PROPHETIC SCHOOL BEGINS

“School of Prophets” began on Saturday in Innsworth Community Hall. The participants came from several churches in the Gloucester / Cheltenham area, and together experienced a great time of learning to hear God better, understanding prophetic giftings, and the history of Schools of Prophets in the Old Testament. There was plenty of encouragement in worship and sharing God’s blessings with one another.

The school is being run as a result of a prophetic word which Wes & Sharron received from Stacey Campbell a few years ago – awesome to see it beginning to come to pass.

As well as live teaching from the pastors of GVC, the participants received video input from Mark Virkler and Lynley Allan.

More Lord!!

SCHOOL OF PROPHETS

It’s almost here! Golden Valley Church School of Prophets commences on Saturday.

Taking place one Saturday per month over the next six months, the school will be an opportunity for students to develop their prophetic giftings, understand the role of prophecy in the Bible and today, catch God’s heart for the nations, and learn to hear God better.

We are so excited to be running this school this Winter season. The school will be led by Wes & Sharron Boxall, with video teaching by Mark Virkler and others.

UNFAILING LOVE

Sunday 13th March

by Jean Packer

Come drink of unfailing love
Come feast on unfailing love
deep, deep love

He’s calling out to you
Come away with me
Beloved, the winter is past
Sorrow is past
Unfailing love

I’m so loved by you
Nothing can ever fade away
Thank you this morning
for such Incredible love!

I’m so loved by you
Loved with everlasting love
Nothing can ever separate
You embrace us with
Everlasting love

You have brought us to your banner
of unfailing love
Written over our lives
of mistakes, weaknesses, struggles and failures

I am so loved by You For Eternity
Nothing I can ever do can take
Your love away from me
You have loved us and
written over all our lives

Wes sang this beautiful poetic prophesy over the whole church during our worship time this morning. God’s love was tangible and there was a powerful sense of family, warmth and comfort as we rested in His arms. We were at home, together! Bex continued our worship time through encouraging us to give our praise and thanks to God. We have such richness in our worship and it was good to have Nathan joining in with his Bass guitar, and Julie with the ‘Bongo’ drums.

Wes began to teach the word from a prayer of realisation from Ephesians 3:14.
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Matthew 22:37 – Jesus said to him “You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind’ This is the first and great commandment. “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments hang all the law of the prophets.”

God wants us to sing of His love for us. He is calling us into position and love is the hook that we hang on. If we don’t have this hook – we fall. So much of church life is often law based and not love based. Past revivals and movements of the Holy Spirit gradually become structures and programmes. It’s all about love and we need to get the roots into us. 1 Corinthians is known as the love chapter. It shows us what love is, yet we cannot produce fruit in a vacuum. We must first produce love and the fruit will then grow naturally. In this generation, the heart of God is pushing outwards to the nations. We need to be firmly rooted and grounded in love.

Wes pointed out that there are three loves that we are commanded to have:
1/ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul
2/ Love your neighbor as you….
3/ Love yourself

This week, Wes focused on loving ourselves. He showed us that we cannot love God or others the way He loves us – until we love ourselves first. How do we do this? Love is often lacking in our society today. We have so much guilt and shame that we carry around with us. The devil sows lies into our hearts and shame causes us to hide because we believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with us. How do we become the people that God has made us to be?

Good News! The price has been paid! God has picked up the bill! Jesus gave His life on the cross for you and for me! God has clothed us with righteousness. If we don’t value ourselves, we won’t value the promises over our lives which are Yes! And Amen! We are worth it! If we don’t value ourselves we won’t ask and receive from God. Loving ourselves is agreeing with God what He says about us. Jesus said ‘Lay down your life’ (John 15:13) We can only give away what we have first received. We love because He first loved us. We limit God and others if we don’t love ourselves and position ourselves through Him.

Jesus lived His life out of the bosom of the Father. How does God love you? God created you in His own image and said that it was very good (Genesis 27 – 31). You are fearfully and wonderfully made and God knew you before you were born (Psalm 139). John 3:16 declares – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The good shepherd left 99 sheep to go and find one that was lost (Luke 15:3-7). Father stands at his drive every day waiting for his prodigal son to come home (Luke 15: 11 – 32). If you don’t love yourself the way God does. You will not bring His gifts in you to fruition.

Start resting in His love. The gospel is good news!

We were encouraged to ask the Holy Spirit to show each one of us our core beliefs about ourselves and to pray that God would practicalise His word in us. Ask Him to show us what memories we have, and where they are, to ask for His healing in our hearts.

THE LIVING BREATH OF GOD

10.10.10

By Jean Packer

There has been much prayer sent forth. The word of God has been spoken over our community through our faithful prayer teams that have gone out walking, cycling and driving around the area. Decrees have been spoken and  are reaping fruit!  Penny gave us testimony of the wonderful response from clients that she has received recently in her work at the salon. She testified that during one week  clients were very receptive to the gospel message and responded warmly and positively to these truths. It turned out that this particular week was when prayers were being prayed for her salon and the surrounding area!

Bex has invaluable roles in church and it was her turn to speak out a very clear word that God had put on her heart through Acts 17:16.  Paul was provoked to speak to the people in Athens when he saw that the city was given over to idols. He was moved by God’s compassion and spoke to them whenever he could. He saw the statue with the inscription ‘ to the unknown God’, and used this illustration in order to speak Gods truth and proclaim Gods word to them; which is sharp and His word never falls to the ground! As a result of hearing these wonderful truths, some of the people believed and were saved.  Praise God!

We were then taken to Genesis 2:7 where we saw that God breathed His life into man. His breath of life was given to us! This was a moment of intimacy between God and man, when Heaven touched earth! This makes us different from other creatures on earth. God calls us sons and daughters. He spoke and all things came into being and He breathed His very own breath into us and gave us life. Isn’t that awesome! We were then taken to Ezekiel 37. This chapter illustrates the valley of dry bones. When Ezekiel prophesied over them bone came to bone, sinews and the flesh came upon them and the breath of God came into them and gave them life! How amazing is that?

We are made in his image! We have the living breath of God in us! and what we speak out has cause and effect as the power of life and death is in the tongue! Because we have His life we can bring His life! Just like Paul in Athens, when we line up with the Holy Spirit we can prophesy into the situations that we are in and see them change for the better. We can prophesy over our loved ones, our family, friends, neighbors and colleagues and see God work in their hearts. Also, we can prophesy over our communities and see changes for the better happen – there are no limits to God’s power if only we believe, trust and act in obedience.

We shared communion together this week and it felt very special.  Muriel shared about a powerful time when she felt the breath of God move through a meeting in Toronto, touching the hearts and lives of the congregation that was present.To conclude the service we were invited to soak in God’s presence and experience His intimacy and love. It is out of our relationship with our loving Father that we live and work and bring His bidding into the world.

It’s significant that this Sunday fell on 10.10.10. What an amazing date! It only happens once a century. It means completion and new beginnings! So full of Gods promises for us to take hold of and run with! Are we ready? Praise changes the atmosphere! Lets see the power of God increasingly released amongst us!

TRANSITION

About a year ago I was in a church meeting and I saw the word ‘Transition’ written over the congregation. It is a current ‘buzz word’ in church life (probably because many people are conscious of a change of season, and the process of change that is being divinely driven) but I knew that it was a key word for us as a congregation. Not long afterwards we moved premises for our regular meetings, and exciting new times of change began.

I read a fantastic article on not getting stuck in your transition, on Charisma online today. I recommend it to everyone who is going through a transition time in your life… which is like probably all of us!! Certainly in GVC we are, as a church.

The author – Lee Grady – gives some very valid points for staying with the transition processes and making it into the next stages. Check it out…. and as Ian would say, “Enjoy the journey!”.

Wes

http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/fire-in-my-bones/28976-dont-get-stuck-in-your-transition#ixzz0uzjt3H9L