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Showing posts from May, 2009

Starting from Scratch

Sometimes I think it would be nice to just start over in the church. Just write everything your church does from nursery to classes to youth to services up on a white board and then erase it all. Then let the Holy Spirit tell you what He wants you to write on the board. Will it be the same things, will it be all new things? Imagine how the church in Acts did it. They did not just do it like everyone else has done it for centuries. They had a blank slate and they let the HS write His thoughts down. Maybe they just got together in their houses and let God show up and do what He wanted. God cannot do a new thing when we keep insisting that He does it within the mundane confines of our preconceived ideas. I want to let it all go and see God's creative power and uniqueness blow my mind. Yeah, I think I'd like that.

Way of the Warrior

One more Warrior post for this week from Graham Cooke . Maybe I'll do more next week. Enjoy and be challenged! Stillness is so important to us that we learn how to be quiet before God, especially on difficult days. You get to still the clamoring and the panic that life can cause in us. Rest is a weapon and in the embrace of God’s peace, nothing touches me but the confidence of His great strength. Knowing how to access who God is in Himself is such a key part of your development. All of your life circumstances right now are preparing you to be brilliant. You’re learning how to be majestic, you’re learning how to be warriors, you’re learning how to overcome, your learning how to stand, your learning how to press in, your learning how to receive, your learning how to rejoice, your learning how to pray, your learning about the fruits of the Spirit, your learning the importance of patience, your learning how to wait on the Lord, your learning how to see Him, your learning how He t

Way of the Warrior

Being a true warrior for Christ makes the Spartans in the movie 300 look like cupcakes. Seriously, the greatest challenge of our lives is overcoming self day by day and living a brilliant life in Christ Jesus our Lord and King. Here is more from Graham Cooke on the Way of the Warrior The church in America is behind her own development and needs to catch up. What if the problem in this country is not crime or terrorism, it’s not abortion, it’s not poverty, or drugs. What if the biggest problem in this country is simply the lack of goodness? The scriptures say that we overcome evil with good. So where has the goodness gone? What if one of the chief parts of a warrior’s armory is the goodness and the favor of God? What if we live in the goodness of God and no one around us is safe? What if the problem right now in America is that there is not enough goodness and there is not enough people who realize that the Kingdom of Heaven is about being good and doing good? I

Way of the Warrior

More from Way of the Warrior by Graham Cooke God is very confident in Himself and He will build this confidence into you. Is 30:15 says “…in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” Stillness is so vital to a warrior. You can’t win if you’re whining so at some point you have to give up your right to a pity party. Don’t look for sympathy, look to be empowered. Warriors are people who can get up, dust themselves off, and get on with it. They are fighters. They are not looking for rescue. They are looking for a side of God that they know only really exists on the battlefield. Warriors are people who want to get on that battlefield. It’s not like “Well, I’ll fight if I have to. I’ll fight if there is no alternative”. Warriors are people who are looking for a fight. They are spoiling for a fight.

Way of the Warrior

I'm getting back into Graham Cooke's message series, The Way of the Warrior . It really stirs me up and builds my confidence. I would very much encourage you to order the CD's or download the MP3 files. I want to share a few excerpts over the next couple of days. Way of the Warrior – Graham Cooke It’s the confidence you learn in life that enable a warrior to hold their nerve and to be fearless in the face of enemy attack. It’s important for us to live with a growing conviction that the Lord is delighted to pour out with extravagant delight the certainty of His affection towards us. It’s so important that you absolutely know that you are the beloved of God, and that God is incredibly biased towards you. He favor’s you and he lifts up the light of his countenance upon you. He beams in your direction. You have His heart, you have His favor, and you need to learn to be confident in that, hugely confident in that. Prov. 3:26 26 “ for the Lord will be your

I'm Just Saying

I've been thinking about and teaching about the gap between our dreams and our reality lately. God is radically rearranging things in my brain to help me close those gaps. I have noticed though that there are big gaps in the church as well. There is a big gap between what we say and what we do. The gap is that we talk a whole lot, but we do very little. We talk and talk and talk and keep on talking. What I've noticed now it that we like to talk about not talking. We talk about how much we need to go out and do instead of just talking. Then we have a conference on doing that and come up with new terms and someone writes a book on it. I'm as guilty as anyone which is why I have told the Lord to do whatever He needs to do to get me out there doing more and allow the Holy Spirit to do the talking through my life. Doing leads to life, creativity, and newness. We need more of that in our churches. We have grown stagnant as we do the same things week after week. We say

No More Gaps

I'm still thinking about these gaps that exist in our lives between the life God has for us and our own reality. We have all the excuses in the world why we cannot begin right now to close that gap, but at the end of the day if we are not more like Christ and closer to the life God has for us, then its our own fault. Moses got it right as he shared a few vital words with Israel. The word of the Lord to take us forward is near us and we can do it. Do not delay, but begin to step forward to close those gaps today. Deut 30:11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.