November, 2008

Shalom Y’all,

It is a beautiful fall day here in Brunswick.  It’s sunny but cool, the kind of weather I’d like to be able to enjoy all year round.  I’ve been on the road throughout most of the month of October so it is always good to be able to come home and enjoy the peace and quiet that Abba has so blessed me with here. 

My time in Brunswick will soon be coming to an end. I am presently waiting on Him for further direction. I must say that it is not a place that I am anxious to leave.  It has been a very convenient place to be based and convenient for those coming in to be refreshed.  When the Lord set me down in Brunswick He said that I would be here for three years.  He also said, “Relish your time here for you will never know another time like it!”  

I pray that you have all been blessed during the Fall Feast days.  Since I was on the road in ministry, I was able to see, worship and fellowship with many dear friends along the way.  It was wonderful!  Also, in between Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles we had another family wedding, this one in St. Augustine.  Bryan and Karen came together in marriage, which brought our family together once again.

 His Presence was so precious during the wedding ceremony that there were few dry eyes. Even afterwards, as we all gathered together for a wonderful time of food and fellowship, His peace and joy enveloped all of us. It was one of those occasions when we all just wanted to linger and savor the moments.  We are all so grateful for the way that He has been restoring and blessing our family.    

There is one song that just kept coming up out of my spirit throughout the month. 

“The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.        

     The more that I love Him, more love He bestows.          

    Each day is like Heaven, my heart overflows.        

                                                               The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.”                                                                   

Amen and Amen!

“The Fellowship of His Sufferings”

Fellowship is the union of friends who share similar interests or problems.  To suffer is to feel pain or distress.  When we share in the fellowship of His sufferings, our heart breaks with the things that break the heart of God. 

Paul said it like this in Philippians 3: “That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death.”  Paul longed to be able to share the same hurt and pain that Yeshua experienced.

I can recall about nine years ago when there was so much scandal and corruption involving our national leadership, while I was listening and praying through the evening news, suddenly I fell forward in deep travail, sobbing and crying, feeling as though my heart was breaking.  I cried out asking the Lord how much longer it had to go on for it was all so disgusting!  Immediately He said to me, “Myrna, you have entered in to the fellowship of My sufferings.”  He let me know that I was feeling His pain over the whole situation.  He sees and hears it all! 

You know, few believers, especially in this country, have suffered as Paul did, yet he considered it all nothing in comparison to the sufferings of Yeshua.  Paul said in Romans 8:18, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

In Philippians 1:29 Paul went on to say, “For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ, but also the privilege of suffering for Him.”  

Peter also spoke of being a witness to and a partaker of His sufferings. He said in   I Peter 5:1, “I … who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ …”   In I Peter 4:13 he said, “Rejoice … inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings …” These men entered in to the fellowship of His sufferings when they laid down their lives and took up His, and so it is with us.    

We are all deeply moved when we think about the human pain that Yeshua had to endure at Calvary.  It is painful when we think about the crown of thorns on his head, the nails driven through His hands and feet, the spear that pierced His side, along with the jeering crowd and the mocking soldiers, but that is not really entering in to His sufferings.  It is so much deeper than that! 

Yeshua alone took upon Himself the sins of the whole world.  He alone was wounded for our transgressions.  The agony of that redemptive act was uniquely His, but the sufferings of Christ that Paul and you and I can fellowship in have to do with spiritual sufferings.  Let’s think about this for a few minutes.  

Do you recall the time when Yeshua went up to Jerusalem at Passover and entered the Temple and saw how the merchandisers had literally taken over the House of God? Tables were set up everywhere for they were promoting and selling sheep, oxen, doves and various items for religious purposes.

Yeshua was so ‘grieved in spirit’ that He took a whip and knocked over the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of those who were selling doves. He drove out the promoters and the hucksters stopping everyone from using the House of God as a marketplace.  At that time He said, “The Scriptures declare that My Temple shall be called a House of Prayer and you have turned it in to a den of thieves.”  Yeshua knew Abba’s heart and was not about to tolerate what they were doing in Abba’s House of Prayer.  

Today He is just as ‘grieved in spirit’ when He sees ‘men and women of God’ who are totally preoccupied with the promotion, display and sales of their merchandise in the House of God. They are so busy, thinking they are doing the work of the Lord, when in truth they have simply become hucksters of religious merchandise, making money on God and religion.  He said that they have turned the House of God in to a commercial enterprise, and they operate just as the CEOs of major corporations do.  Many of them even go so far as to hire PR agents to promote themselves and their merchandise. Believe me when I tell you that His heart breaks to see evangelists more concerned about tape and book sales than reaching lost humanity.  

In my intimate times with Abba, I have felt the pain in His heart over all of the   merchandising in the House of God. A number of years ago I had a worship leader working with me in a Gathering of Intercessors I was sponsoring, and the Lord stopped everything right in the middle of our worship until the worship leader removed all of the articles and paintings that he had on display from the sanctuary.  Abba did not tolerate it in the Temple in Jerusalem, and He said that He is not going to tolerate it in these End Times.  The Lord said to tell them all that the days of the merchandisers in the House of God are numbered.   

Another very good example of His sufferings is found in Luke 19 when Yeshua and the disciples came close enough to Jerusalem that they could see the city.  Yeshua wept over Jerusalem saying that of all peoples, He was so saddened that they didn’t understand the way to true peace.  He was heart-broken as He spoke of their eyes being blinded and all that would come upon them as a nation because they had missed their time of visitation.

Looking at this example, I recall entering in to the fellowship of His sufferings while visiting Israel for the first time in 1983.  After praying at the Western Wall, I backed up to the top of the little incline and was standing looking out over all of His people who were in very intense prayer at the Wall, when suddenly I broke out in deep travail, weeping and sobbing like my heart was breaking. People looked at me wondering what had happened, but I couldn’t stop. You see, I had witnessed the peace and the awesome Presence of Yeshua in their midst at the Wall, but they couldn’t recognize Him.  At that time He gave me His heart for His people and called me to intercede for His Land and His people.

The Scriptures make it very clear that all of us who will live godly in Yeshua will suffer persecution.  In I Timothy 3 we see Paul making a charge to Timothy.  Paul is reminding Timothy of what he has taught, how he has lived his life, and what his purpose in life is.  He also reminded him of his faith, his patience, his love and endurance, all of which was perfected within him through the tremendous amount of suffering and persecution he had endured.  Paul went on to say that all who live a godly life in Yeshua will suffer persecution.  No doubt about it!

Paul was not the only one who suffered. Think about the disciples and all that they endured.  Time and time again they were arrested, beaten and imprisoned for preaching the Gospel or just preaching and teaching in His Name, and they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His Name’s sake. Stephen was the first to be martyred. Think about all of the Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament and the sufferings they endured.      

If we truly love Yeshua as we say we do, we are called to endure sufferings.  We are called to take up our cross and follow Him, regardless of the cost, and there is a cost!  As we do, we will be led through wilderness times of testing or trial, as He strips from us all of the worldliness that does not please Him.  During those times we learn to die to the god of self, taking up His life and agenda as we lay down our own. He separates us from all distractions during this period of time. In short we completely surrender and come apart with Him to a quiet place and then lay our head on His breast to hear His heart beat and then learn to walk in that beat.

In 1975 when the Lord called me in to the ministry, I told Him there was no way that I could do that, for I could not go to a Bible College.  Immediately He said, “I AM not calling you to go to a Bible College for they would only corrupt you.  I AM calling you to meet with me at your kitchen table every night from 12:00 midnight until 3:00 AM and I will teach you what you need to know to do what I AM calling you to do.  I AM raising you up My way and not man’s way!”  So, for the next seven years I spent those hours alone with the Lord and He shared His heart with me as well as many things that were going to take place in my life, even the persecution that I would suffer for His Name’s sake. 

Two of those seven years He shut me away not allowing me to listen to the radio, watch television, read a newspaper, attend a city council meeting or anything else.  He simply wanted me to learn to hear and recognize His voice with no outside voices to bring confusion.  Also, it was during this time that He removed all desire for the things of this world from me. I was called to surrender everything to Him, and I do mean everything, and then He began to send me out.

After seven full years He changed my time to meet with Him in night watch from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM.  These have been some of the most precious hours of my life time, alone with Him in the stillness of the night, while He prepared me for the ministry to which He Himself called me, a ministry that has taken me in to thirty-three nations of the world.         

 During these thirty-five years I have suffered tremendous persecution. I know what it is like to be arrested and even imprisoned because of my faith and obedience to the Lord.  I know what it is like to be betrayed.  Nevertheless, He has always been there to bring me through it.  He is faithful!  He goes before us to make the way, stands with us in the midst of the trial and covers us from behind.  When we need Him to be, He will be a wall of fire round about us to protect us. 

It always amazes me when I’m speaking to a congregation prophetically and  there are some who become upset when I tell them what we are to prepare for.   When I tell them we are all going to suffer lack, hardship and tremendous persecution in the days just ahead, they simply do not believe it.  Many have been taught that it cannot happen in America because we are a nation special unto God in that we have carried the Gospel to the nations. They have been taught that we will escape all suffering and persecution, when in truth we will suffer the same kind of persecution that Daniel and the three Hebrew boys suffered. In several meetings the Lord has told me to tell them to unpack their bags for no one is going any place yet.   America is under judgment and judgment has begun in the House of God.  Abba calls what they have “an escapism mentality”.

In Matthew 24 the Lord told us that we would be arrested, persecuted, and even killed.  He said that we will be hated all over the world because we are His followers. He also spoke about the false prophets and teachers coming on the scene who would deceive many, causing them to fall away, and we are seeing the beginning of this today, right here in America, and it will grow much, much worse.

After I speak I always like to open the meeting to field questions.  There are some who always want to know why there is revival in places like China and not here.  Let me just say that the Chinese believers love God in a way that we do not.  They have a very special relationship with Him. They are not bound by materialism and distractions of every sort.  They live for Him and Him alone! They have nothing or no one to depend upon but Him.

They are not confined to a church building’s four walls. The House Church leaders are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel and to see revival.  God bless them, they are always on the run, and when the fire of the Lord rises up within them, they cannot remain silent. They share Yeshua regardless of the cost!  They are serious about the truth of God’s Word therefore signs and miracles happen in their land.  When arrested, beaten and tortured with electric batons, some killed for the sake of the Gospel, they don’t pray for the persecution to stop, they embrace it and tell you that is what causes the church to grow.  That is what brings revival. They simply pray that God will keep them humble and help them to walk in forgiveness. They cry out for souls constantly! They live to evangelize!

When the believers are being trained, they are taught to be ready to pray regardless of the circumstances, be ready to share the Gospel, be ready to suffer, be ready to die for Him, and be ready to escape if the opportunity presents itself. Jesus said, “When you are persecuted in one town, flee to the next…” and that is what they do if He makes the way, otherwise they continue to preach in the prison. They will all tell you point blank that suffering produces boldness which advances the Kingdom of God and thwarts the plans of the enemy.   

 Nothing of the world is found in the Chinese believers, they are dead to the world and alive in Yeshua.  There is so much for the believers of America to learn from our brothers and sisters in China. None of us should be afraid of suffering for Him.

I can tell you from experience, the most fruitful times of our lives are when we have great opposition and persecution coming against us.  Not only that, but   Jesus Himself said that those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel will be blessed, for the Kingdom of God belongs to them, and He is forever faithful.        

Short Term Missions

Let us pray for Marion Shin and Shirley Schindler, who have just arrived in Israel, and Jan Wilker, who has just arrived in the Ukraine. There has been a tremendous amount of spiritual warfare as they have prepared for these mercy missions.

Q. Concerning the October newsletter someone wrote asking if I had written to Joyce Meyer Ministries concerning the Cambodia incident, and if I had, what was their response.  A. I had written to the ministry, but there has been no response, and I don’t really expect one, for none of the prosperity ministers ever respond.