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NorthEast Ohio
Intercession Network
For the Church in the City and in Northeast Ohio

"Seek the peace and
welfare of the city and pray to
the Lord for it, for in the
welfare of the city in
which you live you will have welfare."
Jeremiah 29:7
Message from the
Founder and/or Advisor
July
2008:
Prayer for
Connecting Generations
PDF July
Letter
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Dear Intercessors,
Isaiah 52:8
(NASB)
“Listen! Your
watchmen lift up their voices,
they shout joyfully together;
for they will see with their own eyes
when the LORD restores Zion.”
Ephesians 2:14 (NASB) “For He
Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down
the barrier of the dividing wall…”
In the fifty first and fifty
second chapters of Isaiah, God speaks to the righteous remnant of
Israel, of returning Israel - which has been oppressed over the
course of their history, because of their sinfulness, first by Egypt
and then by Assyria - to their land, which represents His promise.
With this returning comes the restoring of His presence and His
blessing to Zion. It
is the watchmen, the intercessors, who rejoice at seeing the Lord
restore to Israel His purposes and His presence.
In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, he writes of
reconciliation to God, but reconciliation that also extends to where
there is enmity. Groups where there is enmity are reconciled “by
the blood of Christ,” “through the cross” and in the body of
Christ. Over the years attention has been given to reconciliation
between races, cultures, genders, etc. We want to focus, however,
on a place where enmity exists that God has exposed. Given the
dynamics of our culture and our recent history there is a breach
between generations. The “generation gap” of the sixties and
seventies has turned into an enormous chasm. God is the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but in our nation within the last forty
years, which represents one generation, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”
have been at enmity against one another. The promises of God,
however, transcend the generations. God gave a promise to Abraham
that was realized four generations later through Jacob’s
grandchildren. Isaac and Jacob however would have had no
inheritance had it not been for the promise God made to Abraham,
their father and grandfather, respectively. The prophecy of Joel
chapter two, which is quoted by the Apostle Peter on the Day of
Pentecost, includes, “your sons”, and “your daughters,” “your old
men,” and “your young men.” Where we, the church have increasingly
segregated the generations from one another, over the last
generation, God is, in this hour reconciling young and old. The
very last thing that God says, through the prophet Malachi, before
He is silent for the next ten generations is that, “He
will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the
hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and
smite the land with a curse.” The consequence of
enmity between children and their fathers is a curse on the land.
The result of oneness between fathers and their children is the
restoration of both the promises and the blessings of God to His
people. The promises are to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The problem
that God has had with His people is that rarely have His moves been
sustained beyond one or two generations.
In our day we are seeing among our sons and daughters and in many
cases among our grandsons and granddaughters, an unprecedented
fervency as watchmen, as intercessors crying out to God because of
“our” sinfulness. They are crying out in confession and in
repentance on behalf of a sinful and rebellious church. “The Call,”
“The International Houses of Prayer (IHOP),” an international
movement of “24/7 Prayer Rooms, Furnaces and Houses,” and numerous
prayer movements on college campuses are but a few examples of the
ranks among the watchmen being filled by the “next generations.”
Two passages, one about returning and restoration the other about
reconciliation, both linked together. God has been dealing with us
here in Northeast Ohio about our “broken walls,” about both our
individual and corporate sinfulness. One of the walls that are
being rebuilt is the connectedness of the generations. This is
especially true among the watchmen. His heart is to restore to us
His purposes, His presence, and His blessings. We need to give
ourselves to this reconciliation, by embracing, encouraging, and
empowering this “next generation” to take their place beside us on
the wall as we cry out to God. I believe as we do so, it will be
said of us in Northeast Ohio “…Your
watchmen lift up their voices, they
shout joyfully together; for they
will see with their own eyes when
the LORD restores Zion.”
Yours in His
service,
Carlton H. Smith,
Founder and Advisor
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Prior Month's Message:
June 2008 - Letter
May 2008 - Letter
April 2008 - Letter
Mar. 2008 - Letter
Feb. 2008 - Letter
Jan. 2008 - Directors Letter |
NEOIN
P.O. Box 38164
Cleveland, Ohio 44138
Email:
director@neoin.org
Office Phone:
(440) 235-4508
Weekly Recorded Prayer Message:
(440) 235-1661
Fax:
(440) 235-4556
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