God intends every upper room to touch the nations. The first upper room built by Jesus in Jerusalem became a nation reaching upper room within a few hours of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The upper room in Antioch similarly would become the sending base for every mission trip for the apostle Paul.  Read More

Every Christ-encountering upper room is designed to not only touch heaven, but also to touch the nations. On the Day of Pentecost, when God poured out His Holy Spirit on the 120 believers in the upper room, they were not only filled with the Holy Spirit, they immediately impacted the nations. Because of the Feast of Passover, there were thousands of Jewish and Proselyte pilgrims in the city of Jerusalem from the north (Cappadocia), the west (Asia, Macedonia, Rome and Crete), the south (Egypt and Libya), and the east (Arabia).  Read More

The Christ-encountering upper room is not just any prayer meeting. The single factor that sets apart the upper room is that it exists not to ask for God to meet our needs; it exists just to minister to God Himself. When Jesus built His first upper room, He sent His disciples back to Jerusalem with a promise, “the promise of the Father,” that is, the promise of God’s presence by the Holy Spirit.  Read More

Virtually every encounter with the manifest presence of God recorded in the Bible results in reaching the nations. No sooner did Isaiah see the Lord high and lifted up, than he is commissioned into his prophetic ministry. It is all too easy to assume that when we encounter the manifest presence of Christ, that it is all about us. While we certainly benefit from every encounter, we must guard against becoming self absorbed encounter junkies. It is all about Christ; that is true. But it is not all about us.  Read More

You don’t know your true identity until you discover who you are in Christ. Discovering who you are in Christ is one of the foundational realities of being a follower of Jesus. Until you see yourself in Christ, you will never know yourself. If you don’t know yourself, you can’t be yourself. If you can’t be yourself, you can’t live.   Read More

You don’t know your true identity until you discover who you are in Christ. Discovering who you are in Christ is one of the foundational realities of being a follower of Jesus. Until you see yourself in Christ, you will never know yourself. If you don’t know yourself, you can’t be yourself. If you can’t be yourself, you can’t live.  Read More

God wants you to pray for the harvest and to pray for the harvesters. Jesus lived with a keen awareness of the harvest. He could see the harvest better than anyone. He said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37). Seeing a discrepancy between the plentiful harvest and the pitiful number of harvesters, Jesus leaned on His twelve to activate their prayers on behalf of the harvest.  Read More

There may be no greater privilege extended to us by God than the privilege of asking for the nations. Not only are we encouraged to ask for the nations, but God promises that He will give them to us. Psalm 2 is clearly a messianic psalm, or a psalm written about Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. From beginning to the end of this powerful psalm, the Anointed One, the Lord, the Christ, is in the spotlight. It is to His Son that God initially says, “Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance.”  Read More

The Holy Spirit can pray up a storm in the weakest vessel. Do you qualify? Can you sincerely say, I do not know what to pray for as I ought? If you can say that you have a certain degree of weakness in your prayer life, you are a good candidate for a Holy Spirit upgrade. No one knows how to pray better than the Holy Spirit. Since He lives inside of you, He can teach you to pray however He wants, as long as you let Him help you.  Read More

Healthy Christians long for the visible, bodily return of Christ. They live in anticipation of His second coming. They even pray for His soon appearing. The final time the word come appears in Scripture is an invitation for the second coming of Christ. Jesus no sooner promises to return, “Surely I am coming soon,” than the people of God wholeheartedly respond, “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!” In the original manuscript, it is the Aramaic word, Maranatha—Come, Lord Jesus!  Read More

When Jesus invites you to come, His invitation is instantly empowering. The full force of the resurrection is available when God says come. When Jesus stood outside the empty tomb of the dead corpse of His friend, Lazarus, it became a showdown. Jesus called to Lazarus. Life called to death, “Lazarus, come out.” Despite being dead for four days, the record shows, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:44). What an illustration of the life-transforming power of Christ when He says, “Come.”  Read More

When Jesus invites stressed out people to come to Him, He not only promises them His presence, He promises them peace and rest as well. When you need to depressurize the cabin of your life, there is no better place to come than into the manifest presence of Christ. The invitation is for you, “all who labor and are heavy laden.” When you feel overworked, underappreciated, short on sleep and pulled in too many directions, call timeout. Take a breath. Pray. Come to Jesus in response to His open invitation, “Come to Me.” Come boldly. Come confidently. Come as you are. Bring your frustrations, high blood pressure and migraine headache. Five minutes in the manifest presence of Christ will change everything.  Read More

When God invites you to come to Him, He is not only giving you permission, He is giving you divine empowerment. Never walk away from God’s invitation to come, or you will be missing out on an opportunity of a lifetime.  Read More

You and I are part of “the generation of those who seek Him.” What an honor! Whenever you read in Scripture about the face of God, it can only be referring to God’s manifest presence. God’s omnipresence does not have a face. All who seek the face of God are those who seek His manifest presence.  Read More

Our God is not only a Savior; He is also a Warrior. He is mighty in battle. He has never lost a fight. And He is not about to start now. He is always victorious. As you stand before Christ in prayer today, declare His potency, His power, and His coming kingdom. He is Yahweh Saboath, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. He is El Gabor, a Mighty Warrior. He is Christ the Conqueror. Mighty in battle. Always triumphant.  Read More

Declarative prayer is a privilege you are invited to exercise. When God establishes people on earth who love His manifest presence and who ascend the hill of the Lord, He then puts within them a prophetic intercession to take authority over the governmental gates of their world. It is your honor to declare, “Lift up your head, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in.” When the King of Glory enters the gates of our world, He will manifest His presence. The manifest presence of Christ on earth is the longing of every true intercessor. The manifest presence of Christ is the vortex of all legitimate intercession.  Read More

On this day, April 15, in the year of our Lord 1906, God profoundly manifested His presence in the New Testament Church in Los Angeles pastored by Joseph Smale. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit were being manifested. An African-American woman spoke in tongues on a Sunday morning and many other legitimate Holy Spirit manifestations were evident. Men and women laid prostrate on the floor, unable to move in the presence of the holy God.  Read More

Don’t waste your life climbing the wrong mountain. If you want to fulfill your life purpose, ascend the hill of the Lord. Psalm 24 begins by declaring God’s ownership over the entire earth. It then shifts to giving a select invitation to God’s people to encounter God in His manifest presence. Every hill on the earth enjoys God’s omnipresence, but “the hill of the Lord” is reserved for His manifest presence. Christ has redeemed you in order to invite you to enjoy living in His uninterrupted manifest presence. Just think—to “stand in His holy place” means that you have been invited into a privileged place. Will you respond today to this invitation?  Read More

Declaring with prayer the rightful ownership of Christ over the earth is not only appropriate; it is strategic. Psalm 24 is one of the great revival songs in the Bible. We will learn to declare Psalm 24 the way it was meant to be prayed.  Read More

The Name of Jesus is more than a password that gives you access to God in prayer. Jesus is a person who wants to take you by the hand today and give you access into the presence of your loving Father. Seven times Jesus revealed Himself as the great “I AM”. Today we come to the big trifecta of self disclosure—“I, I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Read More

There is no more empowering name than the Name of Jesus. As you declare His Name in prayer today, remember, you are declaring the great I AM. Standing outside the tomb of a dead man, Jesus declared the stone-rolling, death-defying, mountain-moving words, “I, I AM the Resurrection and the Life.”  Read More

We are sheep and we need a shepherd; without a shepherd, we are lost. One of the great prayer declarations we make is declaring Christ, the Good Shepherd. In one of His seven distinct “I AM” statements, Jesus delightfully reveals Himself to us as the One uniquely qualified to serve as Good Shepherd. Distinct from the hirelings who have no skin in the game, Jesus laid down His life for you and me.  Read More

Christ is the Door and the Doorkeeper. He shuts doors that are impossible to open, and He opens doors that are impossible to shut. Of the seven “I AM” self disclosures Jesus gives in the Gospel of John, this Name has strategic significance for us as we pray. When He said, “I AM the Door,” He wants us to understand that every significant breakthrough we want and need in life is under His dominion. For this reason, He identifies Himself as the One who has all breaker anointing and all door-opening capability. Ultimately, Christ alone opens the door for us into eternal life. He also opens the door for us into abundant life.  Read More

When you pray in the Name of Jesus, you are praying in the Name of the great I AM. Dating all the way back to Father God’s encounter with Moses in Exodus 3:14 when He declared, “I AM who I AM,” Jesus is now revealing Himself as one-in-the-same I AM. Seven times Jesus used this unmistakable divine disclosure, I AM, using the Greek words, Ego Eimi, or literally, “I, I AM,” followed by an accurate, distinct revelation of His identity. It is only appropriate that one of His first such disclosures identifies Him as the Light.   Read More