This Saturday, March 13th, from 3:00-4:45 pm, I will be sharing "The Blazing Fire Story"--our history, vision and values. This is particularly for those of you who have started coming to Blazing Fire Church over the past year or two and want to get caught up on our unique church culture. By ending at 4:45 pm, you will have time to get some dinner before the start of worship at 6:00 pm.
GRAHAM COOKE will be here Friday, March 19th at 7:00 pm and Saturday, March 20th at 6:00 pm!!! We have been waiting for years to have Graham come to Blazing Fire. You REALLY do not want to miss this. No matter what you are experiencing in life, you will leave greatly encouraged and filled with the wonder and awe of who God is and what He has called you to do!! We will be at a larger venue that weekend because of the larger number of people we are expecting. We will be at Celebration Christian Center, 1135 Bluebell Drive in Livermore. This is the same location where we had the Holy Spirit conference last Fall.
To give you a taste of Graham, I am including portions of a word he gave in 2001 called, "To Proclaim the Favorable Year of the Lord." This word got inside me and changed me! It is just as true now as it was then. Grab hold of this and watch the favor of God take over your life! It's a bit long, but well worth reading as many times as it takes until you believe it!
This is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. This is a year when the anointing on your church will experientially increase. This is a year of corporate anointing so profound that it will be sometimes like an open heaven in your meetings. The Lord says whatever you can do to get together and collectively dream about together, you wouldn't even hit the mark of what God has really got planned for you.
This is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. It's a year of God's favor on your family, it's a year of favor on your marriage. Let me tell you right now, whatever marriage difficulties you are having, the Lord is saying to you, this year if you believe, He will reconnect you. And it will be like it was in the beginning. The romance, the love, the favor, the kindness. For your marriage, a year of unprecedented favor. For your kids a year of unprecedented favor of God upon your family. It's a year when the prodigals will return. When God is going to reach out as you pray, as you believe, as you come and as you put their names on the alter of God, and say, Lord, please this year. It'll be a year when God will begin to touch the hearts of children who are far away from Him. And He will begin to move in upon their hearts. And I tell you, He will pursue them like the hound of heaven. There is no escape from the mercy and the glory of God. It doesn't matter how far they go, how far they fallen, and where they are. The Lord is saying this is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor upon your family. And not just your immediate family, but your family line. Whatever curses have been upon your family can be removed this year.
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EVEN IF AMERICA EXPERIENCES AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN? YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THE OPPOSITE!
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It's a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. Just in your jobs, if you've ever been passed over for promotion. If you've ever not made a raise, if you're finding it difficult to make sales, the Lord is saying to you, This is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. That when you go out to make deals, pray for the favor of God. And you pray for your company that the favor of God will be upon them. It doesn't matter what economic down-turn America is going to experience, you are going to experience the opposite. Pray for your company, pray for your business because this is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. Because you see, you are the people of God and you get to prosper when other people are not. That's how everyone knows that the favor of God is upon you. Because they may be subject to the economic vagaries of life, but we are not because we are the people of God and we are living in the favor of God.
There's prosperity in your jobs, in your finances and the Lord says this is the year to give like you've never given before. And He will give to you pressed down, shaken together and running over. Beloved, it's not like after 12 months, the tap is going to turn off. This 12 months is catch up time. We should have been living here all along. We've given up on things, we've stopped praying about things, we've stopped expecting God, we've stopped believing God for things. This is a year when we are playing catch up. It's not like after 12 months it's going to stop, it's going to continue. This whole 12 months is about you getting back on track with where you should always have been living.
The favor of God upon you will cause you to come into such a place with God that you will get revenge on the enemy for everything he has ever done. Listen. You know, personally, I would make a list. I would make a list. Cause I want pay-back for everything. I want payback with interest, thank you very much.
You know God will turn your captivity into a ministry. Whatever your struggles have been, there is a spirit of breakthrough this year. Whatever your past history, this is a year of jubilee. This is a year of breakthrough. This is a year when you will break out, you'll break in, you'll break through. On the right hand and on the left. Whatever has oppressed your family will be broken. Wherever you've been a victim, God will make you a hero in that very same area. This is revenge, big time.
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THIS YEAR, PROPHECIES TO BE RESTORED . . . FULFILLED
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Whatever previous prophecies have been spoken over you the Lord says to you, "This year, take those words back because the answer is still yes!" God will restore what the locust has eaten, God will restore what the enemy has stolen. There will be grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace upon us. Because in this year you are going to understand what the nature of God really is like.
Beloved, this is a holy moment. You don't want to waste this time. I tell you something, it will be possible for you to go through this year and not experience a tenth of what God wants to give you. You need to take this word 365 days, not just the next few weeks. Don't let go of this word. You know, we've wasted opportunities in the past.
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GET REVENGE WITH THE ENEMY IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS
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This is a year designed to get you back on track with God. So if I were you, if you were really sensible, you would make adjustments really early on. Get revenge in the next couple of months. Get yourself totally sorted out in the next two months. Then you got ten months after that to enjoy what God's going to do with you. Don't wait. I'm serious. I'm as serious as a heart attack, don't wait. Don't wait. Don't treat this lightly or casually. Go to war with it. Every single day, think "favor". Every single day! Every single situation you come in, you go into it saying, "Father, I know I have favor in these circumstances, what should I do?" Every single thing, every single day, for the next twelve months, until it gets into your mind, this is the way you should be living. Until you are so soaked in the spirituality of this you cannot change. Until your mind set is so set on the favor and goodness of God, it is impossible for you to be any different.
This is a year of unprecedented, unparalleled, favor of God. When you will become a people of promise and the promise here in this passage is that you will have a garland instead of ashes. See life won't taste like dust in your mouth. There will be a fragrance there. You will have the oil of gladness for mourning. What does that mean? It means you'll never be miserable again. It means there is an oil of gladness upon you. It's a glad heart, a glad eye, a glad ear. You're a person of glad tidings, people are glad to see you. It means there is a mantle of praise for the spirit of heaviness. What does that mean? It means whatever oppressive spirit is over you or over your community, you're going to replace it with the mantle of praise.
Also it means that you're going to be an oak of righteousness that's planted by the Lord in that community and people are going to come and congregate under your shade. It means that other people will bless you abundantly. It means that you will be called priests and ministers of God. It means that the prosperity that God flows on you, you will be able to use for Kingdom purposes. It means you'll have a double portion where there was once shame. It means there are going to be days when you just shout for sheer joy of what God is doing. It means you'll have a double portion in the land. What does that mean? It means you've got a double portion in your community. That God is going to have an investment in your community.
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IT'S GOING TO BE JOY EVERLASTING!
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This joy that you have is not going to be transient, it's going to be everlasting. You know, because I'll tell you, some of us need to be trained to be joyful. That's true. I'll tell you, some of us find it so easy to be flippin' miserable. And God is going to train you to be joyful. But you've got to realize that this joy is everlasting because God is the happiest person I have ever met in my entire life. And what that means is, it doesn't matter what the enemy throws at us, we just stand there and grin. Because we know something he doesn't know. We are fighting a good fight and we ain't losing.
See, you're going to get this new testimony about the nature of God. The yoke is going to snap through the anointing. And because of all of that a spirit of restoration will be upon you. And you will rebuild ancient ruins. You'll raise up devastated areas.
On his 1994 album “Poiema”, Michael Card wrote: "The Bible tells us that we are God's masterpieces (poiema in Greek); not only creatures, but His creations, His poems (Eph 2:10). We are living epistles (2 Cor 3:3). And so, our lives are meant to be listened to, because it is God who is speaking into and out of and through the symphony of the years, and the masterpiece of a lifetime."