All Fruitfulness Flows from Intimacy

This book is for You, Lord. Our work is for You. We live for You. We’re here for You. We have no reason to live without You.

Let Him love you. It’s so much simpler than we thought. It’s time to be transformed by His love so that there is no fear in you. Be wrecked for everything but His presence. Be so utterly abandoned in His love.

God in His glory will pour and pour His presence into people to the degree that entire nations will be transformed. He will pour His love out like a river, like an ocean. Let Him kiss you with the kisses of His mouth.

It’s time to lie down and let God be God. He is mighty, and nothing is impossible with Him. He wants to kiss His Church, and transform you with His love.

We are called to be carriers of His glory. It’s not about standing up and being an eloquent speaker. It’s about being so close to the heart of God that you know what He’s thinking. Then you’re not afraid to go anywhere and say anything. The Lord Himself will do anything for radical lovers. He captivates us so that we can never go back. He wants to shatter your box. Often your God is still too small. It’s His time for whole nations.

Lie down so that He can trust you with everyone. Then when you get up there is revival - when whole nations come to Him, falling on their faces. He changes us with one glance of His eyes, so that we are not afraid to be completely abandoned in His arms. Many want lots of power and anointing, but when you just lie down and let Him kill you, it’s a good thing. He wants to love you to death.

We are finally realizing that we have failed and that we cannot bring about the kind of revival this world needs. In the secret place of Your heart, Jesus, we will rest. We will lie down. We will listen, until You tell us to stand up. When You tell us to stand up, we know that nations will come to You.

He’s looking for union, not occasional worship, so that our nature is transformed. We must walk in His nature, and we must die daily.

Some people say, “Just get a grip. We’ve already done that.” But it’s a daily thing, a continual laying down. All fruitfulness flows from intimacy. There’s no other place to get it. To the degree that we are united with the heart of Jesus, God will bring fruit in our lives. To the degree that you are in love with Him, you will be fruitful. I (Heidi) don’t know anything else. I’m so desperate to stay in this place of abandonment. From this place nothing is impossible. I only have one message, passion and compassion. We’re passionate lovers of God, so that we become absolutely nothing. His love fills us. When it’s time to stand up, God stands up with us. We focus on His face, never on our ministry, anointing or numbers.

All I want to do is love God and care for His people. I find them in the garbage, under trees, dying of AIDS. I’m just really simple. Jesus said, “Just look into My eyes,” and everything completely changed. His eyes are filled with love and passion, and compassion. Jesus always stops for the dying man, the dying woman and the dying child. That’s all I know, passion and compassion. He calls me to love every single person I see every single day. There are so many tired Christians and burned out ministers. Go, go, work, work, rah, rah. Oh forget it. Why? We don’t bear much fruit running around like that. But when you’re filled with His passion, fruit happens.

Just focus on His face. You will only make it to the end if you can focus on His face. Focus on His beautiful face. You can’t feed the poor, you can’t go to the street, you can’t see anything happen unless you see His face. One glance of His eyes, and we have all it takes to lie down. We’re not afraid to die.

We give our offerings, but our offering is going to have to be us. We have to say, “Go ahead. Take me. Take everything.” The deal is, you have to see His face. You have to be completely wrecked by His love, so that you will hilariously give your life away. You start to love the people you didn’t think you could ever love, even the mean ones. But you have to see His face.

Since that time I saw His face, a nation is coming to Jesus. We have to see Him in His glory, mercy, beauty and love. And then we need to see Him in the poor, in the least of these.

But we can’t make revival happen. I know about all that forty-day fasting stuff. I used to do it so I could pray in revival. Now I do it just so I can be hungry for God. I do it so I can be more poor and desperately hungry, and so I can relate to the hunger of a lost and dying world. I do it so I feel their pain and their suffering when I live with them in tents and refugee camps. It’s a whole different place, you see. I can’t go back.

We need to be in that place. We’re prisoners of love. Some people say, “Oh, how noble. You’re a missionary.” I’m just a prisoner of love. I don’t have any choice. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory. The whole thing. Every part of it. Even as babies die in my arms, there is this incredible joy in my spirit, because they died being loved. They went straight from our love and the love of our precious workers from all over the world, and all the Mozambicans, hundreds of them, and they go right into the hands of Jesus. And He just keeps on loving them, even more than we could. That’s joy. That’s victory.

One week eight of our precious ones died. I was really tired. I don’t understand. I love them so much. Why? It was just one after another. What do I do? Jesus said, “Either way, you win, because you loved them to life.” I got just a glimpse of the eternal. I got a picture of His arms opening wide to receive those babies, and those teenagers and those pastors, and I said, “Wow, just take me! I am so ready!” I so want to be there, because I’ve seen His face. One glance of His eyes and you’re wrecked forever.

His call is for all of our lives. He calls each of us to be an extravagant, hilarious love offering to Jesus. That’s the place where I believe the glory comes. This glory of His presence that we are so desperate for, that we so need, that we’re so crying out for, that we’re so longing for, that we sing about, comes as we hilariously, totally and completely give away our entire being before Him. We are the sacrifices He ignites with His love, and His presence just falls. He just comes. He is looking for people who will carry His glory. He really, really is. But you have to be dead in order to carry it. And when you carry the glory, you will carry it out to the poor, and to the broken, the dying and the lost. You will. That’s the call. That’s the heartbeat of Jesus, that we carry Him out to the broken. But you can’t carry Him until you’ve seen His face. You have to know that holy place.

You go from the place where you say, “Oh, God. I’ll write a check, but just don’t make me go to Africa. Please, oh God, don’t make me sit in the dump. I’ll love to write a check. Here it is. It’s a lot. Just don’t make me go there. I don’t like bugs” to where you just say, “Oh, God, here I am. Take me anywhere. Take me, use me, break me, bruise me if need be, pour me out, fill me up, here I am. I’m an offering. I’m it. I’m the offering. Take me. Pick me up with Your glory, and let me be a carrier of Your presence into the darkness. I know You love me, God, because I’ve seen Your face.”

God wants to do signs and wonders like we’ve never seen, but we have to see His face. We have to see what He sees and feel what He feels. Otherwise it’s dangerous and frightening.

He can only release His power and anointing to those who will lie down, who will say, “Only You,” and stay that way every single day.

The only reason I even think of getting on more airplanes is that God spoke to me and said, “Tell the Church it’s time to wake up!” So wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, Church!

This new army doesn’t get tired. You know why? They know how to lie down in His presence. They know how to rest in His arms. They know how to lay their heads on His chest and listen to His huge heart. They weep with Him over the dying, the crying, the broken, the abused and the lost. Do you really think you can work hard and start a revival? Just run out there and get them? Sorry. You can’t. But when Jesus shows His face and He breathes life into the dry, dry, bony Church, and that Church stands up full of His presence, carrying His glory, nobody can resist any more!

I had a Technicolor vision in December of 2001 in the living room of our good friends John and Carol Arnott. I saw the whole earth encircled with chariots of fire, thousands and thousands of them. In them were the saints of God, two by two. Their bodies were transparent. Nothing was hidden. The riders had huge hearts, filling their chests from shoulder to shoulder, and I could see them beating. They held up gleaming, golden swords in their hands. Two white horses led each chariot. All the reins to the horses were gathered together and went straight up to heaven where I saw the Lord holding them with His left hand. The Lord held His right hand high, and brought it forward and down with a loud cry, “Now!” The chariots began to take off, galloping across the earth. They were chariots of fire, the chariots of God carrying the glory of the Lord. Wherever the chariots went, the fire went.

At some places on the earth the people said, “No, we don’t want the Lord.” And in those places I saw the most hideous, disgusting darkness and depravity ever imaginable. But wherever the people responded to the presence of the Lord, the light became brighter and the ground became ablaze with fire. I saw that the sword is both mercy and judgment for those who receive and reject. I don’t like judgment and never liked to preach judgment, but I’ve received the vision. There is judgment!

The Lord said that His glory will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea, and that this revival which began in the late 1990s will be known not for manifestations, but for intimacy unto harvest. The Lord asked, “Who will carry my glory to the ends of the earth and not touch it? Who will ride in my chariots of fire? Who will release complete control into my hands and let me hold the reins? The time is now! The harvest is now! It’s time to reap!”

After that vision I felt extremely happy, thrilled, excited - and sad and miserable at the same time. I would have to start leaving my Zimpeto children and the streets of Maputo. Since that time we’ve been traveling to many nations preaching the gospel and ministering in signs and wonders, and can only spend a third of our time at home in southern Mozambique.

And since that vision our churches jumped in number from two thousand to over five thousand between December 2001 and August 2002. We’ve been hungering for this revival our whole lives. We don’t understand why God would choose us to be a part of it. We’re humbled and amazed. Signs and wonders keep increasing.

One of our favorite and most memorable meetings was held in late October of 2001 in Dondo, central Mozambique. Marc Dupont prophesied about the endtime revival to the poor spreading from the West and covering the entire earth. We felt the glory of the Lord moving upon our property. We had no buildings or carpets. Our faces were in the dirt. Marc couldn’t see because the glory was so bright, so I crawled up to the platform. I was unable to stand because the weight of His glory was so heavy. I welcomed the Holy Spirit to do whatever He wanted. Nearly everyone fell to the ground. No one had touched them. The first person we prayed for was blind and deaf - and instantly healed. Demon spirits were cast out. No human effort was involved. Little children were on their backs or faces, waving their arms, crying or smiling, lost in visions and the things of God. It was an incredible, unforgettable time. After that the people got up so in love with the Lord and full of Jesus and His goodness that they ran out and planted hundreds more churches.

The harvest is so ripe that we don’t know how to train leaders fast enough. Recently we landed on an old, abandoned airstrip near Mutarara on the Zambezi River. Our team hadn’t arrived yet by road, so instead of sitting miserably in the dirt we set up our sound system and ministered to the crowd that gathered around our strange flying machine. We started our service with lots of singing and dancing. Tom Jones and I preached. The Lord began to heal people and we planted a church right then and there. The next morning we went back to minister to the new Christians. We asked the Holy Spirit to come to these men, women and children, and they were so easily filled. They have no resistance to the gospel. We laid hands on them and one by one they spoke in tongues. One of their men is going to our Bible school in Dondo and will pastor that group. We’ve never been in a time like this. We are seeing what our hearts have cried out for all these years.

Pastor José, our provincial pastor in Maputo, told us his mother had been praying for revival for many, many years. He remembers hearing her cry for revival since he was a tiny little boy. She told him that before she died all she wanted was to see revival in Mozambique, and her son being married. When we married José and Linda one Sunday, his mother said, “Now I can go home to be with Jesus. I’ve seen the revival I’ve prayed for all these years, and I’ve seen my son married in the church.” A week later she went to be with Jesus.

He’s calling out radical servant lovers. He’s breathing His life into His sleeping Church. His lovers will carry His presence, and the hungry won’t resist any more.

source.

Thank you Christina for sharing…

The Question that Changed My Life.

by, David Ryser 

 A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: 
  Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise. Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old—barely out of diapers—and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, “An enterprise. That’s a business.” After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha’s raised hand, “Yes, Martha.” She asked such a simple question, “A business? But isn’t it supposed to be a body?” I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, “Yes.” She continued, “But when a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?”
 
  The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that.” I didn’t dare express that thought aloud. God had taken over the class.
 
  Martha’s question changed my life. For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. “When a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?” There is only one answer to her question. The answer is “Yes.” The American Church, tragically, is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we love Him? We don’t even know Him; and I mean really know Him.
 
  … I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not know God—much less love Him. The root of this condition originates in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him for His money, and we don’t care if He lives or dies as long as we can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business, merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ—that’s pretty intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love someone we don’t even know? And even if we do know someone, is that a guarantee that we truly love them? Are we lovers or prostitutes?
 
  I was pondering Martha’s question again one day, and considered the question, “What’s the difference between a lover and a prostitute?”  I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay. Then I asked the question, “What would happen if God stopped paying me?”
 
  For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He never did another thing for me?Would I still love Him? Please understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any conditions? It took several months to work through these questions. Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by my attitude and behavior. I still catch myself being disappointed with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved, but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God.
 
  So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute? There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no substitute or unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.
 
Dr. David Ryser.