The Wall I Keep Running Into…

Have you ever felt like you were running into a brick wall? Have you ever said “God why can’t I get passed this wall?” Have you given up because the wall seemed so big? Have you thought “God what am I doing wrong! that I can’t get over this wall?!?!?!”

I’ve felt that way this past week, and I couldn’t see how to get past it, and I’ve learned I was looking at my situation all wrong, I was to busy looking down and defeated, I was to busy looking at the wall in front of me thinking I can’t do this, I until I read Joshua.

In the book of Joshua chapter 6, it talks about the Israelite and how God told them they were going to overtake the city of Jericho. Many of us are very familiar with this story. But this week as I read it, and I’ve been facing this wall not knowing how to get over it, this is what came to me.

The City of Jericho was a city that was completely surrounded by a wall it was completely fortified, and the bible says that no one could go in to it and no one could come out of it. Now here is the part I love God said the the Israelite, But I will give you the land! I will give you Jericho, the king and all the mighty men of valor. You know what that says to us? That no matter how impossible it may seem and no matter how high that wall may seem to be. If God says i’m giving it to you than he means I’m giving it to you.

The Next thing that happens in the chapter God begins to tell them how to over take Jericho. But instead of telling them that he wants them to get on the weaponry they have and instead of telling them he wants them to get all the men they could get to over take the city. Instead of man made things he tells them this I want you to go and just walk around the wall for six days straight and than on the seventh day he said I want you to walk around seven times. Now here is the thing he said the priest will carry the Ark of the covenant Which represents the presence of GOD, you see that is the thing that will give them victory is the presence of God will go before them. Its not by might, It’s not by power BUT its by HIS SPIRIT that we will overtake and that we will overcome!

Now this is the last part! And than God tells them after you have walked around the walls of Jericho, now he doesn’t tell them to go some where and sit down and be quiet. The bible says that he told them to lift up the trumpets and the horns, and than he tells them I want you to SHOUT! I Want you to SHOUT!!! I want you to SHOUT for the VICTORY! I want you to SHOUT before you SEE it. I want you to SHOUT before you know how its gonna work out! I want you to SHOUT now and the WALL will come DOWN.
We need SHOUT for our Victory, it’s time for us to SHOUT unto GOD with the voice of TRIUMPH because he is giving us the victory.

Christian Coffee House Menu

If I ever have a coffee shop this is what the menu will look like..

1.) Muffin but the blood
2.) The scone was rolled away
3.) Jesus loves you a latte
4.) Amazing crepes
5.) Holy Toast
6.) Unto the least of cheese Danish
7.) Eggs Benediction
8.) Come just as you orange Julius
9.) The Good Shepherd’s pie
10) Noah’s two by tuna sandwich
11) Every knee shall bow tie pasta
12) Serve the Lord with all humili-tea
13) Fire and brimstone ground grits
14) Forbidden Fruit Cup
15) The Garden tomb salad
16) Hot cross buns
17) Holy bottled water
18) Just as I ham sandwich
19) Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s salad
21) Thou shalt not steel cut oatmeal
22) Here is your fearfully and wonderfully made latte!
23) Fresh fruit of the Spirit
24) Rolled away the Scone
25) Locust & honey croissant
26) Jehovah Java

The Waiting Room

The other day, I was sitting in traffic on 9a and just started thinking about all the time we spend waiting in life. We wait in traffic, wait in line at the grocery store & starbucks, wait for a promotion, wait for a relationship to turn around or wait for a prayer to be answered. It seems we spend a lot of time in the waiting room of life!

God sees us and is saying to us today, “I want you to wait the right way.” What is the right way to wait? If you look up the word “wait” in the original Hebrew, it’s translated to mean “hope and expectancy”. See, God wants you to wait in Him. He wants your hope and expectancy to be in Him. Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (NKJ)

God has promised that if we wait the right way, then we’ll have the strength to wait. We won’t feel overwhelmed, frustrated and “zapped” of all of our energy. If you wait in Him, you’ll run and not be weary, walk and be lifted up, and soar like the eagle. This verse tells me there are seasons of waiting. Sometimes we have to walk through some things while we wait. Sometimes we run and the season goes by quickly. And sometimes, we’ll just rise above the circumstances and soar through the season of waiting. No matter what, God promises to strengthen and empower us when we wait on Him.

How do we wait in Him? First of all, we need to wait with praise and worship in our hearts and mouths. Praise always precedes the victory. God says He inhabits the praises of His people, and when God shows up, the enemy has to flee!

Another way to make sure you are waiting the right way is by watching your words, thoughts and attitudes. Your thoughts direct your words which ultimately direct your life. Make sure your words line up with His Words. Come in agreement with Him because your strength comes from your unity with Him.

You’ve probably heard it said that your attitude determines your altitude. If you want to rise high above the storms of life, you have to set your mind on things above, not on the cares of this earth. You have to keep your focus on Jesus because He is the Author and Finisher of your faith.

Today, if you’re waiting, make sure you’re waiting the right way. Keep an attitude of faith and expectancy and a song of praise on your lips. Know that He is faithful, and He will renew your strength and lift you up when you choose to wait in Him.

Leave The Past Behind

Stop
dwelling on past events
and brooding over times gone by;
I am doing
something new;
it’s springing up – cant’ you see it?
I am making a road in
the desert,
rivers in the wasteland.

- Isaiah 43:18-19

Reading this Scripture I knew that God wanted me to understand that He was indeed doing something new in my life. In fact I had heard those verses before and really liked the idea of His doing something new that He would make a way for me where it looked dry and wasted. But this time I knew He wanted me to see verse 18 and that the two verses really did go together. That got me to thinking.

I didn’t need to ask if I really was dwelling on past events. I was the queen of brooding over times gone by. When the God brought this to my attention there were a few things that I found interesting. First of all, whenever I would start dwelling on past events, on wrongs done to me or on wrongs that I had done to others, I would start to relive the feelings of the past and get angry, depressed, you name it. If I had either forgiven or asked for forgiveness, then I was purposely going back to the filth of those sins and wallowing in them probably not such a good thing to do. Then there’s the word “brooding.” Now, some people use that word to mean fuss or fume over something, but this is the same word that the God uses in Genesis when He says that the Spirit of the Lord was brooding over the face of the deep during creation. There is a sense of care and nurturing attached with this word. Was I really caring for and nurturing my feelings of pain and frustration that are attached with those times gone by? You bet I was! Lastly, if I really was dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by, if my attention was focused there, could I really see the newness that the Lord was bringing to my life? Very simply, it was extremely difficult to do so because my attention was not on the Lord.

God is indeed doing new things in our lives. He wants to bring us to new places of intimacy with Him. He wants to heal us emotionally, physically, and spiritually. But we have to cooperate, let go of what lies in the past, focus our attention on the Lord, and be amazed at what He does for us!

Wake Up..

In the book of Job, as God speaks from a whirlwind, he sets up his challenging “conversation” to Job by sayng “Brace yourself like a man!” Lately through reading scriptures from Job 38-40, having dreams about what will happen in the earth, and is already happening, some, and through prophecy, it’s like the Lord is saying to the church, “!” We have to get ready for what God is about to do, and what he might allow in our nation and in the world. He knows the time and season, Jesus is longing for his bride. And the earth (and the true church) is longing for Jesus…Beloved, the time is NOW to allign our hearts with the will of the Father. To pray in the spirit. To be bold and obedient. To declare with heaven, the glory of God on the earth. HOLINESS UNTO JESUS! The Lord shared with me last year, that he was raising up a generation who’s only cry is “Holiness unto the Lord!” and that he wanted to raise up a “Matthew 5″ generation. ARE YOU AWAKE TO THAT? Are you listening to the voice of God or the echo of others? (even “Christians”) In Psalm 103:7, it says,”He revealed His CHARACTER to Moses and His DEEDS to the people of Israel.” Remember when the Israelites did not want to seek God “face to face,” but just allowed Moses (their “Pastor,” so to speak…) to hear from God for them? Well, they missed out on a beautiful treasure, an intimate knowledge of WHO GOD WAS…what He was really like, and could have pleased him a lot better if they had known for themselves. Yes, they saw miracles and provision, God’s “deeds,” but Moses got to see God’s “Character!” Are YOU willing to climb the mountain of His presence? Are you hungry to know God for yourself? To hear his secrets? To know what he’s like and how to please him? DO YOU WANT TO BE CHANGED until your very face shines? It won’t happen through a second-hand experience or a “hand-me-down” word. It will only happen when yousee God for yourself. Don’t settle…Don’t run away from God. Run TO him. get alone with Him and pour your heart out. Climb that mountain and stay there until he reveals himself to you. “Jesus give us eyes to see your beauty and ears to hear your voice. We don’t just seek your hand, we seek your face!” Time is short. Walk close to Him and heed his instructions. Be ready! “Brace yourself like a man.” He’s coming. You will see signs and wonders in the earth. You will feel the earth trembling. Let the Lord shake your spirit as he will shake this earth. Some of the “shaking” you will see, is God, shaking our nation(s) by the shoulders out of sleep, with his own hands saying “WAKE UP!” God is calling for true worship. SOUND THE ALARM! Isaiah 58:1…

Dead Mud: The Hole of Something Better

Chapter 3 of Mark Halls New book.. Good stuff!!

Dead Mud: The Hole of Something Better
You have never slipped God’s mind. Even if you haven’t thought about him since the last time you walked through a church door, he has been walking with you, watching you, talking to you. And God has been trying his best to catch your eye because he pursues you. God doesn’t pursue your country. He doesn’t pursue your state or your town or even your church. He pursues you, just as he did the woman at the well [see John 4:4-42].
At times, I’ve had to come to God … after creating my own solutions instead of seeking God’s guidance and waiting on his answer. I entertain thoughts like:
Here’s how I’m going to deal with my friendships. I’m going to show them what I deserve.
Here’s how I’m going to deal with my money. It’s mine, so I’m going to figure out how to handle it so that it serves me best.
Here’s how I’m going to deal with my spouse. I’m going to go with what feels right at the time.
We convince ourselves we can improve our lot and come up with something better if we just get half a chance… We build little armies of selfish answers all over the place, until sooner or later we’re cold and sterile…
The cost never is ours alone. It impacts everything and everybody around us when we don’t let God do what only he can do.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
Do you long for “something better”? Have you talked to God about it?

Blessings

I think this is a song that anyone can relate to…..

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

Erasing Hell

I am loving this response to Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” , I think Francis Chan’s response is the best that I have heard, because Hell is real its not make believe. and We arent God, His thought are not our thoughts and HIS ways ARENT OUR ways. Now this is a book worth reading.

“I’m like a piece of clay trying to explain to other pieces of clay what the potter is like. Think about that for a second. It shows the silliness for any of us to think we are an expert on Him. Our only hope is that He would reveal to us what He is like, and then we can just repeat those things.”

Francis Chan Responds to Rob Bell’s Love Wins (via Theology for the Road)

On July 5th David C. Cook publisher will release what is scheduled to be the fourth book length response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. The book is titled Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity and the Things we Made up by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. You can pre-pay for the book now from David C. Cook for $14.99. Here is the publisher description: In this groundbreaking new book, Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle take on the topic of hell an … Read More

via Theology for the Road

No Man Knows the Time of Christ’s Return

No Man Knows the Time of Christ’s Return

BE READY! Live each day as if He were going to return that day (2 Timothy 4:7-8). In other words, all we can do is prepare ourselves for that day because the signs indicate that it is coming soon.

The consequences of knowing the exact date would be devastating for the world. If they knew the date, they would wait right up until the last minute to clean up their lives and seek salvation which we know won’t work because Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day”. The choice is ours whether we yield to the Spirit’s drawing us to accept His free gift of salvation. However, it the Father’s choice when He will send the Spirit to draw us to Him. It would be blasphemy to think that we can manipulate the sovereign Lord of the universe into doing things “our” way. So waiting would never work. God would not allow man to manipulate Him in this way.

Others, like the Millerites, would stop everything and simply wait for the day to arrive which would mean that much of their work in the kingdom of God would be left undone. Jesus is coming for a prepared people – those who are ardently working to build His kingdom right up until the very moment He snatches them away. As believers in Christ, we want to finish well. We want Him to find us working to build His kingdom where He has placed us.

No Angel Knows the Time of Christ’s Return.
In spite of the fact that the angels of heaven are in constant contact and communication with our Heavenly Father and are constantly awaiting His commands (Matthew 18), they do not know when He is going to send them out to gather the believers who survive the Tribulation. They simply do not know when Christ will return.

(via Dr. David Jerimiah)