The Gathering

I am reminded today of God's mission for the new gathering of people meeting on Sunday nights.  Psalm 147:1-5 says our purpose well.

1.  Our purpose is to sing praises to God for God's beauty and pleasure overflows into our lives (v.1)

2.  God is gathering the lost, the hurting, the oppressed and those who have felt abandoned and exiled (v.2).

3.  God is healing the broken-hearted and wounded (v.3).

4.  God is calling us by name to a higher purpose in Christ (v.4).

5.  We are declaring and witnessing the mighty acts of God as his signs and wonders touch His people (v.5).

Unbelievable Peace

My Peace I give to you  -  Jesus

I woke up at 4:30 am this morning and began to pray and ask God for His "to do list."  I was overwhelmed with such unbelievable peace that filled me and was all around me.  We had a wonderful worship service last night and there was a strong sense of God's Spirit in the room.  People were worshipping, some were crying, while others had so much joy spilling over to everyone they talked to.  God I believe is giving an "open heaven" where prayers are being answered, people are being healed and delivered, and people who were once not a people are being formed and shaped by God to be a gathered people.  Next Sunday, we will be taking Sunday Nite Alive outside under a big tent in our church parking lot.  I pray that many people in the community will be touched as God pours out his beautiful Spirit upon his people as God continues to melt us together.  Shalom!

"Holy Smoke, Batman!"

"Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke" (Psalm 144:5)

I may start writing more but there have been so many holy moments, God opening the heavens and coming down among his worshipping people that I am nothing to the glory of God that is being made present among those who seek after Him.

1.  I went on a business trip with my wife to St. Louis.  It was a wonderful time of relaxing and reading.  The Lord kept speaking to me about many things and I also had several phone calls from people I was able to minister to.  Everyone I prayed for from the person in the hospital to the woman who lost everything was turned around in a moment.  God is so AWESOME!  I suddenly realized a book that should not have been in my mail box because it was impossible for it to be delivered that fast was written by an author who has lived in St. Louis his whole life.  I sit back utterly amazed by all the things God is doing and say "Holy smoke, Batman!"

2.  I went to the jail this weekend to do baptisms at the jail.  We did ten baptisms earlier among the women and we had about a dozen men who were supposed to be baptized.  We found out there was a mix-up in the schedule and they asked us three men to come in and do services with the men and women.  After these three powerful services, we had ten more men who wanted to be baptized.  God is so GOOD!  One person under conviction wanted me to visit them at the jail turned out to be a grandson to one of the ladies in our church I had been praying for.  There was also a sister of a lady I know that was there and God was dealing with her too as I ministered to her and others.  One lady was delivered from years of pain and bitterness.  I walked out of the jail that day into a wonderous refreshing rain.  God spoke to me and gave me these words from Jermemiah 29:11-14, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  And you will seek me and find Me, when you search me for me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring YOU BACK FROM YOUR CAPTIVITY; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the the places where I have driven you, says the Lord."  Holy Smokes, Batman!

3.  God already showed me his powerful hand and divine patterns were in place for Sunday night.  I have been working with a man named Shane whose wife had left him and I also knew Shane needed to meet Jason, a man who not that long ago went though the exact same thing but now God has given him great peace and joy.  I knew the speaker and his wife had been under attack with many physical ailments and it was difficult for them to even be there.  I knew that God had been dealing with my Son and we had some special time together that week before this nightly service where God continues to bring in the poor, the forgotten, the rejected, the left out.  God moved powerfully again last night and I cried so much I had no tears left to cry.  People were turning their lives over to God.  There was Shane up front and guess who was right beside, him?  Jason, another divine set-up.  I prayed for my son as another father prayed for his daughter.  God in His love just blew us all away.  Holy Smoke, Batman.

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

I read Jim Cymballa's book "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" several years ago which is an excellent book on prayer and the spiritual power behind praying churches.  By faith we started these Sunday night contemporary praise and worship services to reach out to the unchurched, the spiritually hungry and to those who are spiritually starving.  We also particularly wanted to reach out to younger families who simply don't come to church at all.  These small gatherings have been building momentum and God has been showing up in some powerful ways during these worship services.  But what I have found is these services have awakened and stirred something within my own needy soul.  Like so many ministers who go out into the community to minister to the forgotten and hurting, one often finds the forgotten and hurting ministers just as much back to those who came in the first place.  So I continue to be amazed and like a mother in labor, expecting God to do even greater things as we simply surrender all every week to God who is like a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) or like like a fresh blowing wind (John 3:8).

Broken and Annointed

I am excited about a new worship service we started called "Sunday Nite Alive."  We are simply a bunch of misfits desperately seeking the presence and power of God in these days we live.  Every Sunday night, there has been a powerful and healing presence of God's Spirit as we worship.  Teens have been touched and parents picking up their kids have been overwhlemed by the powerful presence of God among us.  I have been studying Mark 14 about the woman who breaks open expensive perfume and annoints Jesus body.  She is so crazy in love with Jesus that she washes Jesus feet with her hair and essentially poured out her entire future savings in this moment of complete abandonment to Jesus.

The question is when it comes to our own discipleshp and following Jesus, how far will we go?  How much are we willing to sacrifice?  How bold are we willing to step out so that we too can fall so crazy in love with Jesus that we hold nothing back from him?  What I am learning from this story is brokeness brings God's annointing.  God loves the broken and contrite person who gives what they can not keep to receive what only God can give.  God gives nothing less but Himself to us.  We don't have to wait to where we feel ready or think we have to be at a certain spiritual place before we can receive from God.  God is looking for broken and poured out vessels so that He can fill us completely up with His life-giving Spirit.  Nothing stopped this woman from coming to Jesus so don't let anything stop you.

Back To Genesis

"GOD KNOWS THE END FROM THE BEGINNING"

As we entered the 21st century era, science and religion, modern education and the Bible seem to be more at war than friends with each other.  Christianity is growing exponentially in countries like China and Africa and South America while Europe and North America, the most technologically advanced societies continue in a downward spiral economically and morally.  One of many areas Christians are grappling and struggling with is how to understand this first book of the Bible.  Genesis means "beginnings" and modern Christians not only have an identity crises but are not sure how to read the first book of the Bible anymore much less the last book which ironically is called "Revelation."

In an Internet information overload world, what the church needs is not more information but revelation.  The church needs to "hear" the Word of the Lord afresh and start putting it into practice.  We see in the first book of the Bible that God is a person who speaks and communicates to us.  The first word is given by God and so will the last word.  We live in the excluded middle with so many life problems facing this planet with many disappointments, much rejection, and too many misunderstandings.  But we learn from the two great book ends of the Bible (Genesis and Revelation) that God is at the beginning of all things and God is at the conclusion of all of life.  Our unlovely middle is connected to a splendid beginning and a glorious eneding.

We act like the universe was created for us but what we learn from going back to Genesis is everything belongs to God.  Life is not about my health, my money, my family, my happiness but it is all about God and God's plans, God's purposes, God's desires and destiny for each of us.  The whole Bible is about God pursuing a relationship with you!  When we read the Bible, understand that it is God's love letter to humanity, it is not hate-mail to those who don't believe in God.  People search Genesis trying to know 'the how' of creation when what they really desperately need to know is the Creator!

The book of Genesis is not about how the heavens go or even how to get to heaven.  It is about how God becomes King on earth as it is in heaven.  So as I have gone back and re-read Genesis as if for the first time, here are some great spiritual truths I am discovering from the first chapter of Genesis.

1.  When God becomes King on earth as it is in heaven, God heals the hardness of our hearts.  The whole book of Genesis and through the whole Bible is about not separating what God has united like heaven and earth.  The book is also about not putting together what God has divided like light and darkness, good and evil, day and night, and what is holy from what is unholy.  God is holy and God calls everyone of us to be a holy people.

2.  When God becomes King on earth as it is in heaven God makes us into a new creation.  God is bringing about a new heaven and and a new earth.  He is creating us into a new family and ultimately into a new creation.  The only thing that matters in the end is not our endless debates or issues we fight over but simply being the new creation God has intended for everyone of us since the very beginning.

3.  God fills our emptiness with the fullness of His Spirit.  We may feel like we are drowning in the deep face of darkenss at times but God's Spirit still hovers over us and wants to transform our brokeness and confusion into healing and confidence in Jesus.  In the end, trials do not show how strong we are but reveal how weak we are without God.  God desires to fill our lives with heaven so that earth can more be like heaven.

4.  God takes our mess and turns it into a message.  The whole Bible story is one that names the darkness and identifies our deepest wounds and needs.  God's Spirit is like a mirror that shows us our true selves and gives us the power to live our lives in victory over everything in life that has tried to destroy and pull us down.  God orders the chaos of our lives.  Our scars are not something to hide but now reveal the deep healing work God has done in our lives.  Each new day can become a new day with God.

5.  All of creation points us to Someone you need to meet.  Jesus is the bright morning star who rises in our hearts.  Satan is the pretender and deceiver who opposes everthing God stands for.  Satan stands for barreness, chaos, confusion, and death.  Jesus stands for fruitfulness, purpose, destiny, and abundant life.  God gives us another day as an opportunity to choose mercy and grace and truth over bitterness, pride, and everything that is false that steals glory from the One who radically pursues us more than we ever pursue the one who made and designed us from the beginning.

St Issac the Syrian

I was able to purchase the Homilies of St Issac the Syrian, who is a revered hermit from the 600-700 ad (not sure what years but it is around there).

Anyway, here is an outstanding article about his Universalism.

Enjoy!

Christian Universalism

I am moving in this direction but I have much more work to do, but this is for Chris to read as it is a powerful little book!

Outcome of Infinite Grace

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/infinitegrace.htm