IF/THEN

To find out our "then" in life we first have to act on the "if".

God's Government

Today we will be looking at Matthew 4:23(msg)

From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God's kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives.

I hope you enjoy this first video blog :)

Success is a choice.

You can only hear someone’s voice if they are close enough to you. So many times we keep people close to us that are our enemies. We feel discouraged and defeated because we are listening to the wrong voice.

So much of our decisions we make are determined by the voices that we listen to. One voice echoes that we won’t make it. One says that you are more than able.

Success is a choice.

So is defeat….

You can stop doing what you are doing, but that means the enemy wins.

I love the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8). Jesus told the people that were against her that he who is without sin cast the first stone. No one threw a stone…in fact we know the story they all began to walk away one by one. Yet she still stood there before Him.

Until it was just her…and the maker of the Universe…Jesus.

God’s love for you will outlast your accusers. She never defended herself, not one time. She just continued to stand and let Jesus speak for her.

Let me tell you something. God’s word will outlast the people that say you can’t make it. God’s word will out last your failures. You don’t have to have all the answers. All you have to do to win is just stand, and let Jesus come to your defense. Before you know it all the people that were against you will be gone.

Some might say the woman caught in adultery got lucky that day, but she received the Grace because she stood. She stood when others told her to run away. In life there is no such thing as luck. What the world calls luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Just keep standing.

Success is a choice…..Not a right.

LOVE MULTIPLIES CHALLENGE

Our church has been raising money for our parking lot for two years. Little by little we have been paving our parking lot as we have the money come in. We are about to pave the LAST of THREE phases. In that a couple in our church challenged us today to use the talents that we have to finish the final things that needed to be done, and gave us $5.00 each to go multiply our seed. Our church is calling this LOVE MULTIPLIES CHALLENGE.

Talent....We are born with it right?

Well some of us were born with it any ways. I was sitting there thinking of what I could do and my mind was blank. Then it hit me.... CLOTHES! I LOVE CLOTHES

We all have that time in the morning staring in a closet that looks full of clothes yet we still can't find anything to wear right?!

This is my favorite part of my day is putting together outfits. Taking what I have and using it in different ways. So with that said for the LOVE MULTIPLIES challenge at our church I am going to people's homes and helping them take what they have and put it together in different ways then they would have usually done.

I will keep you all posted on how much money I raise for our church. I have two weeks from today and I am believing that my $5.00 that was given to me will turn into at least $500.

Makes you think what talent do YOU have that you just overlook. The widow in Kings was asked by the prophet...WHAT DO YOU HAVE? He didn't ask her what she WISHED she had. What she would ONE DAY have. He asked her what she had at that moment. She then told him that she had some oil. With that little bit of oil she filled lots of jars.

So now I am CHALLENGING you with our LOVE MULTIPLIES challenge. What do YOU have in YOUR house that you can give to God and watch God multiply over the next few weeks? Let's start a LOVE REVOLUTION with people using what God has given them to impact others... If you do rise to the challenge let me know and blog about it so I can see your progress along the way!

Key to Multiplication

No matter who you are the New Year always brings a time of reflection...Looking inward and thinking about all the things we would have done differently....Thinking about things we are glad we did.....Thinking about what we would like to see in the year to come.

In Matthew 25:14-30 there is a popular story of the parable of the talents. Here Jesus tells us about a Man who was going on a journey so he entrusted all his wealth to three men each according to their ability. Sometime later the Bible tells us the first two brought back their earnings having doubled what was given to them. The third however came to the master calling him hard and reveals that he was afraid of him therefore he didn't do anything with what he had been given. The master was then disappointed with him.

I find it interesting that here we see three men all given an opportunity and all given something that they didn't necessarily earn. They all three had encountered the Man at the same time yet one had a skewed view of who He was.

A lot of us as we begin this new year we begin to take inventory of what all we have to make success happen. We begin to count things that really don't even matter as to weather we will be successful or not. For example we count the prestige of our jobs to see if we are successful. The amount of money we have in our checkbooks tells us if we are going to make it another year. The number the scale tells us if we are pretty or not. All of these things when counted will not bring forth any multiplication of what we desire.

The two men in that text in the Bible saw increase in their life because they saw the man (Jesus) for who He was. When you begin to see Jesus for who He is you begin to multiply in every area of your life. This time of year people are buying self help books, gym memberships, and listening to motivational speakers. All those things are good, but they will bring no real change.

What will bring change is just to find out who Jesus is in your life, and that will change the way you use everything you have. The two men that multiplied what they had did so because they knew the Person that gave it was loving forgiving and merciful. Where you know you are loved there begins to be a freedom to take risks that ordinarily you would have never taken. They knew the Man had given them something that cost Him everything, because they realized the price the Man paid for them to receive that chance they were willing to act on it.....

The final man received a rebuke from the Man (Jesus) in this text. He received rebuke because he had potential for increase, but didn't do anything about it. God has entrusted each of us with talents gifts and abilities. Those things are not ours to do what we want with. They were given for us to go and multiply what was begun in us. However there will be no multiplication until you see Jesus for who He is.

So I end this blog with a statement that has pierced my heart the last few days....

"Every area that is experiencing lack in your life is under the influence of a lie."-Pastor Lawrence Neisant.

The lack we see in our life really comes down to us not seeing Jesus who He is. So who is Jesus to you this 2012 year? Is He a hard man? Is He loving? How you see Him is how you will increase...It all starts with your vision of who He is.

Miracles Today

I was sitting in service last night as altar ministry was going on and the Lord spoke to my heart "The reason why people don't pray for the sick is because they don't believe that I heal."

I was somewhat taken back at what the Lord had spoken to my heart. Then I began to think of all of the times that I felt like I should/could pray for someone to be healed, but in the back of my mind always remained a question...."What if I pray and nothing happens? I don't want to make God look bad." So instead of bringing solution to the problem (which is what we are called to do as Christ followers) I in turn just tell them how to deal with the situation.

Now don't get me wrong I have seen many miracles since being in ministry. I have with my eyes seen cancerous tumors shrivel before my eyes as prayer was taking place. I have seen the look of joy come upon the face of a person that just heard noise for the first time. Even with seeing all of this I know that the power of God is real and for today....yet why do we hesitate to pray for the sick?

Unbelief.

Pastor Thomas Kudjoe is my Pastor's Son in the faith. Pastor Thomas lives in Ghana Africa and he has seen three people raised from the dead, kids totally healed of autism in services and many more miracles. I asked him why does he think he sees those miracles and so many Americans have never seen those things happen. His response was easy. "We believe the Bible. We know that Jesus Words are true. We don't read the Bible for information we read it for a revelation."

I sat there listening to Pastor Thomas words and I felt so convicted in my heart of how many times I have let the Word of God only be information that I know in my head but not a revelation out of my heart that spurs action.

The Word of God is solid about healing from the Old Testament all the way through the New. God loves to see His people healed. I know what you are thinking: "Yes Crystal God does heal but only if it is His will." Let's look at that shall we?

Matthew 6:9-13

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
¹⁰ Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
¹³ And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

We all know this prayer right? Let's look at verse ten Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let's just think for just a second what they are saying is that we are going to have an invasion of heaven on earth. God's will is what is happening in heaven wouldn't you agree? Now think with me is there sickness in heaven? Is there cancer in heaven? Is there lack of money in heaven? You are thinking: "Of course not because it is heaven!" Wait a minute Jesus gave us this prayer so we can see an invasion of heaven on earth. So that means that whatever is happening in heaven WE are to enforce that principal on earth and it shall be done.

Psalm 103:3 Who forgives ALL your sins and heals ALL your diseases

Let's define ALL:

* the whole amount, quantity, or extent of

* as much as possible

* the whole number or sum of

So do you believe Jesus has forgiven ALL your sins? If you believe that we must believe the second part of this verse as well. Just as he forgives ALL your sins, He has also healed ALL your diseases. God is able.

I know there are a lot of people that don't believe that healing is for today. Truth is we try to make excuses for why we haven't seen it instead of confronting the unbelief that is within our hearts. God's will is to heal every time no matter what....Why don't we always see the fullness of that...That is for God to reveal to us one day in heaven, but for right now I am to do what he has told us todo and that is to lay hands on the sick and see them recover.

Now back to the service last night when the Lord spoke to me.... I opened my eyes and one of our students was standing there. He is an all-star athlete for our high school football team. I asked him what did he need. He replied "I need prayer for my back to be healed." I layer hands on his back and could feel the power of God go into his back and knew that he received his healing. I finished praying for him and then asked him if he felt any better then when he had asked for prayer. He replied and said "Well it only hurts when I do certain things." I then told him "Well do the certain things." He gave me a puzzled look and reluctantly said "ok".

He did the first thing that would have normally brought great pain and had a look of shock as there was NO PAIN....Then from doing that I told him do something else...He bent over and touched his toes. He comes up with watery eyes and says "There is NO PAIN!" He begins to tell me how he injured his back during football season and was going to have to go thru extensive physical rehab to get his back well. In that he would miss the sport that he loved most and that is baseball. This isn't the first healing I have seen like this. There has been so many more. Each one moves my heart to think that we serve a God that cares about everything that we need. He is so faithful. He loves to heal His people.

God is faithful every time...All we have to do is respond to the opportunities that are presented to us.

Girls perspective of football

I was watching the "Red River Shoot Out" on Saturday. Needless to say if you watched at all you will know it was a hands down almost embarrassing win for Oklahoma this year. The announcer said something that caught my attention in the process of the game is that the Longhorns weren't expected to win because 54 of their 79 players were either Freshman or Sophomores.

I began to think about this. They lost because the ones that had gone before these freshman and sophomores failed to reproduce who they were in the people that were coming behind them. So many times in life we are so caught up in the game of life we are facing right now. Forgetting that there is a generation that is coming behind us. That the success of the team after we leave is hinged upon how we train up the people that are coming after we are gone.

Moses in the Bible trained up Joshua. Joshua after getting to the promised land never poured into the next generation. One of the saddest scriptures in the Bible is Judges 2: 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.

There are very few great moves of God that actually got to be passed down to the next generation.....Eli failed to raise up any Godly sons...So God used Samuel....Samuel didn't raise up Godly sons so the people desired a King to be like everyone else so they got Saul.

If the enemy can keep us busy fighting for victories of today we will never have long term success. In life it is not the wins that I experience today that measures if it was a victory won. Victory will be measured best when I am gone if what I have continues to live on.

Think of Pastor John Osteen. He had a dream and a vision that was larger than life. He knew that God had called him to have a global impact with the Gospel of Jesus. He died with a small part of that vision fulfilled. Now look at his son Joel Osteen who now preaches to 7 MILLION viewers each and every week in 100 countries thru television. That is not including the 43,500 people in attendance each week at his church. If that isn't enough all of John and Dodie Osteen's children are in full time ministry pastoring in thriving church's. Now that my friends is true victory! Pastor John Osteen took what inside of him and passed it on for the next generation to carry it on after he went to be with the Lord.

What ways are you training up those that are coming behind you in life?

Will what is inside of you die when you die? Or are others carrying the dream with you?

The truth of the matter is next year we will have another Texas vs. OU game. In life though there are no re-do's we get one chance to make an impact. Today is your day to pass on what you have inside of you!!