Merry Christmas!
Hello everyone! The posts for this blog will probably be few and far between until 2009 comes back into full swing! I am excited about some cool thoughts that God has been giving me for this upcoming year! Be encouraged, have a Merry Christmas!
Quote by Ian Paisley “The church of Jesus Christ is largely sleeping…”
The church of Jesus Christ is largely sleeping, like a great bedroom, and you have all the Christians in bed and they’re all sleeping…and they’re saying “Please, don’t wake me up! I want to sleep on! And of course when God starts to operate a revival, people cannot sleep. You can’t sleep in church when the Spirit of God awakes the people. Look at the 1st verse of this 52nd chapter..’Awake! Awake! Put on strength! Wake up! You’re sleepy Christians! Awake thou that sleepeth, Arise from the dead! Christ will give you life! ~~ Ian Paisley
“Disturb Us” by Sir Francis Drake
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love~ Sir Francis Drake
Book Review: “Volunteer Revolution” by Bill Hybels
Unleashing the power of everybody
The subtitle of the book “Volunteer Revolution”, as noted above, is “unleashing the power of everybody”. This book was amazing!
See below for some points of interest:
- Every member is a minister.
- As leaders, we have an opportunity to invite people to be used by God in ways that they never imagined. We have the opportunity to empower them to develop gifts that they didn’t even know that they had!
- In the Bible, Solomon sought money, power, pleasure, fame, and celebrity status. At the end of his efforts, he said “vanity, vanity..all is vanity”. All of this is like chasing the wind. We weren’t created, however, to chase the wind; rather, we were created to join God on a mission.
- Volunteers can transform society and at the same time find deep personal satisfaction.
- The power of the church truly is the power of everybody as men and women, young and old, offer their gifts.
- What do you have to offer? More than you think. You have the gifts and talents you were born with. The passions that inspire you. The blessings of education. The skills you have honed as you worked at home or in the marketplace. The life experiences that have matured you. The pain that has deepened you. The love for your neighbor that spills from God’s heart into yours.
- Once you decide to invest the blessings that God has given to you into the lives of others, you’ll find the seed of something sown into your soul.
- God is at work 24/7 filling believers with grace, mercy, and power to reclaim, redeem, and fix this broken planet. He’s got His work gloves on – He calls us to roll up our sleeves and join Him with our talents, our money, our time, and our passions.
- When we put our heads on our pillows, how awesome would it be to say “You know what I did today. I teamed up with God to change the world!”.
- “Taking up your cross and following me” – this means that following Jesus requires sacrifice, hardship, and death to something selfish inside of us.
- People who let God lead them to where He wants them to serve find an incredible sense of satisfaction and joy.
- Sincere energized servanthood must flow from an ongoing daily experience of God’s presence and love.
- Every revolution demands revolutionaries – high spirited individuals who dream of a day when things will be different. But they do more than dream, they give their best to the cause – they relentlessly serve the collective effort.
- There may be a good deed out there with your name written on it.
I would encourage you to consider purchasing this book to help you 1) make impressions in the lives of others and 2) give you fresh passion to encourage others to join you in volunteering for Kingdom service!
You can purchase it at Amazon by clicking here.
His Plan For Me (Author Unknown)
When I stand at the judgement seat of Christ
And He shows His plan for me,
The plan of my life as it might have been,
Had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked Him here, and checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will,
Will there be grief in my Saviour’s eyes,
Grief though He loves me still?
Would He have me rich and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing,
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Lord, of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me and mold me,
To the pattern that Thou has planned.
Announcement: Pastor Robidas’ blog
Hello everyone! I’d like to take a quick minute to announce that my Pastor, Jonathan Robidas, has started a blog recently. You may have seen his link on the right sidebar of my blog website. However, if you haven’t yet visited it yet, I would encourage both Haven of Hope-ers and non-Haven of Hope-ers alike to go check it out. Check back often as I know that he is working on some sweet stuff over the next few weeks that he will be posting there.
You can find this new blog by clicking on Pastor Robidas‘ name above or by visiting this link: http://jdrobidas.wordpress.com.
Personally, I have been beyond blessed by this man’s ministry. He has helped me in my journey with Christ in leading me to deeper revelation and deeper relationship with the Savior of mankind. I am submitted to him and am thankful that God has planted me here at Haven of Hope.
May God bless you as you visit this blog.
Haven of Hope – Weekly Devotional (Week of 12/07/2008)
Each week, I post what the devotional that was used on the back of our Church Bulletin at Haven of Hope. However, this week, this post would be the first time that anyone at Haven of Hope will end up seeing it because I forgot to print the backside of the Church Bulletin this week! Oops!
Acts 17:28 “For in Him, we live, we move, and have our being…..for we are His offspring.”
I have been thinking about Acts 17:28 for the last few weeks. That verse states, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” I have been mindful lately that I am totally dependent on God, sort of like a fish in water. I doubt if a fish has to think (if a fish could even think) about being in the water. I would suppose that a fish could even take being in the water for granted.
But have you ever seen a fish out of water? They thrash about, their gills desperately seeking the water from which they derive their existence. If they can’t get back into the water, after a while they just die. That is how I am in relationship to the Lord. But sometimes I can forget that truth.
The verse says that we live, move and have our being. There can be no better expression of our total dependence on God. I think the psalmist understood this dependence as well when he wrote, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15). ~~ John Stanko
Quote:
Since you can’t imagine a place where He isn’t, you might as well imagine Him with you”
~~ Bill Johnson
I pray that this blesses you!
Part 3: The Price of Hesitancy
Do you remember what it was like to get a shot when you were a kid? I didn’t particularly enjoy it. As a matter of fact, I am not really found of them now. See below for a conversation that hasn’t occured and never will:
Co-worker: “So Matt, what do you have going on today?”
Matt: “You won’t believe it! I’m so pumped!! I get to go to a guy with cold hands, a white coat, and he is going to jam a long needle into my arm. I can’t wait!!
Co-worker: “I have a meeting to go to.”
What is something that you are hesitating about? What is something that you’ve been procrastinating about? Make the phone call, send that email, walk across the room, listen to the Lord. Close your eyes, brace yourself, and just do it! (Like this kid….)
Part 4: Becoming Revival (www.JesusCulture.org) by Seth Dahl
Please check out this next article in the series put out by Jesus Culture. Let us BECOME revival – not just talk about revival.
I was at a youth conference for 2 days right around Christmas time. As I watched young people get touched by God all around the room, I started remembering back to the times I went to youth conferences. I remembered going for a weekend, being surrounded by people going after God, hearing amazing guest speakers, and getting totally set on fire! I remembered those amazing times of personal revival. Then I remembered going home. I remembered going back to life as I knew it before the weekend, being surrounded by people not going after God. I also remembered a few weeks later, when I would wonder when the next conference would be so I could get set on fire again. Then I began to wonder about these young people all around me, getting touched by God, experiencing there own personal revivals. Would they go back to life as they knew it before this weekend? Would they be the ones who weeks later would wonder where the fire went? Would they be the ones waiting desperately for the next conference to come?
As I stood there with all this running through my mind I remembered Lazarus. If there is anyone in the Bible who experienced personal revival it was him. Think about it! The dude was dead for 4 days and Jesus raised him back to life. Talk about born again! But if you read the story all the way through in John 11, it doesn’t finish with him coming out of the grave. The very next verse (44) says that “he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.”
Check it out, Lazarus just came back from the dead, he has a brand new life; but he’s still wearing the clothes they put on dead people! Now he didn’t come out of grave with his suit and tie on, because in those days, the people were buried a bit different than we do it now. He was wrapped up, sort of like a mummy. He’s alive, but he still smells like he’s dead, because of the oils and spices. His face is wrapped, that means he can see (similar to putting your t-shirt over your face), but not clearly. He can hear, but it’s muffled. He can speak, but not like he should. His hands are bound, so he can touch people, but not really. His feet are bound, so he can walk, sort of. But the truth is, HE CAN’T STEP INTO HIS FUTURE, BECAUSE HE HASN’T BEEN FULLY SEPARATED FROM HIS PAST.
Let that one sink in a bit…
Lazarus had just experienced one of the greatest personal revivals ever, just like what happens to young people all over the world at conferences! But if you read the rest of verse 44, you see that Jesus really isn’t interested in people only experiencing revival, He wants them to become a revival! He wants them to see, hear, and speak clearly! He wants their minds completely free! He wants them to be able to reach out to the people in their school, their job, their neighborhood and their family. He wants them to walk out the life He gave them! He doesn’t want them wearing the clothes they wore when they were dead!
So what are these graveclothes for us? What can make a person who is totally alive, act like they are dead? It’s crazy, cause after being wrapped this way for 4 days, it probably FELT as though these graveclothes were part of him. It’s the same for us, because that’s how graveclothes always FEEL, like they are part of who we are. So what are they? Condemnation, guilt and shame. Condemnation gives you names for the sins you committed. Then guilt reminds you of those names, of the person you used to be. And fear will send you thoughts and make you believe they are yours. So look, if you smoked, condemnation calls you a …? If you stole, condemnation calls you a …? If you lied, condemnation calls you …? If you looked at porn…pervert. If you did drugs…addict. If you drank…alcoholic. You sinned…sinner! Then guilt says: Remember you’re a smoker? Liar? Your mind is perverted? And fear says: I should just do drugs again to deal with all this; I mean, I am an addict. Man! I always think those thoughts, I’ll never change…etc.
These are what get wrapped onto dead people. These are what start to feel like your own skin once they’ve been on long enough. If you believe these, then by faith you will continue to do them. These are the graveclothes that Jesus wants off! If you look at the very last part of verse 44, Jesus said, “loose him, and let him go.”
That’s the whole reason I’m writing this, to set you free from the past so you can step into your future. To tell you that you are a son or daughter of God, you have His DNA. It’s totally natural for you to love. It’s totally natural for you to have good relationships. It’s totally natural for you to forgive. It’s totally natural for you to hold a job. It’s totally natural for you to live free from sin. If the life you are living is inconsistent with the nature of God, it is because you believe a lie about who you are.
Hebrews 9:14 says that by Jesus’ blood, your conscience is cleansed so you can serve God. Romans 8:1 says that now there is no condemnation for you who is in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:16 says you have the mind of Christ. If thoughts are coming to you that are inconsistent with His thoughts they are not yours, don’t keep thinking them! At the end of the 2 day conference, we had a tunnel that everyone came through to get the graveclothes ripped off of them! Some people went into visions of God, others felt God’s presence again. Other’s relationships changed, because they could actually communicate again, and be communicated to. They walked out of their graves and kept right on walking…into their destinies; and you will too! - Seth Dahl
Prayer Request: Pedro and Helen Patrick
Hello everyone. I received an email from a friend of mine, Adam Hunley. Adam and his wife Maya are planning on being full-time missionaries in the Middle East. I would please ask that you keep this couple that they mentioned in prayer today that God would give them wisdom, direction, and protection. Lord, we ask this in Jesus Name!
Dear friends,
This morning we received e-mail confirmation that our dear friends, Pastor Pedro and Sister Helen Patrick (Nigerian leaders in the Jordanian church who were held in prison earlier this year), are now refugees in northern Nigeria. Due to the religious violence in Jos, Brother Pedro’s hometown, they are in hiding and DESPERATELY need our prayers. Several of the churches where they have been ministering since their arrival in Nigeria have been destroyed. Many people have lost their lives. Please pray for their personal protection and for wisdom in their next moves! They have suffered much already for the Gospel’s sake, pray God’s mercy in their lives.
For more information on what’s happening, go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081130/wl_nm/us_nigeria_clashes
Thank you for your prayers!
Adam & Maya Hunley
Part 2: The Price of Hesitancy
As we continue to discuss the concept of hesitancy, please take a look at Part 1 of this series by clicking here.
It’s important to realize that hesitancy DOES have a cost. If we hesitate to follow the voice of God or do the will of God, there will always be a consequence.
Growing up, it seemed that I was “cursed” (I realize that it was a blessing now!) with mentally reviewing the potential consequences of my actions. For example:
Hmmm…if I throw food at my sister at dinner, she will get upset and cry and I may get in trouble. Then, she might throw food at me. Do I really want food on this shirt? What if my dad hears about this and he takes away my video game system? Or worse yet, he might just take away the controllers to my video game system and leave the game system with all the games in my room just to haunt me. Is that worth it to me?
Yes, I was an interesting child.
While hesitancy does have a direct impact on the lives of people that we are supposed to impact if we don’t listen to/obey God, what about the indirect impact on these people by us being hesitant in our own lives. More than just not responding to God for someone else, are we responding to God for ourselves? If we are being hesitant in pursuing God or in aligning OUR lives with His plan for us, then hesitancy will both impact us in a negative way AND will eventually trickle down and impact the people we are supposed to reach with the Gospel. If I am not praying like I should and not as in tune with hearing the voice of God, then there may be times that I might not even hear the Lord trying to talk to me to go talk to someone. So while I sit there thinking “I know that I’m not where I need to be with God, but at least it’s only affecting me”, it could STILL be affecting somebody else.
In order to stop being hesitant when it comes to things of God, there comes a moment of reckless abandonment. A moment when you realize that the cost of your inaction is greater than the cost/impact if you don’t act.
Here are some things to specifically pray for:
1. Pray that God will give you a burden for others. That your heart would break with the things that break His. Pray that this burden would turn into action in your life and in the lives of others.
2. Pray that you can re-connect with God so that you can be a vessel that He can use.
3. Sacrifice your pride and have regular moments of reckless abandonment where you obey God no matter what the cost, no matter how crazy it seems to you.
Breaking through your comfort zone will NOT feel natural at first. But once you begin to have momentum in that area, keep moving forward! Faith and breaking out of your comfort zone is a lot like exercising your muscles. The more that you do it, the more that you get more and more comfortable with being stretched and expanded beyond your comfort zone. However, when we take steps backwards, it gets harder and harder to keep the same level of stretching that you had before.
Another example is my fear of bees. I hate them. I hate those little creatures. When I see them, I try to look all tough on the outside but inside I am doing an Indian rain-dance and flailing my arms. It’s not a pretty sight. Growing up, however, my dad was not afraid of bees at all. When I was with him and He saw a bee, he would stand there flat-footed, look that bee in the eye, and SQUASH! The bee would beeeeeee history (corny, I know). After a while of watching my dad not be scared of those things, one day I decided that it was MY turn. I was going to be the next Great Bee Warrior of my city! (well….at least my street anyways) Sure enough, a bee started to come after me and I clapped my hands together in the general direction of that bee. SQUASH! I had won! Bee Warrior had arrived! From that time on, when the opportunity presented itself, I would revert back to my secret identity of Bee Warrior and take care of “bees with attitude”. Then, after a while, I stopped doing it. The longer it was since my last “bee battle”, the more I started to not be comfortable with the whole idea. Until now, back in present day, bees are not really my thing.
Let’s determine to exercise our faith and keep the momentum going! The price of being hesitant is too great to us, it’s too great to our neighbors, and it’s too great to our world who is in need of a Savior.
Hesitancy is not a fruit of the Spirit so let’s not accept it as normal?
In what way can you exercise your faith today instead of being hesitant?
Sunday Reflections @ Haven of Hope (Week of 11/30/2008)
Today, we had a lot of new faces at Haven of Hope! It was great to have an opportunity to see people experience the presence of God! We had 9 new guests and we were thankful for everyone one of them! This week, Pastor Robidas brought us a message about the prodigal son!
- The songs that we did for worship service were “Salvation is here”, “From the inside out”, “Healer”, “When I think about the Lord”, and more…
- Pastor Robidas reminded us that there is nothing that we could do (good or bad) to change the level of love that the Father has for us….nothing!
- Even though the prodigal son left the father and, through his actions, told him that he wished he were dead, the father never replaced his place at the table…..Thank You Jesus!
- No matter how far you are from God or what you’ve done to grieve His heart, you still have your place at the table!!
- We have a warped view of coming back to God. We look at stuff in our life and we say “I need to stop doing this, this, and this before I can come back to God”.
- What God wants is for us to come back to Him AS WE ARE and then He will give us the power to overcome the stuff in our life that we want victory over.
- Come back to God! No “if’s”, “and’s”, or “but’s”….He wants you back!
- I love Haven of Hope and what God is doing here!
