Theme of the conference

Ps 27:4 this one thing have I desired, this one thing will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, behold His beauty and glory and meditate in His temple.

For the first night Josiah brings a word from Isiah 59:19

So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and His glory from the rising sun. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.

The enemy comes to accuse us, overwhelm us and cause division.

Rev 12 - out of the mouth of the dragon he spews out water like a flood

But as it says in Is59 the spirit of God is lifting up a standard for His people and against the enemy.

His standard is ONE THING

To keep seeking His face, and live from intimacy with the King.

John 17:24 - Jesus has a desire, that they may behold His glory.

This week Josiah shares a prophetic message on Psalms 110:3 in preparation for the Upperroom conference. God is wanting to birth something in this hour and the womb of the dawn speaks of a place of hiddenness and darkness before the light. God is bringing a spiritual formation to the church so that we would be getting the world ready for the new day.

This week Josiah shares on how covenant with God not only brings His blessing but also breaks oppression and affliction in our lives and our reign. We see this play out in two stories from 2 Chronicles, first in chapter 15 where Asa removed Maacha from Queenhood then secondly in chapter 23 where Jehoida ordered that Athaliah be killed outside the temple. The bible says that both Maacha and Athaliah were Queen mothers and had setup satanic worship, Maacha's name means oppression and Athaliah means afflicted.

When covenant came it removed oppression and affliction bringing liberation for God's people.

Let us too covenant with God and let His spirit pull us to tear down idols in and around our lives to see revival.

This week Josiah shares on how Jesus is our faith that supports us throughout our lives, our firm foundation to get from glory to glory. Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

We are very familiar of this verse as Christians but have we really thought about what this means for us as believers? The word used for substance here means a firm foundation or undergirding support, this is a support for our hope which is a trust in something I have not seen.

The faith talked about here is the foundation that we can stand on to get where God wants us to go. This faith isn't just a thought, but it is Jesus Himself, just like it says in Titus 2:13 He is our blessed hope.

Jesus is our great hope and when we loose sight of this we loose our foundation and everything feels shaky. This is the danger of when we allow the hope of our destinies and our lives to become bigger in our mind than Jesus and we find trouble.

Come and put your hope and trust on Jesus again, your rock and firm foundation.

This week Josiah shares on the vision of Zion, this is the vision that God has led us in.

Although, talks on vision can cause hype or can be used to control God calls us to wait on Him for vision. Habakkuk 2:2 - Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.

This isn't a time to pull back but it is a time to be awake to the things of the spirit and push into God to find our purpose.

This week we had the pleasure of hearing from Josiah's brother Matthew speak on the goodness of God. Following on from Felix's talk last week on the parable of the foolish virgins, Matt talks on the next parable in Matt 25:14-30 - The parable of the talents.

God gives us unique talents

How we use these gifts will determine our future

We all have different amounts of talents and we are expected to this wisely based on our ability

The master in this parable is Jesus, as the only one who can make this judgement is Jesus.

1 - We know God through intimacy with Him, through listening to Him

2 - Obey God, take what He says and put it into action quickly.

3 - Removing the lies and replacing them with God's truth.

Lies we believe about ourselves or God can hinder our faithfulness

Trust God in the weak position and the power position.

This week we had the pleasure of hearing from Felix, a father in our church, speaks on living fully surrendered to Jesus. The reality of death as humans can be a daunting reality or an incredible force that builds hope. We need to keep a big picture vision for life, remembering that we cannot live without His strength.

Just because we are saved doesn’t mean that He is pleased with the way we are living

It doesn’t mean that He is automatically going to trust us

That takes time, it takes us being faithful to God

And letting Him save us continually

Miserable Christians are the result of them not letting go of their lives

Deeper surrender

We need to come to this place where we realise our struggle to lay down our life

But it is letting Jesus do what He does

This week Josiah shares a word on staying engaged to not step back from the season God has for you.

He will crown this year with abundance and your paths drip with abundance.

It says in Jeremiah that the Goodness of God causes the people to fear Him.

Daniel 7:25 The enemy will speak pompous words against the people of God. He harass' and wears out the people of God to seek to change times and seasons.

He gets us to question God's goodness in order to wear us out.

If God is saying it’s a time of His favour, the enemy would be try and get you to be worn out. If you are worn out you will want to fall asleep.

Hebrews 4 - we are to strive to enter His rest, we need to pursue His rest.

We need to understand that when the enemy comes like a flood, that the spirit of the Lord is going to raise a standard over us.

We cannot look at our life's through the eyes of man, but through heavens eyes.