sit, listen, learn and hear from God. He is there with us. This past Sunday, God spoke several things to me during our time together. One came from our prayer time with our pastor, Wayne Hager, before the service, two came during praise and worship time and another came from the sermon. I usually share these “revelations” one at a time on social media but I thought I’d share them all on here today.

Each Sunday, before the service, several of us men meet with our pastor in his office for a time of prayer. The first vision I received on this day came as we were praying. I had asked the Father to anoint Pastor Wayne as he delivered the message God had given him for today. As I prayed that, I saw our sanctuary with Pastor Wayne on the stage preaching.  “It is like precious oil poured on the head running down,” (Psalm 133:2). The anointing flowed from him like a sparkling stream, off the stage and down the three aisles of our church. As the anointing flowed, it came to each row of people and went left and right down the rows covering the feet of all the people. Now, I had prayed some time ago for the power of God to “fall” on His people like rain but had the thought that some, and I can’t imagine why, would cover their heads or put up umbrellas to screen themselves from the “rain”. In this case, the people could not avoid having their feet covered by the anointing and having their needs met. And those who wanted to go deeper into the anointing would have that option.

Next, we sang an old praise song from 2002 by Matt Redman, “Blessed Be Your Name”. We were celebrating 30 years of our church being established and I loved hearing one of the old songs. One of the lyrics says, “Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise.”, and I could “see” that happening. As we sang, God’s blessings were poured out on us from above and we, with our hands raised high, received those blessings and returned our thanks to Him with our praise. It was a great picture and it brought tears to my eyes.

Another song, “Surrounded (Fight My Battles)” by Michael W. Smith has a line in it that says, “It may look like I’m surrounded but I’m surrounded by You.” That reminded me of the story in 2 Kings 6 where the prophet Elisha, who had time and again, foiled the plans of the enemy against God’s army. The King of Aram had located where Elisha was and sent his army at night to surround the city where Elisha and his servant Gehazi were. In the morning, Gehazi looked out the window and saw the Armenian army surrounding them and was very afraid. But when he ran and told Elisha, Elisha said, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (Verse 16). Then as they went and looked again, they saw the angelic army of God behind the enemy army, surrounding them! God is always there with us too and will surround us as well.

Then as we got into the sermon, Pastor Wayne was preaching that, in order for us to do great things for God, we must be willing to make an investment, to sacrifice, to “take up our cross” (Matthew 16:24). And he mentioned our attitude in prayer which made me think. Do we go to God in prayer with the “Gimme, gimme, gimme” attitude, always wanting God to give us everything? Or do we go to Him in humbleness, surrendering, thanking Him and praising Him? I learned of a pattern of prayer years ago based on the letters A-C-T-S that we can pray in this order. A=Adoration and praise, C=Confessing our sin and asking forgiveness, T=Thanking God for what He has done, is doing and plans to do with us, and finally S=Speaking our needs.

I thank God for these “revelations”, and I pray that they will encourage you as we take this journey of life toward our final Home. “The Lord bless you and keep you;The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)