Called to Travail: Birthing God's End-Time Purposes into the Earth

By Theresa Ann Reyna

Called to Travail explains in depth the process and purpose of our fiery trials and Gods ultimate desire to birth His presence and power into His end-time intercessors. We are on the verge of an unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit and a double-portion anointing that will cause devils to tremble and the gates of hell to crumble. Jesus will choose us in our furnace of affliction as we respond in trust and faith. Through deep travail and intercession, we will see millions of captive souls released from the strongholds of sin. Hear the cry of Jesus in this book, calling you to a place of deeper intimacy and trust and to abandon everything and run with Him into the harvest field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449771522

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Copyright © 2012 Theresa Ann Reyna

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-7152-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7154-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7153-9 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919308

WestBow Press rev. date:10/24/2012

CONTENTS

Dedication

Introduction

Are You Still Sleeping?

Chapter 1: The Call

Strong Winds—Fulfilling My Word!

Chosen In The Furnace Of Affliction

Chapter 2: The Purpose And Power Of Travailing Prayer

Job—From Ashes To Glory

Chapter 3: Receiving And Releasing God’s Holy Seed

Desire

Our Maker Is Our Husband

Preparing The Soil In Our Hearts

Lighten The Load!

Receiving God’s Holy Seed Into Our Hearts

The Transforming Power Of Words

The Vision

Seeds Of Purpose And Vision

The Role Of The Holy Spirit In Travailing Prayer

The Process Of Growth In A Seed: Germination

Spiritual Pregnancy Versus Natural Pregnancy: The Gestation Period

Spiritual Birthing Versus Natural Birthing: Labor Through Delivery

Our Position In Spiritual Labor And Delivery

Keeping Our Focus

Pressure, Tears, And Groaning In The Spirit

Pressure

Tears

Groaning In The Spirit

Pushing And Delivery—Release And Joy

Spiritual Warfare In Travail

Lord—Restore Our Passion

Chapter 4: Spiritual Barrenness—Birthing Wind

A Barren Wasteland

Prepare Your Heart

Hindrances To Spiritual Fruitfulness

Chapter 5: The Fruit Of Travail—Bringing In The Final Harvest

All My Springs Are In You!

Times Of Refreshing

Follow Me!

The Call For Harvesters

Ruth’s Harvest

The River Of Life

Our Harvest Of Blessing

Arise And Go!

Releasing The Harvest Through Praise And Worship

Open The Floodgates

The Former And Latter Rain

Conclusion

Go Through The Gates

Acknowledgements

DEDICATION

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I DEDICATE THIS BOOK to the persecuted Church throughout this world. In the midst of your suffering you have encouraged and strengthened us to fight the good fight of faith. Great is your reward in heaven! You are God’s true intercessors, and soon you will see the travail of your souls and be satisfied as multitudes are brought into the kingdom of God. Your labor has not been in vain in the Lord. Thank you for your daily sacrifices.

Jesus, I dedicate this book to You, for You alone deserve all the glory and the honor for the truths that have been expressed in this book. The power of Your intercession, through Your cross, has brought salvation to every man who will receive Your great gift. I pray that You would raise up a multitude of laborers in this hour to go forth into the harvest that is ready. Instill Your passion in our hearts so that we may go forth and reap millions of precious souls. I love You, Jesus.

INTRODUCTION

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A CALL IS GOING forth to God’s true children in this hour, across our land and the nations of this world, to come apart and surrender fully to the Spirit in order to be used in travailing prayer and intercession. The Lord is marking those who sigh and cry over all the abominations that take place in our land and in the nations of the world. (See Ezekiel 9:4.) He is sealing a Remnant and calling them into the prayer closet to cry out to Him in passionate prayer. God’s purpose is to save multitudes through His holy intercessors as they birth His end-time plan and purposes into the earth.

There are hundreds of books on prayer, but God has shown me that many in the Body of Christ do not understand true intercession or travail —what it means to anguish and labor in prayer. Many have prayer lists or pray out of a book of prayers, but the Lord is calling His Church to go deeper into His heart of passion and pain, so that we can feel what He feels for His people and for the lost in this world. Most of our prayers have been passionless, powerless, and tearless, and therefore we have seen few captives set free from their prisons of sin and death. This is about to change, for the fire of God is coming to awaken His people through a Remnant, a small group of intercessors that are about to come forth out of their wilderness of suffering. This small Gideon Army will awaken the Church and bring His people into deep travail of spirit, soul, and body and into passionate prayer such as they’ve never known.

These fiery, intense prayers will manifest first through deep repentance and brokenness through the hearts of God’s children. They will see their sin, rebellion, and unbelief as the horrifying cancer that it truly is. As the cross is lifted up in their lives, God will awaken His Church and bring her back into the authority and power that He originally intended her to walk in. The Church is a sleeping giant about to be awakened, and we will see multitudes in the Church fall on their faces in deep sorrow; they will then be lifted up once again to go forth into this dark and dying world.

God has greatly burdened my heart to:

Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for skillful wailing women, that they may come. Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run with tears, and our eyelids gush with water. For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How we are plundered! We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land, because we have been cast out of our dwellings. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor a lamentation. For death has come through our windows, has entered our palaces, to kill off the children—no longer to be outside! And the young men—no longer on the streets!

-JEREMIAH 9:17-21

God is calling both men and women in the Body of Christ to lay down their lives and surrender fully to His Spirit—to intercede and stand in the gap for this generation. Children are being abused and killed, young men and women are caught in many different traps that the enemy has ensnared them in. Drugs, alcohol, pornography, rebellion, pride, selfishness, murder, deception, greed, and a multitude of other vices have taken hold of this generation. God is crying out to us in this hour as He never has before. The Church of Jesus Christ must rise up and take hold of her spiritual authority as she travails for this generation.

Death and destruction are at the door, but I believe that as we cry out in travailing prayer, we will see the gates of hell demolished, and millions upon millions of captives will be set free. The hour is late, but it is not too late to rise up and take our rightful position before the Lord as His called and chosen intercessors. Prayer—true, travailing, intercessory prayer—is what will release revival into the Church and open the floodgates of heaven.

As God’s children surrender everything and repent in deep godly sorrow, the Lord will place His mantle of power and authority on their shoulders. Millions in the Church will awaken to their true calling in Christ and be released from the strangle hold of religion. Travailing prayer will break through the strongholds that have held the Church back from reaching the full potential of what God wants her to do, and it will release multitudes into their God-ordained ministry.

As we open our spiritual ears, we will hear the Lord’s voice crying out like a trumpet, saying: "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matt. 9:37-38, emphasis added).

Hear the cry of our Father, the One who desires that none perish, crying out to you personally to be one of His intercessors. He’s calling whoever has ears to hear, to pray and travail until they see His purposes come forth into the earth. God needs those who will travail as Paul did until His children are conformed into the image of Christ. He’s calling for willing vessels to birth multitudes of souls into His kingdom in this final hour. As we pray for these laborers to be sent forth, God’s desire is to change us in the secret place of quiet prayer so that we, too, will burn with His passion as we go forth into the harvest. Prayer changes us on the inside, and if we are willing to surrender our lives completely to Jesus, our time of intimacy will deepen. We will experience a greater depth of love and receive the burden that lays heavy on His heart.

There is nothing more important—nothing more urgent—than this clarion call to the Body of Christ. Who will respond? Who is willing to pay the price and abandon their whole being to the Spirit in order for Him to bring forth His kingdom in the hearts and lives of His children?

God is blowing His trumpet in Zion and sounding an alarm on His Holy Mountain (Mount Zion). All the inhabitants of the land will soon tremble, for the day of the Lord is at hand. Even now, God’s judgment is over our land, but this is only the beginning of the birth pangs. God is calling us to prepare our hearts and asking us to turn to Him with all our hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. We must rend our hearts and travail as a woman in childbirth until we see our hearts changed and see multitudes in the nations of the world turn back to the Lord. (See Joel 2:12-13.) God is asking us to …gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders… Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them’(Joel 2:16-17).

God has promised us that if we repent, if we travail and rend our hearts in this hour, He will give to us the former and the latter rain—rains to both prepare us and to nourish us—in such abundance that the threshing floors shall be full of wheat and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. God will restore to us the years that the swarming locust has eaten, and we will eat in plenty and be satisfied. The Lord will deal wondrously with us, and we will not be put to shame. We will know His manifest glory and presence in a measure that we have never dreamed, and we’ll see wonders in the heavens and on the earth. (See Joel 2:23-27.)

If we seek the Lord as we never have before, we will then see the Spirit poured out upon our children and loved ones in a way that will overwhelm our hearts. As we die to our own will and ways and allow the Spirit to birth precious souls through us, we will see His life come out of our death, and many will cry out to Jesus as His fiery love draws them to Him. Our hearts must be torn open in order for the life of Christ to come forth from us, and we will see as we study spiritual travail and birthing just how important this process of the cross is, not only for our lives, but for the lives of multitudes on this earth. Our hearts must be threshed and purified in order for the Lord to bring in this final harvest; unless our hearts are torn open we will not have the Lord’s love and passion for the lost. It is His life in us that will complete this end-time work, not the works of our flesh that will bring in this final harvest.

God wants our hearts red-hot and burning like a blazing inferno so that this dying world can see the love of Christ in us. The Lord is calling the young, old, feeble, wise, lame and crippled, broken and downcast, weak, strong, the outcasts and the forgotten from all the nations of the world to join with Him in this work—this final call to labor with Him in travailing prayer. Will we say Yes to this call, or will we say: I’m too busy. I have so many other ministries that I’m involved in. I have no time to pray and travail before the Lord? There is no greater calling than to spend time with Jesus in the closet of prayer, seeking His face and His heart for this lost generation.

The Lord’s deep desire is to bring us to a place of freedom and liberty even now, while our feet are still walking on this earthly plane. How He longs to fill our vessels with His glory and send us forth to the nations of this world! For too long we have been caught up in our own sorrows and pains, but in the zeal of the Spirit He will now expand and enlarge our hearts so that we can have a greater view and vision for this lost world. This will only come by the grace of God’s Spirit.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God…For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

-ROMANS 8:19, 22-23

There are many who will respond to this call and allow the Spirit to groan within them until they see the fulfillment of His divine purposes come to pass on this earthly plane. In natural childbirth, life comes out of much suffering and anguish—in the same way, as we lay down our lives in full abandonment to God’s will and die to our own desires and self-will, we will see spiritual life come into many souls. It will be worth all the hard labor and suffering that is involved when we see the final great harvest come forth. Some church leaders believe that more than 1 billion souls will be born again in this final hour, and I believe this is possible as we obey Christ’s command to pray without ceasing.

Many of God’s children believe that they have no strength to birth God’s purposes because of their own troubles and grief. They have labored, but they feel that they have no power to bring forth the spiritual life that’s inside of them or the vision that God had planted in them. (See 2 Kings 19:1-4.) I believe this is the hour for those who have persevered in their trials, those who have clung to the promises of God, to now experience a supernatural strength and power from on High to birth Christ’s purpose in and through their lives. They will release His life to the ends of the earth. A new strength and power will flood this end-time army, and all the world will see that Jesus is alive and well as mighty signs, wonders, and miracles flow through their lives.

In this book we will study the lives of some of God’s children: their call, their suffering and travail, and finally the fruit that came forth from their lives of obedience. We will also study God’s purpose and process in spiritual labor, some of the reasons for spiritual barrenness, and finally the former and latter day rain that is coming.

I pray that many in this generation will allow the Spirit of God to not only plant the incorruptible seed of Jesus in their spiritual wombs, but also to nourish that seed and bring it to birth in this hour so that the very life of Christ may be manifested in them. I pray we will respond as Mary did when she said: Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word (Luke 1:38). The Spirit yearns to fill our bodies and souls with His glory, and as we respond to His call we will know joy unspeakable and full of glory as we birth His end-time purposes into the earth. Church, it is time to awake out of our slumber and go forth into our purpose and calling.

ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?

Will Jesus find us sleeping on a bed of ease and rest?

Or will we pay the cost, and give to Him our very best?

Will we watch with Him and pray and persevere in this great fight?

Or will sorrow overcome us—will we be found sleeping in the light?

Our eyes at times grow heavy, through grief and sorrow sore,

But we must remember always the cross that Jesus bore.

So many of God’s children are sleeping in great sorrow,

Their hearts have lost all hope—they see no bright tomorrow.

He’ll give us His great strength as we give Him all our pain,

And in worship and deep trust we’ll find our faith will never wane.

The hour is so late—and great darkness is descending,

Are you leaning on what’s temporal—or on Christ are you depending?

Jesus asks us now a question: "Will you watch with Me and pray?

Until I bring My kingdom forth and the darkness turns to day?"

In the Garden so very long ago, He sweat great drops of blood,

Will we watch with Him in earnest prayer ‘til His Spirit brings a flood

Of righteousness and glory that will cover the whole earth?

Will we stand in the gap and intercede until multitudes are birthed?

We cry, Lord take this cup from me—it’s more than I can bear!

Instead of embracing our daily cross and allowing our hearts to tear.

Will Jesus find us sleeping, when in this hour He suddenly comes?

Will we be strong in His faith alone—or in weakness will we succumb?

We need strength in this dark hour, through fasting and through prayer,

To carry with our Savior the yoke we’re called to bear.

We must be strengthened in His presence, or in this hour we will fall,

And our ears will never hear from God the greatness of our call.

He needs warriors who are willing to abandon all and die

To everything that is unholy—and to every demonic lie.

Our spirit—man is willing, but our flesh is oh so weak,

We must yield to His Spirit fully, as His face we daily seek.

Will we drink from the cup He gives us or will we turn away in fear?

Don’t we know that as we embrace our cross Jesus always will be near?

As we cry, Father, not my will—but Yours be done this day,

We’ll walk in power and victory as the enemy’s kept at bay.

Three times in the Garden Jesus prayed for strength to bear His cross,

How much more do we need His grace as we suffer pain and loss?

There’s a great falling away that’s coming, and we must prepare our hearts,

Through repentance and godly sorrow—He’s required this from the start.

Will we as Judas betray with a kiss—you say, "Oh no, not me!

I love the Lord and will do His will—I’m faithful, can’t you see?

If you are weak and not filled with the Spirit and His Almighty power,

You’ll fall and fail your precious Lord in this dark and evil hour.

You’ll try to fight with your arm of flesh, as Peter did with his sword,

Instead of leaning hard on Christ and on His enduring Word.

For those who are willing to count the cost and submit fully to His will,

They will walk in total victory as they ascend His Holy Hill.

If we will stay and wait upon the Lord and pray for just one hour,

It is then we’ll walk in signs and wonders and in His Almighty power!

CHAPTER 1: THE CALL

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He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor…

ISAIAH 59:16

Come, My people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.

ISAIAH 26:20

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

MATTHEW 6:6

According to The American Heritage Dictionary, travail means: Strenuous mental or physical exertion; labor; toil. Tribulation or agony; anguish. The labor of childbirth. It involves great strain and distress.

Travailing prayer is not a light or easy work, and as we will see, it may involve much pain and suffering in order to bring forth the will and purpose of God. This is a work that involves yielding completely to the Spirit of God. Warriors who accept this work are called to be co-laborers with the Spirit in birthing souls and bringing forth His redemptive plan to fruition on earth. As we study the lives of the Lord’s saints we will see that this involves focus, energy, tenacity, endurance, commitment, faithfulness, obedience, long-suffering, passion,