Kids of the King, Arise!

Gina

I saw “deception”, she was beautiful, dressed in a long black dress with long black hair. She had pale skin and a purple cloak. She looked so good and felt so right to be with. She would move close to a person and then move away to make the person want to be with her. People would do anything to be near her because it looked so good and felt so right. If you called her ‘Deception’ or mentioned to someone that they were being deceived, they would think you were crazy because it just seemed so right. I was so stunned by how easily people could be swept away by her.

Look up these verses and write down the different ways that “deception” works.
2 Peter 2: 1 False ________________ that secretly teach_______________
Mathew 24:24 For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great ________________, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
Genesis 3: 1 …__________________________ you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

The last verse what is it about the question posed that can lead you to be deceived? Think about it.
(It makes you question what God has already said, and it twists the truth of what God said.) Not a good thing.

ACTIVITY:
As you go through your day today put on your Kingdom Goggles and ask the Holy Spirit to alert you to any lies that the enemy is trying to convince you of. Pray in the opposite spirit and declare the TRUTH.

Eg. Eve should have said, No God said we could eat from all the trees except one…BIG difference.

Psalm 84, vs 3

“The sparrow has found a nest, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young…”

I was enjoying myself outdoors and happened to look up and see a barn swallows nest built against the rafters of our small barn. A swallow will first find a structure where there is a supply of mud close by. It will carry mud and twigs in its little beak, making trip after trip. Then it carefully constructs its nest, placing the mud on a board close to the ceiling of the barn, creating a mud-paste type of structures. The outside of the nest is very solid and very secure. Yet the inside is lined with down feathers and is a soft, warm, and inviting!

Why has God made the swallows to build their nests the way they do? Just by “instinct ” they know that the safest place is up against a wall. There is an expression that we use “up against the wall” to describe a place that is hard and you feel that you are really stuck or trapped. Have you felt that way sometimes?

(picture of barn swallow putting a feather in its nest)

A few weeks ago one of the boys in the Daniel Prayer Group shared how in a dream God came and pulled something out of his heart and afterwards gave him a cross. Now that doesn’t make much sense you may say! But I think what God took out of his heart was his wanting to do things his own way, and giving him the opportunity to go God’s way.

You see before Jesus died on the cross, he had a choice to not die for us. BUT He chose to go God’s way no matter what it cost. It is the same for us, when we go to Jesus in the hard times when we are stuck, we say that we will trust Him even when it is hard and we are “up against a wall” like the swallow.. The cross is the place where our will and God’s will cross each other. We want to go one way, and God says… No..this way is better.

In Gods’ presence we find peace and the secret place of safety, just like inside the nest, BUT it is often through the hard times that God brings us there. The swallow has to build the mud outside of the nest first. As Christians we are not promised a life without problems! It is actually in these times when He is able to help our character to grow more like sons and daughters of the King, if we choose to come close to Him. What is so neat about the picture that David paints in Psalm 84 is that the nest is more than an emergency shelter. Inside the nest is where you can live all the time, in peace even when there are storms outside.
*Adapted by article by Michal Ann Goll “Shelter of a swallow”

Read James 1:2-5
Write down in your journal all the things that you are finding hard right now. Talk to God about them. In what ways are these things helping you become more patient, or kind or loving, or generous…
Then Thank Him that these things are giving you the opportunity to become more like Jesus.

Check out all these verses that talk about thanksgiving.

Be Ye Thankful

Who gives thanks?

Psalm 140:13 “Surely _______________ shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall live in your presence.”

Psalm 145:10 “All your _________ shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your ________ shall bless you.”

When? Why?

1 Thess. 5:16-18 “Rejoice _________, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the _____________ in Christ Jesus for you.”

Phil 4:6 “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by _________ and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the _________ of God, which surpasses all understanding, will _________ your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

2 Cor. 4:15 “Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the ________ of God.”

Ephesians 5:4 “Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, vulgar talk; ________________, let there be thanksgiving.”

Psalm 136:26 “O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his _____________ endures forever.”

How?

Eph. 1:16 “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my ____________.”

Psalm 147:7 “_________ to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre.”

By who’s authority?

Eph 5:20 “Giving thanks to God the Father at ____________ and for __________ in the name of our ________________________.”

For what?

Colossians 1:12 “Giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the _____________ of the saints in the light.”

John 6:11 “Then Jesus took _____________, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated….”

Dan 2:23 “To you, O God of my ancestors, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me _________ and ____________, …”

John 11:41b “…And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having ________ me.”

1 Cor. 15:57 “But thanks be to God, who gives us the _________ through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Cor. 9:15 “Thanks be to God for his indescribable _____________!”

1 Thess. 2:13 “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you _______________ it not as a human word, but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.”

1 Tim. 2:1-2 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for ____________, for _________ and ______ who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”

1 Thess. 1:2 “We always give thanks to God for _____________ and mention you in our prayers,…”

Psalm 138:2 “I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast ___________ and your __________________; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.”

What else is it called?

Psalm 116:17 “I will offer to you a thanksgiving __________ and call on the name of the Lord.”

Psalm 138:1 “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your ________.”

Who is all the thanks above been directed to? __________________

* Bible verses on thanksgiving used with permission from http://www.ebibleteacher.com/children/

ACTIVITY: Make a place mat out of bristol board. Decorate it with fall leaves, by gluing them carefully with white glue. Around them write the verses above that stood out to you the most. If you are really adventurous you could make enough for the whole family or as a gift for someone you want to express thanks to.
*To dry fall leaves, place them between the pages of a phone book. They will dry in a week, and will keep their color and stay flat. You can do the same or flowers of all kinds, although some of the lighter colored flowers will not hold their color as well. If you like you could cover the place mat with Mac tac, or laminate them

Yet as amazing as it may seem to us, these are actually some of the things God is doing through children today. Take for instance the All Children’s Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a church of about a thousand children that started when a teenage preacher’s son began ministering to the street children in his city. As he reached out in compassion, many of those unwanted kids became believers. They then turned around and began winning their street friends to the Lord. In a short period of time they had a functioning church body! They eventually decided to bring in some adult leadership to help give it oversight, but to this day the children lead the worship, preach the sermons, and conduct every aspect of the services including doing prophetic outreach through very powerful children’s intercessory prayer ministry that they have become well known for. It is possible to visit this children’s church through the ministry of Harvest Evangelism with Ed Silvoso.

A woman who traveled to Argentina as an intercessor for a large outreach where ten thousand people were in attendance shared this. They kept the intercessors in a large area especially set aside under the platform during the services. She related that off to the side were approximately thirty children ages four to twelve who were down on their faces in the grass in the freezing cold, crying out, “God, save our nation! Save Argentina! Souls, Lord, souls!” In her words, they were not concerned about their Nike tennis shoes–they wanted revival for their nation! She was told by some of the Argentine leadership that there is an estimated thirty thousand child intercessors in the country of Argentina! IMAGINE!

It’s reported that orphans in Uganda–eight hundred of them–have been raised up as intercessors to pray for other orphans just like themselves. They were trained by a team out of a ministry called Children’s Global Prayer Ministry that has trained thousands of kids around the world in intercessory prayer. It was birthed out of the Global Consultation on World Evangelism sponsored by the AD2000 and Beyond movement of which C. Peter Wagner was involved. During those meetings in Korea, the children would huddle together, face down on the floor, crying out in intense prayer for up to three and fours hours at a time.

Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida captured an incredible event on video of one of their revival services in which a group of their children who had been otherwise occupied in the children’s auditorium began watching the service on closed circuit TV. They suddenly fell into intercession. They began to work their way up to the hallway right behind the platform where the service was going on, and weeping uncontrollably, began groaning and travailing for lost souls. It went on for a half an hour or more, bringing the service almost to a standstill as they miked their voices broadcasting them across the sound system–a chilling sound to hear. As you can imagine the altar call that night was powerful.

As you read these stories, WHY can’t God use kids in your county to pray? Let’s pray together that God would raise up children across Canada to pray for their friends that don’t know Jesus. For friends in their schools that are hurting and need to know of God’s love for them. Pray that God would touch kids ALL over your nation and that He would start something that would change nations! Why not now? Why not this year?

Check out the New Generation Prayer site www.newgeneration.ca