“I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses…” Joshua 1:3
This verse has been resounding in my spirit this week and I just can’t shake the significance of it, especially in regard to what’s happening this weekend. The context of this verse is that God is speaking these words to Joshua as he prepares to lead the Israelites out of the desert and into the land that God had promised them some forty years earlier.
This Saturday and Sunday, Liberty Church is planning to take ground in the spiritual by stepping out in the physical. We’ll be circling our own block in each of our neighborhoods all across this great city of New York (our promised land!). We’ll be praying and believing for God to move in the lives of all who call this place home - whether they know Him or not - and for Him to inhabit these areas where we live, illuminating the darkness with His light. Andrew Murray said, “We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth.” We cannot underestimate the power of our unified voices raised in prayer and praise, claiming the streets of NYC for His Kingdom.
Corporately, this will resound in the supernatural realm - that of the unseen - but very much felt. Satan would greatly prefer for the church on the earth to remain silent, apathetic, happy to hide inside the four walls of their church buildings and hold their “feel good” services while never venturing out or making any real impact. When we walk our streets this weekend and cry out for God to change our city, it will make a spiritual statement that cannot be ignored! It will be significant for Liberty, and for the greater church in NYC.
In Psalm 133, it says, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” By coming together in unified prayer for our city, we as the church will unleash a greater outpouring of His spirit and manifest presence - His greatest blessing!
We cannot underestimate the power of our unified voices raised in prayer and praise, claiming the streets of NYC for His Kingdom.
Individually, I believe that we will see a marked difference, a shift in the way we view our city after this weekend. The way we walk around a stranger’s home is very different from the way we walk around our own, and the difference lies in ownership. If we truly believe that as we step out and pray that “every place we set our foot will be given to us,” we will find ourselves loving and caring more for our city and her people than we ever thought possible. People will go from nameless faces to individuals who God created for His glory with whom He is madly in love. His children who, though they may not realize it, have been waiting all their lives to hear the amazing news that they have a Father in heaven who has never once taken His eye or His hand off of them. If we are all His children, we are living amongst brothers and sisters, and we will begin to see them and treat them as such.
Our city will be changed when her people are changed, and her people will be changed when we walk down their block and into their lives…seeing them for who they were created to be, and calling them by their true name - “Beloved Son, Beloved Daughter of God”.
So, this weekend… let’s step out! Let’s envision what is happening in the spiritual as we walk forward in the natural. Let’s pray and believe like never before for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, in NYC as it is in heaven. Amen.
by Emily Rodriguez
Liberty Church would like to take this Memorial Day as an opportunity to publicly honor those who have given their lives in service to their country and to offer prayers of remembrance for their families and loved ones.
