Speak Life by Bev Murrill

Speak Life by Bev Murrill

Have you ever walked into a room and felt the atmosphere? There's an awareness somewhere deep inside you when people are cold or critical towards you and you don't feel welcome ... or when it's a warm, accepting environment.

There is an atmosphere over every place, every situation and also every family, every nation - in fact every context in which people live, work and play. Guess what! That atmosphere was not there before the people arrived! It has been set by certain key people who have been given or who have taken for themselves in the absence of anyone else doing it, the right and authority in the spiritual realm to establish that atmosphere. None of us live in a vacuum. But in the same way that a fish dies not know what water is, mostly we take the atmosphere we inhabit for granted.

What an opening couple of paragraphs! 

"Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth." James 5 verse 17

1 Kings 17 and 18 tells the story of Ahab the most evil king of Israel up to that point. As often happens when a nation is in trouble, God raised up a voice for himself from nowhere - in this case, Elijah the Tishbite. Tishbe means "of the settlers". Elijah rose up and out from a people who had settled for the way their society was. He wasn't content with that. Nor did he waste his time complaining about the status quo. He was intentional about changing it. He was determined to make the king aware that the nation was headed for destruction and this culminated in him commanding it not to rain on the land.

And the rain stopped ...

... for three and a half years.

God hid Elijah during those years and despite Ahab's best efforts, he remained hidden until the right time. When God has a plan and you're a willing participant, there's nothing the enemy can do to abort it. Elijah's role was to discern the purposes of God for his society and to intentionally facilitate a change of atmosphere. He had to decide to engage with God's plan. He understood that making no decision would be, by default, making a decision.

When we hesitate between 2 options and don't choose either, one is automatically chosen for us - and it's not usually the good one. God won't force us into his plan, but the enemy has no qualms about writing his agenda for our lives and our family and our nation. That means that when we don't engage with God's atmosphere-changing plans, our decision (or lack of a decision) will determine our future.

Elijah challenged the spiritual climate by calling for a duel; he and his God versus the prophets and their gods. Elijah questioned the people who assembled to watch this competition as to why they were hesitating between the 2 different opinions about which god to serve. He laid down a challenge to the false prophets that each party would call on their own god. The one who answered by fire would show himself to be the genuine God.  Elijah was not intimidated by the fact that there were hundreds in the opposing party. He knew that any one person plus God is a majority.

The prophets of Baal danced around their altar, cutting themselves and shrieking, but no one answered them. Elijah mocked their frenzy, suggesting that possibly their god was thinking or had gone to the toilet, or was away on holiday. When it was his turn, he took his time over building the altar of the Lord, unexpectedly digging a trench around it and pouring 12 jars of the drought stricken nation's most precious commodity, water, all over the sacrifice and the wood until it lay in the trenches, making the possibility of fire impossible.

Elijah was able to pull this off because he had heard from God. He had seen Heaven's perspective and understood how committed God was to using him to change the atmosphere. We can't demonstrate that to others until we know it for ourselves. We can't help others to break through until we've encountered the God of the breakthrough ourselves. It takes commitment and effort to bring a change to the atmosphere in our school or home or business. It requires a decision and then a willingness on our part to carry the weight of that decision, despite the fact that the journey may be unpleasant, difficult and may cost us personally. It will be impossible to do unless we understand there is a purpose at stake that is bigger than our personal comfort levels. It's about knowing that God wants to use us to usher his Kingdom into our environment.

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" Genesis 1 verse 26

It was always God's intention that we rule our world. Adam and Eve had authority over the satanic forces that were intruding into Eden, but their authority didn't last long because they lacked a true awareness of it and they were deceived into giving it away. Before they got used to it, it was gone. For centuries mankind lived under the influence of enemy forces until the Saviour came. With the death and resurrection of Jesus, the right and responsibility of the dominion of humankind was restored - but this time under the delegated authority of Jesus.

"The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, 'Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name!' And he said to them, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Luke 10 verses 17 to 21

We don't live in a spiritual vacuum. In fact hte spiritual realm is more real and intense than most of us experience in the natural realm. We've been so desensitised by the sin of many generations that we have lost our awareness that we are made in the image of God and like God must speak our world into order. We do, in fact, creat our environment throught what we say - but so often we shape our world with negative words; what we are worried about, what's gone wrong, who we think is against us.

We judge ourselves by our intentions amd everyone else by their actions.

If we don't set God's agenda into the atmosphere over a situation, then someone else will. And that person is unlikely to be using his word to do it. In every situation there is a 'will of God' to be enacted and an adversary to that will - and it's the adversary that we are up against in every case. It's never our partner or teacher or boss or church leader who is the problem. It is only ever our adversary, the devil, who uses situations and misunderstandings and people to discourage and demoralise us.

Setting the spiritual atmosphere in our own sphere of influence is our responsibility. If you are the only Christian in your workplace, it's your responsibility to set the atmosphere. If you're the only believer in your home, you can set the spiritual atmosphere. If you're the strongest believer in a given context (meaning that those around you are Christians, but the context itself isn't operating in a Christian way) realise that it's still your responsibility to bring in the Kingdom (Luke 10 verses 8 to 12). The temptation is to believe that you're not strong enough, or you're too tired, or you shuldn't have to. But if you don't who will? If two of you can see it, even better. Put aside your conflict, see beyond the pressure and pray in unity to establish what is happening in Heaven in your situation. This rarely involves addressing the issues publicly; it's about perceiving the situation and speaking out the things you know to be happening in Heaven, over that place. Literally, it's about Speaking Life - the language of God - into the atmosphere around you.

Followingthrough on our intention to change the atmosphere means we will continue to wait on God while everyone else goes on with normal life.

Elijah knew the rain would come and break the drought because God had shown him that at the beginning. We have to have heard from God in order to be able to see a situation through.

The servant watched him and learned. Observe people of faith; see what they do and how they do it. Presumption isn't faith - faith is about knowing the character of God to such a degree that if it's not God saying "no" you know you don't have to take "no" for an answer. Don't be changed by the atmosphere you're in; change it by your own intentional decision to bring God's Kingdom in! There is a will of God for that place. It's your task to command it to be so. If in Heaven your work place is to be peaceful, productive and prosperous, command it to be so on earth. It's a rare revelation to not take "no" for an answer, when we know it's not God who's saying no to a particular situation, but we can all ask for it. The Kingdom of God is built by such people, who see what needs to be changed and give their lives over to doing it. Whether it's in your family, your business, your mission or ministry ... wherever God has called you, usher in his Kingdom.