“We do not want you to copy or imitate us. We want to be like a ship that has crossed the ocean, leaving a wake of foam, which soon fades away. We want you to follow the Spirit, which we have sought to follow, but which must be sought anew in every generation. “

By Charles Thomas Studd, Missionary to China, India, and Africa

Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgment seat;
Only one life,’ twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, the still small voice, Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave, And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

When this bright world would tempt me sore, When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way, Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Give me Father, a purpose deep, In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife, Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone, Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, “twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call, I know I’ll say ’twas worth it all”;
Only one life,’ twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.

No man is greater than his prayer life.

The “flapjack turning” at Harvard is a metaphor for an emerging philosophy of humanism.  In the 1600′s, Harvard was dedicated to the glory of God, but by the latter half of the 20th century, Harvard had become the citadel of humanism in the modern world.  As Ruth Nourse correctly points out, this change did not happen overnight but was a slow transformation inperceptible to all but the most astute observors.  This revolution, however, is completely visible in the changing of Harvard’s seals throughout the past centuries. 

In Christi Gloriam (Glory in Christ) appeared on the college seal of 1650.  Later, a coat of arms appears containing three books and the Latin motto Christo et Ecclesiae (Christ and the Church) inscribed around the border.

On an archway, above a gate leading into the Harvard Yard, curious visitors may view this seal inscribed in stone.  This earlier version of the coat of arms, however, contains one difference.  If you look closely at the books in the coat of arms, you will see that the top 2 books are turned facing upward, while the bottom book is overturned.  The upward facing books symbolize the truth that is discernible through our five senses: the overturned book symbolizes that which can only be known through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

By the mid 1800′s, the Harvard seal had fallen out of use.  When Charles Elliot attained the Presidency of Harvard, he wished to reinstate the coat of arms as Harvard’s official school seal.  This time, however, he made 2 changes.  First, he added the Latin word VERITAS (Truth).  Second, he turned all the books facing upwards, denoting the emerging philosophy of humanism.

Jay Rogers has a website called Forerunner and it can be found by clicking on the following link:  http://forerunner.com/

I’m here looking for one person.  I love to see crowds burn, but I know that I can shape history if I can find just one.  One person.  You hear people say “Oh, if we could get 1,000 people in unity and prayer over this matter, we’ll get it fixed.”  Yeah, maybe. One prayer of faith will normally do it from one person.  Anybody can burn in a crowd, I want to find somebody that will burn by themselves.  Anyone can burn in a movement.  I want to find the one person that will pray when there’s no prayer meeting called.  But will get up in the middle of the night when there’s no crisis.  The one person who gets their victories when no one is looking.  Defeats their lion and their bear so that when they have their day before Goliath, there’s all the confidence in the world and it’s not arrogance.

We’ve been called to do the impossible!  I pray that you are encouraged this week to burn!

Here is an excerpt from the blog:

“I was in stride, had my ipod blaring and was enjoying the breeze while running up a hill.  I happened to look down and my left foot was about to come down right on top of a snake…..AND…I felt REALLY stupid when I discovered that it was dead!  (This seriously would have made an excellent youtube video!)…….As I continued my run I began thinking, “that’s the way that we, as Christians, respond to satan at times.  He’s basically a ‘dead snake’ that has been robbed of the power he once had…and yet we choose to scream and dance around him because we perceive he can destroy us.”

How true!  The snake is dead – now let’s act like we believe that!

If you want a miracle ministry, you have to pray the miracles into existence.

1. Pray that you have a miracle in your mind

We need to have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus

2. Pray that you have a miracle in your eyes.

We need to see in the Spirit.  God equips us with eyes of faith and belief.  Help us to see the things that aren’t there in the natural but are there in the supernatural.

Ephesians 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

3. Pray that you have a miracle in your ears

We need to hear what the Lord is speaking to us, to the church, and to the world.

Revelation 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit said unto the churches…

4. Pray that you have a miracle in your heart

We need to love God the way He deserves to be loved.

We need to worship God the way He deserves to be worshipped.

We need to serve God the way He deserves to be served.

Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

5. Pray that you will have a miracle in your emotions

We have to yield to the power of the Holy Ghost, so that Christ can take our emotions.  Our emotions cannot be trusted.  They go up and down.  We cannot allow our emotions to dictate to us.  We have to bring our emotions under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Pray that Jesus would sit at the seat of your emotions.  Pray that your emotions will become the fruit of the Spirit. 

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.

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 

My husband Jon and I have three amazing boys.  Their ages are 10, 7 and 4.  We have decided that as we raise them, we want to make sure they understand their role in this life.  And that role is protector.  

You see, God created man as the stronger one, but not so he could dominate, prey upon, or “take” from his environment.  Neither did God create man to be passive, or to simply sit and watch life go by.  God gave man strength so he could cover, protect, and give to those around him.

Bill Johnson teaches us that we go to God poor, needing to be filled up.  Then we go to people wealthy, having love and strength from the Father to pour out on all.  In our society today, many men have believed the lie that they need to look around them to receive identity and strength from things like women, sports, careers, and possessions.  As a result, they become takers, sometimes even predators, looking to “get” what they need from their environment.  Sometimes they swing to the other side of the pendulum and take a passive stance in life, watching others get taken advantage of, but failing to take a stand.  What we are teaching our boys is they need to receive their identity and strength from Father God.  When they spend time in the Father’s presence, they walk away full of love and strength.  Then, they turn around and pour out protection and security to those around them who are vulnerable and in need.

This cycle creates a culture of men who honor and protect the women in their lives, and a culture of men who understand what it means to father their children.

For men, knowing they are a beloved son is crucial to this understanding.  When you are born, your parents fall in love with you instantly.  You did nothing to earn it, you did nothing to deserve it.  As a brand new baby you only know how to receive love.  That is how we need to approach the Father.  That is the foundation we all need in order to build the things of the Kingdom on, a foundation of undeserved, unearned, unconditional love from the Father.  Identity as a beloved son is what our young men need to become protectors.  

Young men, I challenge you to let the Kingdom of Heaven invade your life and receive the revelation of going to God poor, in order to pour out the wealth of the Kingdom on this world.  Bringing strength to those around you will change an entire generation!

Is this something that we can determine in our hearts to do today?