Civic Prayer Team Leaders

This is the teaching/article for our discussion tomorrow for our County Prayer Leader's Call tomorrow for the month of April: Praying for reformation: Notes from Johnny Enlow speaking on the subject of his book “Rise: A Reformer’s Handbook for the 7 Mountains”

I don’t typically use notes from someone else’s teaching but thought the subject of praying for reformation would aid us in targeting our prayers in more specific ways in accordance with the vision of Cover the County to see society transformed. Keep in mind that there are many definitions and expressions of reformation, revival and transformation. This is not meant to be all encompassing but hopefully will be helpful.

-A brief definition of Reformation from Johnny Enlow’s perspective: It fills in the gaps in revival including what happens in our 9-5, intentional world. This is where we want to learn to rise. We want to rise with His presence, with His solutions in every area of society, and in the 7 mountains of society.

-7 Mountains in the Scriptures: Johnny derives the term from revelation chapter 17 where it describes Satan's operating system on the earth as a harlot. Verse 9 says she sits on 7 mountains. We know Satan is here to do 3 things: steal, kill, and destroy. We see the enemy’s strategy is to do so in the 7 mountains in the places of influence. The 7 mountains of society are media, economy, government, religion, family, education, & arts and entertainment.

- When the kingdom of God is not present: The kingdom of God is designed to show up in every area of society. When we don’t show up with who He is in every area of society, it allows darkness to dramatically increase. What we are coming to grips with now is that the enemy in a multi-generational way, has built strongholds of darkness. For example we are seeing strongholds of darkness in the media where there is really no evidence of a godly reporting of news. Johnny connects Apollyon under the mountain of media. Apollyon means destroyer and he does so through bad news after bad news after bad news. He comes in an opposite spirit. Apollyon sees we are agents of good news so he comes with bad news. Matt 4:13-14 says we are the salt of the earth. If salt loses its savor it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled on. So what the verse is saying is that we are the preservers of our society and wherever we don’t take Him is going to rot. When it rots, it is going to trample us. If we don’t take God into government it is going to rot and trample us. If we don’t take who He is to Hollywood it is going to rot and trample us with pornography and witchcraft movies. If we don’t take it into education, humanism is going to trample us

-How do we advance the Kingdom of God in society: We don’t advance the kingdom in the 7 mountains just by only getting people saved (obviously this does not diminish that salvation is of utmost importance). The way the kingdom of God advances is the King’s ways being advanced and promoted and His presence being advanced. Isaiah 60:1-3 “Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. 2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. 3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising”. It is the light of God shining on us that dispels the darkness as we bring it into all of the areas of the earth. This also causes people to come to our light. We are called to reflect who He is in a very nuance specific way for each mountain. There is a different way He is in media, a different way He is in government,

-It is the aspect of Him on that mountain, the Knowledge of Him that we need to advance. Habakkuk 2:14 is the end game, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. The knowledge of His glory in each of the 7 mountains is what destroys the enemy and casts out darkness and that’s what crushes the gates of hell that are in that place. God said I will build my church, my ekklesia, and the gates of hell won’t prevail against the church-Matt.16:18. The principalities have set up a gate of hell at the top of each of these mountains. The only ones that can displace it from there are the sons and daughters of the King who come with His presence. We have to display Him, know who He is, and know the nuances of who He is in everyone of these mountains. By taking that nuance of Him, I mean, “Who is God for example in government”? You don’t show up in government and just tell people how to get saved (again we are not diminishing the importance of getting people saved). You tell them how God does government. We go to scripture and find out He is a humble leader. Matt. 21 says behold your king comes to you humble, lowly riding on a donkey. So we find He’s humble, lowly, just, righteous, and a servant-leader. God completely understands government and there are elements of how He is governmentally in heaven that we are allowed to bring to earth. Mountain by mountain we first have to know who He is. We kind of get in reverse strategies sometimes and first look at who the enemy is. We do what the 10 spies did and we get scared to death and we scare the people to death. But we can do what Caleb and Joshua did. They identified what God is already doing, identified what His promises are, and found the big grapes. They said look at the potential. The people said look at the giants, and they said, yes we see them but they will be bread for us. Until the giants on the 7 mountains look like bread to us, we have not sufficiently studied God on that mountain. We are not prepared to rise. We can not rise on that mountain until we have sufficiently studied the face of God on that mountain. There is a face of God for every mountain.

-Rising is rising with who He is: Johnny relays that biblically speaking the 7 mountains are connected to the 7 spirits of God. In Rev. 4 & 5, these are not merely aspects of God but literal 7 spirits of God. In chapter 5 it says, “6 And I looked, [c]and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth”. Horns represent that He has power for every mountain and eyes that He has vision to establish the kingdom in every mountain. God is communicator in media, Papa in family, Creator in Arts and Entertainment, Provider in economy, Redeemer in religion, Teacher in education, and King in government.

-Application: So I present this to you to ask how we can apply these scriptural principles to our prayers for the counties of Colorado so that revival and reformation fire permeates society with who He is in a way that changes the way media, economy, government, religion, family, education, & arts and entertainment are done? How can we pray and also empower others to realize that every believer is a minister in their sphere of influence? And what spirit of power and vision does God have for each mountain in our counties that we can partner with in prayer, declaration, prophesy and action? What other questions should we be asking? And what answers does God want to reveal for us to apply and release in the spheres of our society?-Eve