Gillian Cruickshank
God is doing a new thing and He is on the move. We are at a time of awakening and there
is a quiet revival going on, which has started with gen z in the cities. They believe we are in a Kyros
moment. They talked about it being like the cloud on the horizon in 1 Kings 18:44, the cloud is a long way off
but it is coming and will get bigger. God’s move has started and the momentum of it will increase bringing
more and more people to faith. However, we have to do our part, so that we can come alongside new
believers and disciple them.
This is a time of prayer being vital not just for unity in the church but also to contend for our nation. Our
prayers need to be earnest, starting with repentance, not only personally but also on behalf of the church
and the nation.
They recognised that many Christians need to “Stop acting Christianity, stop simulating fire and seek the true
fire of God”. To not be embarrassed by the Holy Spirit as this grieves Him.
We need the fear of the Lord so that we care more about what God says and wants than what man says and
wants. We must not have the fear of man as this holds us back and limits what God does through us.
What you fear, you will worship, serve and become like.
A lot of what was shared and taught with us will be familiar and we’re already doing and some of it is a
challenge but worth considering and I believe is worth sharing with the St John’s family.
A prophetic word was given for the UK:
We are far from God and need to return to Him.
The hope of this nation is on a people returning to God, worshiping and honouring Him.
The presence of God is the solution to our nation’s problems.
In David’s time, the focus of the nation was on worshiping, honouring and revering God, this
resulted in a prosperous, powerful nation. So, prosperity comes hand in hand with a nation who
focuses on God.
The primary call on the church today is worship.
When we put Jesus first, worshiping Him, the church will not be big enough to house everyone being
saved.
As the people of God, we have to be ready, are we?
It is the presence of God that will change this nation.
God will do this revival in a way that we cannot predict so that there is no doubt that it is God doing it.
This is a time for the church to wake up
Awakening starts in our hearts.
We have to take responsibility and have a desire to wake up.
None of us are fully spiritually awake but Jesus meets us in our spiritual sleep.
Are we focusing on Jesus? He likes to partner with us.
God wants us to join in with what He’s doing. It’s an adventure.
He wants us to be His hands, feet and mouth.
Pray for His kingdom to come now on earth as it is in heaven.
Persevere in prayer.
Pray in faith that the church will wake up and the country will become Godly again.
Pray from our gut with deep heartfelt desire.
Remember, we are made for more, more of His presence, healing, kindness, grace, mercy, authority
and power.
As individuals and the church, we rarely embrace all that God has and desires for us and live as
empowered sons and daughters of God.
When God calls, he requires us to obey and move.
We don’t have to feel lethargic in our relationship or faith in Jesus.
Is the way we live our Christian life dangerous to the enemy? If not, why not?
We need to be brave, take a risk, step out of our comfort zones and trust God to lead us, teach us,
protect us and provide for us.
God wants us to hear from Him, listen to Him and speak on His behalf.
It can mean facing fear, taking a risk, feeling awkward and that’s what the enemy wants us to feel
because then he can stop us from stepping into all that God has for us.
Establishing a Culture of Prayer in Our Churches
Have a time of repentance prayer to get us right with God.
Have a reset time of prayer where we seek God’s plan and His strategies.
Bring the intercessors and prophetic people into the heart of the church and prayer meetings.
Prayer must be at the centre of what we’re doing in church.
Take the prayer meeting out of the church and prayer walk round the local streets.
Promote joint prayer gatherings with other local churches to pray for the local area and the country.
Try to have prayer and worship together.
Try 60 seconds of passionate, focused prayer for the church, for people to wake up, for the
surrounding area, for the country, etc. during the church service.
Make prayer fun, make a prayer plane. Write a prayer on a piece of paper, make it into an
aeroplane, throw it, then pick up another one, read it, pray for what’s written on it and make it into
a plane again within 60 seconds, throw it, picking up another one and so on.
This is a time for preparation, we are not ready, the preparation work needs to be done in our hearts so
that they are open and receptive to what God is doing. We do this by fuelling in us and each other a holy
longing:
To be in God’s presence
To seek and trust God in the middle of our messy, challenging and tough times.
To develop a longing for God over and above anything else, even when it’s really hard.
To have a hunger and desire to spread the good news. 2 Corinthians 5:14, Christs love compels us.
To recognise that we do has eternal consequences.
To realise that Jesus doesn’t need us to get busy, He needs us to get close to Him.
To understand that every area we don’t give over to Jesus and Love, eventually sedates us in that
area.
God wants to awaken in us a childlike fascination in Him. If we are living a boring Christian life, we
are doing it wrong.
God wants to wake us up so that we are hungry for Him.
It’s not always comfortable to do the things God asks us to do.
We are called to bear fruit, as a result, people should see something different in us and want what
we have.
Jesus wants us to look forward but many Christians look to and focus on the past, maybe due to
words spoken over us or actions done to us. It’s like being in a car and instead of looking through the
large windscreen in front of us, we’re looking back through the small rear facing mirror.
We need to get our hearts right with Jesus. Our hearts are the temple where the Holy Spirit resides,
Psalm 51:10, John 15:7-10, John 4:14.
We need God to refresh, reorientate us and fill us with fire.
The task of the church now is to proclaim Jesus.
We need to take responsibility for our own growth and walk with God by looking inwards and also
perusing God, drawing closer to Him as we do this.
God is calling his church to a place of intimacy. He wants all of our attention and lives, not a bit of us
but 100% from each of us so that we are focused on what God wants, not what we want. Then we
will be united in what we are doing for Him.
There is an urgency to this call to intimacy.
Our sin is a barrier to the presence of God; we need to deal with it.
We cannot become what we need to be by remaining who we are.
We need to know our identity as priests and Kings.
We have the authority to forbid what on earth is forbidden in heaven and loose on earth what is
loosed in heaven but the church has not been doing this and certainly not in any authority.
We need to wake up to who we are. When we know who we are and who we belong to, we can do
great things for the Lord.
We need to get to the place where we accept that God can do anything.
Our primary ministry is to the Lord. We get it wrong when we minister to other people, putting them
before Him.
People need to lower the drawbridge and let God in. Many people come to church where God is
present and don’t meet with Him. What can we do to correct this?
Be God conscious when He is in the room, not self-conscious.
There should not be a week in your life where someone doesn’t place a hand on you and call on the
Holy Spirit. We need God’s living water flowing into and through us.
Worship, prayer and revival go together and flow from our heart attitude.
As we worship and pray, we ascend to God, so it is good to deal with our sin beforehand.
Now is the time to pray, God wants intercessors and watch men and women to pray and stand in the
gap.
God has limited his action to our committed prayers. He is looking for people to partner with Him to
bring His plans to pass.
We are God’s delegated authority wherever He has put us.
It’s important in our busy lives to make time for solitude and silence so that we are able to hear from
God, connect better with Him and ourselves. Even Jesus needed solitude and time with God.
Discipleship:
Definition – someone who worships Jesus in all of life, is being changed by Him, learning to submit all
of our life to the empowering presence and Lordship of Jesus.
Discipleship is doing what God tells us. He has given us the authority and power to exert His
authority and power on earth. We are His ambassadors.
The mission of God – a people for himself, growing up to become like Christ (done in us), and going
out, taking what we have learnt and sharing it with others (done through us).
We’re not just discipling people out of sin but into mission (to witness to Jesus’ goodness and make
other disciples).
It takes a gospel community to form a gospel person.
Discipleship is about intentional friendship.
We need spiritual parents and grandparents to come alongside and disciple the younger generation.
We need all hands-on deck to be ready for God’s move and the people He’ll send to our churches.
We need to obey God’s commands. So much would change if we became as biblically obedient as we
are biblically literate.
We need to maintain faith in God’s leading, trusting Him so that we don’t conform to society.
People need to be transformed into a different reality in church. It’s okay for church to be
weird/different to elsewhere, to not be wishy-washy, complacent or conform to religiosity.
We need to be different enough to make people attracted to us as people and the church. A place
where we care, love, give and grow together. A place of community.
We are being called to step out of our comfort zone and take risks for God’s glory, for unless we take
risks for God, we are not living by faith but only by sight.
We need to make sure we are becoming more Christ like, taking responsibility for our own
discipleship, then we will be in a good position to disciple new believers.
Growing In Godliness
God calls us to be Holy, righteous and Godly, to become like Jesus, who God sent to become like us.
In the process of becoming more like Jesus, we become more like us.
Change is possible when we are willing to change.
We don’t need to strive but we do need to put effort into changing.
Growth and change take time
When we bring light to those things we want to leave hidden, we can be freed.
Without growth, we can be stuck.
It’s important not to despair or get despondent when we don’t see growth but to ask Jesus to break
any guilt.
Growth takes time and can be challenging but there are plenty of resources to help us. It’s good to
have people who will journey with us, encouraging, challenging and loving us through the process.
It is good to confront, challenge, deal with and let go of the thoughts, beliefs and behaviours and sin
that stunt our growth.
When we observe and recognise them, bring them out in the open and to Jesus, recognising why we
think or behave the way we do, we can confess it to Jesus and ask Him to help us reduce the time
between realisation and confession and keep repeating the process and notice our progress.
Spiritual Warfare
Pray and wake the church up to the fact that we are in a spiritual war.
The enemy is good at sending us to sleep, getting in our way, condemning us and interrupting or
stopping God’s work in and through us.
He is after the church, us, our leaders and our nation.
Knowing the enemy’s traps and tactics he uses against us helps – condemnation, doubt, fear,
confusion, believing lies, being offended, unhealed hurt, anger unforgiveness, temptation,
unconfessed sin, love of money power, lust, some illnesses, pride, prejudices, resentment, negative
attitudes, anti-God thoughts, and indifference.
In order to counteract these trap’s, we need to understand the authority we have through Jesus and
the victory we have through Him. (Luke 10:19 Jesus says “Behold, I have given you authority to
trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm
you).
Use our God given authority and weapons: recognition, confession, repentance, forgiveness,
breaking agreements with ungodly thoughts, rebuking and rejecting them, blessing Godly ties, binding any demonic assignments over a brother or sister and asking the Holy Spirit to fill a person and
revoking curses, all in the name of Jesus.
It’s important to put on the Armour of God each day. (Ephesians 6: 10-18)
We break the enemy’s attacks by knowing our identity, clothing ourselves with Christ and being
intimate with Him.
Pray in the positive and ask God to help us.
We have spiritual authority over our families, job and anything else God has given us.
Remember, He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)
God is obsessed with rescuing us and the world. He is on the move in this country and He wants
us to participate with Him in what He’s doing.