renewal

I think in the hustle and bustle of our lives and even in the well-intentioned effort to be used by the Lord we frequently lose sight or perspective on the very basic concept that allows us to even be used by the Lord. That concept, though frequently heard but rarely received fully, is the truth of our identity and relationship to Him. Yes, this is another blog about our identity, and yes, I am going to talk about who we are in Christ, and I would suggest that if you are tempted to quit reading now for cause of having heard this then you just might be the very person that needs to hear it- which is exactly what the Lord convicted me of recently.

Our place in Him or our position relative to Him shouldn't be something that we approach casually and receive as a spiritual Advil to whatever aches or pains we are feeling. It shouldn't be a band-aid or even a spiritual energy drink. It should be the very thing we live FROM. As soon as we lose perspective and start living outside of identity and inside our own realm of ability, then we unplug ourselves from the very outlet which supplies the life of our lives.

The importance you place on this perspective stems a lot on your expectations or your perspective on what your life should look like. I know just in my experience when I am content to live the comfortable Christian life where I am nice to people and I walk in joy (not that that is a bad thing), the truth about who I am is just a periphery idea that makes me feel good. That pool of complacency is one I frequent occasionaly. But when I consecrate myself to Him and declare in song "Here I am I, all of me. Take my life, its all for the," there is a prodding in my Spirit of a deeper level intimacy and annointing the Lord has called us to. I mean this Christian complacency, when matched up with the intensity of Jesus saying "these things I do you shall do also and greater works than these," just does not compare. And it seems that no matter how much we like to reason our way into justifying something short of His perfect calling there is still something in our spirits that cries "THERE IS MORE!"

I believe this is where identity comes in. Who are we really? If our hearts confirm that there is more then something must be out of place in our reflections of ourselves. Well let's look at what the Word says! It says we are ambassadors, sons, new creations, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we have an annointing from the Holy One! This is the identity that matches the Father's commands to "lay hands on the sick and they shall recover," speak to the mountain, declare the Word with boldness, to live supernaturally, to look for sick people to pray for, to boldly rebuke the devil, and to boldly declare what the Word has said about you.

And as our hearts begin to long for this, to strongly desire the Lord to be completely the Lord in our lives, His response to our searching hearts is "that is what I've already done for you!" We don't have to DO anything to become more spiritual so the Lord will make us into that vessel. He has given us a picture of who we really are and all we have to do is become familiar with it! And this is not some self-empowering I-am-my-own-God thing. This is COMPLETE SUBMISSION, complete humility and the place where you say "Lord none of this is because of me, be YOU in me!" Then we must really examine what we mean by "YOU in me," and take Him out of the box of our small expectations! THIS IS GLORIFICATION TO HIS NAME!

REST IN IDENTITY

Where the Spirit of the Lord is....

I'm writing now in sheer amazement of Him.

I feel as if I'm being overtaken by a tidal wave of sorts.

Right now I"m sitting in a room of people being swept away by the glory of the Lord. We are actually in between sessions(the morning one lasted for 2 hours and the afternoon one lasted for 3), but people just don't want to leave the presence of the Lord. I brought my computer in here just so I could sit in it. And how can I describe it in words? How can you express the power of God in the small words that we have?

I have truly been in awe. Oh how we think we know what it means for His glory to manifest. We were in the afternoon session having a Q & A time and a lady stood up and said she had a heart for the deaf community. After she shared and the speaker answered her question, he spoke out and asked if anyone in the place had hearing problems. A man sitting in front of me raised his hand. The whole place soon erupted in prayer and praise. The speaker spoke to the man and said "be healed." I watched the man as he turned to the right and the left in amazement. The Lord had opened up his ear. And yes it surprised me. It surprised me. Why? In His presence is healing. Even now this place is thick with the presence of the Lord. There is healing here, there is deliverence here. God is healing. That's who HE IS. He said "I am the Lord who healeth thee..." Oh what a testimony to His glory! Oh I pray that we would all taste and see that He is good! Things HAPPEN when we are in HIS PRESENCE!

Oh what places we have gone in prayer this weekend. There are actual places in the Spirit the Lord wants to take us in prayer. Things happen in prayer. Revival happens in prayer, not just when you see it. And it takes pressing in. Paul said to "pray without ceasing." The Lord has placed such a purpose in me to spend more time in prayer. Prayer for Auburn. Prayer for His glory to fall. Prayer for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I'm looking at possibly starting a prayer meeting in the middle of the week for anyone who is interested. Pray about it....

Well its almost time for the next service.... and the music is still playing.....

Dispensers of Glory

Well I am sitting here with a lovely genetics test awaiting my attention, but there is something I must release off of my spirit before I do anything else.

I unfortunately had to leave Encounter after worship in order to study, but in that time of worship the Lord illuminated something so powerful in my heart that all I could do was stand there and breathe. At the very beginning, as I began to silently meditate and fix my gaze on Him He began to speak to me about glory. This proved very timely as the next few choruses were filled with praises of His glory. But in standing there just praying in the Spirit and letting Him guide my spirit He began to unfold something. Now when I say "guide" and "unfold" I am referring to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as someONE who "leads us and guides us into all truth" and who "shows us things to come." So I began to listen to Him as He spoke to me about GLORY.

First of all, He reminded me again of the uniformity of focus in the body concerning His glory. It has been talked about almost everywhere I go. It has excited an anticipation in the hearts of many including myself. He confirmed the certainty that I have inside of me that His glory is about to be poured out in greater measure upon His church. Now this usually excites me and gets me rejoicing but this time my response was marked with almost a heaviness. This heaviness was actually more like a burden in that instead of feeling incredibly joyful I felt an overwhelming urgency. It is that same urgency that you get when you know someone is coming over and you aren't prepared. And that is exactly what He began to tell me.

What then began to rise in my spirit was a vision of the role we will play in this outpouring. The word He gave me was "dispense." We are to be dispensers of His glory on this earth. We aren't just vessels for our own satisfaction. The burden of this came from a realization that we as a church are not ready for this. Yes, the Lord is the author and finisher of our faith, and yes, He is the potter and we are the clay. But all over scripture that truth is complemented by a charge for us to press on, to renew our minds, to build ourselves up on our faith, to speak right, to put action to our faith, to seek Him, to ask Him, to consecrate ourselves, to walk in the light, to put on Christ, to put on the same mind as Christ, to humble ourselves, and to be led by the spirit of God. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." It is time that we realize that the decisions we make or don't make impact our ability to conduct His glory. And we do all of this by His grace and for His glory, not out of our own strength. WE MUST PRESS INTO HIM. We must grow in intimacy with Him! We must learn to be led. We must expand our minds and begin to think about His glory and expect His glory. We must stretch our thinking to expect what His glory can do in our lives. What are you expecting? How big is God to you? How big is His glory to you? How much can His glory do in your life right now?

So that is what the Lord impressed upon me tonight. I didn't hear anything in an audible voice but my spirit bears witness that it was the voice of the Lord. So what are we thinking? What are we believing? How big do we make His glory in our lives? Jesus, when He healed people frequently said, "your faith has made you whole," and "according to your faith be it done unto you." According to your faith. He is looking for faith ("without faith it is impossible to please Him"). Just begin to fathom the implications of you being a dispenser of HIS GLORY on this earth. Jesus was a dispenser of His glory and even He said, "these things I do you shall do also, and greater [in quantity] works than these."

dispense

And you shall know the Truth...

"Likewise you also, reckon (consider) yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (WEAPONS) of RIGHTEOUSNESS to God!" -- Romans 6:11-13

Do not consider yourself to be anything but ALIVE! Conform your words and your thoughts to this. This should completely change our perceptions of ourselves. We are not weak, unworthy, failures, addicted, lost, alone,etc.... WE ARE ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD!! Rejoice in that despite what you feel! Rejoice and ignore your mind telling you that you are defined by the mistakes you may have made 5 minutes ago or by the feelings of weakness and insecurity that are pervading your mind. THIS IS TRUTH... and it will set you free.

just thought i would share my re-revelation

from chisel to wrecking ball

Wow its been a while... A lot has happen but nothing to big to note, except WAR EAGLE!! Thanksgiving with the fam was good as well. Now i'm just kind of gearing up for exams.

So I've been somewhat apathetic lately. I think it originated we me seeing Thanksgiving as just a do nothing time, because do nothing i did. Unfortunately, the "do nothing" carried over to me spending time with the Lord, which carries its effects. Praise the Lord His Grace is always there and His love is just as strong no matter how much time we spend with Him but it takes its toll on your focus and what is real in your life. So, as a result I've been refocusing on how amazing He is and how much more real His glory is than those trifle things we worry about.

The highlight of this refocusing occured in the shower this morning. I was having a conversation with the Lord, which is always amazing because He lets me spill my side of the story even though it's totally off the wall, then with the utmost patience He gently corrects me. So I was asking the Lord about this "blah" and the Holy Spirit just quickened me to praise. Of course being the somewhat stubborn person that i sometimes am I responded with a "but that can't be it it must be something deeper" type answer. So when I was done wasting my own time with my dumb solution I just began to praise. Hello blah. It was pretty much like trying to knock down a concrete wall with a tiny chisel. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of Jericho and about Paul and Silas in jail. Suddenly the chisel became a wrecking ball as I just began to take my small mind and try to wrap it around how incredibly huge and amazing He is. And my walls fell down faster than Brodie Croyle in the iron bowl! Then on top of that the Lord completely confirmed His moving by a word from one of my amazing friends that He has blessed me with.

How in the world can we walk around and not be busting at the seams with the joy of the Lord?? There is such power in our praise! Oh how much do we limit God's power in our lives by our small view of Him? Look at who the Word says we are! We are the righteousness of God in Christ! Why do we identify ourselves with our struggles so many times? Why in our minds does our potential to sin so many times outway the potential for God's glory to overcome in our lives?

Thats all I got.... you stay classy

grace and peace

the praise of our lips...

Life is amazing. Well actually He is amazing, which makes life amazing. I've had to really bring myself back to that this week, due to some events that really tried to shake my focus and reliability on Him. I tend to overanalyse things and every second I spend doing it is a second not focusing and trusting on the Lord. But praise the Lord He is faithful and He reminded me that He knows what He's doing and doesn't need my advice! But this week has been good. Monday night Bible studies were rockin as usual. The Lord has been so faithful with those. Then we had Harvest Hoedown on Tuesday night which was a lot of fun.
(this is long but worth it)
I try not to post until the Lord places something in my spirit to get out, because I tend to just throw out a lot of idle words. He has been stirring something in me this morning and I'm going to attempt to get it out. I pray it comes out with the magnitude that is felt in my spirit.
Why are we supposed to praise the Lord at all times? To rejoice in the Lord always? I love worship music, playing worship music, leading worship, etc... anything to do with worship, but the Lord has been dealing with me about some aspects of worship lately. I think we need to reassess our worship. I know I've needed to. I don't think I sang but half of a song at encounter last week because it wasn't coming from my spirit ("they shall worship Me in Spirit and in Truth"). Instead I spent the time just in meditation and praying in the spirit. I have said before that I feel in my spirit a move of God about to take place. I believe it is going to be ushered in by a new level of worship.
"In Spirit and in Truth"- Prepositions are very interesting in the Bible. This "IN the Spirit" is a nugget in itself. The "in" is denoting a place, just like i am IN my house right now and later I will be IN class. There is a place from which we pray, a place from which we worship and that is IN the Spirit. The simplest definition that I've heard about being "in the Spirit" is "being more conscious of spiritual things than natural things." Oh and what a place it is. What a place of sweet saturation. There are answers there. There is direction there. It's as though your spirit is plugged directly into the Spirit of God and you are being charged. This is where prayer needs to come from (Ephesians 6:18). This is where worship needs to come from. I can't count how many times I have sung or have even led worship without doing anything more than reciting words from memory. But praise the Lord for Grace! Thank God He puts up with our weaknesses! But there is a point, if we want to move on to maturity as Paul talks about, that we have to grow in these things. We have to press on in our worship...
And why do we praise anyways? Well for one we praise because that's what we were made to do. We were made to bring glory to God. We praise to magnify God and to make much of Him. But there is also a bi-product of praise that we need. We praise God so that He becomes more exalted and more magnified in our minds than the problems and circumstances we face. So when we praise, especially in trials and tribulation (Romans 5:3), we are saying God You are bigger! So as we praise, He is magnified and we are encouraged as well because making much of Him is saying "God You are so big that there is nothing You can't do in my life!"
Praise is also an activation of our faith. According to Mark 11:23-24, "Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Now assuming that we pray according to God's Word (which the "whatever things you ask" is contained in... and you have to be led by the Spirit in what you pray for), when we pray and believe we receive we will have. No if and or buts about it! So what is left to do after that? PRAISE! Praise God that you have the answer! You have what you've prayed for! "But I don't see it..."- We don't praise because we see it with our natural eyes; we praise because we see it with our spiritual eyes!!! It already exists even if we can't see it yet!!
Well thanks for reading this far. I didn't intend for it to be this long, but praise the Lord! It's all good!
Oh and p.s. I'm looking for a Georgia ticket if anybody has one! (334)398-1345... thanks!