WEEK 3: OVERFLOW! LET THE RIVERS FLOW WITHIN AND BEYOND!
LET US OVERFLOW BY THE SPIRIT…
Welcome to the last week of Prayer and fasting.
There is a river that births rivers. This is not the usual behavior of rivers. Usually, small rivers form tributaries to one big river. But the River of God is the opposite: it is one river that is big enough to divide up and form many distributaries, each of which is a significant river. The flow of these rivers creates life, brings healing, and fills creation with gladness.
The Holy Spirit is referred to as streams of living water [John 7:37-38]. How does experiencing the Holy Spirit shape the World in which we live and make our church most impactful? Ezekiel 47:1-12 shows what the river from the Throne of God does to the environment around. This is the river that we want to overflow at Gracehill and beyond. We desire the river that flows at Gracehill to impact both Gracehill and the world, to its furthest ends as enabled by the Spirit of the Living God. This week we spend it having prayers on particular areas that concern Gracehill and her distributaries!
MONDAY: Let the Rivers Flow in the Pulpit.
Psalm 46:4-5: 4There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
The temple was the literal dwelling of the presence of God in Israel. Today, a church is symbolic of God’s dwelling place. When the saints—God’s true temple, gather, the Lord is experienced. This is because the river of God has streams that bring gladness to the city of God, where God dwells.
As a church, we pray for the river of God in our pulpit, whose streams will make glad the city of our God. The gospel is good news, and good news makes people glad. We pray that our church will be saturated with gladness caused by the river of God.
Jeremiah lamented on God’s behalf: "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” [Jer. 2:13]. In a world where pulpits are increasingly dry cisterns, and people depend on themselves instead of depending on the Lord, may the lives of Gracehill members and visitors be refreshed by the cistern of life from our pulpit.
Pray for the pulpit ministries today, that the River of God may flow within them for God’s glory.