Hans Martens Bio:
I am 66 years old.
I have walked with Jesus for 50 years.
I have been married to my sainted wife, Vicki, for 41 years with five married children and 8 grandchildren.
We have attended Way of the Cross (Lord) Church since 1990.
I have served as an elder since 1999.
What is Gathering Unto Him and why did we meet together nearly every night for the better part of 14 years?
Don and Marty Pfotenhauer were baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1964. That changed everything for them. God turned their world upside down by filling them with His Holy Spirit and began teaching them a new way of living. Way of the Cross Church was born out of that move of the Holy Spirit.
In 2004, under Larry Albert’s watch, the name was changed again to Way of the Lord to mark another invitation of the Holy Spirit to go deeper. In April of 2007, after 5 months of ministry 7 nights a week, that included signs and wonders, the Holy Spirit called us to “seek His face and not His hand.” We continued to meet together every night for almost 3 years. We didn’t know it at the time, but He was calling us to the priesthood. Our meeting together from that point on to this day has been a schooling in the art of “ministering” to the Father through worship. The Holy Spirit began to teach us to cultivate the presence of God, to “tend the flame” of His presence and to learn the protocols of ministering to Him.
Ministering to God is a subject that is rarely taught and little understood, but it is critical for us to understand this because it defines who God has called us to be as a church. He called us to be Isaiah 56:4-7,
4 For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs (consecrated ones) who keep my Sabbaths (consecrated time) who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant— 5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters (priests); I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. 6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant— 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Can we minister to God?
We were born to minister to Him. We were made for it, but it is only for those who serve him like the Zadok priesthood did. They faithfully brought the sacrifices of worship and devotion to God even when Israel wandered from Him. They stayed faithful to David when no one else did (Ezekiel 44 15-16). Daniel 7:10 makes a distinction between those “stood before Him” and those who “attended to Him.” To attend to Him or to wait upon Him is not to wait as in waiting for something to happen; it is to wait as a waiter waits on a customer. He attends to the their wishes. He gets Him whatever He wants or desires.
Jeremiah 33:22 “I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites (Priesthood) who minister before me as countless as the stars.”
Psalm 101:6 “… he whose walk is blameless will minister to Me.
Revelation 1:5-6 “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father to Him be glory and dominion forever. Amen.
The priesthood is a people that don’t ask God to bless their works and lives; they spend themselves crying out for God’s own heart and mind. David knew the heart of God because he knew how to get into the presence of God, and worship was the key that opened that door.
Worship is the doorway to His holy chambers, the passageway to His presence where all the secrets of heaven are kept. David was given a title much greater than King; he was known by the Kingmaker as “a man after my own heart.” There is no greater accolade. There is no higher pursuit than the affection of God Himself. David not only had the favor of God; he possessed something far greater: God’s tender affection.
David was a student of worship because he knew the place of worship. He worshiped God like no other. He penned some of the most intimate expressions of passion for God ever written. He has set the standard of verbal expression of affection to God. He desired only to know the Father and to be known by Him. That desire consumed him. That desire drew him deeply into the presence of God himself in pursuit of His heart. Worship was the door. There was no one in all of Old Testament scripture that held the attention of God like David. He spent all his time and wealth on one thing: “I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob” (Psalm 132:4-5). David knew how much God wanted to live among His people and he spent everything he had to do his part.
1 Peter 2:5, "You yourselves as living stones a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
This house, Way of the Lord Church, is following in the ways of David. Before our very eyes, the Holy Spirit is giving us the heart of David for his God and the heart of Jesus for His Father.
There is no greater gift and no higher pursuit.
John 4:23-24, "But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
Hans Martens
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