Three Minutes In His Presence – Immanuel Prayer Process - Purity 930

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a blazing sunset sandwiched between a stand of trees on the horizon and a thick canopy of clouds to the right of a transmission tower comes to us from yours truly, as I was fortunate to have the presence of mind and my iPhone handy to capture this last notable sunset of 2022. While out walking my canine friend Harley on Waite Road on December 20th. As we set out, as we set out, the afternoon was pleasant, but it didn't have— I didn't have any expectations for anything spectacular. But as we passed the forest areas of the farm, for the farmland, I took pleasure in the cloud formations that were pleasantly illuminated by the fading sun. And decided to take some pics, thinking that what I was seeing was going to be as good as it gets. But because as time progresses, the sun fades further into the horizon, right? But as we went down the road, the opposite seemed to take place. As our place on Waite Road changed, the sun seemed to rise instead of fall. So I took a couple of more shots. I rejoiced at the first 3 shots from 4:07 to 4:08 PM, and I'm sharing them on the blog here. Um, but, uh, then as we turned to head back home, I captured today's photo where the sun seemed to positively explode over the trees at 4:09 PM, rejoicing and thanking the Lord for the opportunity to see this, before I took a couple of departing shots at 4:10 PM, also on the blog. So if you're looking at the photos today, there'll be 3 photos after the photos of today that preceded the photo of the day, and then a couple photos after that. It's, you know, I took 6 photos and, um, I don't know what to do with them, um, but I'm sharing them all today on the blog, so they're there. Uh, as I was walking the dog and as I was capturing these photos, I was walking and talking with God too. Before this sunset light show, I was thanking the Lord for the cool cloud formations that were over those trees, which started the photo session. And if I recall it correctly, I inquired of the Lord something like, "What else do you have for us, Lord?" And then the sun rises over the trees, and just as I'm ready to just rejoice and thank the Lord for the scenes at 408, which were, you know, slightly better, I turned back home and looked up to see whammo! Sunset flash at 4:09 to 4:10 PM. Uh, at that point I was thanking God for bringing me to this place, and then I realized that this place at this time is just another part of the ongoing miracle and blessing of my relationship and marriage with Tammy Lynn. Without God, Tammy Lynn isn't in my life. Without Tammy Lynn, I'm not in Easton to see this sunset. And then hilariously, I thank God for Harley, because if it wasn't for him, it would be doubtful that I would be out walking along Waite Road, um, because if he wasn't our compulsory house guest for the next 3 years, I wouldn't have been there to see it either. At that point, I got a tiny glimpse of just how good our God is at shaping our lives and at blessing our moments when we make the decision to follow him. It was just 3 minutes out of my day, but in those 3 minutes, I know that I was connecting with the Lord in conversation, and something beautiful happened. I'm not sure how many people may have enjoyed those 3 minutes of sunset glory. Even though it feels like this sunset was for me, I can't claim that, but I can tell you that before it happened, I was talking to the Lord, and after it happened, I had a mini revelation of God's goodness and sovereign hand, and a small idea of how God works all things together for good. Well, it's the second day of a new year, New Year's Day observed for many of us, and it is my prayer that anyone reading this or hearing this message will endeavor to spend more time in God's presence and following his lead in 2023. Although it's Monday because of the observed holiday, I'm still on vacation at my countryside home in Easton this morning. But will be returning to my place down by the river in Stuyvesant later this afternoon. Although Tammy Lynn is the ideal Christian wife for me, I am humbled and amazed at the love we have for one another. The technological and logistical accommodations at our place in Easton are not ideal, and if I am to be completely honest, which I try to be, it feels like I've been roughing it for the past week because of the internet's penchant for testing my patience, and because I have been off the rails in terms of my health goals. While I have been painfully faithful to my workout regimen, as in the bed here at the Countryside, or my vacation lethargy has done a number on my back, so it hurts, and I've been taking the dog for walks, my resolve to be mindful of what I've been eating has been sacrificed on the altar of compromise in the spirit of the holidays, in the name of vacation itself. I've gotten quite a bit of rest since December 23rd, but unfortunately I gave self-control a rest too. So like many others, I'll be instituting a New Year's resolution to repent and get healthy going forward. Besides returning to sanity in terms of my diet, I also started to look ahead to the training I will receive as part of Deeper Walk International School of Prayer Ministry. This year. Before the ball dropped on Saturday night, I spent the day looking at the student portal for the classes I'll be taking and had the opportunity to meet some of my fellow students on the portal's discussion boards and was pleased and somewhat intimidated by their acquaintance. As a way to get to know one another, the course instructors invited/assigned us to introduce ourselves, telling everyone what we like to addressed be as, and share one thing we were thankful for. Another preliminary assignment was to describe what we would say in our own words that a prayer minister is and what a prayer minister does. Only a few early birds had responded to these assignments, but from their introductions and responses, I already have a sense that this program This program will definitely give me the opportunity to grow and develop as a Christian counselor, as their vernacular seems almost otherworldly because it is grounded in the concepts of— in language of prayer ministry, mindfulness, and pastoral counseling. As someone who is seeking to transition to a career of full-time ministry, I might be the low man on the totem pole in this group. Because I admittedly had to get out my Christian counseling decoder ring to interpret exactly what it is, what some of their words were trying to express. Um, but with my education and a couple quick Google searches, I grasped what they were saying but was introduced to a term I hadn't heard before. One of the responses used the term Emmanuel prayer to describe what a prayer minister does, and it caused me some mild trepidation because I didn't know what, what that was and obviously had no— had zero experience with it. As much as I thought I might be in over my head with this program already, I decided to dive on in and see what this Emmanuel Prayer was all about. My research told me that Emmanuel means God with us, and this promise is the foundation of the whole ministry of Emmanuel Prayer. Emmanuel Prayer is, is one of, uh, is one, is one-to-one, is a one-to-one prayer process of connecting deeply and personally with Jesus and removing barriers to an intimate, interactive lifestyle of connection with him. Jesus loves to bring his healing and peace to help us to see ourselves, our circumstances, and others as he does. That's, um, well, there's a link to that on the blog. You'll see, um, my Christian counseling master's education indicated to me that Emmanuel Prayer was a form of theophostic counseling, where a counselor basically leads a client through a process of prayerfully recalling trauma and areas of concern in which they invite God or Jesus to reveal to them the lies that the trauma caused them to believe, to reveal the truth that God wants them to know and to assure them of God's presence then and now. The apostate prayer ministry has been indicated to be helpful, but like many— any, any therapy that involves human beings, its history is not without its controversies or concerns. And when I reviewed it in my studies, I was hesitant in considering whether or not I would incorporate its technique if I should begin practicing professionally. But that's what this training and this life is all about— investigating the truth and seeing what is out there in terms of what God can and will do. With my increasing experience through leading men through the Steps to Freedom in Christ, I am a lot less skeptical than I once was and decided to give Emmanuel Prayer a try for myself. I found a PDF list of instructions in the Emmanuel Process in my research and decided to jump right in. I'm not a stranger to the Lord and prayer, and I decided to see where Emmanuel Prayer would bring me. I won't get into specifics, but I would encourage anyone curious to go and see for yourself. The instructions guide you to pray a prayer of protection, to invite this Holy Spirit into your presence, and to rest. Participants are then instructed to recall a positive, positive memories of either a close time with the Lord or of joy, uh, where you can appreciate and locate the Lord's presence. Um, and It directs you to draw closer and enjoy your time with the Lord. That's session 1. Session 2 invites the participant to enter— to repeat the steps for session 1— for session 1, to draw into the Lord's presence, but then to recall a painful memory and ask the Lord to show you his presence in that memory and to reveal what he He would like us to know or learn from that experience. A successful session would result in revelations of truth and possible resolutions of one's problems. So obviously the process demands faith and a focus— and focused prayer. I got too many ands. Faith, focused prayer, and a willingness to go there in terms of being open, honest, and vulnerable to the the Lord. In my sessions, I brought 3 separate instances of experiences of the Lord's closeness and joy during my life and was quite taken by an experience of peace and well-being. Having established that, I invited the Lord into some dark places—one from my childhood and one from a particularly tragic event—and asked him to reveal himself in those places and to reveal to me what I needed to know. So did he show up? Yeah, he did. Did he show me anything? Yes, he did. Am I forever changed by this experience? I think so. The Lord basically revealed to me that he was, he has been with me every step of the way in my life, and he has, he was giving me, or has already given me, the healing that I need for those dark dark places and was inviting me to simply experience and to take it with me all the days of my life. So there you go. Follow the link and see what happens to you. Was this prayer session merely a guided meditation, my imagination, a delusion, a deception, or a supernatural manifestation of the Lord in my life? Depending on your perspective, you could explain it as any one of these things, I suppose. But as someone who knows the power of the Lord and the lay of the land when you walk in the Spirit, I know that the results we have are often subject to faith. I always point to John 11 when Christ asked Martha, "Do you believe this?" And I know that when we say yes to that question, we can be led from death to life, from pain to healing, and from darkness to light. I had a short Emmanuel prayer session in my little office at my countryside home on December 31st. In the natural, you could say it was just me and a PDF of written instructions. But was, was I all by myself? Did anything actually happen? Was God with me? Do I believe this? I do. I can't explain it, and I can't give you my experience. I suppose I could doubt it and explain it away as something other than an encounter with the Lord, but I won't. The things I learned in this session could be said to be things that I already knew, but I didn't know— I didn't quite know them in those specific places, and I feel blessed and challenged to live in the truth of them going forward. Those dark moments in the past have been bathed in light, so whatever remnants of that baggage that has been has been lifted, and I would say I have an increased sense of freedom and peace from those traumas. But I also know that I wasn't given this experience just to feel better about the past, but have been given this gift to propel me into the future, to take these truths and to use them to go forward with confidence. So let's get it. I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God, because if you only knew that the Lord has been with you all the days of your life and is walking with you now, you wouldn't fear the future and you wouldn't look back. Let me echo Apostle— the Apostle Paul— uh, Peter's encouragements from 2 Peter 1:2-4, where he said, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Our grace and peace are multiplied when we know the Lord Jesus Christ, and his power gives us all we need for life and godliness. We have and will inherit those precious promises of God and increasingly experience his divine nature in our lives and escape the corruption of this world when we seek his will for our lives and follow him. Um, if I keep— and so that's, that's the first part of the message today. Uh, if I keep writing like this, I don't know if I'll be sharing, um, the Bible verse of the day of in 2023 or not. I guess we will see tomorrow and the next day. For today, I feel like I've written enough, but encourage you to get in the word, uh, yourself. As always though, I do invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we begin, uh, we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's Sovereign— The Sovereignty of God, uh, where we begin sharing from chapter 1. So if you want to go to mt4christ.org and see that resource, you'll see it at the— today at the bottom of today's blog post. So that's that. Well, it is a day off today, so I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't really have any plans. I know I'm going back to my countryside, to my riverside home later, so I'm gonna enjoy the presence of my wife for a while and then head on, head on down the river to get back to the other side of normal. Basically with work responsibilities in Albany and maintaining a house down there. You know, we've got to shift out of this holiday vacation thing and sort of get back to reality and work this week. But today, well, we're going to slowly make that transition, so we'll see. But as always, we're going to pray. So So let's do that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we, uh, we thank you for all that you've shown us over this past weekend and all the days of our lives, how you've been with us even in the darkest moments of our lives. And if we seek your presence there and our remembrance, you just might show up and, uh, and show us something we didn't know, and you might set us free and heal our hearts. So Lord, we, uh, we Thank you for your experience in our lives continually. And we pray for the people who might be listening or reading today's message. We pray that they would seek you in all the ways that they can, in your word and service and through prayer, maybe in a manual prayer process. You know, you invite us to come and see, and when we, when we say yes to your, your question, do we Do we believe this? Um, we receive life and all we need that pertains to life and godliness. So we thank you for that, Lord. And as always, we pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. Because, Lord, whether or not we are on vacation or we're working, all we want to do is, uh, follow you and represent you and your kingdom here on the earth. But we need your help with that continually, so please help us as we go about our business today, and hopefully your business today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.