"When you resort to shouting in conflict, you are reacting in the flesh.
You have lost control of the only person you can control: yourself." Neil T. Anderson
Graham Cooke
Voice of the Prophets
4-16-09 Christ Community Church Camp Hill
Notes fkj
When you talk to Graham Cooke, you can sense he’s been hanging out with God. He’s at the same time down-to-earth and full of spiritual wisdom on everything from prayer to spiritual warfare to prophecy to intimacy with God. Cooke is well known for his prophetic training programs and has a passion to build prototype churches that can reach our postmodern society. God also uses him to help transition churches into higher levels of vision and ministry.
The following are my notes from a sermon by Graham Cook which was presented at Christ Community Church’s ‘Voice of the Prophets convention’ on April 16, 2009. I believe Graham is a very humorous man of God with a poignant message for the church today.
What we’re seeing in the world right now in terms of some the catastrophes and difficulties… there not judgments… they’re consequences.
Part 4 0f 12
In the environment you can’t be letting of nuclear devices around the world and not expect it to effect the environment. You can’t be inconsiderate of green issues with your manufacturing base and not expect it to effect the environment and global warming and so on and so forth. You can’t expect to take all financial controls away, from an industry that is corrupt and bent on greed, and not have the consequences and the huge recession that rebounds all around the earth and effects everybody. This recession is not a judgment from God, it’s the consequences of greed. It’s the consequences of government that took away accountability procedures, on people who know how to make wealth. Those people without those controls went overboard, and now they are asking us to bail them out. Ordinary people are loosing their homes. I don’t see anybody, any of these guys loosing their homes.
Voice of the Prophets
4-16-09 Christ Community Church Camp Hill
Notes fkj
When you talk to Graham Cooke, you can sense he’s been hanging out with God. He’s at the same time down-to-earth and full of spiritual wisdom on everything from prayer to spiritual warfare to prophecy to intimacy with God. Cooke is well known for his prophetic training programs and has a passion to build prototype churches that can reach our postmodern society. God also uses him to help transition churches into higher levels of vision and ministry.
The following are my notes from a sermon by Graham Cook which was presented at Christ Community Church’s ‘Voice of the Prophets convention’ on April 16, 2009. I believe Graham is a very humorous man of God with a poignant message for the church today.
What we’re seeing in the world right now in terms of some the catastrophes and difficulties… there not judgments… they’re consequences.
Part 4 0f 12
In the environment you can’t be letting of nuclear devices around the world and not expect it to effect the environment. You can’t be inconsiderate of green issues with your manufacturing base and not expect it to effect the environment and global warming and so on and so forth. You can’t expect to take all financial controls away, from an industry that is corrupt and bent on greed, and not have the consequences and the huge recession that rebounds all around the earth and effects everybody. This recession is not a judgment from God, it’s the consequences of greed. It’s the consequences of government that took away accountability procedures, on people who know how to make wealth. Those people without those controls went overboard, and now they are asking us to bail them out. Ordinary people are loosing their homes. I don’t see anybody, any of these guys loosing their homes.
Consequences… so we are faced with a lot. You can’t commit a crime and know face the consequences. No one can say that you going to prison for that crime is a judgment, no it’s not it’s a consequence. You reap what you sow. We have sown the whirlwind in the financial industry… we have sown the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
It is so important to us as prophetic people that we prophesy from a place within the very heart and nature of God. That means you have to know who God is for you. That’s a big part of the prophetic journey. You have to know who God is for you, and you have to have your own testimony of what Jesus is like.
[Edit: "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." (Revelation 12:11 my emphasis bold) ]
The testimony of Jesus is the very essence of prophecy. What you know, what you think about God is the most important thing in the world. What you think about yourself is the next most important thing in the world. You can’t divorce the two.
Your identity is made up of how you are known in heaven, and it’s made up of you living in your safe place in the heart of God sheltered by His very nature. You know what God is for you. You have a testimony, this is what God is for me all the time.
You’re testimony is not what you were like before you were saved, that’s your history. Your testimony is this is what God is like for me all the time.
You’re testimony is not what you were like before you were saved, that’s your history. Your testimony is this is what God is like for me all the time.
My testimony is that He is the kindest person I have ever met, in my entire life. I have not met anybody kinder than God! He has been relentlessly kind to me. Every day, since He first introduced me to kindness over eighteen years ago, there has not been a day… a single day when He has not said something or done something that hasn’t just demonstrated His kindness.
So then what happens, when you have a continuous experience of something, because God wants you to experience his nature not just do a Greek word study on it. He wants you to have an experience of it, because how the Bible is a book of experiences. It’s not a book about teaching. It tells you, all the people… when people are mentioned by name in the Bible… and it tells you what their encounter is…
If the Holy Spirit actually impresses that particular story on you; it’s because God intends to give you that same experience. The Bible is not about teaching. It’s a book of experiences. So when the Lord highlights a passage to you, what He’s saying to you is, everything in that passage is yours to experience. If He talks to you about He is your Prince of Peace, you are supposed to have an experience of Him as your Prince of Peace. That experience will not be a one off experience. He will come to you as the Prince of Peace a hundred times, two hundred times, three hundred times, five hundred times; until you become the Prince of Peace,
until you are so soaked in the experience, so baptized in His nature that you become that. You become kindness, yeah? God doesn’t offer one off experiences.
They always become packaged as an experience. Encounters and experiences… and the Lord will keep coming, and coming with the same experience; and the whole idea is that you keep receiving that experience until He is satisfied that you’ve reached fullness.
until you are so soaked in the experience, so baptized in His nature that you become that. You become kindness, yeah? God doesn’t offer one off experiences.
They always become packaged as an experience. Encounters and experiences… and the Lord will keep coming, and coming with the same experience; and the whole idea is that you keep receiving that experience until He is satisfied that you’ve reached fullness.
So many of us just take one experience because we are so used to measure. We take one experience and we run with it, and it’s over in a couple of weeks and then we want another one. But the Lord wants to give you the same one, and then the same one, and then the same one, and then the same one, and then the same one, and then the same one… until you are full if it! Because you know the Lord eah; He’s full of it!
When He gives you an experience for the first time, He is introducing you to a series. You’re supposed to enjoy that experience until you are absolutely full. That is probably going to take anywhere from 6 to 12 months. Because God is highly relational… with some things He just likes to take His time, and have fun.
The whole idea is that if He shows you He wants you to experience His kindness, His goal is that you become kindness itself. The Bible is a book about encounters and experiences. Yeah, a fabulous book! That’s why when you read it you should read it really excited. O my Lord, what is He going to show me.
I remember the first time I learned this was when Noah was in short trousers…it was a long time ago, probably a hundred years at least. And the Lord showed me… He said to me one day, “Graham I want you to read Psalm 91 until I tell you to stop.” I said, “What today?” He said “No over the next nine months.” “I’m only supposed to read Psalm 91?” “Yeah.” “Nothing else?” “No.” “But I’m reading through the Bible in a year…” “Not this year you’re not.” So I started to read it. He said, “I want you to read it and study it…because everything in that Psalm is yours to experience.” After a couple of months I was desperate for a bit of Timothy. You know, I love Timothy, as a young guy I lived in Tim. I really like Tim, I like reading that book… I was desperate for a bit of Timothy. So I kind of like, opened my Bible to Timothy… I didn’t get more than like a verse into it and my eyes went out of focus. The Father said to me, “What did I say to you?” I said, “Yeah I know Poppa, but I was just desperate for a bit of Tim.” And He said to me “Graham, you can’t make me laugh.” “I’m not going to laugh and let you get away with it.” Dang, that was my big plan.
I remember the first time I learned this was when Noah was in short trousers…it was a long time ago, probably a hundred years at least. And the Lord showed me… He said to me one day, “Graham I want you to read Psalm 91 until I tell you to stop.” I said, “What today?” He said “No over the next nine months.” “I’m only supposed to read Psalm 91?” “Yeah.” “Nothing else?” “No.” “But I’m reading through the Bible in a year…” “Not this year you’re not.” So I started to read it. He said, “I want you to read it and study it…because everything in that Psalm is yours to experience.” After a couple of months I was desperate for a bit of Timothy. You know, I love Timothy, as a young guy I lived in Tim. I really like Tim, I like reading that book… I was desperate for a bit of Timothy. So I kind of like, opened my Bible to Timothy… I didn’t get more than like a verse into it and my eyes went out of focus. The Father said to me, “What did I say to you?” I said, “Yeah I know Poppa, but I was just desperate for a bit of Tim.” And He said to me “Graham, you can’t make me laugh.” “I’m not going to laugh and let you get away with it.” Dang, that was my big plan.
“Graham, this is too important to Me for where I want to take you. I need you to inhabit this word and I need this word to inhabit you. This is too important to Me. I’ve got levels to take you to , I’ve got places to take you to, there are certain battle fields I want to commit you to, there are certain fights I want to commit you to, and I need you to get totally absorbed in this word. I need this word in your blood stream and in your thinking… I need you to learn to live in the secret place.
End Part 4 of 12
End Part 4 of 12
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