MIND OF TRUTH

I've been listening to an audio book of Francis Chan's "Crazy Love". You can download it for free from Christian Audio and I'd highly recomend it. He is crazy and his ideas on giving are crazy, but he is right and his ideas are right because they are biblical. At one point he sold his house and moved into a smaller one so that he would have more to give. Is that crazy? I think its crazy not to give like that. I think its crazy to not open yourself up fully to a God who desparately wants to pour out blessing on your life. I think its crazy to wander around in the wilderness of the worlds system thinking your going to get ahead and get out of debt someday and maybe be able to give more at some point later on in life. I think its crazy how much we spend on ourselves. I think its crazy how much we depend on the world and not on God. I'll freely give God every last penny I have just to know Him more. I want absolutely everything He has for me and my family...

There has been a lot of talk about missional living lately. I'm all for it. The church needs to get out in the communities where we live, and where we work and be an example of Christ. For most people this is not easy and it takes a real transformation in our thinking. I have found though that whats even harder for many believers is to change the way they think about money. In every community in America we are currently experiencing an economic famine. Like Joseph did in Egypt, I hope we have allowed God to speak to us about storing up resource to help those who are in need. What better way to be missional than to step up and let God give generously through your life. The truth is though that most of the church is no better off. Its not about how much money you have, but what you do with it and who your trusting in. Can we demonstrate to those around us that God loves them and wants to meet their needs no matter what their situation? Rom. 13:8 says to owe no man anything,...

A few months ago God spoke to me about the gap that exists between what I know God can do and the reality of my life. I've stepped out on a journey to intentionally bridge those gaps and let God be everything He can be to me. Its a difficult thing to walk in the unknown and break the heavy, oppressive, self-reliant pattern that we have allowed to take root in our lives, but its worth it. Walking lightly in the fresh air of freedom is refreshing and fascinating to me. Many believers walk through life with their eyes closed because they are too gripped by the fear of trusting God with the unknown. We have become selfish people. We hoard money and resources so we can take care of our own needs. We have placed our dependence in worldly systems, and they have become our masters. I am learning to trust a God, my Abba Father, who cares for me. I'm learning to let go of my perceptions of the world around me and embrace His. I want God's love and freedom and money and resour...

I love a God who loves me more than I can imagine. I was sitting in Pastor's other "Office" today and I got an overwhelming feeling of how ecstatic and excited God is about my life. He is relentless about being joyful and hopeful over my day and the next day and all the days after that. It's overwhelming really and hard to comprehend. I think to grasp that thought would revolutionize everything. There is never a moment with God that we cannot rejoice in. Why put off joy until a difficult moment has passed? Why wait to rejoice in the greatness of the love of God? I know there are difficult and unimaginably painful moments in life, but through it all God still rejoices and He still loves. He will always love us more than we can fathom. He is the only one who can walk through all things with us. He knows every thought, every pain, every fear. He will walk with us to the cross, into the grave, and out again to a place of rejoicing and victory. He is the one w...

What a wonderful God we serve. What a privilege to serve His purposes in the earth. Our God is a good God and He has good things in store for His people. In Genesis we see that God granted man dominion, or authority over the earth to carry out, manage, and govern the fulfillment of His perfect will. That authority was lost when Adam chose to fulfill his own will, but now Christ Jesus has restored that privilege and placed it in the hands of His people. Jesus told His disciples and us to pray that the Father's Kingdom would come and His will be done. We can now pray with authority and release the Father's will in our lives and the lives of others. I think we get nervous sometimes when we talk about authority in prayer. We think of people with a wrong spirit arrogantly demanding, naming, and claiming things to be done by God on their behalf, but that's not the case. Its simply a matter of managing and conducting business in the Kingdom. We have been given the authority...

I like the book of Ruth. I think Ruth was one of the most courageous women in the Bible. I get the feeling like she is humble, respectful and reserved, yet fearless. She leaves her home to follow Naomi, then goes out to the fields to glean the grain. Then she finds herself sitting and eating with the reapers, which is a big step up from gleaning. She could have been content there and found enough to provide for her and Naomi, but she took the next step to possess what was rightfully hers. Boaz showed her favor and honored her courage and from that point on she did not live as a gleaner with a poverty mindset, but she lived as an owner with the life, wealth, and favor of Boaz her husband. God is waiting to pour out His favor upon our lives. We can stay in the field and glean, or we can boldly come to our Master and humble lay and His feet. He will lift us up and do all that He has promised. He will bestow upon us the life, wealth, and favor of the King of kings and the Lord of ...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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'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...

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.

Mark Batterson hit the mark again with his blog post "A Fresh Anointing" . I've been feeling the same thing that there is way more God has for me and I want it. More than ever before we need a fresh hunger and desire for intimacy with God to overwhelm our complacency. We don't need the latest and greatest man idea, we just need to find ourselves rooted in a place of humble submission to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Mark said "Be filled with His Spirit. Be filled with His Word. And watch Him do things in your life that are way beyond your human ability!"

“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in even greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friends, is what it really means to be a Christian. Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Christ Jesus.” - Brennan Manning - The Furious Longing of God

Hab 2:1 "I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, And how I may reply when I am reproved." Today we need to cry out o God and lay everything at His feet. Let go of the fear, the pressure, the doubt, the expectations, the stresses of life. Take your life, your failures, your shortcomings, your weaknesses and shout them out to God and get it all out. Have the courage to stand up before God and say everything your thinking and feeling. Then quit your spirit and wait. Take up your place on the rampart, on the watchtower and wait for God to speak. Brace yourself and be prepared for God to correct and reprove you. Know that all the miserable failures that you laid at His feet deserve to be laid at your feet, but know that He takes it all because He is merciful, gracious, and loves you. He takes our fears and gives us love in return. He takes failure and gives us a miracle. He takes our complain...

Hab. 2:2 And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it." We took a look at Hab 2:1-4 Wednesday night and its an amazing passage. I know we quote 2:2 a lot and God has been giving revelation and showing us how to run with it, but I've been wondering about that middle part "Witting down the revelation". I know we need to process, journal, and meditate on the revelation, I agree with that. I know we need to write out a plan to stay focused and run with purpose. I agree with all that, but I saw another aspect of it as I was studying Wednesday. God wants us to write the revelation on our life so that "he who reads it" can run. My life should be a living, breathing revelation of the Word of God. People should know what God has spoken because it is written all over my life. They can read it on my face, they can read it in my marriage, and in my children, and in the work I do. Revelation changes everythin...

Today is my birthday. Spiritual birthday that is. 33 years ago on an Easter Sunday Jesus called me and said come follow me. I've been running with Him every since. He has never left me, He has never given up on me and His patience is amazing. He has shared His precious Word with me and given me privileges that I never deserved. I would give my whole entire life just to have one moment of revelation of who He is. I would give everything just to speak one Word of His truth, yet He gives me new revelation day after day and allows me to speak and teach His Word over and over again. I will follow Him anywhere and give everything to know Him more and more. What an amazing, wonderful God who gave Himself for me not only this day long, long ago, but every day! Thank You Jesus.

I'm teaching on Galatians 3:3 and Hebrews 12:1 tomorrow night at LIFE House Church Bethel. Gonna be good because God is speaking. I was just thinking that when God gives us revelation we need to run with confidence. I have encountered a few people lately who share with me the revelation God has given them and they seem a little hesitant and a little unsure about running with it. I know it is because we place our confidence in self and not in Christ. I will always be unsure about running in my own strength but running with Christ is another matter. He lifts me up and fills me with strength and endurance. His Spirit helps me cast aside every weight that slows me down. He empowers me and gives me the resource I need to run to win. When you get that revelation, that Word that He whispers into your heart, boldly step up to the line, set your focus, and get ready to run like the wind.

A thought occurred to me yesterday, sparked by something my Pastor said (Not sure if he knows, but he does that a lot. Thanks PT). I thought there is a lot more to running at a new level that we realize at first. The first thing you feel is scared out of your mind. All the walls are gone, God has expanded your boarders and taken away the nice cozy, snuggley place you were living in, and the reality of nothingness hits you big time. But like I said before, He has big plans to fill up that space with good things, so brace yourself, step up to the line, and keep running. Next you feel excited when you begin to realize what God is doing. You go around telling everyone your at a new level now, and you can feel the old things loosing their grip on your mind. You start looking forward to things you didn't think were possible before. You start dusting off those dreams God has whispered into your heart in times past. Then you realize that your heart is running way ahead of everythng ...