I have NOT evaporated… but God has called me these past few days to a set-apart time of prayer on behalf of someone in need, which meant that I had to drop everything, including taking time for this blog. (I had not planned this, so I had not written ahead, so that's why the thoughts stopped posting on Tuesday.) Anyway, my time away with God has been an amazing experience and I will write more about what God has been doing in my life this week in the next day or two.
For now I want to share some thoughts from the book "Intercessor" by Rees Howell. I just finished reading it on Tuesday. It's interesting that after reading this book God called me to become just this, an Intercessor. God doesn't delay after He teaches us in challenging us on that very subject. (Anyway, more details on that soon.) For now, let me share an overview of this powerful testimony.
Becoming an INTERCESSOR in Prayer...
After reading this book for the second time, all I can say is WOW!!!!!!!! And I am realizing as never before, if any good thing is to come in our life, if any ministry endeavor is to come forth, it will NOT come forth until we are truly filled with the Spirit, and unless we are going forward ONLY on our knees…not lightly, but seriously!
So anyway, I can't tell you the whole story - you have to read it!!! But I must tell you a little, at least enough to wet your appetite.
In summary, from the time Rees Howells was a young child, he felt God's call on his life. But he lived the normal comfortable Christian life, until one day during a revival, he truly found the Savior. I will quote from the book what happened when he first saw the light and he began to realize the difference being set-apart for God makes in your life:
"As brother Ruben brought the sacred scenes before us, I too saw the cross. It seemed as if I spent ages at the Savior's feet, and I wept and wept. I felt as if He had died just for me. I lost myself. I had been living in the fear of death, and I saw him taking that death for me. My parent's loved me very much, and up to that time, to me there were no people like them. But they never suffered death for me. He did it! His love for me, compared with theirs, was as high as the heaven above the earth, and He won my love - every bit of it. He broke me and everything in me went right to Him...."Can I come in?" the Holy spirit asked. "Can I take the place of wife, son, home, store, all worldly interests, will you accept me?" YES! I replied. He came in and in that moment I changed. I was born into another world. I found myself in the Kingdom of God, and the Creator became my father. That night I received the gift of eternal life, that which money cannot buy..."
"When I went home, my friend who had accompanied me to the meeting, but had seen nothing of the Spirit's work, seemed so rough to me. Everyone who was not born again seemed rough. The Savior became everything to me. He was not only the fairest among ten thousand, but the fairest among millions...
"I changed altogether. None of my old friends could understand what had happened. I had no fellowship with natural things anymore. It wasn't a point of doctrine I saw; no, it was Calvary! It wasn't giving a mental assent; no, the veil was taken back, my eyes were opened and I saw Him! That night the world became a cursed place, and the thought came to me that I would never touch it again...
"It was not merely that the Savior helped me outside himself; no, He took my place. The revelation of His love to me that day was more than I can ever explain. I saw every other love so rough in comparison. Self was the motive of it all. But I could see this love enduring through the countless ages of eternity. When you receive the Savior, you receive the Love of God. That love flooded my being, and it has flooded my being ever since. I saw that by His coming in to me, He would love sinners through me, as He loved me. I would not be forcing myself to love others any more than the Savior forced Himself to love me. No person could be an enemy to me, because I had been an enemy to Him before I was reconciled."
This was the first opening of God's power into Rees life. However, the real breakthrough came when Rees realized that the Holy Spirit actually wanted to indwell His life. Again, let me quote from the book:
"The meeting with the Holy Ghost was just as real to Rees Howells as his meeting with the Savior. Rees described it, 'I saw him as a person, apart from flesh and blood, and He said to me, As the Savior had a body, so I dwell in the cleansed temple of the believer. I am a person. I am God, and I am come to ask you to give your body to me that I may work through it. I need a body for My temple. (I Cor 6:19) But it must belong to me without reserve, for two persons with different wills can never live in the same body. Will you give me yours? (Rom 12:1) If I come in, I come as God, and you must go out (Col 3:2,3) I shall not mix myself with your self."
Rees continues to share about this powerful experience...
"He [the Holy Spirit] made it very clear to me that He would never share my life I saw the honor that He gave me in offering to indwell me, but there were many things very dear to me, and I knew He wouldn't keep one of them. The change He would make was very clear. It meant every bit of my fallen nature was to go to the cross, and He would bring in His own life and His own nature. It was unconditional surrender. I realized I had received a death sentence, as really as a prisoner in the dock. I had lived in my body for twenty-six years, and I couldn't easily give it up. I went into the fields and cried for hours...it was no small exchange. I intended to surrender, but oh, the cost. I could not do it. The battle went on for days. I lost seven pounds in weight, just because I saw what He was offering. How I wished I had never seen it...
"He [the Holy Spirit] was not going to take any superficial surrender. He put His finger on each part of my self-life, and I had to decide in cold blood. He could never take a thing until I gave my consent. Then the moment I gave it, some deep purging took place and I knew I could never touch that thing again. Day by day over this week the battle continued. He was coming in as God, and I had lived as man, and 'what is permissible to an ordinary man' He told me, 'will not be permissible to you any longer.'
"First there was the love of money, that 'root of evil' which had formerly taken Rees to America. The Lord told him that He would take out of his nature all taste for money and any ambition for the ownership and hoarding of money. 'I realized that money must have no more hold on me than on John the Baptist or the Savior. To an extent this had been dealt with when I first came to the Savior, but now the Holy Ghost was getting at the roots of my life...and self! Then I had to surrender my rights to the choice of ever having an earthly home...having a partner or family, material gain, ambition...and the list went on.' The hardest thing the Holy Spirit struck at in his heart was 'reputation.' It couldn't matter anymore what others thought of him. As the Savior was despised, he must be willing to take the same shame.
"By the end of the week, each point had been faced. He knew exactly what was offered, the point between temporal and eternal gain. The Spirit summed up the issues for him; "On no account will I allow you to cherish a single thought of self, and the life I will live in you will be one hundred per cent for others. You will never be able to save yourself by your might, your power, your intelligence, your skill, your mind, your will any more than the Savior did when He came to earth. Now, are you willing???"
"Hours dragged by, and I was in agony!" Rees recounts. "I wanted to, but I couldn't! I saw my life flash before me. The Holy Spirit spoke, 'I will never offer this fullness again! But it is your choice!' Then it was that I realized...'How can SELF be willing to give up SELF?' It couldn't! Then the Spirit spoke again, 'Are you willing to be made willing?' 'Lord, I am willing!!' he cried.
"Immediately," said Rees, "I was transported into another realm, within that sacred veil where the Father, the Savior and the Holy Ghost live. There I heard God speaking to me, and I have lived there ever since...How I adored the grace of God, for it was His grace that enabled me to give up my will. There were some things that He asked for during that week that I was able to give, because I was master of them. But when He asked me to give up my self and my will, I found that I could not - until He pulled me through."
The book goes on to share Rees Howell's life story of abiding in Christ and his growth, from new convert to that of powerful Intercessor for those in need. And I will share more about this tomorrow or in the coming days.
This is just a small taste of this powerful testimony!
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