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.

Mary did you Know

As I read the account in Luke 1 there were some things that really jumped out at me. They were who the angel declared Mary to be.

1. Pure: a virgin

When I look at this I think about how Jesus has made us pure by His precious blood.

2. He declares her as royalty: from the line of David

In Revelation Jesus has declared us kings and priest, so that makes us royalty also.

3. He speaks grace over her: rejoice oh highly favored one! The Lord is with you;blessed are you among women.

4. The Holy Spirit will come upon you

All these things that made Mary special enough to give birth to Jesus has come to each on of us who believe in Jesus. Just know that you are special to god and that He loves you. 

God bless you

Seven Spirits of God

Revelation 1 tells of the Seven Spirits before the throne of God and Isaiah 11:2 tells us who they are:
Rest
Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel
Might
Knowledge
Fear of God

It is one Spirit with 7 facets to minister to us. It's like the fruit of the Spirit is singular and not plural, if you have one you have them all. It's all about letting them shine forth.
As I have studied the Seven Spirits of God I see how they all work together to make me a Light in the midst of darkness.
As the fear of God was birthed in me I had a hunger for more knowledge of God which made the Spirit of Might kick in to make me a stronger Christian which caused me to receive the Council of the Lord so that I could Understand the knowledge i have received which turned into wisdom which is applying the word of God to my life so that now I can make decisions from a position of rest and not fatigue, frustration, failure or fear.
When we let the Spirit of God have His way in us it is transformational to our lives. The peace of God will work through us and we will be at rest even when the world is not.
Let the Holy Spirit minister to you today. Let Him speak to you and do a complete work in you so that worry will disappear.

God Bless you.

Wisdom

When you look at the book of Job and all he went through, you can start feeling sorry for him and his trials. All that he lost and then the attack on his health. Earthly wisdom came from Job's wife which said "curse God and die." Maybe she was a little bitter towards God. But right in the middle of things there is a jewel of a verse. It is Job 28:28

Job 28:28

New King James Version (NKJV)

28 And to man He said,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
And to depart from evil is understanding.’”

To fear the Lord is wisdom. What it means to have a fear of the Lord is that we care more about what He thinks then we think or those around us think of us. God becomes the main thing. Wisdom is when we take the knowledge of the Word of God and apply it to our lives. It is application of the Word of God based on the knowledge of what will happen to us if we don't listen to God. It is so simple. 

Our battle comes in the form of our flesh. When we let our flesh dictate our walk we miss the mark by a mile. Being ruled by our flesh is not godly wisdom. One of the facets of the Holy Spirit shown to us in Isaiah 11:2 is wisdom. So if we have the Holy Spirit we have wisdom which enables us to fear the Lord which enables us to live a life of following His word. 

We can do this. Not out of our strength but out of the Lord's strength which is in my by the Holy Spirit. 

Let the Spirit of God fill you today and walk in wisdom from above and not beneath.

Be blessed.

REST

As we make a commitment to walk with Jesus and be led by His Spirit the enemy of our soul gets riled up against us. The Israelite's found this out when they went to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. The enemy spoke against them and made plans to destroy them. We know the enemy can make a lot of noise and sometimes even bite us but don't let the threats of the enemy bring you to a place of fatigue where you loose your position of rest. When we get fatigued we tend to get frustrated easily when we are making decisions from a position of fatigue and not rest, we tend to be more irrational. It can lead us to failure which freezes us and fear to do anything sets in.
Fatigue
Frustration
Failure
Fear
This is not a healthy way for us to be living. It destroys our testimony with the Lord. So what do we do?
1. Get some rest. You will make better decisions from a position of rest than you do when fatigued. Go to bed earlier and get some sleep. One facet of the Holy Spirit is rest, let Him fill you.

2. Reorganize your life. Some of what we do we can do without.  We have to get into position for rest. Maybe even just less TV. Make sure you allow time for God. Don't cut Him out of the picture. Allow time for fellowship with people that will encourage you. Allow for people to help you rise above the storm.
3. Remember the Lord. I am always reminded of how the Lord has healed my mom. She has been tole twice that she has a spot on her lung and we prayed for her. When she went to get the biopsy the spot was gone both times. One time she was going to have a mole removed and we prayed and it just fell off. I remember how He has touched her and how He has healed me and many others. How He has brought provision to me through the years. Remember the Lord and and don't live in discouragement. Rise above it.
4. Resist discouragement. Don't let it settle in on you. Put on a garment of praise and the enemy will go. The heaviness will leave. You don't have to take it from the enemy. As they reorganized in Numbers 4 they went forward in power and might to accomplish the building of the wall. They took their eyes off the focus of the enemy and looked to the Lord. Submit to God, resist the enemy and he will flee James tell's us.

Be blessed and rest in the Lord.

Pastor Ron