Equipping

Hebrews 13:20-21 (NLT) 

20 Now may the God of peace—  who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,  the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—

21 may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.     All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

It is God's desire to equip us with everything we need to be a good Ambassador. We have the written Word of God. We have the Holy Spirit. It is up to us on how much we desire to be an Ambassador. God has done His part for us to be equipped. I have a couple of things that we can do on our part so that we are not limited to do what God has called us to do.

1. Let God of your past. 

2. Surrender your gifts and talents to God.

3. Be intentional to build the Kingdom of God

These three things help us to be in position for God to move through us. As we are filled with the Spirit of God, He will do powerful things through us. Just take a moment and ask the Lord to fill you today. Even if you have been praying in tongues for years, ask Him to fill you again and let the power of God to be a witness flow through you. Let Him do a work in you. Be filled with the Spirit of God.

Ambassador

2 Corinthians 5:20-21 20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

As the body of Christ moves forward today we have to realize that the church is meant to be a group of Ambassadors. We are saved and need to turn our attention away from being entertained to winning people to Jesus.

So much of the church has become spectators, watching and waiting. It was God's intent that once we meet Him that we would begin to plead for Him to those that are still lost. This is the affect of being reconciled to God. We plead with people on God's behalf. God gave all he had for us to be reconciled to Him now it is our turn to do the same.

C-4

When you look at explosives and see the impact that C-4 can have it is very powerful. Here at New Hope we are pushing a different type of C-4.
COMMIT
CONSISTENT
CONNECT
CHANGE

When we commit to the Lord and each other and are consistent in it, we get connected. We truly take interest in God and people. When we surrender to the Lord (Commit) we are called to love him with all of our heart, soul, and might. In the same way we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. All this love causes us to connect and with that there is change that takes place in our lives and in the life of the church body.
C-4 can bring about a revolution of doing things God's way and not the worlds way. Let's make an effort to get on board with God's way of doing things and His way of being right.
Be committed to the cause of Christ and be consistent in your service to Him and you will connect with God and His people and it will bring about change in your life and those around you.

God Bless

Deep and Wide: Loving your Spouse

As I have been going through the book of Acts learning more of Christ through Paul, there are some things I see that Saul did that we do also.

Acts 9:1 (NKJV)

The Damascus Road: Saul Converted

9 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest.

Breathing threats and murder is how many people talk to each other. When I counsel married couples there are financial issues, sexual issues and many other things that are making the marriage a tough place to stay.   The biggest issue that seems to be taking place is how we communicate with each other. What comes out of our mouths has an lasting effect on the marriage. When Paul breathed out threats, he followed through with them to the point of murder. He would tell people to renounce Christ and if they didn't they were beaten, thrown in prison, or even murdered. 

In Marriage when we say things, we can never take them back. We can say things just to be mean out of frustration which the other person takes to heart and it hurts them. When a man says something to his wife just to be mean, she thinks that's how they really feel and she is destroyed. The damage is murderous. If we begin to think about the weight our words carry we might exercise a little more self control. If we love someone we should 

1. Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to wrath. 

2. Speak blessing and not cursing over our make

3. Ask the Holy Spirit for a new tongue 

These three little steps can revolutionize your marriage if you let it. With the Holy Spirit at work in us we can change the face of marriage in our land. Step out today and be the one's who stay married "till death do we part."

Deep and Wide

I used to be a mold maker. I would build many different types of molds for the plastics industry. One type of mold I made was blow molds. Your water bottles, milk jugs, and many cases for tools are made this way. In making these molds there were rules that you had to follow to make sure the there would be no weakness in the parts that came out of the mold. One of the rules was "Don't go deeper than your width."
EX: If I cut the cavity 2 inches deep I had to make it 2 inches wide. If I didn't the plastic would thin out trying to go that deep and would lose it's strength which would allow for a possible hole in the bottle.
The Lord has told us to be filled with Holy Spirit so that we could receive power.  The purpose is so that we can be witnesses from Corona (My Jerusalem) to the ends of the earth.
If all we do is go deep with Lord and don't go wide as in far reaching, we will weaken the body of Christ.
Deep and Wide is what we need.
Out of your depth with the Lord be as far reaching as possible.
God Bless you.

Deep and Wide

As we walk with the Lord, He would like us to go deeper in our relationship with Him. He would us to go beyond the shallow "How's it going?" to expressing our hearts to Him so that we begin an intimate, deep relationship. The challenge for us is in our relationships with each other, we have learned to keep it shallow so that when it comes to God we have a hard time with deep. Women crave intimacy and men are scrambling  to try and figure out what it is. The way we treat each other is the way it goes with God many times and vice-versa.  The understanding that we need to come to is that God already knows everything. He is all knowing. What He wants is that we express our hearts to Him and open up to Him. He's not looking for one-sided relationships.
In our going deep with the Lord and discovering the mysteries of the Kingdom, He desires for us to go Wide with that. As we take in what God has that we distribute it wide. We are to be far reaching people. He has filled us with His Spirit, not so we can just pray in tongues, but so that we can go to Corona, California, the USA, and the ends of the earth. As we go deeper we should reach further.
A missionary once said "The light that shines the farthest, shines the brightest at home."
Let your depth in the Lord push you to be wide reaching. Don't limit yourself today. Spread the Good News.

God Will Make It Happen

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 23 Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. 24 God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.

As I read this passage through I see that God has made a way for holiness in our lives. He will keep us blameless. 
God is intent on making a way. He told Mary what was going to happen to her and she trusted God. He told Joseph through a dream what needed to happen and Joseph obeyed. He had declared that Jesus would be born in a manger and He used a heathen king, Ceaser, to send everybody back to their hometown. 
Joseph and Mary traveled 70 miles to Bethlehem. That is a long walk for a pregnant lady. But God was intent on making this happen. It was prophesied in Micah that the babe would be born in Bethlehem. God made it happen. 
There are promises in the word of God that have been made for us. As we trust and obey the Lord, God will see to it that those things we are holding on to will be fulfilled. God's word does not return to Him void. 
So don't lose hope today. Just know that if God said it, God will make it happen. 

God Bless you.