Dear Intercessors,

“Let us strip off every encumbrance and that sin which so readily entangles us, and let us run the race that is set before us.”  Heb. 12:1b.  Webster defines courage as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.” A definition I have long held is:  “Courage is fear with the cross applied to it.” Corrie Ten Boom wrote in her book, “Hiding Place,” about that part of her life when her family hid Jews in their home during the Second World War.  She asked her father how she would get enough courage if she were captured and imprisoned. Her father said that when you get on the train and the conductor needs to see your ticket, you will have the ticket.  You will not get the ticket ahead of time.  Our persecuted brethren in other nations pray for us, in America, all the time.  They know that it is much more difficult to serve the Lord in plenty rather than want.

The Lord has been highlighting the word “unpreparedness” before the catastrophe of the oil spill in our waters.  We know our nation is in great flux or change and we see there is a great time of change and transition in the Church.  At the same time, we are admonished by the Scriptures not to fret or worry. To prepare is to get something or somebody ready.  One meaning for Preparedness is “a state of adequate preparation in case of war.” If we are to adequately “run the race that is set before us”, we need to be adequately prepared.  Living a life that is saturated in the word, living for the purposes of God in our lives and living under the law of love are a heart preparation for our lives in Him. As John the Baptist was to prepare the way of the Lord when He came to earth in human form, so we are to prepare the way of the Lord before His second coming.

Isaiah 62:10 is a command to “Go through, go through the gates! PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE PEOPLE.  Cast up, cast up the highway!  Gather out the stones.  Lift up a standard or ensign over and for the peoples.” Our charge as intercessors is to prepare the way for the people by gathering out the stones…by our prayers, our intercessions, our supplications.  We are in a spiritual war in our cities in N.E. Ohio and we battle with spiritual weapons. Francis Frangipane in his book “The Three Battlegrounds” states that “the greatest defense you can have against the devil is to maintain an honest, open heart before God….Satan fears virtue.  He is terrified of humility; he hates it.  He sees a humble person and it sends chills down his back.  His

hair stands up when Christians kneel down, for humility is the surrender of the soul to God.  The devil trembles before the meek, because in the very areas where he once had access, there stands the Lord, and Satan is terrified of Jesus Christ.”

Help us, Lord, to strip off that which would keep us from being that holy army You have called to war in this season.  Give us revelation knowledge as to what the “stones” (the hindrances, the sins, the strongholds) in our region are that hinder the coming of Your kingdom to Northeast Ohio.  Prepare us Lord!