Celebration Israel 2016 June Update

An update from Gail

Dear Worshipper Warriors,

Just over a month to go until we meet on the top of Mount Carmel for the 10th Celebration for the Nations!

Celebration for the Nations is a worship intercession for revival. We are familiar with both words: individually we can worship and we can intercede. However, these two precious activities go together and enhance each other. When we worship Him in Spirit and truth, deep calls to deep, and His Spirit shares His longings with our spirits. Worship then becomes an intercession.

Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands His steadfast love, and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life (Psalm 42:7-8).

The Sons of Korah, who wrote this Psalm, were responsible for looking after the holiest things in the Temple and for maintaining 24-hour worship. These priests were worshippers and intercessors. They stood before the Lord for their nation.

To worship is a battle. It is a stand of faith when circumstances tell us to give up. The deep waterfalls of God's love and purpose are also wild and uncontrollable for us. Only by faith in the Lord Himself are we able to stand and sing in the night as the Sons of Korah did.

To intercede is also a battle. As we touch the heart of Jesus in worship, He shares the depth of His yearning for a world in darkness. We hear His cry for the lost and dying; we share His longing for the prodigals; we feel His pain at the division and hatred between people and nations.

In this broken world of ours, those who love will always suffer. Intercession is a fellowship with Jesus in His suffering.

However, Jesus has brought us into the New Creation. On Resurrection Day everything changed: Jesus, the last Adam has dealt with every sin since Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil! He died on the Cross, which I believe represented that evil tree. He made the choice for LIFE that the first Adam missed. He invites us into the New Creation that can never be defiled, because He - our last Adam - has made the right choice for us.

On that Resurrection Day Jesus showed the disciples His wounds. They were not gruesome, but somehow glorious! The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord!

We are all wounded people: sometimes the wounds come from the ministry, sometimes from those close to us, sometimes they are even self-inflicted. Sometimes the wound comes from what the Lord is asking of us. Abraham worshipped the Lord walking up Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac. The wonderful thing is that as we bring every wound into the New Creation, those wounds become glorious.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power (1Corinthians 15:42-43).

In the battle, in this worship-intercession for Revival, we get wounded. Yet the Lord has called us to sing to the 'well' of His eternal purposes and see the River of Life break out in our nations! 'Spring up O Well!'.

As we take our stand, like the Sons of Korah, (remember Korah, their ancestor rebelled against the Lord, so they didn't have a great heritage!), we don't have to be perfect, we just need to look to Jesus and trust that He is the Resurrection and the Life. He will bring life through us!

Despite all the obstacles of visas, finance, etc., we will gather on Mount Carmel to worship and intercede. Barriers will fall, the waters will flow, and healing life will come to us and through us to others.

See you there!

Love in Christ,

Gail