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!!

Take time to realize......

In a world that never sleeps there are a million things grabbing for our attention....So many demands we feel as though we have to fulfill. Everyone in our world has some kind of expectation that they look for us to meet each and everyday.

Somewhere in the chaos the ones we love most are the ones that their voice becomes muddled. The people that we love so much and that all our activity is for are the very ones that we can no longer hear because there is so much grabbing for our focus.

We can love someone with our heart....

The problem is the people we love can't feel or see our heart....They can only see where our time goes and who it goes to.

So eight weeks ago with a world that shouted for my attention I decided to mute everything and to just get quiet.......I stepped away from a lot, and took time to realize what matters most.....

At the end of life what matters? Why do I do all that I do?

At the end of eight weeks I have realized that it really doesn't matter if the shoes are always put where they belong. What matters more are the little feet that fill shoes. When I look back over my life the placement of where the shoes were aren't going to matter....What we did while he was in those shoes is what we will remember the most.

Sometimes we can get so busy trying to get where we are going that we forget to chill out and enjoy the journey. To take a deep breath and realize that God is the one driving and that I will get to where I am going at the perfect time. So my windows in my house have a few more fingerprints......Instead of worrying about those fingerprints I am enjoying every single one. Realizing where there will be a day when I will have a house with everything in place, and when that day comes I will look back on these days and miss the shoes out where they don't belong. I will miss the little fingerprints from children laughing outside while they play. There will be a day when toys won't be hidden all over my house......Then I will look back to the day I am in today and smile.....I will have memories not just of cleaning the messes but enjoying the ones that made those little messes.

Have you ever stopped to realize that we are always getting ready to enjoy life, but we never actually start? We always say one day we are going to get away and do this or that....but we never do?

Last weekend we went on a mini family vacation in the middle of everything we just got away with our kids and had the best time. They did story time in their pajamas.....They ate food in the hotel bed. We did nothing but love on them and do anything they wanted to do.....We just took time to love the day we were in.

The greatest day of your life is today....The greatest blessings you will ever have are all around you right now. Today is the day you realize that your joy doesn't lie in your someday but rather it lies your today....Today has everything you need to live a happy fulfilled life...The question is have you taken time to realize it?

This just isn't fitting...

Rylan was four years old and loved cowboy boots. The only problem is the cowboy boots that used to fit him when he was three no longer fit him. One morning he was so sad because he wanted to wear those boots to school. I pleaded my case as to why the boots don't fit and that he would be so uncomfortable all day long if he chose to wear him. Even with all my good points he did not believe me. In his eyes he was still the same size and hadn't grown at all. In these moments you can either let them trust what you are saying is true or you can let them have their way so they can experience what you have told them is true. Needless to say that was one of the longest days of his life he came home and his feet hurt so bad. He was adamant that he would NEVER wear those boots again.
Unfortunately the mind of a four year old only remembers pain for a few days then he wanted to wear those boots again....Thus we went thru the whole ordeal again. After this time though I got rid of the boots so they would no longer tempt him any longer.
Rylan's story with his boots seems like a silly and obvious story in that he had outgrown the boots and shouldn't wear them right?
I have found though so many times in our life it isn't boots that we are trying to squeeze into it is relationships, attitudes, lifestyles, and a world that we don't fit into.

1Corinthians 4:10(msg)
We are the Messiah's misfits......

The further you go into the goodness of God the more you realize that the world you fit into a few years ago, months ago, weeks ago maybe days ago just doesn't fit you the same anymore. I have found that Christians are filled with pain and disappointment because we live in a way that we were never supposed to live. The Bible calls you a MISFIT not most popular. Sure we live in this world, but the moment you got saved you got the seed of everything that Jesus is on the inside of you. In that there are things in you that are bound to change in time.

Before I got pregnant with Rylan I hated tomatoes. Just the sight of them would make my stomach turn....That is until I got pregnant with him. I would dream of biting into large whole tomatoes. The sight of them would make my mouth begin to water. Finally I told my husband I can't stop thinking about eating tomatoes. What is wrong with me? He told me maybe you should try them again. I did and it was the most glorious thing I had eaten in weeks. To this day I love tomatoes now.

You see what was growing inside of me changed what I was hungry for. Changed my desires from what I used to like to new things that would have never appealed to me prior. It is much like when you begin in Christ the things that never appealed to you now is what you look forward to. There begins to develop a hunger that can't be quenched in anything else. I tried to be satisfied without eating the tomatoes however nothing worked. So many times we are hungry for what only the presence of God can bring and we try to fill it with careers, money, friends and other things. When what we are hungry for is more of Him.

I believe when we got saved there was a yearning inside of us to shine forth this light that has been implanted in us. To not just blend into the crowd but to stand up and stand out for Christ. To step out into miracles that are beyond our understanding. There is a longing on the inside of us to encounter this Messiah in ways that we never thought possible. I think when we get to Heaven we will see what all we could have accomplished if only we would have not worried about fitting in and just would have stood up for what God wanted us to do.

Isaiah 60:1,2
Arise and shine for your light has come. And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people; but the LORD shall arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.

There are several things that is happening in this verse let's look at it:
1. The Lord is telling you to arise. To get up means that first you must have fallen down right? So He is telling us no matter what problem has pushed you down it is time to get up again. That you can stand again.
2. Tells us that our light has come. Past tense. It is done. There is a light that is on you even when you are down or when you are standing. That the light is a fact no matter your position. He has placed this in you, and as you awaken to it there will be a response. That is response is that you will get up!
3. Next thing the Lord tells us is that we have light but that there is going to be a darkness around us, but not to worry that the light is still there. So many times the light of Christ in us if we got real honest makes us feel awkward because we don't see things like other people. We don't desire to live like other people, but being a light in a dark place makes us feel out of place and uncomfortable. So instead of shinning we just try to fit in where we were never made to fit in.

Again 1 Corinthians calls you a MISFIT! Paul calls us aliens in another text.

So I encourage you to SHINE. Don't worry about fitting into a world that you were never called to fit! When you decide to let the hunger of what is growing inside of you dictate your actions you will begin to walk in a fulfillment you didn't know was even possible. Together we can bring change to our world....It won't be done by trying to be like everyone else. It will come as we begin to step up and step out into what God has called us to!

Summer is....

Summer. Just the word brings excitement weather you are 3 or 93. Summer brings memories of back yard BBQ's with friends, watermelon, fresh tomatoes bought at a local fruit stand, small town snocone stands, and lots of fun with family and friends. There is something about summer that when it begins you feel as though it will be here forever.....and when it is over brings a realization that nothing is forever.

Here are a few things of what summer was for us...

Summer is loosing teeth

and gaining new sons and daughters.

It is never being so busy that you can't have time for the people that matter most.

It is playing dress up with Daddy's glasses and hat.

It is rides on the church bus for ice cream with Papa.

It is trips to the nail salon for girl time.

Summer is making time to get away and make memories that will last a lifetime.

Summer is overcoming fears that bound us for so long and realizing that thing that we feared all our life was nothing scary at all!
(Brailey used to be frightened of people in a costume)

Summer is lots of time spent at the pool and playing basketball. With sunburnt cheeks.

Summer is taking time to get away from it all and gathering with people you love for cook outs.

So tonight I am just looking through the pages of my life and all I can say is thankful. So thankful God allowed me to be Rylan and Brailey's mommy. So thankful to be given the gift to bring them up in the things of God. So thankful to be their mommy. Tomorrow Brailey starts 1st grade. I am overwhelmed in emotion. One part of me so thankful for the little girl that she has become and the other part sad that the baby she was is now over. Saying goodbye to the care free days of summer and going back into homework, field trips, and full schedules. I wouldn't have it any other way.....

So now the house is silent the night before with backpacks ready, lunchboxes full, and a little girl ready to face anything the world will bring her way.....

Scared of me.

Meet Rosey.

She is a product of going to a beauty supply store. I know what you are thinking how did you get a dog at a beauty supply store right?

Well my daughter Brailey is six now and can read (which has it's good points and not so good points). I was pulling into the parking lot of the beauty supply store and Brailey reads a sign out front "PET ADOPTION TODAY ONLY". Her being the animal lover that she is lets out the biggest squeel asking me to please go and look at the pets.

We call daddy to tell him about the dog we just met, and I know you know the end of this story....We now have Rosseitta (aka Rosey)

Rosey is a great dog.

She is loving.

She is obedient.

She loves our kids.

Rosey was born and raised in a shelter. She has never had a family.

Ever since we had her she has been loosing weight. We were starting to grow concerned as to why.

My husband's aunt came in town for a few days. While she was at our house she watched Rosey with her shiny metal dog bowls. She asked if we had realized that Rosey was afraid of her bowls. We laughed it off thinking what dog would be afraid of her bowls? Then his aunt began to explain it isn't the bowls she is afraid of it is what she sees when she goes to eat from the bowls.

We look and realize that the bowls cast a reflection....She was scared of herself.

His aunt then put down food for her to eat on the floor and immediately she ate it all up. Rosey is putting on weight now.

All this time she had the thing she needed, but fear of herself had kept her out of a place of receiving it.

Isn't this how we are as people. We aren't afraid of success so much as we are afraid of our self....

What if I fail? What if I am not good enough? What if everything "they" said all my life is right? What if I don't make it? What if I don't have what it takes....

I have always said if you want to find your greatest enemy go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. That person staring back at you will talk you out of your greatest blessings and will back you into a place of feeling isolated. We will disqualify our self before anyone else gets a chance.

What is holding you back today from what you desire....Is it you?

It's Wednesday night...Got to cook for the family, feed the kids, clean the kids from feeding the kids and then it is off to make the kitchen look like something that didn't get hit by a Texas tornado. In the midst of cleaning the kitchen, wiping little faces and hands what was on their faces and in the kitchen somehow got all over my outfit. So it is off to change clothes only to realize that the jeans are still in the washer, because I stopped laundry to cook dinner. So now it is a wet washcloth and quick "spot" clean instead. Load the kids in the car and drive with the air on high pointed at my pants so the spots will dry before I walk into church.

Pull into church spots still on pants. So I flip the mirror on my visor down to see if maybe I can fix my hair because I don't remember looking in the mirror since I brushed my teeth this morning....or did I even brush my teeth this morning....In contemplating my teeth I realize part of my sons dinner got on my shoulder when I lifted him out of his high chair....GREAT! Now I have spotty wet pants and spaghetti all over my shirt...and teeth that well....Let's just all pretend they got brushed ok!

Go into church frazled from the day. Walk in to find a handful of teens (ok not a handful there was two) hanging out in the lobby. As I walk in I am thinking "Lord really how am I supposed to be cool and relevant to these kids when I can't even keep any part of me clean!"

Bryan would preach his heart out to 2 teenagers in a room with 50 chairs. Bryan had decided to put the 50 chairs out in the room to stir up their faith. To me though it just made our two seem even smaller in the sea of chairs. I would try to connect with them but neither one of the two liked me to much. I felt like I spoke Spanish and they spoke a language that the world didn't know or even knew existed. We would turn out the lights in our then youth room and I would look at the 50 chairs and ask myself "Lord I know you have me here for a reason but why? These kids don't even like me! I am not cool enough. I am not smart enough."

The Lord spoke to me in those moments and said this in my heart: "I am not calling you to be cool enough and I am not calling you to be smart enough....I am calling you to mother a generation."

Something happened in my heart that night....I determined that anyone the Lord sent us I would be their mom.

What is a mother?
A mother is one who brings forth life. They are protectors and the responders to the children's cries in the night. Comforter of any and all injuries. She reminds them why they are great. She cleans, cooks, drives, directs, nurtures, protects and listens.


Ever since that moment I am mom. I am mom to any and all kids. Not to take the place of their natural mom, but to rather mother them in the spiritual. I love them, comfort them, believe in them, stand by them, stick up for them and most of all never give up on them.

All of this is leading me to this last Tuesday. Our interns and staff surprised us with an amazing gift and a wonderful card. The card was each intern's little one liner of what we meant to them. Tonight....The night before conference....I am being mom....my counters are lined with baked goods for my student babies...I am up praying for them thinking about them...reading their card at the kitchen counter and crying.....and remembering back to wet spotted jeans and spaghetti stained shirts.....

My heart full of gratitude that I didn't quit when it looked like we were not making progress. Hundreds have come to our student ministry since then....There has been a lot of hard times, but there has been a lot of happy times to....Moments that will forever be written on my heart.....

Some only have children born out of their womb...I thankfully get the honor and the privilege of birthing hundreds out of my heart....I am thankful to be...mom.

Delivery for me please!

I love the book of Colossians. It is for sure in my top three books in the Bible along with Genesis and John. The other day I was reading Colossians in chapter one verses 12, 13:

Giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified and made us fit to share the portion which is the inheritance of the saints (God's holy people) in the Light. [The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

What a powerful scripture this is right?!

What stood out to me in reading this the other day is simple the word delivered. How many of my girls out there after a long day at the office or the home love delivery pizza? Even better is delivery of an entire meal that gives an appearance that you made it yourself. When the truth is the delivery bag is in garage with loads of Styrofoam containers that are now emptied after contents were shoved onto elegant platters. Don't act like you have never done it!!

The thing I love about delivery is that I don't have to do anything. I call and then it comes ready to go. All I get to do now is enjoy what someone else had to work for.

Isaiah 30:18,19
The Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you......He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, He will answer you.

One of the greatest revelations we can have is that Jesus has done everything for us. There is no good works that we can ever do that will supersede the blood that was shed on the cross. We can spend all our life trying to make it on our own. However there is another way. Isaiah let's us know that this God that formed the Heavens and the Earth is waiting to do good to us. We are His hearts desire He is just waiting for us to call out to him.....

Think of this. I get in from the office from a long day. Guests are due to arrive anytime. I am breaking myself to go through the grocery store at 5p.m. while kids cry because they want to go home. I get home cook a dinner and quickly try to clean a kitchen to not look like a disaster zone. To now open the door and put on a smile to greet the people that just made me go through the last two hours of work.

Or you could just call for delivery as I described at the first of my blog.

So many times we are desperately trying to do it all on our own. So afraid to cry out to be delivered. So afraid to admit that in reality we can't do it on our own. While all this is happening in our life the truth still remains.....Christ has delivered us. All we have to do is accept what has been given.

Could it be that your joy, peace, prosperity, love, acceptance and dreams are all waiting for you? Jesus has paid for it...You have been delivered! You don't have to have one more day of measuring up and striving to keep your head above water! You just have to accept what He has already paid for.....

I was getting ready to speak at a conference a few years ago, and at this conference I would be speaking in front of some people that in my opinion were more talented then me. All of a sudden I was feeling insecure and not qualified. I know we all know what that feeling is like. In praying I was asking God for a super powerful message. Something that would drop their jaws and flood the alters.

In praying the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "If you go in there as a communicator then it can go two ways really good or really bad. If you go in there as my daughter then every time you get up to speak it will be good."

This is total reverse of how I have always thought. I always thought if you could be a better speaker, with amazing illustrations and powerful points then that makes you a good preacher. Developing your gift is always something we should do as we go thru life, but that should never be our focus. So many times as leaders we fall more in love with our gift then we do with our Father. In these moments we take God out of our central reliance and put our reliance on the gift.

God calls us sons and daughters, no longer slaves we have been adopted in to the family. That means our development of our gift does not determine our position in Christ. Our position in Christ determines the development of our gift.

If every leader got real honest it is really easy to enter into a business transaction with God instead of a ongoing relationship with Him. The most powerful messages preached come out of a place of intimacy first, not from books read, or study time spent.

So I am saying all this to say
The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.--Romans 8:19

The Earth doesn't have expectation for a better business man, sales person, preacher or evangelist. The Earth is waiting for a people to rise up as sons and daughters and thru that become a vessel for the Father's heart beat to be shown. Could it be that you aren't waiting for your destiny to come to fruition but rather your destiny is waiting for you to take your position?

Daniel in the Bible understood this as he kept close to God then God put the spirit of excellence on him. The best fruit in life comes in a place of abiding. After all Jesus said it best that you will produce no fruit apart from Him(John 15:5). You can have fish bumper stickers, head usher at your church, know scripture by heart and still not be in a place of abiding. Abiding happens as we get away and spend time with the amazing Father.

In closing the definition of insanity is doing the same thing time and time again expecting a different result. If what you are doing isn't working why not just try a place of resting in Him? I promise with Jesus you will get places you never dreamed possible.

The power of a single question....

I was running the other morning on the treadmill. I began to think about things....When you are in minsitry you get the priviledcge of meeting people in all kinds of different walks in life. Some you walk with in good times others in hard times and few you walk with thru both. In all people in life I have noticed one constant theme. They refuse to challenge what they have always known.

It is as though thru life we begin to get a settledness in our mind of this is the way it has always been so this is the way it will always be. Why are we ok with life dictating to us who will be and what will become of us?

Words. Words in and of themself are nothing. As you read this they are just black font against a stark white background. Words have no power until they are released over someones life. That is when everything begins to radically change.

You know growing up I was always rejected by every coach that came my way. I was never given a second look as being an athlete. I was poked and ridiculed by peers for my obvious lack of ability to do anything athletic. I now get to go into schools all over east Texas and preach the Gospel to sports teams. Kind of funny when you think of it. For the last four years I have seen countless salvations and peoples lives radically transformed with the Gospel of Jesus on baseball fields, dugouts, and locker rooms. A coach looked at me at one of those schools recently and commented "Man I bet when you were in school you were a star athlete". He then began to list all the reasons why he thought so from my height, build etc. I couldn't help but laugh out loud and say no it was quiet the oposite I was always told all the reasons why wasn't good enough. He then said "Sounds like the problem was never your potential because the potential is still there today. The problem is you didn't have the right coach to see beyond where you were to what you could be."

WOW!! I stood there in awe as I listened to his words. So many times we take everything that has been said over all our life as the truth, and refuse to ever question its validity. I was running on the treadmill that morning and my mind became flooded with all of the people in life that I have watched with huge potential on their life yet they refused to question if the negative stuff that had been spoken over them was actually true.

You see words are powerful they have the ability to affect our entire being yet at the same time words when challenged can make a radical impact. So I have to ask you a question.....

What if everything that has been spoken over you all your life was a lie?

What if you really can do more with your life than where you are now?

What if it isn't too late to restart your life over?

What if this is the day that will change everything?

What if this is the moment you seize and decide to fully grab ahold of everything God is doing in and thru you?

What if you are valuable?

What if you are worthy of love and affection?

What if life is more than a mortgage a car payment and a job?

What if God sees you differently than you see yourself?

What if this is the first day of the rest of your life......

Where is the love?

John 13:34 This one new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you.

To understand Jesus' words let's look at what love is

1Corinthians 13:4-6 (amp)
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (god's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful, it takes no account of the evil done to it (it pays no attention to a suffered wrong). It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

In a society based on shows that glamorize love as sometimes you love them and sometimes you don't. With the divorce rate higher than it has ever been and broken homes more common than not. With shows that come on for children that portray manipulation and back stabbing as common place it is no wonder how we have lost what love really is.

My heart is saddened as I have watched lately how people will begin to tear others down?

Why is it that it is ok to push other people to a place below us in an attempt to make our self look better?

In the christian circle it looks no different than the world. One pastor blasting another pastor through public forums such as Twitter, Facebook or a blog. It grieves my heart to see this happening and it makes me wonder have we all forgotten what love is?

Are we so obsessed with being right that we will do anything it takes to prove our point even if that means defiling another man's name?

There needs to be a revelation in the body of Christ that we are all on the same team. Weather you are Baptist, Methodist, Assembly of God, Non-Denominational or fill in the blank. We are all on the same team. The minute we start mud-slinging at other believers in an attempt to prove our point we have lost what Jesus sent us to do. Jesus didn't send us to fight against one another He sent us to save a lost and dieing world.

Somewhere along the way we think it is our job as believers to go around and correct every one's doctrine and point out their sins. T.D. Jakes puts it best like this "We should be known for what we stand for not what we are against."

Romans 14:22 Says for YOU to follow your convictions and to keep them to yourself. Your personal convictions are not a platform to now try and wound your fellow believer......

You might be asking has someone spoken out against me that has me upset? The answer is no. In fact most of the people I have watched this happen to I personally don't know I just feel grieved in the spirit to watch this happening.

So in closing I will end with this quote by John Osteen "Make your words sweet because you never know when you might have to eat them." Let your words be full of encouragment not negativity. I hope this touched your heart as it has mine.

Empty Arms Real Promise

There are some stories in the Bible that capture my heart no matter how many times I read them. The story of Hannah is very much one of those kind of stories. In 1st Samuel chapter one we get to meet this amazing woman.

There are some people in the Bible it is so easy to see yourself in their shoes. Although the time which we live in is so varied and even the difficulties differ yet there is something that makes our hearts connect.

Hannah wanted a baby so bad while her sister had children with ease Hannah had none. She had a dream in her heart of a baby yet it says year after year she had none. All the while her sister uses this as an opportunity to belittle her sister.

We have created a society that is so unwilling to wait for anything. We want instant dinners along side our instant success. Unfortunately in life things are anything but instant. I think about how Hannah had a dream in her heart for a family and she was unwilling to budge no matter how things looked or how long it took. She knew that God was going to give her that which she had asked for...

How confident are you about the desires in your heart? Do you quit at the first sign it isn't going to happen? Would it be written that year after year you still believed?

I preached a message on this the other day. Take a moment and listen here hope you enjoy it!