Prophets & Scribes

1 John 1:1-4

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— 2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full

When you read the Bible it should be noted that there were scribes. So as Paul was in prison he was telling someone what to write.  This person would write out what Paul would say and he would tell them what he had seen, heard, and experienced.  Although the scribe would learn a lot about God through Paul he didn't have an encounter of His own to write about.   

Then in the Bible there are prophets  The scribe would write what the prophet would tell them.   Here we are hearing the account of John.  He is letting us know that this isn't something he had heard about at a church service or by his friends.  He is letting them know the Jesus he had encountered for Himself.  

The difference in the prophet and the scribe is as wide and vast as the sea.  I long for this generation to become prophets. Telling a lost and dying world their own experience with God.   

I am troubled by people's ability to fall in and out of love with God so very easily.  Then I realized the other day that my frustration is with scribes.  See, you can't be talked out of something that you have experienced for yourself. I know that chocolate is good because I have tasted it for myself.  I have tried lots of kinds of chocolate and with that I can tell you my favorite ones to eat and my lesser favorites.  

Most people have never truly tasted of God's goodness and His presence.  That is why it is so easy for them to be talked into following someone else.

One of my favorite scriptures is when Jesus looks at the disciples and asks them "Are you going to leave me too?"  then Peter shouts out "To whom else would we go?  Your words are the words of eternal life!!" 

(John 6)  

Peter understood that he left Jesus then he would then give his life to someone else.  He had experienced too much of Jesus to leave.  It was too late to leave.  He was too far in.  He knew too much.  He knew nothing else compared.  No one else could satisfy.  

Can I just challenge you to become a prophet in this world!?  

Experience God for yourself.  Stop talking about the stories of others encounter and get an encounter for yourself.

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.

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.

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.....

In my life I have been forced to ask the question.

"God what do you do when you have given me everything I have asked for?"

As a young girl growing up I just wanted a happy family. A wonderful hubby that would love me take care of me. I wanted to be a mom and stay at home with my babies. I wanted parents that served the Lord with a passionate heart. I look over each Sunday morning and cry each time as I see them hands raised praising Jesus. As I got older I developed a passion to preach the Gospel of Jesus. My husband and I took over a youth group of literally on a good night 2 kids and now in that youth group we have 100+. I live in a wonderful home. All my needs are met. So what do you do when God gives you everything?

This is such a good picture to show where I am standing right now in my life...

Looking out at vast amounts of uncharted waters not knowing what is to come yet at the same time knowing that the possibilities are just like the sky is endless...It is time to take the next step...Steps that will lead to new places and new things.

God is always calling us deeper. Always wanting to stretch us into new uncharted areas of our faith.

Luke 5:4-6

When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.

Simon here had to make a decision to be happy with what he had or to go out to the place where Jesus was taking him.

Jesus is always calling us to go out to deeper waters. He desires us to ask and believe for things that are bigger than we are. Jesus wants nothing more then for you to step out into a place where when He moves you will know it was Him, because you were so over your head there is no way you could take credit.

Notice here Jesus said that they would get "a catch". Then when you read on they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking. Jesus had promised them they would catch some. As Bryan says Jesus' "some" is more than you can handle!!

So here I am. Standing looking over vast opportunities. Not knowing what may be out there. I know God is about big things and that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it...

So I leave with this as where to go from here:

Luke 1:38

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

Let your WE rise up!

I was reading my Bible in John 3 1-21 this morning. This is the story about Jesus and Nicodemus talking about being born of the spirit. For those of you that don't know Nicodemus is trying to understand spiritual things with his natural mind which is impossible to do this. He is trying to comprehend how one can truly be borne again.

verse 11 is what spoke to me:

I assure you most solemnly I tell you, we speak only of what we know (we know absolutely what we are talking about); we have actually seen what we are testifying to (we were eyewitnesses of it). And still you do not receive our testimony (you reject and refuse our evidence-that of myself and of all those who are born of the Spirit).

Think about Jesus goes from talking about what He thought up until this point, and the rest of the text Jesus only talks about Himself as singular. This one verse He speaks of Himself plural....

The Holy Spirit began to speak to me....Nicodemus was going through his life singular all a lone trying to figure things out by himself. All he had is what he could see touch, feel, and what the facts were that were given to him from his education. A lot of people go through life living a singular you life. They think they are going through things and that God put them down here to figure it out on there own.

The Holy Spirit spoke in my heart when you become a believer you are no longer a you---you become a WE. There becomes a WE that is inside of you that is bigger than any obstacle, trail, death, job loss, death or any thing that can come your way. That no matter what the outside situation says the inside WE in you changes you from a singular being that was once left to figure things out on your own to something that is so powerful. So powerful that the WE inside of you can conquer anything any YOU can send our way any day of the week.

You see as Jesus spoke to Nicodemus here He said "we know absolutely what we are talking about we have actually seen what we are testifying to''. All this time Jesus was telling Nicodemus His point of view, until the WE inside of Him had to speak up and let Nicodemus know that the WE knew that God was so real.

You see you may have problems today. Things may be so hard and you might be at the end of your rope wondering how you can make it another day. Jesus wants you to know something. That the voice that spoke the world into existence is inside of you. The power that opened blind eyes is inside of you. The healer of the broken hearted is within you. The one who parted the Red Sea and brought manna is right in you this moment. The WE inside of you needs to rise up!!!!

You are no longer just a you (singular) everywhere you go---you have been made a WE(plural). Never again do you have to fight life a lone! Greater is HE that is inside of YOU then he that is in the world!!!!

Jesus the healer

Mark 5: 24-34

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

I can't even begin to count how many times I have heard this message preached in my lifetime. The Lord really showed me somethings in this passage that I haven't ever seen before.

Everyone always talks about "The woman with the issue of blood". She had not only been bleeding for 12 years but the word says that she had suffered a great deal under physicians care and that she spent all that she had. I think about this and think about how bad people can take advantage of people that are desperate. This lady had been so taken advantage of for so long. In those days if you were bleeding you couldn't go around people because you were "unclean". So I see her not being able to go to the grocery store, have coffee with her girlfriends, take her kids to school. Her whole life became isolated to just her home and doctor's offices. Can you imagine the despair in her heart? The depression that would set in?

The great thing is she heard of Jesus. Faith sparked in her heart. You see when you have lost everything you have nothing to loose. So she put it all on the line to go just try and touch this Jesus. I see her on the street desperately looking for Him. Knowing if someone sees her in the public that she would surely be punished. Her heart must have been racing....but the chance of hope that stood before her was greater than the risk that she was taking.

In my mind I see her eyes finally spotting him, and with all the people around that she could have mistaken for Jesus I believe her heart immediately knew that, that man was her saviour. "That is the very person that will heal me to the uttermost."

I love that in this text it says immediately her blood flow stopped and she knew that she was healed from her suffering. This is the thing about Jesus I just love. He felt the power leave Him. He knew that someone was just healed. See that wasn't enough for Him. He didn't want this woman to just receive her miracle with out seeing the face of God. He wanted her to see the love and compassion in His eyes. I believe He wanted her to leave there knowing that He wasn't like everyone else that had judged her and taken advantage of her. He was a loving compassionate God. Then he tells her be freed of your suffering.

You see it isn't enough for God to just give you what you have been praying for. He wants you to live a full wonderful life. He doesn't want to fall short at just your miracle. Jesus wants you live a full wonderful life. Life to the fullest!

Come to Jesus with this in your heart

1. That He will answer your prayer

2. That He doesn't just want to fix the problem you are in, but He wants to fix your heart and all of the things that have held you back in life.

Blessings on you all! I pray that this has helped you! Please if you need someone to stand with you to get your miracle leave a comment and let me know! I would love to get in contact with you and help you stand for your answer to not just your problem, but for the life that Jesus wants you to live!!

Crystal Sparks