Music is a powerful entity — a force like gravity. It drives both the Christian and secular world. Some people say they live to make and listen to music. 

Think about it. 

Have you ever heard a song and instantly remembered where you were and how you felt when you first heard it?  

Music is one of the only tools that can make you feel emotions without your knowledge. It can change your whole mood, even if it’s just instrumental.

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Our time we spend with God is paramount. Reading the Word and praying are essential. It’s how we know God.  Given the importance of this time period, it should be a high priority to get the most out of our time with God.

The funny thing is, whenever I want to spend time with God, I am generally the most distracted. And tired. How does that never fail to happen? Sit on the bed, open the Bible…and conk. It’s most definitely spiritual narcolepsy.

But really, if the time we spend with God is the primary way to know God, why wouldn’t the devil do all he can to distract, confuse, or disrupt this time of meeting? And how can we practically fight to keep this time? 

Here is a short list of what has helped me:

1. Schedule your time with God, daily. Some people desire to spend more time with God but fail to plan it into their schedule. Check out this post if you need help making a schedule.
2. Turn off cellphones, computers, DISTRACTIONS! Seriously, it’s not that important for you to answer that text right away.
3. Turn on worship and pray in the Spirit. Worship and prayer are the same to God, so turning on worship is both enjoyable and effective.
4. Get a Bible reading action plan. It’s common to desire to read and study a lot of books and topics but to rarely follow through.  Desires must transcend into action, and a systematic plan is a great way to help achieve goals.
5. Pray-read the Word. Don’t just read the Word to increase your head-knowledge, but pray what you are reading. “..knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” 1 Cor. 8:1

Take ahold of your time with God and get serious about meeting with Him to know Him and love Him. Don’t just give up when you read a chapter and feel bored. God’s not boring; it’s we who are boring. Take time to let God change your heart to love His Word.

In the desire to learn how to increase our prayer life we sometimes don’t know where to begin. It can be discouraging having zeal and then running out of things to pray for. I have definitely experienced this. A prayer list is great, but what exactly do we pray over those we have on the list?

I believe the best prayers are ones that are from the Word. This is a list of scriptures that will help give you dialogue material to speak with God. This list is Mike Bickle’s, with my own additions.

View all Prayer Resources

F– Fear of God

• I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. (Jer. 32:40)
• The Lord…you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. (Isa. 8:13)
• Unite my heart (to Your heart and Word) to fear Your name. (Ps. 86:11)
• His delight is in the fear of the LORD… (Isa. 11:3)

E– Endurance

• Being strengthened with all power…may have great endurance and patience… (Col. 1:11 NIV)
• May the Lord direct your hearts into…the patience (endurance) of Christ. (2 Thes. 3:5)
• It was written, “Zeal for Thy house will consume me (Jesus).” (Jn. 2:17, NAS)
• Zeal for Your house has eaten me (David) up… I wept and chastened my soul with fasting that became my reproach. I made sackcloth my garment… (Ps. 69:9-11)
• Phinehas…was zealous with My zeal among them… (Num. 25:11)

L– Love

• The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit… (Rom. 5:5)
• I pray, that your love may abound still more…in knowledge and all discernment. (Phil. 1:9)

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168. That’s how many hours we all have in a week. If you average 8 hours a night for sleep, it leaves you with 112 waking-hours. In that amount of time, you could do a lot of things. Like: make 12,320 vinyl records, quilt 5.5 quilts or read the entire Bible roughly 1.6 times.

Needless to say, we all have a lot of time in life. Yet, the most common complaint is, “There’s not enough time in the day.” I’m guilty of this complaint, and it is usually an excuse for poor planning. The issue at hand is that we don’t schedule and prioritize our time according to our life vision and goals.

It’s great to write out a life-vision and life-goals, but if they don’t translate into every-day-action, then they are useless.

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We just recently finished 24 hours of non-stop worship this weekend at the missions base. It was incredible. Nine different worship teams from local churches and ministries ministered to the Lord Friday and Saturday as we offered Jesus a 24-hour offering of adoration.

I strongly believe that God desires 24/7 worship and prayer to be found all over the earth. In fact, His Word promises it:

“‘After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up…” -Acts 15:16

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The term “prophetic musician” simply describes a musician who, operating in the spirit of prophecy, testifies of Jesus. Because prophecy is simply the testimony of Jesus, it can be coupled with many different mediums. Preachers preach the testimony of Jesus; teachers teach it. Singers sing the testimony of Jesus; painters paint it. All these mediums can prophesy about who Jesus is and edify the Church.

“[T]he testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev. 19:10)

Listen to this musical interlude in Bethel’s song God, I look to You. Start at the 3:49 mark. What does the melody make you feel about God?

Keep that thought in your head, now go back and listen to the whole song and tell me if what you felt is at all close to the topic of the song. That’s what prophetic music does: it makes known God’s heart through melodies, rhythms and sounds.

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