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!!

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!