Travel Update

We have been in Maryland for a week now and it has been great to visit and share with many of you. We will be speaking at Damascus Wesleyan Church on November 30th at 7:00pm. This will be our final engagement before returning to Kansas City. There are many others that we are anticipating touching base with before we leave. Our time in North Carolina was awesome. I had the privilege of leading worship at New Hope Christian Fellowship. It was an awesome time of worship, the Lord is doing incredible things in that body of believers! Michele and I also shared on Sunday night at NHCF as well. We want to thank you all for your prayers and financial support. Houses of prayer are vital members of the body of Christ, just as foreign missions and the local church among others, are vital as well. We need each other to accomplish and become what the Lord Jesus intended before His second coming.
Abiding,
Brian Jones

Matthew 24-The signs of the Times

This chapter is loaded with valuable insight from Jesus pertaining to His return at the end of the age. I have been reading and meditating on this chapter for a while and what I began to notice is that Jesus laid out 4 distinct time frames for us to watch for. The great thing about this is that Jesus gives us the order of which this will happen. Verses 5-8 are the “Beginning of Sorrows” which is stage 1. Stage 2 is described in verses 8-14, these are the “increased labor pangs”, Stage 3 is found in verses 15-28 which are the “hard labor pangs” and finally the 4th stage is described in verses 29-31, this stage is the coming of the Son of Man. For me, this made the concept of studying the end times so much more approachable. The fact is that Jesus used a common event to make it easy to understand the approaching of the end of the age......childbirth. Everyone was familiar with the process of a woman going into labor and birthing a child. Revelation describes these events in much greater detail. We need to be living with an urgency concerning the hour that we live in, not fear. Fear is a result of our lack of knowledge concerning Jesus’ plan at the end of the age. If we know Him and believe what He said, and give ourselves to Him in radical consecration now ,then we won’t be offended by His leadership in that day. My wife put it perfectly the other day as we were talking, I’m not sure if she heard this from someone else or not but it impacted me greatly. The statement was that Jesus was not recognized as the messiah at His first coming by many because they were expecting a warrior king and He came as the servant of all....... many will not recognize Him at His second coming because they will be expecting a humble servant but He will come as a warrior king and judge. Jesus said these haunting words many times and we should feel the same urgency that He was conveying.........Watch therefore!

In Christ,
Brian Jones

Matthew 24-As in the days of Noah

I am sitting here tonight in my recliner thinking about the scripture mentioned above and several others that relate to the “end of the age”. It seems that God has always been after our hearts. Like I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, He longs to walk with us in the cool of the day again as He spoke of in Genesis. We will walk with Him again in this manner in the realm of eternity. It was His plan from the beginning and He intends for it to be that way again. Before this happens however, the earth will be cleansed in preparation for Jesus’ return and a final cleansing before the Father comes. There is debate about the rapture and whether the believers will be raptured before or after the Great Tribulation. Some would say “it doesn’t really matter, it’s all going to pan out anyway”. Thats true, but how offended would I be if I was wrong and was here for it all instead of being raptured beforehand? Jesus commanded us to know the seasons concerning the end of the age. If we think we have what it takes now to withstand what is coming, then we must be the “elite elect” because Jesus said that this would even cause the “elect” to question their faith. We need to be of sober mind and not be carried away by the spirit of this age. The cares of this world are constantly prying for our worship and attention. Matt. 24:40 is often used as a “pre-trib” foundation but as I was looking closer at this I noticed verse 39 which says “and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Verse 40 says, “Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.” This is not referring to the rapture, but rather the judgement on the wicked. If you look closely, it isn’t difficult to see that the ones that were “taken” were the unrighteous not the righteous. The righteous were the ones left behind. They were in the ark.....protected. These scriptures are in context to the days of Noah according to what Jesus said. My prayer is that we as followers of Jesus would search the scriptures out that we would be ready for Jesus 2nd return, that we would understand what Jesus’ leadership and government will really look like at the end of the age. I don’t want to be surprised and offended.

Blessings,
Brian Jones

Faith and Psalm 84

We are very excited as we prepare to come back to the east coast to visit and share with our friends and family about the exciting things that God has had us doing while here in Kansas City. We are anticipating good fellowship and some folks to grab the vision and partner with us. Trusting God to provide on this level is a completely new concept for us but He is teaching us!! He really cares about us and really meets our needs. We may have “lean times” in the refrigerator from time to time but our inner man is being strengthened day by day. God has led us on a pilgrimage and we will make this valley a spring! Psalm 84 speaks of the Valley of Baca (or Weeping). This is not the place of hopelessness and defeat but rather a place of encounter with the Lord. Every trouble, hard place or Valley of Weeping we come to is in essence, a wilderness. The wilderness experience is where real faith is born. This psalm also speaks of moving “from strength to strength”. The “kneejerk” reaction that we usually say after this is “from glory to glory” but we have to go through the valley to reach the mountaintop. Between mountains is always a valley. Kind of like that great book “Hind’s feet for High Places”. We can’t live on the mountains. As a matter of fact, 90% of life is made up of the mundane, day to day stuff that we all have to do with a few glorious experiences that come our way and spice it up. God is so glorious!!! Even in the mundane, He gives us reason to rejoice and we press on without looking back. I love Him today more than I ever have.
Blessings,
Brian Jones

The True Identity of the Church

What is this “bride”, the church destined to look like? It seems it is so easy to forget sometimes as we get caught up in everything but prayer. It’s easy for me to lead worship, and it’s relatively easy to read and study the bible with all the resources we have today. It can even be easy to do outreach and various types of ministry. We can be very good at rallying people together to “get the job done” and totally bypass the thing that requires waiting and stillness......prayer. God is raising up a church that is going to be getting all of their battle plans and strategies during prayer meetings instead of board meetings. It is work to pray as I am realizing more and more every day. Yes there are days where it feels like the Lord is so near to me, and there are other days where I honestly felt better before I went into the prayer room. No matter how I feel, I know that when I am partnering with the Lord by praying for His purposes to be fulfilled on the earth that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. He really meant it when He said His house will be a house of prayer! This is not just something that we are doing now, we will be forever praying and interceding. This is the way God has always carried out His government on the earth and it will continue on into eternity. His ways are higher than ours.

In Christ,
Brian Jones

Glad thats Over

I am really excited that despite nervousness during the auditions, I was approved as an IHOP prophetic singer and acoustic guitar player. I had to laugh out loud when I read the emails from auditions. There was a separate one from each audition. The singing and guitar messages read “congratulations, you have been approved as an IHOP singer”. The same email was sent for guitar audition however, the funny one was my drum audition email. Unlike the others, it read “You have NOT been approved to play drums on an IHOP team at this time”, and then there was a list of local drum instructors!! Ha! Hint-Hint! Had to laugh. I played really well but the guys that went in before me had a lot more in the “trick bag” than I did. They were definitely drummers by trade. The next step that you are supposed to take after approval is to approach worship leaders and section leaders in the prayer room to tell them that you have been approved and would like to be on their team or “a” team. Then you wait until chosen. I am certain that it is much more difficult to get on a team in the Global Prayer Room which is televised and webcasted. I was very encouraged because the same day I was approved, a worship leader in the Justice Prayer Room (not televised or webcasted) asked me to “fill-in” for her acoustic guitar player who is gone for a week. They have a great team and it was so refreshing to come and worship on my instrument and meditate while the singers took a passage of scripture and expounded upon it in song. It was awesome!

Nervous

I can honestly say that I cannot remember the last time I felt as vulnerable and nervous as I did today when I auditioned for the IHOP worship teams. I tried out for vocals, acoustic guitar and drums. They called you in two at a time and as soon as you walked in the door, there were two of the best worship leaders in the house (Justin Rizzo and Cory Asbury) as well as the phenomenal bass player and worship leader that plays on Misty Edward’s team, her name is Cassie. Those three are on their instruments and in the crowd were other worship leaders, musicians and section leaders. Now you would think after singing and playing in front of as many people as I have over the years that this wouldn’t bother me. WRONG. Man I was feelin’ the pressure. I mean, it’s not like I am playing with them on a team.....they are judging me. They played and I sang or played my instrument along. For the singing part I had to sing the chorus to How great is our God and then go immediately into singing a passage of scripture that I had picked out. For the guitar portion, I had to play a song I had never heard, then I played “Blessed be the Name” in a key that they picked and had to modulate a whole step in the middle of the song, after the modulation I had to change chords spontaneously as he called them out on the mic. For drums, I just stayed in the pocket and played it safe. After all was said and done I think I did well in all three categories but man was I glad it was over!! Anyway, I thought some of you would get a good laugh out of me “shakin’ in my boots”, I know my wife did!!!
Blessings,
Brian Jones

More Vision at IHOP

Mike Bickle was sharing with the IHOP family about the vision that God has given him to take in 10,000 orphans. Not over a period of months or years, but he feels it is necessary to be ready to house and take care of all of them if they were all brought to us at the same time. Many of these orphans that were on his heart were those of the sex trafficking trade who at the ages of 5-8 years old are being sold into this sex slavery, boys and girls. The vision is to take these forgotten, unwanted ones and love them. To restore them through the love and resurrection power of Jesus Christ. To put an instrument in each of their hands and train them in the house of prayer. The very ones the enemy brought to a place of what would seemingly be “no redemption”, would now be the ones leading the way in the houses of prayer at the end of the age. Could it be that God is raising us up to love, disciple and train these broken ones in intercession and worship? I can’t put my finger on it perfectly just yet, but God is stirring the waters within me. My heart is becoming more and more tender every day.

Abiding,

Brian Jones

Intercessory Missionary

Easy Like Sunday Mornin'

Today while most of you are preparing for an awesome day in church, Michele and I are preparing in much the same way. We will take our kids to the children’s equipping center then we will go to church...........to work in the 1-2 year old class to help out the full time missionaries who work in the children’s department. Stinky diapers from other people’s children, snot and crying. There are a lot of good times too as many of you know that have kids or kept other’s children. After that, I will go to the IHOP Missions Base to lead a worship set in the GPR...........well, not really. I will be ushering. Am I complaining, absolutely not. God uses things like this to search our hearts. How do you know you can handle a higher road when you won’t be faithful on the low one. I am not suggesting that child care and ushering is the low road. If that is what God has called you to then having to sing on a worship team would probably seem like the low road. You see what I’m sayin’? The Lord is always testing the motives in our heart. Then, if or when we are promoted or exalted, our heart will be that of a servant’s heart. Even if He doesn’t promote us to leadership or exalt us publicly in some manner, trust the Lord to walk you through the seasons of your life and let Him work humility in you. About the time we think we have the “humble thing” down, He will give us another situation or season to test it.
In Christ,
Brian Jones

Hidden Treasure

Matt. 13:44 says, "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys  that field."  I truly know in my inner man that I have found that treasure.  It is exhilarating to live by faith, fully putting your trust in the Lord.  Scary at times yes, but only because this faith is not yet perfected.  There is a depth that God takes you to when you remove all props and trust Him.  He begins to show you just how little faith you have.  But strength and assurance come because the heart of the King is moved by your act of faith and He in turn draws near to show Himself faithful.  The greatest challenge is the fact that once you make a bold move to step out in faith, things do not always and immediately take the form of what you thought it looked like in your mind's eye.  If you step out in faith to trust the Lord...buckle your seatbelt because the very reason that you thought you were stepping out, may have absolutely nothing to do with what the Lord actually intends to do through you obedience to trust and have faith  It is always more difficulty for us mortals to see the big picture because we are usually looking at our little sphere that we live in.  God is always doing a deep work in us,  so lets hold on, keep trusting and believing and being obedient for He is faithful to complete what He began in us. 

Blessings,

Brian Jones

Desiring Encounter

It was so strange today. I guess I should have more faith when I pray. I asked God to reveal Jesus to me in a deeper way today in class and He answered me after we picked our kids up. He began to show me that He loved us so much that He desired to live among us. TRULY.... He desired to live among us. God loved us so much that He became a man, to feel what we feel, to be tempted by what we are tempted by, to make clear to us that He understands what is is to be human. He actually PUT ON FLESH. What is so amazing is that He restrained His power while He was with us on earth. He could have at any moment had legions of angels assist Him and make it easier. The realization that He REALLY REALLY wants to walk with us in the cool of the day as in the garden, has impacted me eternally. Why should I have to wonder if He wants to encounter me as much as I want encounter with Him. He wants it way more than I do! Who can compare to Jesus?In Christ,

Brian Jones