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Why do they hate Him?
I really do want to know. And I do not want a Sunday school answer.
It happens night after night, week after week, year after year. And it never ceases to perplex me. Perplex is not the word I am looking for. Perhaps astonish.. But then I go through a gamut of feelings each time I see it. Sometimes it’s grief, other times, desperation.
I am preaching on the street. A crowd of 50 have stopped to listen.
I talk to them about the reality of our death. They just stand there and listen.
I expound in detail the sins we live in and that we’ve broken God’s laws. They just stand their and listen.
I tell them we will stand before God on judgement day and we will be guilty. They just stand there and listen.
I tell them about the lake of fire in detail where the guilty will spend eternity. They just stand there and listen.
I tell them that God does not want that to happen. He wants to forgive us, and restore our relationship with Him and open the gates of heaven for us. They just stand there and listen.
So I have GOOD NEWS for you tonight! God has provided a WAY. They just stand there with their mouths half open, holding the hands of their children, riveted on what I am saying. Then I say…
“JESUS CHRIST….”
BAM!!! It happens in an instant. Suddenly eyes roll back in the heads, arms flail, curses spew from their mouths, kids are yanked away, backs are turned, people begin to flee and I am left with 10.
Why do they hate Him?
The Perfect Man clothes Himself with THEIR sin and drinks the cup of Gods wrath so THEY don’t have too. Jesus died, so THEY could live. He offers to forgive THEIR sin and to make THEM righteousness. He wants to declare THEM not guilty on that day. He offers to write THEIR name in the book of life so He can spend eternity with THEM.
If they would just repent and believe! And they turn their back and walk away. I just want to know…
Why do they hate Him?
And when you pray… (Part 2)
There are times that we have the attitude “I have to pray because if I don’t then I won’t have any power for evangelism. Wrong focus. The focus of our prayer is Jesus- fellowship with the Holy Spirit, getting to know the Father. It is being with Him. Lingering in His presence. You see if you have Jesus, you need nothing else. If you know Him, you will have no need to know much else. If you have Jesus, you automatically have power for evangelism. You will have the anointing, you will have the gifts of the Spirit flowing through you, you will preach with authority, you will demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit. All you need is Him.
What happens when you spend time with God?
Your eyes will become accustomed to the storeroom and you will begin to see things that you have never seen before. That is called revelation. It is when the Spirit shines light on truth and you “see” it. Once you have revelation it becomes yours. You own it. That is what you preach on the street. That is what you share in personal evangelism. These are the nuggets of truth that you can give away during the day when you are out and about. You will be able to speak into people’s life because you actually have something to give. You can enter into the storehouse, slip into the Jacuzzi, and wait in the presence of the Lord. “Lord, you know what I need today, so here I am to receive whatever you have for me.”
You begin to feel God’s heart. This is so valuable. People ask how to get a burden for souls. The more time you spend in His presence, the more you pray for the salvation of the lost, the more he begins to share with you how He feels about them. Again, it is revelation. I would insert a warning here- it is not a pleasant thing to be broken for souls. When eternity becomes real to you, when heaven and hell is something you think about every day, it hurts to be with lost people. When they flail their arms and walk away as you preach about Jesus and the cross, it breaks your heart because you know. You know the consequences of their rejection. It is a valuable thing that God would share his heart with you. You will preach with more passion and more authority- tears will become a part of your sharing the Gospel.
You become sensitive to His voice. Spending time with the Lord sensitizes you to his voice. The more time you spend, the more accustomed you are to recognizing his voice. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Jn. 10:27 And when you obey his voice, things happen.
You learn how to spend TIME. Five minutes with Jesus can’t be our mentality. I remember as a new Christian reading the books by E.M. Bounds and wondering how in the world people could spend 2 or more hours with God every day. I thought it was a special calling for a chosen few. But one can learn. When you have been into the storehouse and lingered with the Lord, truth be told, you want to be there often and for long periods of time. Let me emphasize that it is something you learn. I am not talking about a legalistic HAVE to spend ex amount of time with Jesus, attitude. He wants to spend time with you, more than you want to spend time with him. When you realize it is about relationship, then time isn’t really an issue any more.
And when you pray… (Part 1)
Prayer is relationship. 
No prayer, no relationship.
No relationship, no power of God.
No power of God, no ministry.
Prayer is not a segment of time on your list of things to do for the day. Check that baby off so we can get on with other things! It is not about getting things from God only.
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Seeking God and His kingdom. That is what he wants us to do.
Cool verse in Matthew 6:6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
A good Greek rendering of that verse is:
Whenever you may be praying, be you entering! into the storeroom, and locking the door, pray-you! to your Father, to Him who is hiding (or hidden), and your Father, the one observing from his hiding place, shall continually pay you (give to you) in a visible way.
This means so much! Observe:
1. There is a storeroom to enter when we are praying (Imagine what is in that storeroom!)
2. Lock the door. You will be there for quite some time.
3. Pray you! Try not to yield to the prayer nap too often.
4. Your Father is hiding. So he likes hide and seek- hence the common biblical phrase “seek God”.
5. The one observing. He sees you. And when you are not there, he misses you.
6. Continually pay. There is a constant payback for those that do the above.
I am now doing TWITTER – my updates will be on Evangelism, Prayer, Preaching– If you wanna follow Jacob_Bock
Pushing a cart of bricks
We are all pretty jazzed here at the prayer house. We are quite accustomed to have the Holy Spirit show up and help us in our worship, intercession and prayers. His presence is very real. He even puts on our heart the things we are to pray for. Our idea is to pray a couple of hours, get filled with the presence of God and then transport that down to the street.
Tuesday I was leading prayer. Bea and Bri were the worshipers. We began our time, but we couldn’t seem to get the train moving. We tried everything. Time wore on. It was painful. It was like pushing a cart of bricks uphill. 
I was glad when the time was over, though I wasn’t looking forward much to the evangelism time. One, didn’t feel the presence of God. Two, I was exhausted from 6 days of solid ministry. My day off wasn’t until the next day. Three, there was hardly anyone that was trained to speak from the box.
All I can say is that once we started ministry on the street, the GLORY of God came down! After the first round, we talked to people for one hour. Folks were being prayed for. The music, testimonies and preaching were stunning. The presence of God was so real.
Go figure. I still think that if I do a,b,c that God will move in a certain way. I still think that if people do 1, 2,3 that they will be saved. It is great working with a Sovereign God! So glad that HE is the one that is building the church and that I am just a blue collar worker.
It is against my religion
I should have known better. When I ask God to uproot the unbelief in my life and to increase my faith, I thought he would do it my way. You know, wake up in the morning and there it is!.
Rather, God allows me to be in a situation that requires faith. My natural reaction is to worry. I sit back and create imaginary scenes of “what could happen” – Then suddenly, when holed-up in our prayer house, the scripture comes to me. Philippians 4:6 (Amplified Bible) Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.
Worry? I am not allowed to go there. It is against my religion, so to speak. No. The answer is to pray. Just like I cannot allow lust and hatred and bitterness in my heart, nor can I allow worry to have foothold. What a destructive force! Somehow I feel like worry is more powerful than prayer.
So this morning when that worm knocks at my door, I don’t answer. I turn to my Father in heaven and I begin to knock at HIS door. I can be assured HE will answer.
Way to pick a popular ministry!
I was standing at our prayer house windows yesterday overlooking the main square. I think one other person was in there praying at the time. I got to thinking. It’s not like we have the most popular ministry around. I mean, think about it.
EVANGELISM. About 5% of Christians do that.
OPEN-AIR EVANGELISM- way to whittle it down even more!
PRAYER. Not the most attended meeting in the churches
24/7 PRAYER. You mean pray for more than 10 minutes?
And yet it is so absolutely amazing, I can’t even put it into words. It is like God is sitting in one of the chairs just nodding his head with a grin on his face! It is like he’s “all about this”. I know I have a one track mind. Pardon me for not understanding why EVERYBODY wouldn’t want to dedicate their lives to Prayer and Evangelism!! Especially preaching ontheredbox. To feel the presence of God like we do…. oh my. To see God manifest his presence on the street every night… oh my. To pray with folks and help them connect with God… I can’t even tell you. Pretty neat. Who needs popular?
John Wesley said, “You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go not only to those that need you, but to those that need you mostIt is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance.”
Adios, old center
When God give us our prayer and evangelism training center 6 years ago right on the main square, it was historic. We went there today with a group of our soul winners to pray and thank the Lord. Several in the group had been saved in the past few years- many at our ministry. They told of how they learned to evangelize, how God had changed them, and we prayed.
Last night we did our prayer and evangelism from our new place- three times larger, right on the main square, and a place exclusively for our prayer house. If the other place was historic, this one is epic.
View a short video
http://www.youtube.com/user/bockspain#p/u/0/aC383SWJkk4
If God be against us
We are quick to quote the verse, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” And rightly so. But we can also say, “If God be against us, who can be for us?” Like he said to Egypt in Ez. 29 “Behold, I am against you..”
