Ron Brumbaugh's Posts

Do I Need the Holy Spirit to Pray Effectively? How Do I Know if it Really is the Holy Spirt? Part 1

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on March 21, 2014 at 0:39

http://ronbrumbaugh.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/do-i-need-the-holy-spirit-to-pray-effectively-how-do-i-know-if-it-really-is-the-holy-spirit/

God Bless

Ron Brumbaugh

Our culture has accepted two huge lies !

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on August 6, 2012 at 14:07

“One Nation Under God “

God – Morality - Our Nation

Christianity and Politics

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord

The people he chose for his inheritance

Psalm 33:12

Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. Rick Warren

After all of these years of prayer for our nation I believe that we are finally seeing more and more Christians rising to the cause of Jesus Christ and the world does not know how to handle that.

Hopefully it is not too late for our culture. As soon as we speak convictions and moral absolutes it obviously riles people because it confronts them with a just and righteous God. As one pastor recently said, if sinners feel comfortable, warm and toasty in my church then I wonder if I am preaching the same gospel as Jesus, Peter and Paul.

It is amazing moment when you pick up a book or listen to a sermon on a subject that God has already been speaking to you about over the past months or years. All of a sudden that sermon or book solidifies and seals what God himself, has been trying to speak with you in the past months or even years.

To me this happens all of the time.

Several years ago I was in a large mega church in New York City and the message that was spoken was exactly what God had been speaking into my heart for months and even back into the early days of my Christianity. But that morning there in New York City it all came together. It was a moment that changed my life and I made a permanent change in yielding to what God had already been speaking to me most of my life as a Christian.

Most recently reading the book “ Radical “ by David Platt, one of those moments happened again, where we are reminded that our calling in life was not just to live the “ American Dream “ but to live out the “ Great Commission “, every day of our Christian lives. It is easy to say that we are all doing that today by just simply living a quiet Christian life and not yielding to the worlds ungodly desires – but is there more?

One of the hardest tasks here in the DC area and in America is to awaken churches and Christians to seek God and to pray for our Nation. Prayer and intercession is not a big Christian crowd gatherer, but yet when done right, we have seen thousands and thousands show up in our churches to pray all across this Nation. We as Christians are all commended for attending church and church related activities and even commended for volunteering in our communities, but as soon as we pray, seek God and speak publicly on behalf of Jesus Christ then we are labeled as bigots, narrow minded and we are labeled as uncompassionate people.

“The Church has not yet touched the fringe of the possibilities of intercessory prayer” – John R Mott

"Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces”. S.D. Gordon

We can only pray that God awakens his church in this critical year of 2012. A political party or a new President will not make this Nation a Christian Nation. It is time for the church to rise and speak. It is time for Christians to shake off the intimidation of the world and to come forth and boldly proclaim the gospel with faith and compassion for the world.

Pray that this year 2012 that Christians and churches would pray and stand more vocal than ever before.

Ephesians 6:12 says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities, rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. If we practice activism without prayer we become nothing more than Christian activists with a cause. And here in DC there are hundreds of groups with just a cause. We do not want to be just another one of them. But if we begin first on our knees before the almighty and omnipotent God with prayer and intercession, we can then be assured that our voices will be heard and our actions will have a permanent effect upon our Nation and our Nations culture.

As S.D. Gordon says - "Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces”.

In 2012 we are facing cultural changes that could change the Godly culture of this Nation for decades to come. Abortion has the potential to reach record epidemic numbers; traditional marriage is being challenged at a rate like we have never seen in our American history; and the removal of God from every aspect of our culture is under attack like we have never know in the foundation of America. The push to make this Nation a neutral Godless society is being challenged and thrown in our face on a daily basis and we as Christians and the church have said little. History tells us over and over again that other Nations have risen with a strong Christian heritage and then only to slip in mediocrity when they strayed away from God and moral absolutes. Many feel that this is impossible and this could never happen to the United States of America.

But has it already begun? Is it too late to change?

The good news is that it is never too late to change.

Pray that the American church and Christians would arise to their call of the Great Commission. Pray that the churches of America would not get trapped into being a self serving church and that they would not be consumed with ministering just to their own. Pray that our churches would not succumb to a social gospel of only community service.

As you are probably aware, we pray all across this DC area from Capitol Hill to Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinics on Saturday mornings to the steps of the Supreme Court. We have seen a few churches here in the DC area arise to the call of the Great Commission with prayer and seeking God over the past few years, but most prayer has been formed outside of the local church structure.

Pray that more and more churches would hear the call of God to the Great Commission to seek God, to pray and then take action that will have a permanent spiritual effect on our cities and our Nation.

May God awaken more and more churches all across this Nation to “Stand on behalf of Him “.

God Bless.

Ron Brumbaugh

“ Building a Culture of Faith, Prayer and Action “

Mark 8

38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,

the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Ps 40 Waiting Patiently For Him - Not Just The Answer !

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on April 24, 2012 at 23:04

Psalm 40

1 I waited patiently for the LORD;

he turned to me and heard my cry

Waiting and patience are two words that the average American does not like to hear. We leave restaurants if service is not fast enough. We fire contractors if their work is not completed in the proper time. We buy and purchase services based on who can provide the quickest, fastest and most economical services to us. We live in a competitive society where businesses daily compete to provide their services to customers at faster pace than their competitors. Everyday someone is attempting to do something faster and quicker in our society.

But Yet God says to Wait on Him!

While the world is speeding up at a pace that yet is known to man, God is saying wait. God is not just saying slow down, but God is saying wait on him because it is what we learn in waiting on him that is the most important part of our life with God.

The reason most Christians do not like this scripture is because it seems to collide with other things that God tells us. He tells us that whatever we ask in his name that he will give us the desires of our heart. Mt 21:22, Mk 11:24, Jn 11:22, I Jn 5:15

There is no value in waiting.

Often we have been told to wait, but what value is there in waiting when God already knows my needs and he knows the timing of my needs. We have all heard words from the pulpits that say waiting produces patience. But if I have serious needs patience is not what I need. I literally need God to answer my prayers and I need the answers now. And God knows that even more than me..

Could it be that God has a greater desire than just answering our prayers?

Many of us see prayer as nothing more than a check list of needs that we feel that God wants to do for us and what he may want to do for others on our behalf. So at times it takes great discipline to make time to pray unless our needs are so great that they drive us to our knees – in that case we never have a hard time finding time.

John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

The bible says over and over again that God wants to answer our prayers but he also says eternal life is knowing him. How does knowing him and our prayer life relate?

Could it be that we have only used prayers to meet our own selfish needs when God wants to use prayer as his avenue to get to know him. Could it be that God wants to use prayer as an opportunity to share his heart and his very soul with us? Could it be that God wants to use prayer to speak to us and to build our faith by knowing him? Could it be that God wants to use prayer to teach us to listen to him and also teach us to talk to him? Could it be that God wants to use prayer so that we might literally experience him in more ways than we can even think or ist here?

Don’t limit prayer to praying for needs.

When churches have little knowledge and connection with God it may be because they lack an active and an alive prayer meeting within their own church. Does your church develop a culture of prayer that leads people to place of knowing God or does it only pray when there are needs and emergencies.

One of the most common reasons that I hear of why churches do not have corporate church prayer meetings, is that they often say that no one would attend. Most recently I spoke to a pastor and he stated that it was impossible to get people to come out to another meeting other than the minimal Sunday morning service. But could it be that if prayer moved beyond praying for our own needs to the place of encountering and experiencing God – Maybe then our churches would become spirit filled with hungry men and women finding God.

Prayer breaks through spiritual dullness and religiosity and it opens up our churches to the overflow of the Holy Spirit.

Learn to use prayer for more than our needs. Use it as the main ingredient to know God on a daily basis. Use it as the main ingredient to encounter and experience God daily by the work of his Holy Spirit.

God Bless

The Lost Art of Courage - Ron Brumbaugh

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on April 13, 2012 at 13:55

The Lost Art of Courage

Multiple times in the Book of Joshua, Joshua encourages the Israelites to be courageous if they wanted to enter into the Promised Land and if they wanted to receive all of the promises that God had for them.

Today courage is honored and revered for those who dedicate their lives or even risk their lives for the sake of a cause that we respect. It may be a policeman, a fire fighter, an athlete, a political activist or just an average person that attempts and accomplishes above average things.

In Bible days and during the making of the history of our Nation, we find those God fearing Christians who were not afraid to be courageous on behalf of God. They were found to be couragous for that which they believed in and for that which they knew to be true.

Joshua 1:9
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

Joshua 10:25
And Joshua said unto them, "Fear not, nor be dismayed. Be strong and of good courage, for thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies against whom ye fight."

Where is courage amongst Christians?

Where are the Christians today when it comes to standing on behalf of God for righteousness and justice in our Nation? Where is the courage of Christians standing on behalf of the 53 million children that have been murdered in our very own nation since 1973? Where is the courage of Christians to stand with God on his behalf of the God given sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, while a gay genderless lifestyle is being promoted even to our youngest children at the earliest age in our public schools? Where is the courage of Christians to stand on behalf of God when our nation is attempting to remove every influence of God from our every fabric of our society, all in the name of Freedom of Religion.

Courage does not mean the lack of fear

Courage does not mean that a person is immune from fear. But courage looks fear in the eye and courage says I will not yield to fear even when I may feel fear or when I am facing it face to face. Fear may even surround me but I choose courage in God.

Today is a time when it is a time for us, to move up to the front of the line and stand before God and the devil to see all of our victories won. We need to see victories won in our own personal lives and we need to see victories won in our Nation so that God’s blessings will continually increase in our lives and in our nation.

Is the fear of God greater than the fear of the enemy?

Fear is also a healthy attribute if it is directed towards God in reverence and respect towards him. But the fear that keeps me from stepping out into new areas in my life is the fears that courage can overcome.

Joshua knew that there would be many battles facing the Children of Israel as they moved into their promised land. He knew that fears would naturally overcome them if they did not exercise courage. Joshua knew the challenges that would face them as they were inheriting their promises and that is why he told them over and over again, that they would need to be courageous.

Jason Crabb sings a popular song that says “You can’t have a victory without a fight”.

My courage must be built upon something substantial

My courage must be founded upon the written Word of God and it must be founded upon the Word of God that the Holy Spirit has given to me. From this place we cannot doubt. Most of us know what the Bible already says and most of us already know what God is saying to us - but it takes courage to act upon God’s word and what he is saying for us to do.

Obedience becomes easier and easier as we use courage to overcome our fears and intimidations - until eventually we look forward to challenges

We need courage in our Nation.

Our nation was founded upon courageous men and women who were willing to be courageous in the midst of fears of life and death.

But is seems like the anti-God sentiment in this nation has overcome the lack of courage amongst Christians and the American church.

Where do we stand today? Will courage fill the average church once again? Will courage be a common word used daily amongst Christian families in their homes and within their daily living?

Will the courage of Christians once again fill this Nation so that God himself will be honored and revered in our society once again?

God Bless.

Ron Brumbaugh

Day 1 - 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting - You can follow us in the 40 days of Prayer and Fasting

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on January 12, 2012 at 9:05

" One Nation Under God"

Praying for Revival Amongs our Churches in America!

His Name Shall Be Great on All of the Earth ( Malachi 1:11)

Day 1

January 10, 2012

There are hundreds and even thousands of live and vibrant churches all across America that begin each new year with 21 days to 40 days of Prayer and Fasting.

The hearts of Christians are crying out all across this world knowing that there must be more! Satisfied with the status quo is not a term that many are familiar with in this world – especially the young people that God is raising up.

As I begin a 40 day fast today we must ask the question? “Why Fast?” As many would say “fasting without prayer is nothing more than a good healthy diet”.

There are many reasons to fast and pray and I personally probably have tried them all. Health professionals tell us that fasting cleanses the body and fasting removes toxins from our body when time is set apart for fasting. But all throughout Bible history along with Jesus himself, speaks of the need to pray and to fast so that we might be able to obtain the perfect plan in our lives that God has already so freely set before us to live out. I have always fasted over issues that I was facing in my life; I have prayed and fasted for health improvement and I have even prayed and fasted simply because I felt that this was what God was telling me to do. I have been successful in prayer and fasting at times while at other times I have utterly and miserably failed only after a day or two. By just praying and skipping lunch at then to be followed by succumbing and eating a large pizza at night, giving into hunger, was probably not what Jesus meant, when he spoke of fasting and prayer.

Many of us have all read the new book by Jentezen Franklin – “The Fasting Edge”. We realize that the church today is very different than the original New Testament church as shown to us in the Book of Acts. The modern church is also very different than the early American church which built and established this nation as “One Nation Under God”.

Today when we as Christians search for a local church we search for the one with the best church programs. We look for the best music and we obviously want the best worship for our Sunday morning worship experience. We look for the best facilities that will provide for the total needs of our personal lives and provide the needs for our family. And of course we look for the most comfortable place of worship that will fit into our comfortable lifestyle as we look for a church that can also maximize the time spent in that place so that church can comfortably fit into a part of our busy daily life. However we realize that none of these goals were the goals of the early church; in fact the early Christians might be appalled to think that this is our view of Christianity. Jesus himself may even be appalled to think that he gave so much for us, but yet we sacrifice so little for him.

All of the amenities that we experience today in the modern church are wonderful; we shouldn’t change a thing but we have to ask ourselves – are we really experiencing Jesus Christ in the way that he intended us to know him or is Christianity only a comfortable attempt to fill a spiritual void in our lives without ever really experiencing and identifying with the real life of Jesus himself?

When we choose to pray and to fast – What is the end result?

When we pray and fast we fine tune ourselves to the place where our love and our passion for God is more important than food itself. We are saying to God the very same thing that David said to God in Psalm 63:3 as he was fasting – “Your love is better than life”. David says “my soul thirsts for you and my body longs for you”. Does our soul thirst for God in the way that our body thirsts for food and water?

As we begin this 40 day fast most of our fasting will be identifying with Jesus as he spent those long isolated 40 days fasting in the desert. Because Jesus overcame in the desert, thru his victory thru temptation, we are able to identify with him along with him in his incredible love for his Father and his love for us. We are showing to God that our spiritual keenness and sensitivity to him is more important than the food itself that provides our daily nourishment for our body. Fasting is a time to put away everything from the world and focus on our spirituality and focus on our love for God.

It is amazing how sensitive we become to God and how his voice becomes so much more real and alive to us when we put everything away for a period of time. Fasting and praying will make us more sensitive and aware to the God that resides within us and to the one that is already around us and surrounding us in every way.

Short term discipline yields long term results – Jentezen Franklin

Every Christian is blessed in every way possible ( Ephesians 1:3 ) but yet at times we need more.

There is only one reason to fast and to pray and that is to be closer and more sensitive to God.

As we fast and pray – Yes! - He will break the chains that bind us and he will restore our families. He will release evangelism and break bondage from our cities and he will release our communities and universities from the stronghold of humanism. He will restore jobs with finances and he will rebuild the old waste places along with raising up foundations of many generations ahead, just as spoke in Isaiah 58:12

Prayer and fasting makes areas more clear in our lives that were previously cloudy until that time.

Prayer and fasting allows us to refocus and to feel and hear the heart of God in new ways that we never dreamed possible for us to understand.

As we go through these 40 days together you are welcome to read our daily blog. www.EveryDaySomethingNew.com

Even in these last few days as we have already begun the fast, God has already spoken to us so many things. He has spoken so much that it is impossible to put everything in print.

Also there are many things that we will be attempting and doing in these next 40 days and we will attempt to keep you updated on this blog.

God is moving like we have never seen him move in decades past. God is stirring the hearts of men and women in churches all across America.

Join us as we pray.

God Bless

Ron Brumbaugh

Day 1 - 40 Days of Prayer and

Posted by Ron Brumbaugh on January 12, 2012 at 9:01