IHOP Atlanta

Recently I was in a worship leader meeting where we discussed the future of the prayer movement and specifically how it pertained to worship leaders. I realized that God is calling us as worship leaders to be ones who are alive in revelation of the Word of God. He wants worship leaders to live in awe of His Word, fascinated with the Scriptures. It’s not enough that we know a few Scriptures, we must be ones who continually feed on the Word.

Usually most people who have artistic gifts, “minor” on the word of God and “major” on their gift. When we do this we miss the main reason we were given the gift in the first place. He doesn’t want us to solely focus on our gifting while neglecting His Word. God gives us gifts to evoke love, intimacy, and strength in our own hearts and in the hearts of others.

As the meeting progressed, I realized that it is essential for me to continue to pursue a spirit of wisdom and revelation in my life. The next day as I read Revelation 4, verse 8 grabbed my attention. The four living creatures, who worship God day and night, are worshiping in response to the revelation they see as they gaze on the God of heaven. In a perfect realm, the worshipers are still seeking Him out for revelation, which in turn produces the worship they give.

If this is the case in the perfect realm of the throne room, how much more should I gaze upon Him and seek revelation so that my heart can soar in worship! In my heart I began to ask the Lord to make me “full of eyes,” like the four living creatures, that I might have all my revelatory senses open to Him. I want to be full of revelation so that my heart can soar to new levels of worship that I have never experienced.

I want to write songs from this place of revelation. I want all that I play and sing to come from the place of revelation and a true understanding of the beauty of the Lord. If you are a worship leader, I want to encourage you to continuously gaze upon the throne so that we may proclaim, with a spirit of wisdom and revelation, the beauty of the Lord in song.

Over the last 6 months the Lord has continued to highlight the issue of human trafficking to me. As I began to pray about and research this subject, I was shocked to find out that there are between 27 and 30 million slaves in the earth today. 70% percent of these are sex slaves. These are young women and girls who, many times, have been kidnapped and transported across international lines and sold for the sole purpose of prostitution. They are held against their will and forced to have sex with as many as 30-50 men daily. If they refuse they are told they will be killed. 50% of those who are held as sex slaves are under 16 years old. Many of them are as young as 5 years old. The state department reports that there are as many as 50,000 young women who are trafficked into the United States annually. Some experts estimate that this number may be as high as 100,000. Every 30 seconds across the globe another person is abducted and forced into slavery. By the time you finish reading this blog, 10 lives will have been viciously torn from normalcy and forced into slavery.

These are absolutely horrifying statistics that most people do not want to consider because they are so disgusting. However, each of these numbers represents a real person, with a real name who has real thoughts, feelings and dreams. Jesus is intimately acquainted with each of them. He knows the name of every little girl who is mercilessly abused day in and day out. He hears her cries at night when she asks God, “If You are real, will You please help me?” He hears the cries of the prisoner and is zealous to execute justice for all who are oppressed (Psalm 102:20, 103:6, 146:7).

I am gripped over this issue. It is not ok with me that we live in a world where greed is so acute and the appetite for perversion so severe that we sell our children so that they may be ravaged and raped by demonically driven men. It’s not ok with me that there are some 20 million who will sleep tonight in closets and cellars and cages like dogs awaiting to be raped in the morning. It’s not ok with me that, while you are reading this, there are five-year old girls who are being forced to service the perverse sexual appetites of grown men. It’s not ok with me and it’s not ok with God, whose Throne is established on righteousness and justice.

We have allowed sexual perversion to permeate and possess our society. The result is that we live in a world where we enslave our own children to gratify our greed and satiate our depravity.

I believe that God wants to turn this around. I believe that Jesus is looking for friends who are not afraid to walk with Him in intercession over this horrifying evil in our world. When we make our appeal to the Throne that is over all the other thrones in creation, Heaven’s government is established in the earth. It is only when the power and presence of God is released in the earth that human trafficking will end. The release of the Kingdom of God is the remedy to destroy the works of the kingdom of darkness. The Lord is highlighting this issue right now all across the globe. He is bringing an awareness of it to the forefront of society to rally intercessors in order to cry out in focused intercession against it. I want to sound an alarm against this grave injustice. Will you join with me, and thousands around the world, in crying out in continual prayer to see the scourge of sex slavery banished from the earth? I believe that as we ask the Lord to release justice that He will indeed let justice flow like a mighty river and break the back of sex slavery.