Here is some knowledge earned through experience given to me by 2 very important people. It’s really important so I wanted to make it available to you.

1. Be rooted and grounded. A picture was shared about how a potted plant will still grow in its environment but it will not reach its fullest potential. If you compare it to a tree with deep roots connected to the water source in the ground, this tree has no limit to its growth. You will still grow as a potted plant, but you will not obtain the strength as a tree connected to the water source with no limits.

2. Be teachable. It’s not about being right, but bringing life. Jesus didn’t say, I am the Way, the Truth and by the way I’m right. He says, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.

3. Be obedient. In walking out your obedience, you can’t expect everyone or anyone else to come along. Some people might follow you but you cannot base your outcome by who is following or not. If you find yourself in disobedience, go back to where you heard God and start over from there. When you make a mistake, know that God is big enough to take care of you.

4. Spiritual gifting and spiritual maturity are 2 different things. A person can be gifted but have a lack of maturity. It’s important to be rooted, teachable and obedient so that your gifts can be used with maturity.

5. Do not lose focus. Keep your eyes on God. Don’t focus on the enemy because God has already won! Just as is says in scripture Submit to God first, resist the enemy and he will flee! Don’t focus on the fruit issues, deal with the root.

Love is in the Air:

Motivated by love:
Have you ever done anything Really Really stupid for Money?
Have you ever done anything really stupid because you loved some one.
Did it pay off?
did you regret it?
What was the driving force to do that thing?

Love
What really is love?
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
sexual passion or desire.
a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

B. Love quotes:
1. There is only one happiness in life — to love and to be loved.
George Sand
1804-1876, French Novelist

“When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.”
Dr Seuss
4. Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
Henri Frederic Amiel
1821-1881, Swiss Philosopher, Poet, Critic
The best thing about me is you.
Shannon Crown
God is love:
1st John 4:7-8
Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loves not, does not know God for God IS love.
How can that be?  How can he be love?
    – Isn’t that an emotion, a feeling, an experience.  NO.
    – Love is the very Character of Who he is.

Motivated by Love:
When we really believe in Jesus Christ, we trust in the God of the scriptures and all that they say they (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) are.  We receive this Love into us as we receive the Salvation of our souls, because really that is the same thing.  IF God IS love then when we receive him we are receiving a love that is prefect.
This love impels us, It motivates us to be better than what we were, or ever are.  
    – We begin to establish his nature in us
    – we begin to change in to what he is 
    –how we were really created  (the creation of man)
Everything God did was motivated by love to motivate us to love:
    What truly are good works?
    – Acts of service
    – Acts of Love
    – Acts to help some one else.
We don’t do these selfishly, you can’t or they are not really good works.
They don’t come as a desire to perform, they come as a by product of our desire to Love God and obey his love to us.

This is a heart level Action.  Not the head, because the head cant love, it can only reason, but the heart can love.  The head is to keep the heart balanced.  The head is the action behind the motivation of the heart.
Not what I can do for or even with God, but what can I love with  him.  If God is Love that is the nature of his Heart.

We have the right to choose this Love:
John 1:12
“but to as many received him. to them he gave the right ( authority ) to become children of God, to those who believed in his name.  Who were born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Not of Blood– Birth right Family
        not of the flesh– Sin nature and desire
        not of the will of man– Purpose and determination
        But of God– Grace, Power and love.    
            v16 — “ and of his fullness we have all received and grace for grace”
As we choose this Love we get to be the New Testament sion of the Tabernacle.
v 14:
    14And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving-kindness) and truth.
We get to be the Tents that contain the fullness of the epic treasures of the Heavens.  All the fullness of God, the spirit with out measure for just as fast as we can give it out he wants to give us a double portion of what we just delivered.

Our problem is we get in the way of the Love.
We worry about the works, and our fear, which is cast out by his love we put our eyes on the things that are not his love and we get emptied of the Love that is our life line to the father.
this is a discipline to keep our eyes on the father. all the time.  Keep our eyes on what Dad says, and wait for what he is doing.  WHen we stop the flow we lose the ability to be like him and we go to an empty tent.  no good for anything.

Mark Chap. 8 Vs 21 asks that question.  Jesus is asking his disciples after they have seen great miracles and experienced the awesomeness of Gods power like no one on earth had ever before.

They Guys are in the boat and they are hungry, Jesus had just fed 5000 people with 7 loaves of bread and a few fish and they forgot to grab a bag of food before they got in.

This a great story, Listen to the podcast;

“Incredibly, this past Christmas Season, when Jesus, the Light of the world used to be highlighted by the Church, many Churched and Christian ministries are promoting another light, “Twilight” the movie!

Based on Mormon, Stephenie Meyer’s 4-book “vampire romance” series, the Twilight movie was released last week (Nov 21, 2008) in 3419 cinema theaters across the nation and grossed over $70 million its first weekend. It’s the hottest pop culture phenomenon since Harry Potter mania.

As I stood in line to see a different movie, hundreds of teens around me flooded the movie complex to purchase tickets for Twilight which was showing on 5 of the 15 available screens. It ran to packed teen audiences and the buzz was spellbinding, more disturbing than the accolades I heard when producing our expose DVD Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged.

In only a few short years I’ve watched the occult addiction mushroom amongst teens and develop aggressively into a yearning that they’d even sell their eternal souls for. Think of it, the love of a vampire, a being the Bible describes as demon possessed, musters the longing to remain lost for eternity – the very state Jesus Christ died to save sinners from. How diabolical is Satan’s message to our young innocents luring them, through a lust-filled romance, to spend eternity with him and away from the presence of our God of love?

Twilight takes occult darkness, introduced in Potter, to deeper, decadent fathoms: overt vampirism, acceptable blood-sucking (in this movie its only animal blood – later? Wait and see!) and sexual lust for the possessed soul (made appealing in its fictionalized form!). The books, akin to the Potter’s series, promote and familiarize their audience with magick, Wicca, supernatural powers and demon possession.

But what is beyond alarming is that Christians are seduced by satanic deception and have succumbed to Twilight’s fascination of dark wisdom, a power Scripture warns against – loving evil more than good (Psalm 52:3), and placing what the world admires before what God requires.”

Click here for the full article

What has me truly alarmed is that the people are rallying for the movies, especially Christians.  As I have read blogs and looked at comments people have begun to throw out things like Christian superiorist, and a serious judgement has come upon those who would not embrace the openly evil ideals.

Let me say this,  it comes back to who we are.  Are we for the principles of the Kingdom of God and what the bible instructs us to do, or are we not?  It is that simple.  There are many who want to make this a gray issue, but the truth is that when we do not apply the solid facts of the bible to our daily lives we will get led astray.

Frankly the issue is not do I want to go see some vampire movie, the issue is do I want anything to come between me and the presence of God.  Am I hungry enough to deny the things that would lead me away from the place where I know that I have access to the relms of heaven and settle for a movie that represents things that are an abomination to the ONLY one that we are to be about pleasing.

I have made my choice and I resolve to not. It is up to you what you will do.

“therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the lord, beloved. I implore Euodia and I implore you Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help there women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, who’s names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.”

This is a CALL to unity. No two people contradicted the meaning of their names like Euodia and Syntyche. The name Euodia means “Good or Prosperous Journey”; Syntyche means “Pleasant Acquaintance” or “Good Luck.” But, despite their names, these two caused dissention in the church as Philippi. Paul called on them to settle their differences and asked the whole church to help them. He was direct with euodia and Syntyche, asking them to be of the same mind in the Lord. Differences in personality should not separate us from unity in Christ. Our task is not to make others into replicas of us. We must honor the uniqueness of each person. Unity in Christ also means setting aside secondary issues like denominational differences or cultural patterns. Agreement on basics is what is important.

Most important of all is mutual forgiveness. Paul suggested, “Let your gentleness be known” (v. 5). Finally, we need to get together with the fellow believer with whom we are having a battle of wills and ask Christ to permeate our conversations. We need to ask for the mind and disposition of Christ. What would He say to both sides? He is at hand; He died to make us one and will settle for nothing less. (Eph. 4:1-16/3 John 3) (Taken from the Spirit Filled Bible)

It is the Joy that comes from the Lord.  Is.61:7 calls it Everlasting Joy.  This is what we get when we allow the Holy Spirit to rise up with in us and lead us to who we are called to be.  Simply put, when we obey God and allow Him to work through us we get the benefits of experiencing heaven.

Here is the pod cast.. Enjoy. Give it like 5 mins to load it is a huge file…sorry

Here is my outline.. it has all the scriptures…

OUTLINE–

Restoring the Kingdom in you Part 3

Is. 61:7
“Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion.  Therefore, in their land they shall possess double: everlasting joy shall be theirs.”

This comes after Is 61:1-4
1 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

When you begin to step out
God shows up–
Healing, Miracles, the things that we are hoping for.
Your life changes
You become a creature like what you  surround your self with Good or bad
You begin to see life through the filterless ideal that God created you to be– Faith!
You become who you were called to be
You WILL experience Joy and fullness in life.
My testimony–Right after I got saved!
Kinds of Joy you get to experience
Everlasting Joy
IS. 61:7
Joy that lasts for ever.
Doesn’t go away

Salvation Joy:
Hunger For more of God,
Desire for his presence
Ps. 51:12 “Restore unto to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit”
The Word and the teachings of the word become new and fresh!

Righteous Joy
The Feeling of Forgiveness
Job 33:26  “ He shall pray to God and he will delight in him, He shall see His face with Joy, for he restores to man His Righteousness.”
Job 33:26-28 (the Message)  26-28 “Or, you may fall on your knees and pray—to God’s delight!   You’ll see God’s smile and celebrate,  finding yourself set right with God. You’ll sing God’s praises to everyone you meet,  testifying, ‘I messed up my life—   and let me tell you, it wasn’t worth it.But God stepped in and saved me from certain death.  I’m alive again! Once more I see the light!’
Not Having to hid from God any more
That looming feeling that God is just waiting to smite you.
Knowing that you are God’s delight
His Love, His Joy, the thing that he wants most.
FREEDOM!!
You get to be who you are and that is AWESOME!

Strength Joy
You Get the strength you need for the journey
“ The Joy of the Lord is my Strength” Neh. 8:10
34-35 Jesus said, “The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started. As you look around right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!
Strength Joy produces FAITH, with out faith it is impossible to please God!

Joy OVERFLOW
Ps. 16:11
“You will show me the path of life: in your presence is fullness of Joy, at your right hand are pleasures forever more.
Is. 61:10
“ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord my soul shall be joyful in my God For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe  of righteousness.
Roman 14:17
For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteouness peace and Joy in the holy spirit.

Check out the podcast: Give it a while to load…

Worship

Through worship we bless God and minister to Him.  We praise Him for who He is through singing, other worshipping arts, and the spoken word.  Our worship services include celebration, adoration, proclamation, and exultation.

PRAISE:

The Sacrifice of Praise:
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
We are a Royal priesthood – Priests offer sacrifices

Hebrews 13:15

“Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
New Testament Priesthood:  We offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.
Forms of worship:
With our voice – Singing, shouting, speaking
With our hands – lifting, clapping, playing musical instruments
With out bodies – standing, dancing, bowing / kneeling
God inhabits our praise:
Psalm 22:3 “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
Example found in 1 Kings 8 / 2 Chronicles 5:2 – 7:11
The whole of Israel gathers together in celebration
When they come together as one in worship, a cloud filled the temple
Solomon spoke the word of the Lord
Fire came and consumed the sacrifices and glory filled the temple
God manifested His presence among them

Cornerstone Worship:  A four part form of worship
Our Goal:  The Manifested Presence of God

Christ ministers in the midst of His gathered body
4 Stages:
Celebration:  In the first part, called celebration we praise God for what He has done in our lives and the lives of those around us.  This is characterized by faster music including dancing, clapping, shouting as well as the congregational announcements, offerings, and testimonies.  Relationally, we speak to each other.
Includes:
First set of music
Greeting
Welcome
Offering
Testimonies
Dance
Flags
Prepares our heart for worship

Adoration:  In the second part, called adoration, we worship God for who He is.  The attention is on who He is and our love and adoration for Him.  This is characterized by slower music addressed directly to God.  Relationally, we speak to God.
Includes:
Second set of music
Dance expressions
Kneeling
Spontaneous songs
Instrumental Selahs
Prepares our heart to hear God’s Word

Proclamation:  In the third part, called proclamation, God’s Word is preached as we hear what God wants us to hear on that particular occasion.  This takes the form of a sermon, a prophetic word, or a piece of special music or dance.  Relationally, God speaks to us.
Includes:
Prophetic Words
Sermons
Drama
Special Music
Prepares us to respond to what we have heard

Exultation:  In the fourth part, called exultation, we respond to God’s Word and allow His presence to change us.  Songs of response, commitment, and dedication as well as congregational declarations and altar ministry characterize this.  This section is usually ended with an up beat song of praise as the service ends.  Relationally, God has spoken to us and we then respond.
Includes:
Salvation
Healing
Deliverance
Body ministry
Altar ministry
Prepares us for our mission

Other Scriptures for worship:

Ex 34:14, Deu 11:16, deu 26:10, 1 Sam 15:25, 1 Ch 16:29, Psa 5:7, Psa 22:27, Psa 29:2,  Psa 95:6, Psa 96:10, John 4:21, John 4:23, Rev. 4:10, 1 Tim 2:8, luke 19:37,  Daniel Chapter 3.

this is NOT the whole list but it is a start to the wonderful world of understanding worship.

This is the great struggle in the human life.  Often the cause of the human condition is this ambition to be something greater, but we have no idea how to be all our hearts know we should.

The answer is in our relationship with Jesus. Jesus came to give us the life and the light for us to be brought into the beginning of our true selves, the ones who carry the fullness of the light and the life of God himself.  (See chapter one of the book of John it’s all there)

Listen to the podcast to hear more of the story.

One time when I was in 2nd grade I lived in Camargo, Illinois. This farm town was small, and there was nothing to do so my sister and I would climb trees. One day while climbing this tree in our back yard that was massive and my sister wanted to climb to the top. She went for it and when she was almost there she mad a misstep and came tumbling down. I actually broke her fall with my head about half way down, then she fell the rest of the way.

She had broken her arm, and dad was mad! (but not at us) He prayed for the arm and it went from compound fracture to completely healed. That was cool, then he said stay away from the tree. The next day we awoke to the sound of a chain saw. There was dad, cutting all the limbs off the tree that he felt could not support him. He was determined to never have one of his little ones hurt again by this tree and he spent all day jumping and cutting and testing and his heart was pouring out love for us. One of us got hurt and he never wanted to have it happen again!

That is a story of a dad who loves his kids, think about God who says he being more perfect that our natural fathers gives love and gifts from heaven. Can you imagine how is heart feels when on of us falls out of the tree of life?

Jer. 33:11 says “I know the plans I have made for you the plans to give you a hope and a future”