NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE: week beginning Sunday December 17th 2006
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
Thank you especially for your prayers and feedback for France this week. We appreciate you all. We will include some of the feedback in our guidelines for prayer as well as continuing to resist the devil, returning to the book of Daniel and praying into a further section of the prophetic word ‘A time to live in hope’.
If you know of anyone who would also like to receive this night watch prayer bulletin each week, they can subscribe by going to www.passion.org.uk/announcemail and submitting their details on the web form. Alternatively they can email us at admin@passion.org.uk
IF YOU ARE A REGULAR YOU CAN SKIP THE NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS
If you are receiving this material unexpectedly it is because someone has suggested that you may be interested to join in. If you do not want to keep receiving it please inform us immediately and we will stop sending it to you. We want to let those of you who are newcomers know that we are very pleased to have your partnership in this watch. We are simply asking for a commitment of an hour a week some time between 9pm and 6am whatever time zone you are in.
We will send you a brief outline for prayer each week according to the prophetic direction coming from the contemporary prophetic movement in Europe. You will not always agree with everything in the watch material. Go with what you can and trust the Lord to help you with the rest. We are looking to carry on for another nearly two years, while realising that some can’t commit right now for as long as that. We are pleased for you to enlist for as long as you can. If you have to miss an occasional watch it’s OK as the rest of us will carry it. A six-month commitment is probably a good start.
THE CONTENT OF THE WATCH FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY DECEMBER 17th 2006
1. TAKE 10 MINUTES TO RESIST THE DEVIL AND LIFT UP THE LORD JESUS!
Resist the devil away from your spirit, soul and body. Resist him away from your room, home, street, village, town, city and region. Resist him away from the expressions of church of which you are a part. Resist him away from your nation and the whole continent of Europe. Resist him away from your mind and the mindsets of Christians everywhere.
Use the words of David in Psalm 110
“The Lord says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The LORD will stretch forth your strong sceptre from Zion, saying, "Rule in the midst of your enemies… The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.”
Then use the Lord’s own words from Matthew 4:10 “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go, Satan! For it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
Notice what happened next! “Then the devil left him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to him.” (Mtt4:11)
Let’s welcome angels into the watch tonight.
2. TAKE 10 MINUTES TO REFLECT AND PRAY OVER THE FOLLOWING FEEDBACK FROM LAST WEEK’S PRAYERS FOR LYON.
One thing we prayed about was “for the setting in place of an apostolic government (according to biblical definition) with the right people.”
One of our fellow watchers responded:
“I had the sense that it's important to ask for this, earnestly, especially that God would do the heart work necessary for it, but not to especially "look" for it so as to name it/identify it. Let God establish it and put it in place so that it functions according to His conception of authority and government, not any of our un-sanctified ways. It's more important that it be established than recognized. God is able to make it work effectively without the recognition that might open the door to pollute it.”
3. TAKE 20 MINUTES TO PRAY OVER THE NEXT EXCERPT FROM ‘A TIME TO LIVE IN HOPE’
Faith, hope and love abide. These are the eternal values which must now be revealed in those who are called into the name and therefore nature of the eternal God of love. Where our family likeness is immature and we as children still want to be the centre of the Father’s attention, demanding that he proves his love to us and organise the world around us and our needs, then we are not yet ready to be sown as good seed into the world. Now that the season of the ‘apostling’ of the church into the world has already dawned on us, either in prophetic evangelism, more alpha courses, into the market place as influencers or reformers, whatever it be, if we are not truly discipled in the eternal likeness of Christ, there will be no long term transformation.
There may be numerical church growth, there may be alleviation of some pressure on the poor, but there will be no maturing of the image of Christ in the earth and no hope of the creation being fully set free. And this has happened too many times before for us to repeat the cycle. But if we will prepare to shift from ‘rejoicing in the hope of sharing the glory of God’ (though in this we do rejoice!) to rejoicing in our sufferings also (Rom5:3) we will become intercessors in identification with the creation’s futility. In the tribulations and trials of living hopefully and therefore uncomplainingly in and through the confliction of a fast-changing, post-Christian, even post-secular culture, we will embrace the full purpose of these three years. It will not be a doom and gloom time, but a wonderful time when the shadow of Christ will thicken in the earth as his people look beyond a church to meet their needs and commit to becoming the redemptive hope for a world in need.
4. TAKE 20 MINUTES TO PRAY AND REFLECT OVER DANIEL CHAPTER 10:1-11
V1) Notice that Daniel understood the vision and its message although it was of great conflict either in the struggle to receive it or in its content, probably both. Notice as well that the understanding he had was linked to the fasting and prayer that he had given himself to. In the weeks to come we will be focusing on a special time like this during our Nightwatch. Pray for grace and strength to be able to take on whatever God asks us to do personally. (5 minutes)
VV2-3) Notice that he had engaged in what appears to have been a deliberate 3 week fast, what gets called these days ‘a Daniel fast’. In the New Year we will be suggesting a three week period of fasting for those who are exercised to join in. Pray for grace for watchers and forerunners in the body of Christ generally to strengthen themselves in the spiritual disciplines so that w can receive and understand the message the Lord wants us to get! (5 minutes)
VV4-6) Notice that Daniel was in a particular place when he saw the vision. Pray that we will all be able to find a place with God where we can encounter him in the way he wants. Notice too that this time his encounter seems to have been with the Lord himself in vision as a man. If it was Gabriel again, he was certainly carrying so much of the presence of the Lord that he looked like him! Pray for living encounters with the Lord. (5 minutes)
V7) Daniel was left alone with his vision; the others were afraid and ran away. Remember that we can learn from Gabriel’s appearance to Mary that we do not need to stay afraid if we are willing to hear and obey! Pray for a willing heart to stay long enough in the presence of God to both hear what he is really saying and do what he really wants. (5 minutes)
