In John 12 many of the followers of Jesus and the disciples heard a thunderous sound from heaven. At that point the heavens opened and the Father spoke in a loud audible way over Jesus: “I am going to glorify You!” This verse is a revelation of many things! It says that some heard the thunder and some heard the Father! In other words their perception filtered what they heard and who they heard! This is stunning! We live in a busy world and we are all busy people. There is so much to do nowadays just to earn enough money to live, yet we must take the time to be trained in the hearing the voice of our Father. As we do that, we find we are naturally overcoming the voice of anxiety, the voice of fear and the voice of intimidation. These voices are the relentless voices  we must overcome. God moves at a higher frequency. He is love and has a great plan for each of us. We must cultivate a listening ear as a big part of our spiritual life. We must sit with Him and learn to hear how He speaks and why He speaks and what He speaks. The Father speaks to our heart. He speaks words that are helpful, revelatory, creative, plans for the week, plans for the day, hopes, His heart and much much more. Beloved if we do not go into the secret place and shut the door we will just be listening to the voice of the enemy, others voices or the voice in our heads telling us what to do and what to think. Today is a great day to practice listening. Take your journal and stay in His word till you hear Him speak to you. Tune into the flow of the Holy Spirit. You will be freshly amazed at the practice of listening prayer!

Prayer and forgiveness are a dynamite duo and they are not just linked by virtue of what they are, but who they are. One is talking to God about many things that we desire or want. The other is an attitude of heart that determines whether God is going to answer the prayers you just prayed! They are inextricably linked and carry much weight in the Spirit!

In Matthew 6 Jesus teaches us how to pray and it’s here we receive the Lord’s Prayer, as it has been named, or the Our Father. This prayer of Jesus is stunning, because Jesus links it to forgiveness at the end of this in verses 14 and 15. “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Prayer and forgiveness are a dynamite duo and they are not just linked by virtue of what they are, but who they are. One is talking to God about many things that we desire or want. The other is an attitude of heart that determines whether God is going to answer the prayers you just prayed! They are inextricably linked. Forgiveness is a powerful manifestation of love. It is an indicator of maturity, obedience, and more! But the big thing that is highlighted in this message, is that our ability to flow in forgiveness is linked to our prayers not being hindered and our lives being radically blessed. Forgiveness is a life skill, and is based on a spiritual principle that if we sow we will reap. Henry Wright says: “our forgiveness from God the Father begins vertically, to the degree that we make it work horizontally.” Again in John 20:23 Jesus takes this further by linking us as family in the culture of forgiveness! “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven, if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven!” Beloved, if we retain or hold on to judgements towards others, we will find that our sin is a stumbling block to their healing! How can that be? Because we are one in the Spirit! your healing and my healing are linked! We are a body of believers and our hearts are one. So let us go on to maturity, let us learn the deeper end of the pool of love and forgiveness and let us learn and re-learn how to be a people of the heart who keep no record of wrongs, no lists of grievances, no book of debts and no remembrance of the hurts. Keep letting it all go!

We can find many incredible examples and promises throughout the bible of the power of God’s Word and ways in which people were used by the Lord to release his word in order to bring breakthrough into impossible situations. In the New Testament Paul wrote to the Ephesians exhorting them to take the sword of the Spirit which is the “Word” of God and to pray. In the Old Testament God told Moses to "speak to the rock" so that its water would be released. As we take hold of the word of God over our lives, we are able to speak to different situations in our lives and in the world around us and release the promise, provision and breakthrough of the Lord into seemingly impossible situations. This is part of our mandate and inheritance as children of God.

In today’s live stream and podcast, Serena Gallagher unpacks Isaiah 60:1-7 as a template for having hope. Through this teaching, Serena opens up a revelation of how knowing the truth of God’s character and His Word is then knowing God’s goodness in the midst of any darkness that might surround. For that to be a consistent change agent in our lives, we need templates. A template is an example that is useful in knowing what something should look like or how it works. Good teachers will always provide their students with a template for them to look to, to gain further understanding on a particular topic. God is the most masterful teacher, who has always provided templates for us to see what the Kingdom looks like. For example, His creation is a template. An Old testament example of a template is the story of Abraham and Isaac. In this story we see the gospel narrative. The Father sacrifices His only son for the sake of the world, or in this case in a model of obedience. Jesus used parables as templates to teach us in the New Testament. As “God students” we need to see a model for Kingdom life, so we know what the template is. In the prophetic book of Isaiah we see not only the mandate for Kingdom life, but Kingdom hope. Friends, we can have confident hope that God’s dwelling place will have fruit that will cause our hearts to throb and swell with joy regardless of what is happening.

The Isaiah mandate is the call to live the exchanged life in Christ. It is also the call to Kingdom ministry that Jesus inaugurated in Luke 4. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us to break the power of sin, trauma, shame and even our bad choices or sinful patterns. Kingdom ministry is prayer ministry, and it’s meant to be our normal everyday prayer life! Shame is an internal response and narrative to our sin and failure. All humans suffer from it, as it’s basically the human condition. It is also a toxic and unhealthy response (emotion), to this flawed state of being, and causes us to hide and avoid. The bottom line is that shame says, “I am bad,” however, that narrative is not true! The truth is “I did bad” and now I need to be healed and washed clean! It’s a relief that the powerful message of a “shame-free culture” is getting out there. Shame needs definition. If we say that “all bad feelings” are the same as shame, then that does away with the powerful need for conviction and guilt, which help us come to a Godly repentance. A “feel good” culture has no place for bad feelings like repentance, and will cause us to slip into false grace, away from discipleship and ultimately Lordship. God uses our shortcomings to bring us to repentance. It’s then we experience sonship! Knowing I am loved, worthy of His grace and that I cannot be separated from Him because of that love is a phenomenal freedom. Coming into right relationship with God is everything. He loves us and is calling us to live as His adopted kids – filled with His love and grace, able to discern shame and step away from it to the fullness of a double portion.

Isaiah 61 is the call to the live the exchanged life. Jesus came up out of the wilderness in Luke 4 and declared this at the beginning of His ministry. He commissioned us to be a redeemed people who shine because we are healed in our hearts to carry His presence. In verse three of this chapter, we read that we are to have the “oil of joy for mourning.” Beloved, it’s a season of stepping into a greater anointing of joy. We acknowledge the radical suffering going on world-wide, but without joy, we will not have strength to overcome and be part of His healing team! Instead we will wither and die. There is a Spirit joy that is violent. It is overwhelming and completely not of this world. It’s the heavenly joy of Jesus and it’s time for the church to be anointed again with this joy. Joy will heal you. Joy will fill you. Joy will make you feel well and able to do all that He has called you to. Sorrow may last for a night but His joy is coming!! It’s time to plan for a joyful response as we walk through the calamity and suffering of this world. We are not able to control the next thing that goes on. You can’t stop the trauma, the loss, the pain, the grief, and suffering. It’s all around us. But we can control how we respond to the tribulations that are upon us. He is calling us up. He is asking us to pray and be anointed afresh with new joy and new hope and new life. Don’t despair. Pray. Don’t give up. Pray. Don’t look around you and try and figure it all out. Instead pray and keep on praying and joy will be our outcome. We are a people marked by Heaven. And Heaven is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. I pray you hand over your pain today and let the new joy touch you and fill you!

We are in a unique season and therefore it requires unique responses. I believe the Father is giving keys on how to position our hearts to overcome in this time! It’s not a time to be passive but strong. It’s not a time to burn out - but burn on! It’s not a time to quit but keep going. Keep praying! Keep building the House for His glory and being filled with His grace. In time, the fruit of this season will be evident. Are you in training alongside Jesus to reign over all the enemies plans? There are 10 key areas I believe the Lord is giving keys in during this unique time! 1. Relay your covenant relationship foundations with Him- intimacy and first love anointing. 2. Passing your fruit inspections – eg your love tests and battles. 3. Go through the gates and thresholds God has for you in this season. 4. Invest into the prayer movement – the House of Prayer. 5. Receive fresh intel from Heaven – not from the world. 6. Overcome the fear and intimidation manifesting as conspiracies and "hear say". 7. Sit under the Spirit of Wisdom and of Revelation. 8. Get Healed from past wounds, traumas etc. 9. Pick up your prayer assignments and align yourself to His plans. 10. Position your heart for fresh Waves of Grace and Glory as persecutions and troubles increase in the earth

As we journey with the Lord we grow to realise that there is an ongoing work of healing and restoration that He is doing all of our hearts. As we walk this out over time, we see that this is not only a work of healing but also a work of preparation that is unfolding within us for the sake of the world around us. In this word Rosie looks at the life of Nehemiah and the role that prayer played in preparing him to step into the mandate on his life to repair and restore the walls of Jerusalem.