THE IMMEDIATES

     While praying and meditating about the fellowship that God has planted us in, the Lord has impressed upon me what I call as “Immediates”. These pertain to things that would require immediate obedience, immediate repentance... Things that need to be immediately addressed in our fellowship:

 The immediates :
1.Immediate need for purity
2.Immediate need for faith
3.Immediate need to press in 

1. NEED FOR PURITY 
- not just pertaining to being morally and sexually pure, but also being free from the defilement of he worldliness that surrounds us.
- We should have a cautiousness, a sense of carefulness in the things we see and think of
- Being married does not protect one from having purity struggles.
- We should have excellence in purity. This area should be dealt with and treated with all seriousness.
- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God! Matthew 5:28
- We must be cleansed from all our desires that go against the perfect will of God!

2. NEED FOR FAITH 
- without faith it is impossible to please God : Hebrews 11:6
- Faith begins with God : Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith.
- Faith has five essential elements. MUST READ Rev. Robert Tucker Sr’s full article on this HERE.

Points of emphasis on Rev. Tucker’s article : 

A. Receive the Rhema - We cannot initiate faith out of our own needs, desires, or wishes. It must be born from the heart of God. This is God’s part. Without the rhema, we cannot have faith.
B. Believing the Rhema - This is our responsibility.  Believing is to be so fully persuaded that what God has said is true, that our words and actions portray a confidence that it is so. If we truly believe what God has spoken to us, we will move on to the other necessary responses.
C. Confessing What God Declares -  Once God has spoken to us, what we speak is very critical to the ongoing development of faith. Our confession validates our faith in the rhema of God and moves us closer to seeing it fulfilled. “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee” (Job 22:28).
D. The obedience of faith - Often when God gives us a rhema, it not only contains promises but also requires our obedience. Be quick to obey!!! NOAH is our example.
E. Patient Waiting - Most promises take time to be brought to fulfillment. God takes no pleasure in making us wait just to fulfill some needless amount of suffering. God’s interest is not only that we receive the promise, but also that we obtain a good report from Him and develop a deeper relationship with Him as we are waiting.
Why does God speak promises to us and then make it necessary to wait? “And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him” (Isaiah 30:18). Patient waiting is necessary so that God can do the very best for us. His best takes time to develop! His blessing abounds fully in us if we are willing to wait until He has developed all His plans to maturity. 

3. NEED TO PRESS IN 
- There are some things in the Lord that will be easy to get. But there are also those things that need some pressing in. Like the woman with an issue of blood who pressed in just to get to touch the hem of our Lord Jesus.

Four areas that we need to learn to press in :
A. Quiet Time.
B. Worship
C. Changed Character
D. Prayer

A. Quiet Time
- We need to hear from God
- We need to be careful not to be robbed of time by our busyness
- This might mean laying down of non-essentials such as Internet surfing
- If we don’t have time, we need to create time.
- We must learn to practice the presence of God, communing with Him even in our workplace, and day to day living.
- Sunday messages and discipleship groups are NOT enough. We need to grow in our quiet time
- We recommend to read on Secrets of the Secret Place by Bob Sorge. It’s a good book to gain good footing in establishing an intimate “secret place” with the Lord.

B. Worship 
 - should be a lifestyle and not a Sunday event.
 - we should worship in spirit and in truth
- we should be passionate about worship, and yet tempering zeal with wisdom.

C. Changed Character 
- Like Jacob, we need to “wrestle” with God. We need God to change us!
- We should be quick to repent of our sins.
- James 1:19 tells us to be QUICK to listen, SLOW to speak, and SLOW to anger. We will do well if we do these three!

D. Prayer 
 - Jonathan Edwards said, “When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of His people.”
- Jesus prayed with fervency : Hebrews 5:7
- For examples of how crucial prayer has become in the last great awakenings and revivals, there is a free chapter of the book called Fireseeds of Spiritual Awakening by Dan Hayes that you can download HERE.

Something Leonard Ravenhill wrote :
The church has many organizers, but few agonizers; 
many who pay, but few who pray; 
many resters, but few wrestlers; 
many who are enterprising, but few who are interceding. 
People who are not praying are playing. 
Two prerequisites of dynamic Christian living are vision and passion. 
Both of these are generated by prayer. 
The ministry of preaching is open to a few. 
The ministry of praying is open to every child of God. … 
Tithes may build the church, but tears will give it life. 
That is the difference between the modern church and the early church. 
Our emphasis is on paying, theirs was on praying. 
When we have paid, the place is taken. 
When they had prayed, the place was shaken (Acts 4:31). 
In the matter of effective praying, never have so many left so much to so few. 
Brethren, let us pray.


 Amen and amen.