The sun will rise... Josh Hawkins

A desert wedding and the love of God

jhawkins — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:54:31 -0600

About a week and a half ago, I was in Scottsdale, Arizona for a wedding. Weddings have taken on an entirely different meaning for me since moving to IHOP 5 years ago. They are such a dim but beautiful snapshot into the heart of the Father to prepare a bride for His Son. I was so honored to be a groomsman for such a good friend and brother in the Lord, Shawn Zajas. Shawn was married to Kellie Hubbell, his best friend for the past several years, on August 23, 2008 in the presence of God, family, and so many loving friends. It was truly a special moment!

During the ceremony as they were giving their vows to one another, it struck me once again that Jesus has wholly vowed Himself to us. As Shawn said “I promise to love you with all my heart”, the Holy Spirit was thundering in my heart, reminding me that Jesus, God in the flesh, loves me with all His heart. What does it look like for God to love us with all His heart? Every single emotion, affection, and desire is set upon me. What about all His mind? He created the whole universe – trillions of galaxies and trillions of stars, and holds them all in the palm of His Hand. His mind is so vast. Yet He loves me with His entire mind. I simply cannot fathom that. And we won’t even get to “strength”. Thinking about how God loves me with all His strength would just make my brain explode!

Kellie then began her side of the exchange of vows, and once again the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart. “In the same way I have vowed to love you with all that I am, this is the way that you will love Me – with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” I struggled to hold back all of my tears – some of them for Shawn and Kellie because of the moment they were exchanging, but most of them for the gratitude in my heart towards Jesus.

After journaling and spending a lot of time thinking about the wedding that day, I realized I just give God “lip service” more often than I truly love Him. I want to love God on His terms. In John 14:21, Jesus defined loving God as being obedient to everything He spoke. There is no such thing as loving God without seeking to obey His Word. Loving God requires more than singing to Him, dancing in a worship service, or merely having sentimental feelings about Him.

I don’t want my experience of loving God to be reduced to flowery language about being extravagantly devoted. There is no substitute to loving God on God’s terms. This is where my safety lies and this is where I want to give all of my allegiance. His promises to us as we love Him on His terms are unfathomable to our mind without divine help of the Holy Spirit. It’s only in this place that the burden of Jesus is easy, and His yoke is truly light!

I hope I’m provoking you a little bit. Do you fully pursue loving God on His terms – with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – or is your definition of loving God shaped more by our culture - just giving Him some time on Sundays or having some good feelings towards Him when our favorite song is played? May the Lord give you such a high vision to be abandoned and wholehearted on His terms!

Updates to the Prayer Room webstream

jhawkins — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:36:09 -0600

I'm back from Arizona and there's been a lot brewing on my heart. I'll give more on my trip and what's brewing in a few days because we're just about to jump into our normal monthly 3-day fast. But I just wanted to post this quickly...

If you haven't seen the new Prayer Room webstream, be sure to go check it out. It now has multiple "channels" in addition to the live 24/7 worship and prayer.

You can:

Be encouraged by fresh interviews and moving personal testimonies
Pray with us for your family, your friends, yourself
Take prayer requests for current events before the Throne of God
Check out life-changing teaching videos

Join thousands of Intercessors LIVE day or night. There's live streaming media, videos on demand, archives and more.

They're even offering a free trial until September 30th. Go check it out at http://theprayerroom.tv now!

God speaks

jhawkins — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:42:33 -0600

Yesterday I was meditating on and praying through Hebrews 1 with one of the worship teams here in the house of prayer. The whole chapter such an amazing passage, but I got “stuck” on the first two verses:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,”
(Hebrews 1:1-2 NKJV)

Those thirty words are full of spiritual gold directly from the heart of God, just waiting to be mined by the hungry hearer. I felt like I got yet another small glimpse into them yesterday. Let me tell you, there’s so much power on singing the Word of God, but that’s a subject for another post.

Even the first phrase, which you can sum up as “God speaks”, is a deep expression of His humility. Who is this God who actually opens His heart wide to speak and make Himself known to weak and broken human beings? God is not obliged to speak to men in any way, but it’s something He chose to do. He is so unlike us, yet He chooses to make Himself known by speaking to the ones He created. What is in His heart that He would do such a thing? Surely the accusation that He cannot be known or doesn’t want Himself to be known is a fabrication constructed by the enemy that men have believed from just about the beginning.

No man can accuse Him of being silent. His glory is not only displayed throughout creation (Romans 1:20), but has been heard by the prophets of old declaring His nature and His heart. This substantiates the bold declaration of the psalmist in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53:

“The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.””
(Psalms 14:1 NKJV)

But if speaking through creation and the prophets was not a great enough display of His humility, He sent His only Son to openly proclaim what He was like and how He really felt. In the incarnation, Jesus Christ perfectly declared His Father to us. The Father could not have screamed any louder about Himself than what He did in giving us His Son.

When we see Jesus, we see, hear, and understand exactly what God is like. How humble is our God? What is in His heart that He would long to make Himself known to that extent, such that His Son would become a human being forever?

As we see the bold declaration of His desire to be known and be heard, this enables us to live in confidence knowing that He does not withhold His heart from us. Amazing!

Justin Rizzo finally has a website

jhawkins — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:45:27 -0600

Justin and I have been going back and forth for a while now to get a simple and functional page up on his website, and I'm proud to say that it's finally done! He wanted to put something up before The Call this weekend.

Check out http://justinrizzo.com

On the Mall in DC...

jhawkins — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:01:21 -0600

Just a quick update - I'm here with Justin Rizzo we're sound checking today on the Mall at the Call DC. There's been lots of spiritual attack, situations out of control, issues going on back in KC, etc, so pray for us! The Lord is so good, and satan can't undo what will be done tomorrow in the Spirit at the 12-hour prayer meeting... But keep the team in prayer! Bless you!!!

The Call DC

jhawkins — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:47:49 -0600

In just a few days I’ll be on my way to Washington DC to participate in a very large prayer meeting. The Call DC, a prayer meeting being held this Saturday (8/16) on the Mall in DC, is a nationwide gathering of the body of Christ to ask the Lord for revival in the church and mercy on our nation.

“Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, O undesirable nation, Before the decree is issued, Or the day passes like chaff, Before the LORD’S fierce anger comes upon you, Before the day of the LORD’S anger comes upon you! Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, Who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the LORD’S anger.”
(Zephaniah 2:1-3 NKJV)

I’ll be attending with Justin Rizzo and our worship team, and we’ll be leading worship for some of the segments during the 12-hour prayer meeting.

If you're not able to attend, be sure to pray along with us on GodTV from 10am-10pm EST (DirecTV channel 365 or online at www.god.tv for free).

With new adult movies being produced every day, immorality and homosexuality at an all-time high, and unrighteousness abounding in our nation, we are ripe for the judgment of God. But I can’t imagine how the Father feels about a people who don’t want to be in agreement with darkness and are gathering to cry out for mercy. I want to enter this prayer meeting with the right mindset and heart posture. I’m not gathering with others to “twist God’s arm” as we yell and scream loud enough to get Him to move. That’s not what our Father is like. We’re simply appealing to His nature as a God of mercy to be who He is. I want to approach Him as my Father, not as if I’m an orphan without a home in His heart.

Our nation is in a massive downward spin, and as I’ve said in the past, the ultimate hope for our nation is not the "right" president or the "right" supreme court justice or the right laws. Wickedness will continue to increase, and while I believe the Lord wants us to have righteous men in government, our hope must be in the government of a Man named Jesus and a God that is full of desire to give us mercy if we would ask for it. As we ask Him for mercy, I believe with all my heart that He will send revival and awaken us to who He really is, as we prepare for His return.

Slave or son?

jhawkins — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:59:56 -0600

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been busy dealing with some nagging life issues and our 40-day fast is about to come to an end (FOOD! yum...) On this fast, I’ve been listening to some Jack Frost teachings lately, and he has provoked me to think about the heart posture and the attitude I take in my relationship to the Father. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably unknowingly dismissed the words "son or daughter of God" as cool language to use in a conversation or a teaching and imagined the Father as a bright and shining being somewhere “out there”, whom no one has seen and who the angels and the four living creatures bow before continually. But through some of the revelation that God has given Jack, I’ve begun to see our heavenly Father as someone much more.

Everything God created us for was so He could have a home with us. The Father desires His children to live with Him, enjoy Him, and bring pleasure to His heart. His heart and His home is a place of warmth, protection, comfort, security, and identity. It is a place of purpose and destiny, affirmation and encouragement. It is a place to run to.

I’ve been asking myself the question - do I run to this place? When we approach God, do we approach Him as a slave or an orphan or as a son or daughter? An orphan does not feel valued, cherished, or accepted, and only values the Father for what He can do for them. They don’t have faith to come to the Father on their own, just as they are. They see themselves as slaves, wishfully hoping to one day obtain a master’s approval of their service. But a son says “I’m valued, I’m honored, I belong, and I don’t have to perform to be loved and accepted. He loves me simply because I am His son.” They know that they don’t have to perform for the Father’s love and acceptance. They live confident in the home they can run to.

In John 14:2, Jesus told us that He is going to prepare a place for us, that where He is we would be also. He went away to prepare us a very real place in the Father’s home. But we don’t have to wait until later - through the Holy Spirit we can step into our position as sons and daughters, having closeness, familiarity, and intimacy with the Father now. There is a place in the Father’s heart where each one of us can hear “you are the one I love, in whom I’m well pleased” every day. Jesus, as a man, knew this place. He was confident in who He was as a son, and confident in who His Father was and how He felt about Him. Jesus was the man He was because of the Father He had, not because He was God. I want to become like Jesus was – confident in the affections of my Father towards me as His son.

But in order to come into this place of sonship with the Father, it takes the working of the Holy Spirit within us (Romans 8:15-17). We were born an orphan, but we were made alive with Christ and He has given us the right to be called children of God. Do we really understand what this means and do we really live knowing this truth? Do our actions, responses towards God, and heart posture towards others reflect a deep knowing of who we are as sons and daughters of God?

I think we’ve missed the simplicity of what we were created for and created to do – to receive love and give it away. People with an orphan heart are always envious of those with love and intimacy. There is nothing more natural in life than walking in the love God created us for. God’s great promise to us is that He will restore the broken ideas of fatherhood before He returns (Malachi 4:5-6). We need the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us as believers to give us living understanding of who we are to God. Lord, help us to see you rightly and to live as sons and daughters with a home!

I can't believe this went unowned for so long...

jhawkins — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:31:05 -0600

The domain name "intercessorymissionary.com" was up for grabs until just a few days ago, when yours truly picked it up for a mere $9 per year.

I was in total shock that nobody had purchased it up to this point. Maybe that's just the geek-meets-intercessor thing in me...

So for those of you who can't remember my name but do remember what I am and what I do, you can always go to:

http://intercessorymissionary.com

to reach my site.

Sweet!