Ministries
1st Quarter 2007 (January / February / March)
Lynne Hammond
Dearest Friend and Pray-er,
If you were the only person on earth, Jesus still would have gone to the cross. He would have lived, died, and shed His blood just for you.
Have you ever heard anyone say that? I have. In fact, I’ve said it many times myself because it’s a heartwarming thought. It’s amazing to think that God loves each one of us so intensely that He would have carried out the plan of redemption—costly as it was—just for me, or just for you.
Yet, as sweet as that thought is and as comforting as it might be to our hearts, another vital truth is begging to be heard these days. Another perspective is practically shouting at us from the pages of the Bible, pleading with us to change the way we think, the way we pray, and the way we live our lives every day.
It’s the realization that, although Jesus does love each one of us enough to die for us alone, He didn’t die just for us alone. He died for everybody everywhere. He gave His life for every person in every nation. He paid a price great enough to save not only the millions in America and the billions in Asia, but multitudes in every other part of the world.
As 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “He died for all, so that all those who live might live no longer to and for themselves, but to and for Him who died and was raised again for their sake” (Amp.).
That’s Why We’re Still Here!
Sometimes I think we forget that fact. As believers, we lose sight of all the precious people for whom Jesus died. We live to and for ourselves instead of living to and for God. We act as if our sole purpose on earth is just to have a happy life and enjoy His blessings.
But that’s not all God has in mind for us. If it were, He would have taken us straight to heaven the moment we got born again. He didn’t do that, however, because He has a job for us to do on earth. He left us here on this sin-ridden planet because He has a ministry for each one of us to carry out. He has given us “…the ministry of reconciliation [that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him]” (verse 18 Amp.).
In other words, He left us here to finish the job that Jesus began.
That’s a staggering thought, isn’t it? It almost makes us want to throw our hands in the air and say, “I can’t do it! I don’t have what it takes!”
And it’s true. On our own, we don’t. Oh sure, we can roll up our spiritual sleeves and go to work trying to win the world for Jesus. But we won’t get very far because in ourselves, we don’t have the resources to get the job done. We don’t know what to pray, what to say, where to go, or what to do to effectively reach the billions that are still living in spiritual darkness. It’s an overwhelming task!
That’s why the Bible tells us to live to God before endeavoring to live for Him. He alone has the wisdom and divine might to light up this whole planet with the Gospel. He alone can generate the life-giving power the nations so desperately need. Only He can equip us to supply them with the rivers of the Spirit the way Jesus did.
Rivers in a Dry Land
Recently, I was thinking about how crucial those spiritual rivers are and I was reminded of how the Jordan River waters the nation of Israel. When it’s running strong in the springtime, the Jordan is a crashing, thrashing, supply line of the clearest, purest water you’ve ever seen. It flows with such force that it will sweep away every obstacle, overrun its banks, and turn even the driest pathways into riverbeds rushing with water.
But that precious water doesn’t originate in the Jordan. It flows down from the highlands to the north. It’s fed by the melting snow and rains that fall from heaven upon Mount Hermon’s towering peaks. That’s why the Jews pray all the time for rain on those mountains. They supply the waters that make the whole country flourish.
As believers, you and I are just like the Jordan River. We’re called to bring the waters of life to a spiritually parched world. We’re commissioned to flood the whole earth with the message of redemption so that all the people Jesus died to save have the opportunity to hear it.
But we’re just the conduits through which those waters flow. They don’t originate with us. They come from the heights of heaven—from the very throne of God Himself. Revelation 22:1 confirms that. It tells us there is a “…river whose waters give life, sparkling like crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Amp.).
When Jesus ministered on earth, He stayed perfectly connected to that throne-room river. That’s why His life was continually flooded with the power and presence of God. He was a perfect channel for the divine waters of the Holy Spirit. No wonder He could so boldly say, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink!” (John 7:37 Amp.).
Jesus’ inner rivers never ran dry. He didn’t intend for ours to run dry either. He made that very clear because the next words He said were these. “He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water. But He was speaking here of the Spirit, Whom those who believed… in Him were afterward to receive” (verse 38 Amp.).
Broken Cisterns Can’t Hold Water
Considering how many born again, Holy Spirit baptized believers there are just in the United States alone, you’d think the whole world would be deluged with the waters of the Gospel by now. And it would be, if we were all rushing rivers of the Spirit. But, the reality is, we’re not. For the most part, we’re just barely trickling streams.
Why is that?
To a great extent, it’s because we’ve let our American culture invade our Christianity. We’re a nation of performance-oriented people. We’re always pushing to be the best and accomplish the most.
We’re driven to produce, produce, produce! External efforts and results are our primary focus.
Nationally, that may be an acceptable mentality. But it doesn’t mix well with Christianity. It messes things up. When we get “production minded” in prayer, for example, and start using our own natural efforts and personal muscle to produce greater results, we lose our supernatural edge. We get focused on the outflow and start trying to pump out more and more prayer because we want bigger and better results.
We start praying out of our own wisdom, our own strength, and our own ability. Like the heathen in Matthew 6:7, we start thinking God will answer us because of our “much speaking.” So instead of being Spirit led and Spirit inspired, our prayers become rote, repetitious, and religious.
We may even be praying all the “right” things, confessing the Word like a machine gun, using the correct biblical principles, and praying every scriptural prayer we’ve been taught. Yet in the midst of it all, we can easily become like the people Jeremiah 2:13 talks about. Those people committed two evils. God said, “They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water” (Amp.).
Let me assure you, I love scriptural truths. I think biblical principles are vital. But they can never, ever replace personal contact and fellowship with God Himself. The moment we start living on what we learned last year, or even the revelation we got yesterday, is the moment we start to dry up. When we begin to rely on the memory of a time we experienced the presence of God in the past, instead of connecting to Him in the present—hearing His voice, experiencing His presence, and fellowshipping with Him today—the tide of the Spirit within us ebbs away.
The reason is simple. As important as scriptural principles and spiritual memories are, apart from living contact with God, they are like broken cisterns. They cannot hold the water of life. If we want the rivers of the Spirit to keep flowing through us, we must go continually to the throne room of God to receive from Him. We must draw from the Fountain of living waters every day.
Watch Out for the Kinks
After almost 30 years of ministry, I’m convinced that if we want to pray Spirit-led prayers, we must be Spirit-fed pray-ers. We must stop focusing so much on what is flowing out of us (or the spiritual results we’re producing) and concentrate more on what is flowing into us. We must make living to God our number-one priority. If we do that, then we’ll have no problem living for Him. We’ll have all the spiritual resources we need to reach out in prayer and in deed and reveal God’s love to a lost world.
“But Lynne,” somebody might say, “I do spend time in the Word every day! I consistently try to draw near to God. But for some reason the rivers of the Spirit aren’t flowing through me like they should. I’m still coming up dry.”
I have the same problem myself sometimes. In fact, I was reminded of that not long ago when I was watering the flowers in my backyard. I turned the faucet on and dragged the hose over to the flowerbed when suddenly the water just stopped running.
Totally perplexed, I shook that hose and waved it all around trying to get it to work. Still, no water came out. Eventually, I figured out what the problem was. My husband, standing behind me where I couldn’t see him, was putting a kink in the hose.
Of course, he got a good laugh out of that. And I got a spiritual revelation. I realized that my reborn spirit is much like that hose. Sometimes it has a kink in it and the water of the Spirit can’t flow freely through me. If I don’t make the proper adjustments, such kinks will dry up my prayer life. They will keep me from being a blessing to the world by stopping up the rivers of Spirit-led prayer.
Keep the River Flowing Till the Water Runs Clear
One thing that can easily put a kink in our spiritual hose is getting (and staying) offended at people who hurt us. No matter how spiritually mature we become, people will still “tick us off” at times. When that happens, the Bible says we’re to forgive and bless them. We’re to pray for the people who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44).
Sometimes when we first start praying for those people, our prayers aren’t very genuine. They’re tainted with residue from the past, like the rusty brown water that comes out when you first turn on the faucet at a lake house.
What do you do in a situation like that? You don’t pack up your bags and leave the lake house. You don’t cancel your whole vacation just because there’s rusty water in the sink. No, you keep the water running until it washes the junk out of the pipes.
We can do the same thing in prayer. We can let the people who hurt us drive us to Jesus. We can let them be a stimulus that keeps us praying and fellowshipping with God until the flow of His Spirit cleanses us, heals us, and gets our prayer river running pure and clean again.
Beware of Cares
Do you know what else will put a kink in your spirit? It is the worries and cares of life. The Bible says that worry is a sin. So when you catch yourself knotted up with anxiety about your finances, your children, or anything else, follow the instructions in 1 Peter 5:7. Get in the presence of God and cast “the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully” (Amp.).
We simply don’t have time anymore for dry spells and distractions in prayer. The day is growing short and there are still multitudes of spiritually thirsty people who are dying to know Jesus. There are billions who haven’t even heard about Him. And He loves every one of them just as much as He loves us.
God has a reservoir full of prayers that need to be prayed for them in this hour. Prayers that will thrust laborers into the fields and equip us all with the supernatural wisdom and power we need to bring in the harvest. But we can only pray those prayers by the Spirit so, above all, dear praying friend, keep His rivers flowing mightily through you.
Until I write again, drink deeply and often from the fountain of God, keep the kinks out of your spiritual hose, and remember—
You are loved by,
Lynne
Testimonies from around the world…
Dayton, Tennessee
Thank you! Pastors Mac and Lynne, your ministry is a blessing to me. I keep the messages that speak the most to my spirit at the time. I was looking back over my favorites again. They minister to me every time. My e-mail is getting full. I just wanted to take the time to say thank you! Always remember for all the bad responses you might get, there are always those of us who are eating from your meals and may not take the time to say thanks.
Please be encouraged.
Pastors M. L. B. L.
Solomon’s Porch Church, Tanzania, East Africa
Dear Servants of God,
It’s really nice to get spiritual stuff from you. I’m working in a mining company with Barrick Gold Mine in Tanzania – North Mara. We are living camp life here in the mines. The prayers that I read and other godly stuff that you send to me are really encouraging and they give me a driving force to pray.
God bless you all.
S. M.
Words from the Lord
Seek Him and Wait
I see that, Lord, that there are doors, supernatural doors to be open. I see that, Father. When you start looking in your heart, the Bible says in Jeremiah, “Call unto Me and I will answer thee,” and what? “Show you great and mighty things.” So sometimes you’ll start seeing some things out there, but sometimes you’ll see with your spirit. You’ll start to see. Amen? So then when you start to see, you start to pray what you see. So I’m praying what I see here.
I see a revolving door, not just a door but a revolving door that goes in and out. So, Father, we know that there is a door. There is an access into this revolving door that comes in and the door goes out. It comes in the door and it goes out. A revolving door. We lift up the door. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord.
If you will give yourself to Him, you will come into a great breakthrough of the Spirit. But it’s going to take all of us to give ourselves to Him. Give yourself to Him. To. Not for Him, not to work for Him, not in ministry, but give yourself to Him. To seek His face.
Then the increase shall come and there shall be a (tongues) a process of time. A process of time. A process of time. So we’re processing time. Okay, Lord. In a process of time, there shall be supernatural increase. There shall come supernatural clothing and anointing. Many, many times the anointing of the Spirit is waited upon. You’re waiting for it. Like a waiter. Not waiting like sitting and waiting, but like a waiter in a restaurant. He’s waiting on tables. So you are waiting. Hallelujah. Serving Him. Waiting. Serving Him. This is to Him. You’re waiting upon Him. Hallelujah. Waiting for direction. Looking only to Him. Then you will begin to lean into Him for all that is to come, all the glory and the power and the outpouring of the Spirit that is to be poured out upon America.
“There is much preparation in that way. Much preparation of the Spirit to My people,” saith the Lord. “For first the people must be prepared to receive. To receive.”
I know, yes. Knowing, knowing, we lift up the knowing.
Write down all of the things that you know. And then write down the things that you don’t know. And in your seeking of Him, speak to Him and say, “I know for You have shown me this. But I seek You for the direction for the things that I don’t know. And there seems to be a path that I must walk with the combination of these things opened, what I know and what I don’t know.” Then that combination will come together. And it should be the unlocking of things to do that will unlock the supernatural river, rivers. Hallelujah. Rivers of the Holy Ghost. Not streams, not anemic tricklings from dried up creek banks, but rivers are to flow. Rivers.
Entreat the supernatural help, heavenly hosts, heavenly angels, angelic beings to come to your side. Call the ministering spirits who are the helpers, the workers for those who are heirs of salvation. Call them forth for supernatural help. Help in the area of your seeing. Help in the area to move wrong things out and move right things in. For it is in these times and these days, that the people of God need more and more to be aware of the help. The Lord of Hosts, the many hosts of heaven that attend Him, all of those hosts are waiting, that have attended Him, and they’re waiting to attend you. But you must ask for these things, responding to your heart at the time the Lord would give you an unction of the Holy Ghost. And you would know by the Spirit of faith, you would know not just by the Spirit of faith but by the gift of faith and prophetically you could see by the gift of faith and speak forth and command those things into being. Hallelujah.
For many of you, the knowing has come easy. For over the years and in the process of time, you know things. You may not know how those things were even imparted to you or when they absolutely came, but they are there and you know. Seek Me for the things that you do not know and I will show you. As sure as the promise of God. And I will cause you to rest. I will even give you promises, and I will cause your spirit, your heart, your soul, all of you to rest upon that promise just as sure as the things that you already know, these things shall become real to you. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus.
All of the combinations. All of the combinations. All of the combinations. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah.
--Lynne Hammond • Madison, WI • June 24, 2006
Mighty Rivers Shall Flow
For up until this very time, you have only operated on the very fringes of what I have for you – what belongs to you, and what you are to flow in. The rivers that are to divide and to come forth out of you more and more and more. But as you continue to come to Me, as you continue to cry out to Me, as your heart, your very heart, and the desire of your heart match the cry from your mouth, surely you shall see the quickening. Surely you shall see the Holy Ghost. Surely you shall see Him in power and in miracles. And from this place, rivers, mighty, mighty rivers shall flow, and even you shall know Him. You shall know Him in ways that you have never known Him. For the very mind that set the universe in orbit, the One that set everything in order, you shall know and you shall come and you shall reverence Him and you shall be a part of Him, and that which He wants to do, you shall flow in easily. It shall be easy for you for more and more you shall hear. Come up hither. Come up to the throne of God for that is where everything is solved. That is where all situations are solved and more and more, you shall know that it’s the place that I’ve designed for it to be. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
--Lynne Hammond • Brooklyn Park, MN • September 13, 2006
Praying in the Glory
“For you see there are degrees. There is a degree upon a degree and added to the degree before, it makes you go higher and you go further and you go faster. It is in My will and it is in My plan that in these days ahead, very few days that there be an increase, a great increase where your eyes would be more like the eyes of the eagle where you can look in both realms. You would see the earthly realm and you would see very clearly but then at the same time you could see the heavenly realm. In that heavenly realm, you could see and it would shed light on the earthly realm and then by that you would know what to do about that earthly realm. Light is available. Light for every area. But light to cause you to ascend more and more and more and so that you would know all of the plans of demons, of demon powers, you would understand and learn the Devil’s approach. And you could even look into that darkness with your binocular of the spirit and you could see what is happening there in those realms and you could cut it off completely by the Lord and by His Word.
“For I am,” saith the Lord “working like a tapestry. I am working all the members into this tapestry to make the beautiful colors and the beautiful places and all of the picture that I am weaving for this end day and this last time. Not just for the party and for her to be made and look in the image of Christ. But for the world to see her in her glory.” Hallelujah. “So from this time, it’s not small. Go to My Word and look and see from the heavenly view of that that I have planned for you.“
What was that, Lord? Yes, I see that, Lord. “And there is time released, there is time released that are in the plan. There are events that are to come that are mind boggling that I could not possibly tell you of what these things look like. But in this time, there is a preparation where you come before the Father and more and more as you come to Him, you are elevated and your perception of things changes and you see for you begin to see as He sees. And understand as He understands,” thus saith the Lord.
--Lynne Hammond • Branson, MO • October 26, 2006
