Thanks for your comments, Mary. I believe God is in the process of purifying His church, and part of this involves large number of believers developing a hunger for the deeper things of God. Someone said yesterday at the church service we attended that as people hunger for God, denominational differences become trivial. I can tell you in addition to my own background of being raised in a Methodist church, and having been a member for years at a conservative Baptist church, we now attend a Pentecostal church, and yet I've never spoken in tongues, and have never received a specific "baptism of the Spirit," but I do acknowledge the truth of a "second blessing" and see it in the prayers of Paul in Eph. 1 and 3. Therein, Paul commends the Ephesians for their growth and love for one another and for all the saints, but he urges them on to discover the "height, length, breadth, and depth" of the love of Christ -- in other words, to go beyond what they had experienced so far in their Christian lives and move on to a deeper experience of Christ. We left the Baptist church we were attending because it is not a place where the centrality of Christ is preached from the pulpit, nor where prayer is encouraged. My wife and I determined to find a church where Christ is the center of all its ministries -- where Christ in all of His sufficiency is depended upon -- and where everything is bathed in prayer. It looks like this Pentecostal church is the place. (BTW, we found this church after visiting other churches over the course of a year. You'd be shocked to realize how many Christian churches do not preach Christ, but a kind of self-dependence and self-sufficiency.)
I'm familiar with those you mentioned in your previous post -- Dutch Sheets, Rick Joyner, Cindy Jacobs, and the others. We've read books by all of them. My wife and I pray with another couple each week for our national leaders, particularly for President Bush, for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the war on terror, for God's opening up of the nation of Iraq, for our nation to rise and see the big picture, and so forth. We have become convinced that we need to be praying more often for these things, so we added a second evening a week to our prayer times.
I am saddened that more Christians we know do not involve themselves in prayer for our leaders and the nation (but, then, most of our Christian friends are still back at our former church where spiritual mediocrity reigns). But we are not discouraged. I view the intercessors that God is pulling together for the spiritual battles now being waged as "special ops" -- specifically trained for a special purpose and focus. Their effectiveness is not determined by their numbers. I know that God is in the effort because if we were to have depended upon our own strength and determination, our prayer times would have fallen by the wayside years ago (we just past our third-year anniversary praying weekly for the nation and our leaders).
So, I believe in a specific gift, calling, and anointing for intercession, because my wife and I, and the other couple we meet with, have all experienced it. This is our calling, and I would not place it or expect it of anyone else. But I'm as sure about this calling as I am about anything else in my life.
I recently set up a discussion group on Yahoo where the members are essentially myself, my wife, and the other couple (we've picked up someone else along the way), in which I post items for all of us to consider as we move forward into this next election year. You're certainly welcomed to become a member, and to participate as much as you'd like, or simply to receive the posts I put up there. I'm calling the site the "Presidential Prayer Team," and so far the actual PPT hasn't reprimanded me for taking its name (but I am a member and supporter of the PPT, so I feel justified in borrowing the title for the discussion group -- we're all part of the same ministry, I believe). The group site is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/presidentialprayerteam/ . Feel free to join, or to invite others.
Thanks for the great message. I do believe God is calling us to experience intimacy with Him through prayer, scripture, just spending time in His presence. He's looking for purity, holiness, obedience--the whole nine yards! We've all been guilty of 'playing church' and virtually ignoring God and His commands. No wonder the church is in such a state today. We can't just do the same old same old, especially after 911. Intercessors can reveal what's going on and thwart the enemy's plans. When we don't spend time with Him, we not only cheat ourselves, but we cheat our nation. God's not done with us yet. He made American great because it was founded on Christian principles. We have been a friend to Israel and we must continue to do so. To do otherwise is to invite disaster to our beloved shores. We are in the spiritual battle of our lives.
I can empathize with your search for a Christ-centered church. I, too, was a Methodist for many years, then a conservative Baptist. It's not that I didn't learn anything from them, because I did, but I wanted to go deeper in the things of the Spirit myself. The church we go to now is pentecostal but not wildly so. Some speak in tongues, some don't. Some raise their hands to worship, others don't. Everyone is at a different place in their walk with God. Nobody looks around to see who is doing what. I like that.
I'll check out your site at some point. Thanks! Love, Maryxxxx