Kevin J. Bowman - a pilgrim trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus

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Shocked By God

Sunday, April 27, 2008 11:08 PM

One of the cool honors in my life is to live with two amazing prayer warriors. Although only six, I am often amazed at the things my oldest remembers to pray for. Her prayers often inspire me to be more mindful of the things I consider important in prayer. I am literally floored by her quite regularly when we pray together. This is obviously genetic, because in the few months since my God rescued my wife from her addictions she too has impressed me with the vast depth and urgency to her prayer life. Although God has had a tendency to drop people with a great deal of emotional pain into our path for many years, recently she is learning that God has called her to reach deeply into the wellspring of prayer for people's healing and freedom. She is meticulous and dutiful to pray for the release from bondage of the people God has placed in our lives.

Without revealing any details at all, there is a particular situation between a few people that we both love deeply that seemed to me to be to hopeless for even God. It was not that I did not think God could intervene, I just did not think these friends could choose to respond. Yet God has placed it on my wife's heart to claim bold prayers of deliverance in this situation. I love these friends deeply, and have felt called to join her in claiming release through Christ for their situation. Over the last two to three weeks I would say we have cumulatively spent several hours praying together for redemption.

So the other day when we received a call from one of the people involved, the conversation was humbling. God was healing the situation, and both people knew that God wanted to bring redemption into their mess. The initial reaction was, "I don't know what's going on..." Yet then I was humbled, literally brought to my knees in my daughters room as I realized the foolishness of such a crass statement.

After HOURS of prayer, I would have the ignorance to wonder the reason for the break in the situation. I was shocked! God was answering the very prayer he led us to pray! These were his children, and he wanted to speak healing into them all along! Now here, in this time, in this place, as we responded to his call to prayer, heaven' floodgate was opened, and the holy salve of God's intervention was being shown more powerful than the situation I could only see as hopeless.

I am more inspired, to pray more bold prayers. I want to be a warrior healer, like God has called my wife to be. I now understand just a little more what Jesus means when he says, "On earth as it is in heaven"

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Don't Be Nice

Wednesday, April 02, 2008 10:32 PM

In Matthew 16 when Christ talks about building his church he says several things that several theologians have hosted several debates to weigh their several different opinions about. None of these address the significant challenge that is proposed to Peter. It was Rick Atchley in a series on prayer he did a few years ago where I first heard Christ's goad pointed out. Jesus tells Peter that the GATES OF HELL will not prevail against his church.

Gates are a defensive tool. Gates mark owned property. Gates are effective not in claiming new ground, but in persevering old territories. One does not take gates along with them on offensives. Jesus does not tell Peter that the forces of Hell will not prevail against the gates of the church! Instead his challenge is to CRUSADE into the enemies property. It is HELL'S defenses that can not prevail against the onslaught of the Kingdom's advances!

We are called to be an OCCUPATION FORCE. We are to knock down the vestiges of the old regime and stand boldly on the enemy's land. Christ spent little time in religious centers. He instead went into the commerce of the marketplace, the squalor of the leper colonies, the homes of the disreputable, and the weddings of the ill prepared. He was present in the enemies playgrounds. He breeched the walled communities where the enemy's devotees were ensnared.
I believe that, like many of you, I'm God's agent, his tool of restoration and reconciliation on this dark planet. We're at odds with the existing order, citizens of another kingdom by identity, warriors by vocation. We've been dumbed down and domesticated by too many of our churches. Religion has made us nice. We need to re-discover our spiritual vocation. - Seth Barnes
Our nice domesticated Christianity doesn't look anything like that. Our churches act like we are the last fortress of the outer zone. People feel hopeless against the onslaught of secularism so our churches become their walled gardens of retreat. We cower holding onto our last hope for protection from these ancient gates.

Christ's church was never meant to look like this. We are the brigada, the front line militia of a spiritual invasion. Our lives the assault force and our churches the MASH tents of the offensive. Our campaign is a revolution and the gates protecting the old kingdom must be trampled to the ground.

Let's commit together not to "Be Nice", not "Be Scared", not "Be Useless" but instead to BE REVOLUTIONARIES!

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