Inner View

By Debbie K.

Recently, I had to repent for judgments I made about the book "The Prayer of Jabez," By Bruce Wilkinson. I saw all the hype surrounding it and how the American Christian community in general seemingly made it into a "bless me" formula, which was a judgment against the author regarding his intent. I then proceeded to decide that I would not read that book and participate in such a thing, thereby making a rash vow for which I also repent. Somewhere along the way I ended up with this book in my possession and after many months, read it. God deeply convicted my heart and spoke much truth to me through this book that very much applies to where we are as a church.

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 "And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested."

This little story is told in the middle of nine chapters worth of a more than five hundred name genealogy list. Out of all the names, Jabez is the one the writer pauses to tell us something about. He was one out of hundreds that stood out distinctly from all the rest. God desires that our individual lives and our lives together as His Church stand out with distinction, that many generations from now it would be said of us, "Restoration Church was honorable above their brothers and sisters - they stood out with distinction and brought much glory to the Lord".

The name Jabez means literally, "one who causes (or will cause) pain". Often a person's name not only defines them, but their future destiny as well. His name seems to signify how he came into this world as well as what the future held for him. Things didn't seem to look too good for Jabez.

Jabez apparently grew up knowing about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He probably heard of how He delivered Israel out of bondage in Egypt, gave them mighty victories over great enemies and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey. He more than likely understood borders, inheritance, and what receiving blessing was all about. So he cried out to this God to bless him "indeed" and enlarge his border. In the Hebrew language, adding a word like indeed was like writing in bold, capital letters, underlining and adding about five exclamations. Jabez was intensely serious about obtaining God's blessing.

Asking for God's blessing is not necessarily selfish. "Bless" means to impart supernatural power or favor to. When we ask for God's blessing we are not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves, we are seeking the boundaries, limitless, unfathomable goodness that only God has the power to impart to us and leaving it completely up to Him to decide how, when, and where these blessings of His divine will and purpose be received. It is having huge faith - radical trust - wanting nothing more and nothing less than what the Creator of all things - our Father - wants for us. It is completely submitting to His will and purposes for our lives, desiring to be totally immersed in His glory, being caught up in His service, being His vessel set apart for "honorable" purposes. It is pursuing a place where there is no obstructions or hinderances to His having absolute freedom of access to use us exactly as He desires. It is longing to be more intimately acquainted with our Lord and understanding His ways that we might walk in them. It is letting our lives be defined by God - His character - His nature - His opinion - nothing more and nothing less. It is finding out what His purpose is for us and wholeheartedly pursuing - that! Great, awesome, and miraculous things will begin to happen out of this place!

Jabez asked... and God wants us to ask! They of old had to ask - we must ask, "Ask, and it shall be given you;..." (Matt. 7:7) "...yet ye have not, because ye ask not." (James 4:2) Our Father desires that we ask. He longs to give us good things - pressed down, shaken together, and running over in our lives! He wants us to want, ask for, and reach for His fullest, richest, and highest blessing.

In asking for God to enlarge his borders, Jabez was possibly looking at His situation in life and even what he was headed for in his future and thought there had to be more. He was requesting that the great and awesome, all powerful God he knew would, by His supernatural power, go beyond what was seemingly inevitable in the natural. In essence, it is asking God to enlarge our lives so we can make a greater impact in this world for Him. It is asking Him to give us a greater sphere of influence, more responsibility, and more opportunities as His servants and witnesses to make His great Name known! We must, like Jabez did, look beyond the natural and our present circumstances or possible future to what God has in His divine design. "Oh, Lord, multiply Your glory in my life!" God wants to accomplish great things in and through us - we must not settle for the way things seem - for less than His highest - we must align ourselves with and pursue - go after His greatest desires for us. It's not about our abilities, experience, training, personality, appearance, past, others' opinions or expectations. It's about our willingness and submission and His will and supernatural power.

Once God begins pouring in the blessing of His supernatural power and favor and expands our territory, our tendency is to ... freak out! We become overwhelmed at how He opens up way more than we ever imagined. We feel inadequate, unable, and begin to doubt that we could be cut out for such tasks. We think that we should feel confident, sure of ourselves and thoroughly equipped, but we feel exactly the opposite. All of a sudden we are in a place we've never been - more responsibility, new opportunities, greater sphere of influence, unexpected circumstances and we fell stretched beyond our limits, scared, confused, disconnected, and even a little angry. We don't think we should feel this way, but God expects His chosen blessed sons and daughters to attempt things that are large enough that failure is guaranteed ... unless God steps in.

This puts us right where God wants us - desperately in need of Him and crying out, "That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty:" (Josh 4:24) When we recognize our need of Him and cry out to Him, His supernatural power begins to flood into our seemingly impossible situations. We need God's divine hand to assist us in accomplishing the kingdom-sized tasks He is calling us to. We must cry out for His hand to sustain us and to press us on to see the great things He desires fully accomplished in and through our lives. As we completely surrender - wholly dependent on Him - He has unlimited access to opportunities to be magnified and glorified in and through our lives. We must have the hand of our Father carrying us through these things that are way too huge for us alone. We need His supernatural power to propel us into His destiny for our lives. It is complete dependence on Him that makes us complete. (2 Cor. 3:5-6)

Jesus took a bunch of cowards and low-lives and filled them with power from on high and gave them the entire world as their territory - they spoke with boldness and performed great miracles and saw mass conversions. The early believers were continually meeting together and seeking God's "hand of power" to accomplish all He had purposed for them. Dependence on God is another term for power. He is watching and waiting for us to ask Him for His hand - His Spirit - to empower us to do great exploits for Him.

When God expands our boundaries, giving us new territory, we are invading the enemies ground - and he is not at all happy about it, nor is he just going to sit idly by and do nothing about it. So not only do we need His supernatural power to walk in the new realm He's brought us to, we also must have His divine protection and wisdom to recognize the schemes the enemy has designed to make us shrink back. We need to go beyond just praying for strength to endure the attacks and temptations through to victory, we need to ask Him to "keep us from temptation" - to fight for us, "for the battle is not ours, but His" - and that He would "deliver us from the evil one". We should focus more on avoiding temptation than overcoming it. God gives us His supernatural power so that we don't have to fight unnecessary battles. In Christ we can live in triumph - not in defeat. If we live in Him in this way we can be spared the pain and grief that evil brings - ourselves, each other, and especially our Father God. Living in and trusting in God in this way brings us to a place in God of greater honor and blessing.

So ask.... God's favor is poured out upon those who ask.

Living in the Spirit means striving to obtain God's highest rewards. (Phil. 3:14) Living an honorable life means we must leave behind mediocrity, earthly expectations, our comfort zones and human thinking. We must trust our extraordinarily huge God to be immeasurably great beyond our highest imaginations in our ordinary lives. We must ask for and expect God's blessing for today. We must plead for more territory - more opportunities and a greater sphere of influence for His glory and step forward to receive it. We must trust and depend on Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts, words, and actions and keep focused on the spiritual realm (not the natural) believing He is at work accomplishing what we cannot. We must ask Him to keep evil far from us so that nothing would hinder what He desires to accomplish through us. He desires to make us His witnesses.

The Jabez principle is to ask and reach for all that God has in mind for us even though we don't completely grasp what that is. It is trusting and participating with Him to bring it about in His way and His perfect timing. It is seeking Him to find out what His borders are for our lives and receiving His supernatural grace and power to be fruitful there. It is acknowledging our weakness and completely surrendering to His strength and power and protection to see His will accomplished supernaturally. It is seeking the will and pleasure of the Father. It is allowing God's miraculous power free access to flow in and through our lives for His glory alone.

"And God granted his request." And He will grant us these requests as well. "And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us. And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him." (1 John 5:14-15 Amplified)

"Oh, Lord, bless us indeed!
Enlarge our border!
Let Your hand be upon us!
Keep us from evil and the pain it causes!
Let us live an honorable life for Your glory!
Amen. So let it be."

Explosion

RFC Youth Group: Together as One Body

By David D.

For three weeks, several of our Youth went to morning prayer from 6:30-7:30 AM. We had to get up around 5 AM and everyday who felt the most tired varied. It took a few days to get used to getting up that early, but the prayer time was an awesome experience as our old ways were destroyed and we were exposed to an awesome fellowship with God. He taught us how to worship, pray and live without a form. When we stand, walk around or even sit to please man and not God, it becomes a form. We can have a form for just about anything we do, but we are stepping out of it.

Some mornings we would gather as a group and pray that God would bring our church into unity, become one. Right now, in our day, we are going through a change. We are becoming one body, made up of brothers, sisters, servants. I saw a vision one morning that God has opened a door in our lives, and He wants us to go through it as one body. When you open a door, you go through it. God has opened our door and He wants us to go through it as one body. Now is the time. We must go through this change together. Together as one Body!

"I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word. Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word." Psalm 119:147-148

Kid's Church News

By Brian L.

This summer we have been sharing Jesus' life on the earth during His last three years. We have discussed many of the miracles He performed and parables He taught in an effort to share the heart and spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This past week we shared the great Commission, found in Matthew 28:19-20, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

We asked the children where they thought God might send them if He asked them to go and share the good news of Jesus. Then we boarded our imaginary airplane and set off for the distant country of Peru so we could experience what it may look like to someday visit a foreign land for our Lord. I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical that the kids and my imagination could go there. But with the guidance of the Holy Spirit we were all aboard an imaginary airplane. Captain Kris shared their memory verse with them while I had opportunity to try my hand at being a stewardess. After a hard landing, clearing customs, and getting Stephen out of jail for smuggling Bibles we set off to witness to the "locals." When we stepped out in the rear parking lot of the church, we found a blind man playing his guitar for food and a couple of local girls that didn't know a thing about the gospel.

By the end of the encounter the children had three converts to the gospel and one man healed of his blindness. What blessed me the most about the children witnessing was the wealth of truth that came forth from within them. These kids knew a lot more about the gospel of Jesus Christ than I had been expecting.

I must commend the body of Restoration Church for the hard work and perseverance you have put into our living legacy and I pray that this letter will encourage you to continue to sow into the Kingdom. And while we continue to pour into your children and attempt to spark a greater passion for the living God, we trust that you as parents and members of the body will continue to bring wisdom and understanding to these little ones.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

Home Groups

By Bernie T.

Home group meetings continue to be a great blessing and strength. I see the Lord helping us to become stronger as we learn to use spiritual weapons God is giving us.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him... (2 Chronicles 16:9) Jesus is still looking for a "few good men" and women who will cram it down the enemies throat, similar to how He did it. Our God is a God of victory, power and strength and wants that for us. In fact, He's sitting on His throne at the right hand of the Father, lobbying, pleading, making intercession, for our wholeness (Romans 8:34). It should give us great comfort knowing we have such a powerful influence and mediator in heaven praying for us.

Our home group meetings are providing an opportunity to put our foot on the neck of our enemy. If the enemy has taken you captive and has a foot on your neck, home groups provide an opportunity to right the situation. "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;" (1 Timothy 2:1) "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do." (1 Thessalonians 5:11) When you stand over your enemy with your foot on his neck, you will have peace, because you are in a victory position over your enemy. You have the enemy subdued. He cannot torment you, lie to you, belittle you, disgrace you, deceive you, trick you, inflict you, harm you, discourage you, or inflate you. The enemy doesn't have anything to say from this subdued position. He is silenced. It's easy to see the peace of God which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7) coming forth from this position of victory. God is well pleased with victories over the enemy.

If we win the battle but have relied on the methods and strength of man as King Asa did, we will be counted foolish (2 Chronicles 16:9). On Sunday, July 7, an exhortation came, "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)" (2 Corinthians 10:4) So we must learn to strive lawfully against the enemy (2 Timothy 2:5). Some of us might be used to fighting with a stick or club, and over the years we've learned to get things done our own way. So when God takes the stick out of our hands and puts a sword in its place, it takes awhile to learn how to fight with it, how to hold it, when and how to swing it.

Home groups give us a place to hold each other accountable and to learn that God's ways are higher than ours. We are stronger in the Lord because of what He is accomplishing through home group meetings.

RFC Body Life

The church office is now open Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

To the family of Betty S., May our Lord comfort you in your time of sorrow. Our love and prayers are with you. RFC Family