Jesus’ heart is all about God. It’s about advancing His Kingdom, healing the broken and sick, freeing the prisoners, hope for the hopeless. It’s about orphans and widows being taken care of. It’s about people worshipping God in a thousand tongues and languages. It’s about people falling in love with Him.
It’s about an adventure. It’s about life. It’s about depressed people no longer being depressed! It’s about blind people seeing and praising God. It’s about satan being defeated and all of his works being destroyed. It’s about God and His indescribable love. It’s about Heaven on earth because His Kingdom is here.
It’s about justice for the oppressed. It’s about seeing murderers come to repentance. It’s about dreaming big and seeing those dreams become realities. It’s about restoration, restoring what’s been broken, reconciliation, bringing people back to God. It’s about people in Darfur being relieved from their suffering. It’s about His humility and strength to obey even when it was hard because His focus was so firmly fixed on His Father that His struggles weren’t a threat.
It’s about passion and purpose and freedom. It’s about power and authority and a waging war in the spiritual realm that is so much more intense than anything we see with our physical eyes. And God wins!
Love God. Love people. That’s the face of revival. I believe revival starts small, one person at a time. It begins when we, like Jesus, start doing exactly what we see our Father doing. John 9 starts with “As He went along, He saw…” Jesus lived life walking with His Father and as He went He saw people and He ministered to them.
So, what does that look like for us? It looks like loving our elderly neighbors. It looks like seeing the waiter at the restaurant… not just physically acknowledging that they are there, but actually seeing them and being kind to them. It looks like being patient in line at the grocery store. It looks like speaking graciously about those in the institutionalized church.
It means seeing people; seeing hurt and pain and being broken over it. It means genuinely listening to an angry person gripe about their day. It means being joyful always so as to brighten others’ days. It believes in people who don’t look like they have it all together and sees potential in them. It never looks at people like obstacles or lost causes.
It means being quiet when others don’t understand and not feeling like you have to justify. We never stop living life to follow Christ. We simply let our circumstances be gateways for God to let His love flow through. An extreme life of power and love is available but it’s in the context of real life. Our job is to love recklessly. And this love covers over a multitude of sins. Love is what Jesus used to ultimately defeat satan and love is what He has called us to use to destroy his works now.
Friday, July 20, 2007
A Word of Caution
Last year, before I had any sort of grasp on the spiritual realm or the fact that God speaks directly to people, God put a vision in my heart for our purpose as believers. That vision was to love Him, love everyone we come in contact with, and lead others to do the same. Since then, God has taught me about the spiritual realm where God equips His kids for ministry by empowering us with His Holy Spirit.
I now know that He speaks and yet He is still speaking that same simple purpose to me. Why is that? It’s all a difference in perception… Before I learned my true identity as a daughter of a loving Father, I had a head knowledge that sounded out loud like I knew what was up. In fact, it sounded in the physical realm exactly the same! Yet in my mind, how the Church was intended to go about achieving that purpose was completely different before I learned who God really was and who we really are.
I used to think that we were supposed to love God because loving Him was a way that we could “do something” to please Him. Come to find out, we are already pleasing to God! Yet, my purpose remains to love Him. If it isn’t about pleasing Him, then what is it about?
It’s about living life with God, being His friend, being His kid, receiving His love and loving Him back. All other causes are futile. Everything else is trivial and the means of going about this purpose are limitless.
The difference in my thinking before and after was not in what I was thinking but rather, how I was thinking about it. God doesn’t want us to just know all the answers. He wants us to know Him. He wants His Truth to so penetrate our souls that we are changed! The Bible in every Christian church is the same, but the difference is whether it is simply read as words on a page or as words from God Himself. It makes a difference. The same verses can take on different meanings with or without God’s interpretation. Without God’s interpretation we look at the words on the page and try to make sense of them… that is our physical nature kicking in.
Sometimes we do this by relating them to things we know. For example, we see the word, “church” in the Bible and in our minds we think of the local church down the street. We take what is tangible and interpret the Bible accordingly. However, with the Holy Spirit, God enables us to see impossibilities as realities and to accept things that we don’t understand at face value. Sometimes, He even gives us spiritual understanding of concepts that are not understandable in the physical realm. So, though I had many of the same thoughts in my mind before I understood the Holy Spirit’s role as I do now, my life looks completely different. I see things differently.
God’s Words never changed. It’s His revelation that He brings to them that makes the difference. It’s not that God is speaking different Truth to everybody. The Truth is always the same. It’s that He is enabling some people to receive it.
I say this as a word of caution to believers. Some things that you hear sound right or are even “based on scripture”, but test them to make sure they line up with who God is. Yes, it is true that our purpose is to love God and love people, but no, it is not true that we have to do this to please God. Ask God for discernment in knowing what is from Him and what is not from Him. He will give it to you.
I now know that He speaks and yet He is still speaking that same simple purpose to me. Why is that? It’s all a difference in perception… Before I learned my true identity as a daughter of a loving Father, I had a head knowledge that sounded out loud like I knew what was up. In fact, it sounded in the physical realm exactly the same! Yet in my mind, how the Church was intended to go about achieving that purpose was completely different before I learned who God really was and who we really are.
I used to think that we were supposed to love God because loving Him was a way that we could “do something” to please Him. Come to find out, we are already pleasing to God! Yet, my purpose remains to love Him. If it isn’t about pleasing Him, then what is it about?
It’s about living life with God, being His friend, being His kid, receiving His love and loving Him back. All other causes are futile. Everything else is trivial and the means of going about this purpose are limitless.
The difference in my thinking before and after was not in what I was thinking but rather, how I was thinking about it. God doesn’t want us to just know all the answers. He wants us to know Him. He wants His Truth to so penetrate our souls that we are changed! The Bible in every Christian church is the same, but the difference is whether it is simply read as words on a page or as words from God Himself. It makes a difference. The same verses can take on different meanings with or without God’s interpretation. Without God’s interpretation we look at the words on the page and try to make sense of them… that is our physical nature kicking in.
Sometimes we do this by relating them to things we know. For example, we see the word, “church” in the Bible and in our minds we think of the local church down the street. We take what is tangible and interpret the Bible accordingly. However, with the Holy Spirit, God enables us to see impossibilities as realities and to accept things that we don’t understand at face value. Sometimes, He even gives us spiritual understanding of concepts that are not understandable in the physical realm. So, though I had many of the same thoughts in my mind before I understood the Holy Spirit’s role as I do now, my life looks completely different. I see things differently.
God’s Words never changed. It’s His revelation that He brings to them that makes the difference. It’s not that God is speaking different Truth to everybody. The Truth is always the same. It’s that He is enabling some people to receive it.
I say this as a word of caution to believers. Some things that you hear sound right or are even “based on scripture”, but test them to make sure they line up with who God is. Yes, it is true that our purpose is to love God and love people, but no, it is not true that we have to do this to please God. Ask God for discernment in knowing what is from Him and what is not from Him. He will give it to you.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Hope
Now these three remain, faith, hope and love…
It is a lie that some things will just be the way they are. Messed up parents don’t have to produce messed up kids. Children from broken homes don’t have to grow up and get divorced. No matter how high the odds are against someone, our God is bigger. God raised people from the dead! Surely He can overcome obstacles thrown at us.
We need to stop believing the lie that we will have certain struggles forever. I don’t have to be claustraphobic forever. Blind people don’t have to be blind forever. There is hope. Jesus came to restore what was broken. He doesn’t want people to be blind forever. He wants people to see. He doesn’t want people to be depressed forever, no matter what science might argue otherwise. God invented science! He is bigger. Do we believe that?
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Jesus healed people in the Bible and He never changes, so He heals people today too. We don’t have to be stuck. We don’t have to just settle. God wants to free us completely. God wants everyone to be healed, not just some people. It doesn’t matter whether we understand why some people aren’t healed as long as we believe that God wants everyone to be healed.
Maybe this isn’t a logical explanation, but what does logic have to do with is? We don’t have to understand everything that we believe. The Bible says that God is a healer. He is a redeemer. He is a Father. He is joy. He doesn’t get mad at people. This is Truth. Let’s believe Truth. Believing inevitabilites and statistics doesn’t leave room for hope.
Some people may argue that God’s will is for some people to remain sick or to struggle. While good may result, because God can bring good out of any situation, that doesn’t mean He desires for that person not to be healed. Bondage in any form is not God’s will for your life. And fear is not from God. He didn’t create people to be afraid. His Word says that He has not given us a spirit of fear but a Spirit of power, love and a sound mind. If we don’t want to be afraid, we don’t have to be. That is not who we are. We like to put ourselves in bondage that we don’t have to be in; God already set us free from all of it!
The biblical definition of hope is the positive anticipation of something good happening. In every area of your life, you should have a positive anticipation or expectation of something good happening. If you don’t, then the anticipation or expectation that you do have is not from the Lord, because He is Love and Love hopes all things.
A synonym of hope, is expect. To trust means to expect with confidence, meaning with expectation of obtainment. God tells us to pray expectantly when He says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). When we expect good gifts from Our Father, we receive good gifts from Him. He wants to give them to us.
Hope goes hand in hand with faith in that it can remain even against great odds. Hope assumes that things don’t have to be the way they have always been or are destined to become. Jesus Christ is referred to as “our Hope” (1 Tim. 1:1) and our Hope does not dissapoint.
Abraham learned this when “against all hope, in hope he believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been told him, ‘so shall your offspring be’” (Romans 4:18). Statistically speaking, his wife would have had a 0% chance of becoming pregnant at her age. Yet, hope told Abraham otherwise. The outcome of his hope was that his wife did in fact have a son.
Hope is the key to miracles, because miracles are “the impossible” but hope says the impossible is possible. Thus, we see impossible things become realities as we put our hope in God. God even reveals to us through Paul in the book of Colossians that “Christ in [us] is the hope of glory”. As we hope in God, we are trusting Him, putting ourselves in a dependent position. We are recognizing that He is the source of everything good. Then, like little children, we are in a position to receive the good things that He has to offer.
The writer of Hebrews writes that, “we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). So, in light of this Truth, “let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
It is a lie that some things will just be the way they are. Messed up parents don’t have to produce messed up kids. Children from broken homes don’t have to grow up and get divorced. No matter how high the odds are against someone, our God is bigger. God raised people from the dead! Surely He can overcome obstacles thrown at us.
We need to stop believing the lie that we will have certain struggles forever. I don’t have to be claustraphobic forever. Blind people don’t have to be blind forever. There is hope. Jesus came to restore what was broken. He doesn’t want people to be blind forever. He wants people to see. He doesn’t want people to be depressed forever, no matter what science might argue otherwise. God invented science! He is bigger. Do we believe that?
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Jesus healed people in the Bible and He never changes, so He heals people today too. We don’t have to be stuck. We don’t have to just settle. God wants to free us completely. God wants everyone to be healed, not just some people. It doesn’t matter whether we understand why some people aren’t healed as long as we believe that God wants everyone to be healed.
Maybe this isn’t a logical explanation, but what does logic have to do with is? We don’t have to understand everything that we believe. The Bible says that God is a healer. He is a redeemer. He is a Father. He is joy. He doesn’t get mad at people. This is Truth. Let’s believe Truth. Believing inevitabilites and statistics doesn’t leave room for hope.
Some people may argue that God’s will is for some people to remain sick or to struggle. While good may result, because God can bring good out of any situation, that doesn’t mean He desires for that person not to be healed. Bondage in any form is not God’s will for your life. And fear is not from God. He didn’t create people to be afraid. His Word says that He has not given us a spirit of fear but a Spirit of power, love and a sound mind. If we don’t want to be afraid, we don’t have to be. That is not who we are. We like to put ourselves in bondage that we don’t have to be in; God already set us free from all of it!
The biblical definition of hope is the positive anticipation of something good happening. In every area of your life, you should have a positive anticipation or expectation of something good happening. If you don’t, then the anticipation or expectation that you do have is not from the Lord, because He is Love and Love hopes all things.
A synonym of hope, is expect. To trust means to expect with confidence, meaning with expectation of obtainment. God tells us to pray expectantly when He says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). When we expect good gifts from Our Father, we receive good gifts from Him. He wants to give them to us.
Hope goes hand in hand with faith in that it can remain even against great odds. Hope assumes that things don’t have to be the way they have always been or are destined to become. Jesus Christ is referred to as “our Hope” (1 Tim. 1:1) and our Hope does not dissapoint.
Abraham learned this when “against all hope, in hope he believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been told him, ‘so shall your offspring be’” (Romans 4:18). Statistically speaking, his wife would have had a 0% chance of becoming pregnant at her age. Yet, hope told Abraham otherwise. The outcome of his hope was that his wife did in fact have a son.
Hope is the key to miracles, because miracles are “the impossible” but hope says the impossible is possible. Thus, we see impossible things become realities as we put our hope in God. God even reveals to us through Paul in the book of Colossians that “Christ in [us] is the hope of glory”. As we hope in God, we are trusting Him, putting ourselves in a dependent position. We are recognizing that He is the source of everything good. Then, like little children, we are in a position to receive the good things that He has to offer.
The writer of Hebrews writes that, “we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). So, in light of this Truth, “let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
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