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There is a "day of God's power," and it is rapidly drawing
near. Accompanying this time of power will be a glorious holiness, a radiance
that will also appear upon God's people. As the day of the Lord draws near, we
shall shine like the dew lit by the first rays of the millennial morning. At
the end of the age, the world will see the Lord Jesus Christ leading His church
in ever-increasing displays of glory. Great power from God shall rest upon
those who are humbling themselves before Him - the Gospel of the Kingdom shall
again be preached with power as a witness to all the world, and then the end
shall come
By Francis Frangipane
Before Jesus comes to be glorified in the Earth, He is coming to be glorified in the church.
,Our salvation grants us more than just church membership and a conservative perspective.
We
have, in truth, become one with Christ.
The
Lord Jesus is our head; we are His body.
He is
our husband; we are His bride.
He is
the true vine from which we, His branches, draw our life and virtue.
These
images, and many more, speak openly and passionately of our eternal union with
the Son of God.
We
pray, we ask, we travail; but we give birth, as it were, "only to
wind" (Isaiah 26:18).
Miracles
manifest, but they are rare.
On a
national scale, only during the heights of spiritual awakenings has the church
truly seen society significantly transformed.
Indeed, the promise of the Father to the Son, which shall be
fulfilled on the highest level prior to the Lord's return, is that God's people
"will volunteer freely in the day of Your power" (Psalm 110:3a).
There is a "day of [God's] power," and it is
rapidly drawing near!
Yet not
only this, but accompanying this time of power will be a glorious holiness, a
radiance that will also appear upon God's people: "In holy array, from
the womb of the dawn, Your youth are to You as the dew" (Psalm 110:3b).
As the day of the Lord draws near, we shall
shine like the dew lit by the first rays of the millennial morning.
At the end of the age, the world will see the
Lord Jesus Christ leading His church in ever-increasing displays of glory.
Great power from God shall rest upon those who
are humbling themselves before Him.
Without hype or self-promotion, the Gospel of
the Kingdom shall again be preached with power as a witness to all the world,
and then the end shall come (Matthew
24:14).
Adapted
from Francis Frangipane's book, The Days of His Presence available
at www.arrowbookstore.com.
Francis Frangipane was born in 1946 and grew up in Lodi, New Jersey. After
graduating from high school in 1964, Frangipane entered the U.S. Air Force,
where he was discharged honorably as a sergeant on February 2, 1969. He
relocated briefly to Berkeley, California and then Honolulu, Hawaii before
returning to the mainland U.S. These were the days when the hippie movement was
emerging, and Frangipane, like countless other young people, was searching for
meaning. He traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada.
Eventually his travels brought him to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
where he became a Christian on November 26, 1970. Five months later he met his
wife-to-be, Denise Piscitelli, and led her to the Lord. In October of 1971 they
were married.
In 1972 Francis and Denise received
ministerial training at Grace Chapel in Southern California; by early fall they
had moved to Hilo, Hawaii to start a church. Their little work grew to about
twenty-five people, most of whom they had personally led to Christ. They also
had their first child during this time.
After fourteen months, however, they felt
their time in Hawaii was complete. A church in the Detroit, Michigan area
offered them a pastoral position. For the remainder of the seventies, they led
a small church of approximately 100 people; they also planted eight churches
and home groups in southeastern Michigan and Ontario, Canada.
They relocated to Iowa in 1980 where, with
the addition of four more children and a Vietnamese foster child, their family
grew to eight. These were hard times. Francis was self-employed and the family
was very poor. It was during this time that Francis began to develop his
writing skills. It was also a three year season of being shut in with God; the
only spiritual food that nourished him came from the words of Christ in the
Gospels.
In 1982 the opportunity to pastor a church in
the Cedar Rapids area was offered to the Frangipanes. After a season of prayer,
they accepted this new assignment. Pastor Francis soon found himself united
with several other pastors from various evangelical denominations who met in
one another's sanctuaries for monthly prayer. After three years, the founding
minister of this prayer group left the city, and in 1985 Francis and another
local pastor (from the local Assemblies of God) picked up the prayer initiative.
They opened it up for intercessors as well and increased their times together
from monthly to weekly. The group soon multiplied, which led to many other
interdenominational citywide events.
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