Tag: Jesus

Time: God’s Gift to us

Have you ever thought about time? I’ve been listening to this song by Jill Paquette called “One of these Days” which has a line in it that says, “Your love brought time just what I needed, to see I needed you.” Wow! What a profound statement. Time, truly is a gift from God. Have you ever heard someone say “we are not promised tomorrow”? In many ways many of us do take tomorrow for granted, like it’s owed to us, even guaranteed. Many of us may even live like we have all the time in the world, like we will live for 100 years. When I look back at my own life, I see just how true this was/is for me.

When I was caught in drug addiction, I had no sense of time. I had all the time in the world to waste, so to speak. I also remember how Jesus intervened in my in life and gave me more time. You see, when I was living in my mess of a life, my goal in life was to make it to 30 years of age. I didn’t have very many dreams or aspirations. My life revolved around drugs and having a good time. I lived recklessly and foolishly. It’s funny, when Jesus began to move in my life, showing me that He was real, that He loved me and that He had a purpose for my life was when I was 29 years old. Then, Jesus saved me at 30, which to use biblical terminology, my old self died with Jesus on the Cross (Galatians 2:20) and my new self came to life with Him through His resurrection (Ephesians 2:6). So, technically speaking I did die at 30 with Jesus, but was give a new life and…more time. This is something I am eternally grateful for and is a good reminder that right now I am living on bonus time.

This time we have isn’t promised to us nor do we earned it. No, the time we have is truly a gift from God and I pray that by the grace of God during this time we would all come to truly see just how much we need Jesus in our lives. My prayer for you and for the many people right now struggling with drug addiction is that God would meet each one and give them the the gift of time to come to know Jesus and be saved by Him.


The Jesus Life

A bible verse that is very near and dear to my heart is 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” What an amazing truth! When Jesus saved me, this was one of the verses that the pastor shared with me. I remember very clearly my thoughts in this moment. I thought to myself “I am so tired of living this life of drug addiction, if Jesus wants my life and can do something better with it then He can have it.” And Jesus has been true to His Word. My life is a living testimony to this truth. My continual prayer is that Jesus would continue to encounter those struggling with drug addiction and speak the promise of this verse to them. If this is you, then receive this truth. If you have a loved one or friend in bondage to drug addiction then I pray that the Holy Spirit would cultivate a patch of good soil in their heart to receive this truth. And for you who has been faithfully interceding at 4:20, I pray the Lord would speak to you about His great pleasure in your sacrifice and obedience.


Living the Dream

Praise the Lord! 15 years ago Jesus saved me from a hopeless life of drug addiction, pain and loneliness. And I declare that Jesus will continue to save and set more and more people free!


I Will Exalt You: Steffany Frizzell (Bethel Church)

This song is my prayer for people who struggle with drug and/or alcohol addiction: that one day they would exalt the Lord Jesus with their lives. I pray that the Father would intervene into their lives and release grace to them and pull them from their addictions. I firmly believe that without God’s direct intervention addicts and alcoholics will be hopelessly bound by their addiction. Sure, I believe that to some degree people can manage their addiction for awhile, even a long while. But, for true freedom from addictions, this only comes through the grace and power of God. So join the 420 Prayer Movement today and begin praying for the many people who struggle with addictions!


LIFE: words

Do you remember the childhood saying of “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” I remember chanting this when I was young, in order to mask the hurt I felt inside when the other kids picked on me for being different. No matter how much I said it, the words still hurt because words have power to build up or to tear down. Ephesians 4:29 says “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (NLT). In working with people who struggle with addiction, from my experience trauma is one of the leading causes of addiction. Physical, mental, verbal and sexual abuses are all contributing factors that can lead people down the road of addiction in search of relief, self-punishment or misguided vengeance to name a few motivations.

For people who struggle with sexual addiction, rejection is a major catalyst that perpetuates the abnormal behavior. Objectifying people for our own sexual gratification is abnormal. God didn’t create us to use and abuse one another, but to love one another (1 John 3:11). Regardless of the many pro-porn arguments, pornography is demeaning, period. In helping these people work towards freedom the Lord has revealed to me that in many if not all instances, verbal traumas are some of the first attachment points that certain strongholds (rejection, self-pity, self-hatred, shame) began to take root which helped catalyze the road towards sexual addiction. Add on to this, other traumas like physical, mental or sexual abuse and the range of addictions increases (alcohol, drugs, food, anger, etc.).

The book of James talks about the tongue being untamable by human means (James 3:2,8) and how blessings and curses come out of the same mouth (James 3:9). I don’t know about you, but I experience the truth of these verses everyday, be it in my own struggle to control what I say or don’t say or when I’m on the receiving end of some not so self-controlled words from others. But, when I do feel offended, unjustly criticized or even judged, I am grateful for Holy Spirit who restrains me from reacting and reminds me of God’s love and grace. When I first came to faith and read through the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22, 23a), I was always perplexed by self-control. But, the longer I walk with Jesus the more grateful I’ve become of this particular aspect of the Spirit’s fruit.

God’s heart towards His creation is one of love, redemption and restoration. The Father’s desire is to see us saved, redeemed and made whole. This was the precise reason Jesus came down out of Heaven to die on a cross for sin. It is in Jesus that people are set free from the bondage of sin, are delivered from being demonized, healed of sickness and disease and where our brokenness is restored. This is where the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit in gifting people prophetically has great influence and power in joining with God in His mission of redemption and restoration. All believers have the privilege to speak truth and life into others. But, this must be done in love (Ephesians 4:15). The prophetic gift must be exercised in love, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV).

Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Kris Vallotton, Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle, and came across this statement: “Never underestimate the redemptive power of God’s supernatural ministry. So many people are starving to know who they really are. You have the ability to alter the history of people who are lost in darkness and broken beyond repair.” This is a true statement. But, we must always remember that our own tongue fights against us and that unless we become more and more dependent on Holy Spirit in taming our tongue we will do more prophetic harm than good. Holy Spirit gifting does not equal maturity; it is through the fruit of the Holy Spirit that brings about maturity. Furthermore, though we should earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially prophecy we must remember that we must pursue love first (1 Corinthians 14:1).

So this is my prayer: that the Lord would continue to cultivate in us a greater capacity to love, that He would impress upon each of us the great need to be fully defined by the Father’s love and the need to always pursue love first and foremost. Help us Lord to allow ourselves to be fully loved by the Father and from out of that place of belovedness love others. For, as Your Word says “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). In Your Name Jesus we pray, Amen.


LIFE: eternal

Of all the biblical writers, it is the Apostle John that references life most frequently. He refers to life as we know it in the universe (John 1:3-5) and life eternal with God in heaven through the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus, God’s one and only Son (John 3:16). In both instances, Jesus, the Word of God, is the source of life. Furthermore, Jesus referred to Himself as living bread (John 6:51ff) and living water (John 4:10,14). He even goes so far as to say, “I am the life” (John 11:25; 14:6). It is in Jesus that believers possess the life of the age to come in the present and in abundance (John 10:10b).

In focusing on eternal-everlasting life, John’s use of the word life in the book of Revelation reveals much. In Revelation, the word life is used in relation to the “tree of life” (Revelation 2:7; 22:2,14), the “crown of life” (Revelation 2:10); the “book of life” (Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15; 21:27; 22:19); and the “water of life” (Revelation 21:6; 22:1,17). As Dr. Ed Murphy states, “Man’s association with these sources of life brings him into union with God’s gift of eternal life” (Revelation 1:17,18; 2:7,10,11; 11:11; 21:6; 22:1-12,17). Again, eternal life is a future eschatological blessing that all believers have to look forward to, but it is also a believer’s present possession.

If there is one thing that we can conclude from the Apostle John is that Jesus = life. So, in order to embrace life to the full, a person must look to find it in Jesus and in Jesus alone. He is our abundant life, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26 ESV). In following along on this train of theological thought, if the Father and Son have life in Themselves, it goes to reason that the Holy Spirit Who is part of the Trinitarian Godhead also has life in Himself. As Paul states, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead he will give life to your mortal bodies by his same Spirit living within you” (Romans 8:11 NLT).

One of the most amazing blessings from the Father is the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13) Who indwells all believers (John 4:13,14; 7:37-39; 14:17; Romans 5:5). It’s through His presence that all believers experience eternal life in the here and now; He is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance (Ephesians 1:14). The more we lean into the Holy Spirit, the more we will experience the joy and peace of Heaven, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17 ESV). All believers carry the kingdom of God within them (Luke 17:21) because all believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), Who reminds us that we are children of God (Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6).

So this is my prayer: Father God helps us Lord to fully trust in Your Word that tells us that the abundant life You have for us is found in Your Son Jesus and that this life includes receiving and living out our eternal inheritance both in the here and now and in the age to come when we will finally get to see Jesus face-to-face. Fill us overflowing with the Living Water of the Holy Spirit, so that we may experience the joy and peace of Heaven each and everyday. Thank You Lord for sending the Holy Spirit and for pouring Him into our hearts by Your love. In Jesus Name, Amen.


LIFE: light

What comes to mind when you hear the word light? For me, I associate light with life. When I think about light, the sun naturally comes to mind; the sun whose life giving rays nourish all life on earth. Without the sun, life as we know it would end because the sun provides both energy and warmth to all of creation. But, we are not solely just natural beings who have only natural appetites and desires. No, we are also spiritual beings who have spiritual needs and desires. Just as the sun gives nourishment to our bodies, so the Son gives nourishment to our spirit. As Jesus tells us “Yes, I am the vine; and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NLT). Remaining in Jesus gives us the nourishment we need to produce fruitful lives.

Furthermore, the bible says that “God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all” (1 John 1:5). When light encounters darkness, two things happen: 1) it reveals what is hiding in the darkness and 2) it drives the darkness back. God is not intimidated, confounded, anxious or worried over the darkness of the world. Just as in the beginning when He created the universe and everything in it, He is still speaking into those who are formless and void by creating life with His words. “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:6, 7 NLT). The great treasure in us is Jesus; He is the light of the world that shines in the hearts of those who put their faith in Him. “Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12 ESV). Having the light of life means followers of Jesus are now living in God’s light which empowers believers, connecting them in fellowship as the blood of Jesus cleanses them of sin (1 John 1:7) while also increasing our capacity to love one another (1 John 2:10).

So this is my prayer: that the Lord would continue to shine His light in our hearts bringing greater healing, deliverance, redemption and restoration to our lives. Jesus You are the light of the world and we shine for You as little lights within Your glorious light to a lost, hurting and broken world. Help us to live more fully with You basking in Your light and Your love! To the Father’s glory and in Your Name, Jesus, Amen


livingWORSHIP

Lately I’ve been realizing that I am just getting this idea of living a life in worship to the Father. Though I’ve been saved almost 10 years now, have experienced many supernatural moves of God in my life, been through Seminary, actively involved in mentoring, discipleship and being on mission for Jesus, been in ministry leadership as well as starting a prayer movement, what I am realizing is that I am really only just grasping the concept of living a life of worship to the Father. More and more, Holy Spirit has been reminding me of Jesus’ words, “But the time is coming – indeed it’s here now – when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way”(John 4:23 NLT). The more I meditate on what it means to be a worshipper of Spirit and Truth, the more I am convinced that there’s a huge difference between doing worship and being a worshipper. I believe that everyone is capable of worship. If we realize it or not we are actively engaged in worship everyday. You don’t have to be a prophet to see how the world revolves around the worship of people and things. The worship of celebrities and political figures is nothing new, nor is the idolization of technology. Add to this equation the rising tides of addiction in the world and you have a recipe for even greater degrees of misdirected and distorted worship. It’s funny though worship is inherent to who we are because we have a Creator, why is it so difficult to live a life of worship to our Creator? The simple answer is sin. Sin has a way of perverting and distorting everything that we do. It’s not that sin makes us all as evil as we could ever be, but sin does have a way of twisting even our best intentions. Sin entangles us and keeps us from embracing being the true worshippers of Spirit and Truth that God desires.

Currently, I am in a unique season. The Lord is teaching me what is means to be His missionary. Over the last five years, I have been heavily involved in church ministry and leadership and have loved every moment. But, earlier this year the Lord impressed on me His desire for me to learn what it means for me to always be His missionary first and foremost. This transition has taken about a year and has meant stepping down from all church leadership, even relocating to another church. Embracing this new season, has inspired this current reflection on worship and service to the Lord. To be honest, this transition has been harder than I had expected. Always being God’s missionary has meant seeing life through a different lens. For the last five years I’ve looked at life through the lens of a shepherd caring for the flock that God has entrusted to my care. Now that this flock has been entrusted to others, I am feeling a bit lost. What I am realizing is that working in the barn is a bit different than working in the fields. When I was working in the barn (church), it was easier to discern the line between what was worship to the Lord and what was not. Learning to work in the fields (world) has meant redefining what worship to the Lord looks like. Working in the field has also meant having to be more intentional about making what I am doing as an act of worship to the Lord. Being in church ministry and leadership made it easier to see my service as a form of worship to God. It was easy to see what I was doing as “working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23 NIV). Now that I am not actively involved in church leadership it’s like I now have to relearn what it means to be “working for the Lord.

I know I am still in the process of walking this out, but where I am leaning towards is rather than trying to make everything I do an act of worship to God I need to simply embrace more fully the reality that through Jesus I simply am a worshipper of the living God. If I try to make everything I do an act of worship to God, worship can very easily become reduced to a bunch of tasks to be checked off a list. I would end up doing worship all day, rather than being a worshipper where worship is inherent to who I am. On the surface, they may look simliar, but underneath is a world of difference. When worship is inherent to who I am, everything that I do becomes an act of worship because it is born out of love and devotion for the Father. Jesus fully understood this. His whole life was lived in worship to the Father because He understood who He was to the Father and who the Father was to Him. It must be no different with us. Our worship must come from a place of intimacy with the Father. The Pharisees lacked this intimacy with the Father and their lives where reduced to a bunch of external actions strung together with the guise of worship. But, their offerings of worship lacked the inward motivation that the Father desired. Everything they did had the external motivation of being seen and praised by men. They were continually projecting image, rather than pursuing intimacy. When worship comes from a place of intimacy with the Father, then a worshipper that the Father desires is born. And here’s the Good News: as believers in Christ we already have this intimacy with the Father, we just need to lean in and embrace this intimacy.


Yes, God still miraculously heals today!

On Sunday, September 27th, 2010, God supernaturally grew out one of my legs and then evened them out. Yes, a physical creative miracle happened. The back story on this is that over the last four or five years my lower back has been steadily giving me more and more pain. All of this culminated a week before when I flew from Los Angeles to Chicago (September, 19th). After the flight I started to feel a sharp pain in my left leg and it even started to go numb from time to time. On Monday, I rested as much as I could, but the pain was still there. On Tuesday, I was walking through a grocery store and in the back by the pharmacy there was a little stand where a chiropractic business was checking people’s balance. I filled out the form and let them know that I had ongoing lower back pain and that now my left leg had just started to hurt and go numb from time to time. So, they had me stand on two scales, one for each foot and checked my balance. What the balance test revealed was that I leaned almost 12 pounds (5.5 kg) to my left leg which normally should only be a 2-3 pounds (0.9-1.2 kg) difference confirming that added pressure was being put on my sciatic nerve and was possibly causing the numbness.

To back up a bit, the week before all of this happened I felt the Lord really challenge me while I was at a prayer meeting (Septmeber 15th) where people were praying for healing for a woman. I very distinctly heard Jesus ask me: “Do you really believe that the Father will give you anything that you ask of Him in My Name?” His voice wasn’t an audible voice, but I distinctly felt and heard His voice reverberate throughout the whole of my being. I heard it in my head and in my heart all at the same time. It was like Jesus was speaking directly to my spirit. So, for the next few days I really wrestled with this question. But as I wrestled, Holy Spirit kept reminding me that the only reason that I live, move and have my being in Him at all is because of God’s grace. All the blessings in my life are truly undeserved; be it healing, salvation, deliverance, redemption or restoration. As Paul so eloquently put it, “But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace” (1 Corinthians 15:10 NLT).

If you know my story, then you may think that if anyone should get this it’s me. But, though I have experienced many supernatural moves of God’s grace in my life, I still wrestled deep within my heart with a distorted view of God’s heart towards me. God’s heart towards us is to heal, save, redeem and restore, period. I mean He gave up His one and only Son, Jesus, so that He could accomplish all of these things through an intimate relationship with us for all eternity. That’s God’s heart towards us. He’s not stingy with His love, goodness, mercy and grace, but infinitely generous and compassionate when it comes to gifting, blessing and showing favor towards us. We just need to believe and receive His love, goodness, mercy, grace, gifts, blessings and favor. Coming to this revelation has really freed up my heart and mind to just receive from the Lord and allow Him to pour out the fullness of His grace upon my life. In my wrestling what I was confronted with was the belief that 1) I thought I needed to work for God’s grace, 2) I didn’t think that God wanted to show me more of His favor and 3) because I was too proud or too ashamed I would just plain refuse to accept God’s favor. But, the breakthrough came when I began repenting for these distorted beliefs of trying to earn God’s favor by working for it, of my own self-condemnation that I projected onto God thinking He didn’t want to show me more of His favor and of my pride and shame that refused to accept God’s goodness and blessings towards me.

Now back to the healing miracle at hand. After leaving the balance test, I began to think that maybe my left leg was a little longer than the other and because of this has effected my lower back over the years which is quite typical from what I understand. That night I had my connect group (small group) pray for my back, a couple people said they definitely felt like there was a spiritual component, one of them saw an image of a vine wrapped around one of my legs. When I woke up on Wednesday, the pinching and numbness was gone. Later that day I felt like I should try and measure my legs and ask for God to even them out. So, I sat on my bed stretched my legs out and placed my hands on my right hip and began to simple ask the Father in Jesus Name to even out my legs. Nothing fancy. Right away my right hip began to tingle for a minute or so and then stopped. In my spirit, I really felt like God did do something, but I wasn’t sure what. So, I thanked God for healing me and that was that. (I know this post is extra long, but I really want to give as clear and detailed account of everything that happened, so please bear with me. I promise you it’s worth it.)

Fast forward to Sunday, September 27th, 2010 around 8pm. I am at a teaching session on healing (through my church: CITC) at Chris and Nancy Whiteley’s house. As the teaching portion was ending, I asked the group to pray for my back pain. I didn’t go into detail of what had transpired earlier in the week, but did share that I felt like my back pain had a spiritual component, was possibly connect to a generational curse and that I felt like one of my legs could possibly be longer than the other. So, Nancy and Chris led me through a prayer of repentance over the generational curse over my family and then began prayerfully breaking in Jesus Name any connection that a spirit of infirmary may have had over my back pain and began praying for healing and restoration to any degenerative damage to my back. During this time I really didn’t feel anything at all. So, next they had me sit in a wooden chair with my lower back resting fully against the back of the chair. Chris then had me lift my legs and he held my feet together to see if they were different lengths. After the group looked at my legs they said that my right leg was definitely a little shorter than the left.

So, while Chris was holding my feet, Dave Foster put his hand on my right shin and began to invite the Holy Spirit to come and bring healing to my leg. Then Taylor Lyall, who had his hand on my right thigh began to command my right leg to grow out in Jesus Name. Here’s where it gets good. All of a sudden my right leg from the knee down began to tingle like crazy and then it felt like someone yanked really hard on my right foot and I literally felt my leg grow out from around my ankle area. Everyone there started screaming that my foot just totally grew out like an inch or so (maybe around 3 cm). Personally, it really felt like my leg had grown too much. I didn’t say anything but then Chris had Monica come put her hand on my feet and she began to pray that God would even out my legs. Then my left ankle area began to tingle too and it really felt like both my legs were shifting about. It was quite a strange feeling. I was literally holding onto the chair like I was about to take off or something. All in all, I think we prayed for maybe 10 minutes while I was sitting in the chair. Afterwards, when I stood up it definitely felt different.

Today (September 27th), as I am writing this the calf muscle in my right leg feels extra tight and my right knee feels a bit weird like it’s adjusting or something. I have no more pain in my lower back, but I do feel like the muscles back there are a tiny bit sore as well. Maybe my lower back muscles, nerves and tendons are also adjusting I’ll see over then next few weeks if I need more restorative prayer on my back. Over the weekend, I bought a balance board and ordered a Bosu ball because I wanted to work on resetting my balance. I’m glad I did because now I can work on my balance, not because I have one leg shorter than the other, but because God miraculously lengthened and evened out my legs and now I need to reset my balance because I have too legs that are the same length. God’s grace and goodness towards us is so amazing! So amazing!!!


ONEway

The basis for any theology must be grounded in the God man Jesus Christ. If it is not, than you might as well start a new religion based on any deranged egomaniac of your choosing. It is only through Christ’s redeeming finished work of His death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification that any one of us can call ourselves a child of God. As Jesus Himself said, “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. . . . Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” (John 8: 43-45 NIV). Without Him we are truly blinded by sin and lost in total depravity due to the Fall (Genesis 3).

Because of our fallen nature we all have an obsessive and compulsive tendency to do evil and follow the devil. Paul not only confirms the words of Jesus, but he also gives us our hope in Him as well when he so eloquently states, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:3-5 NIV).

If we are to further God’s Kingdom here on Earth, our very identity must be in Christ (Romans 8:1) and we must go out in His name (Mark 16:15-18), who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 9:16). If we are not grounded in Christ, the Word made man (John 1:14), than our efforts will be purely humanistic, rather than for the Kingdom of God. In the end, we must recognize that we were created by and for Christ (Colossians 1:16) so that we could do good works in Christ (Ephesians 2:10). What else do we have to hang our hats on? If not the promises of God, that have been, are being, and will be fulfilled by Christ Jesus. Thankfully He will be with us always, even until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b).