i love this quote

i saw this quote today and really love it.

"Fear often makes us want to impress others."

The reason I really love this so much is because today at lunch with a young twentysomeone we talked about this exact issue. We thought about how tangled faith, trust, vulnerability, identity and performance are connected. How often do we feel like we can't be our "true" selves because the environment we are in will judge us? We do live in the ultimate freedom of Christ, not culturally rebellious, but culturally different, and from that we are free to be our "true" selves. When we are afraid, we want to impress others, rather than be divinely gifted selves.

I found that quote here: http://www.nfib.com/object/IO_28481.html


until next time....

can you hear it....

can you hear what is really being said? are you and i in a position to maximize this moment in history? i, even as i type, feel the tension. the tension is that at this moment i want to be used of God and labor with God for the advancement of the kingdom while at the same time i want to pass the responsibility on to others. i wonder if world war 2 veterans felt that way? they had a real and tangible army that invaded our country and another that was marching across Europe with some ease. maybe our passivity stems from the realization that our enemy is not so tangible. he is much harder to fight and to overcome. however, i believe that history is looking for the courageous and the brave. who will hear the sound emanating from the top of the seven cultural mountains (family, business/tech/finance, media, education, art/entertainment/sports, government, religion)?

check out this lance wallnau video.


let me know what you hear Jesus saying to you....




until next time....

a few of my favorite new thoughts....

in this life....i'm not looking for something, but discovering someone.
you see in the natural, but hear in the supernatural.
people who are bound up are living in someone else's belief system...not God's belief system.
faith requires us to bring the unseen into the seen.
faith is a relational position, more than it is a functional purpose.
my faith in God is substantiated by his character and nature.
unbelief is not that i don't believe God, i just believe a lie more.
in this world, you have to see it to believe it. in the kingdom of God you have to believe it to see it.
without God we cannot. without us God will not.
revelation is not something you get, it's someone you know.

do you have any cool new thoughts that are shaping your perception of God?



until next time....

update.....

just letting my readers know that i'm fine. i just have not felt like blogging. does it come and go, the desire to write? if so, i don't have a flow right now, but maybe it will return.

until next time...

the power of communication

i have been trying to refrain from making political observations. for one, i am not sure i am smart to make public observations and secondly, the purpose of this blog is not to position myself on one side of the aisle. however, there is so much excitement about mr. obama's speeches. i have heard him speak...at least through c-span, youtube and 30 second sound bites. he seems to be a powerful communicator. really, if i were voting for president on one's ability to give a great speech, i would not vote for john mccain or hillary clinton. barack obama is proving that great communication can generate much momentum. there seems to be a groundswell of support for him. why? because he gives an energetic and passionate speech. i, for one, am looking for great delivery and solid substance. i am not sure i have gotten the solid substance.

i point this out just to illustrate what should be happening in youth ministries and in pulpits across america. we do not need, nor deserve, dry, monotone messages. we need men and women of God who are being formed in intimacy and the fire of the Holy Spirit, to give, not great sermons, but great lives. i was reading recently one of my college course books on biblical preaching. he makes the point, that a pastor's role is not to give a great sermon, but let the bible change him and deliver a great man. i wonder then what is shaping and forming barack obama? what is he meditating on and being mentally intimate with? what is molding and cultivating his platform?

if we rely solely on government to change the state of our nation, we live in a deceived state of humanism. however i want a leader who is governed by the principles, values and spirit of God. i want the kingdom of God and his government to influence the vision, pursuit, legislation and judicial decisions of our government. great speeches won't make that happen. great speeches will draw crowds, but they won't shape history.

it will be curious to see what happens over the next several months. may God give us a righteous leader, full of the Spirit of God and who will lead our nation towards it's destiny and purpose. may God give us great leadership in this hour of church history; men and women who lay down their lives and invest in others. may we grow in the strength of our convictions and demonstrate heightened levels of courage.

until next time....

following jesus

until next time...

a great story of someone being healed

this is from our weekend with Bill Johnson. I love this stuff. Jesus is the kindest person I have ever met. Please read the following and leave a comment about what you think. By the way, I know this family. this is not a fantasy, fairy tale or some jived up story for sensationalism. this is the active love of God being demonstrated.

For over a year now I have been having pain in my lower back and for several months now I have had a pinched nerve in my neck. I have been to several doctors, a chiropractor, and a couple of physical therapists and received pain medication, negative compression treatments ( 29 each), 3 epidural injections in my back, electric stimulation for both my neck and back, physical therapy for my back and chiropractic manipulations on my back and neck, and as of last Friday, I was still having these same pains.

My daughter had been urging me for some time now to come to their church for "hands on spiritual healing. I sort of made excuses in trying to avoid the issue while trying not to make light of her strong belief in the power of God to heal any illness or pain.

Well, last week I ran out of excuses when Sherry informed me that Stacy and Vance had invited us to their church for special services. The services were to be held by Bill Johnson, apparently a renowned spiritual/healer/ preacher/author, who has authored several books on the subject of spiritual healing. We were told that we needed to arrive an hour before services began in order to assure that we would get a seat. What this meant to me was that this was going to be a long evening, but anyway it would give me the opportunity to visit with Stacy, Vance, Max and Joshua. So, I mentally prepared myself for the event.

In preparation for the evening, I took a pain pill and two naproxims and took a cushion to put behind my back for the long evening.

We arrived at the church at 5PM, found seats and visited with the family and at 6PM, services began. After about 2 hours of preaching, singing, clapping and testimonies, my back began to hurt and I went outside for a short walk and came back in just as the spiritual healing session was about to begin. We were asked to raise our hands if we had a particular illness or pain as various illnesses or pains or other infirmaries were called out, I was reluctant to raise my hand when "neck pain" was called out.

But, since I was already there, and.... I could feel both Sherry's and Stacy's eyes on me , I raised my hand. Same thing when back pains were called out.

Those who had raised hands were then asked to stand so that others could come, minister and lay hands on the part(s)of the body that needed healing and pray for God to heal by the authority of Jesus Christ. After about five minutes into this, I felt something come over me and I also began to pray to God to heal my neck and back by the authority of Jesus Christ. Not really expecting to be healed, either because of lack of faith in what the Bible has always proclaimed or because I just thought God wouldn't hear my plea because I am not a real strong Christian.

About 15 minutes into the session, I realized that my neck wasn't hurting and neither was my back. Unbelief started to creep into my mine as I moved my neck around to see if the pain would start. I also began to bend and flex my back to try to get the back pain to come back. Nothing happened, I couldn't feel pain anywhere. But still I began to humanly rationalize, maybe my pain medication got "second- wind" and that was the explanation for the painlessness. Was I questioning God's power or what? And furthermore I felt I needed to wait to see if this was just an intermittent subsidence of the pain before giving credit to God and those touching me and praying for my healing.

Well. that happened Saturday night, Feb. 2nd. At this writing, it's now Wednesday night, Feb. 6th, and the pain is still gone and I have worked in the yard for about 3 hours today planting an oak tree( 2 ft, diameter hole dug), moving plants out of the garage back onto the front porch, cutting and staining lumber for a divider to go around the cat litter container and did other chores. I have taken no pain medication since before the healing session.

yeah God!

until next time....

bill johnson follow up

so last night was amazing. i don't know how many people we had in our building. more than it could seat, i am sure of that. we counted over 150 verifiable healings or miracles last night. many were healed of deafness. i remember something bill said that i greatly enjoyed. first, "we are walking confrontation with evil." that's an aggressive statement and captures what i am about. overcoming evil with good. secondly he said, "we are a revolution waiting to happen." nice!

i hope to follow up with more bill johnson stuff later....off to the 10 am session.

until next time...(and hopefully a more energetic next time...i'm already tired.)

bill johnson

it's the first of february and i am pretty excited. bill johnson is beginning his weekend of messages at our church. i am not sure if i know another teacher in the church that communicates and challenges me as much as bill. he seems like such a great father. the fruit of his labor and ministry is impressive. i expect that this weekend will be bigger and more substantial than we can imagine. i am not talking about numbers of people. sure, many people will be there, but that is not important to me. and on a side note, i am concerned about pastors who define success by numbers. oh, they won't talk about it and openly admit it, but the majority of pastors struggle with it. somehow our society defines successful churches as large churches. maybe. but Jesus determines success by how people are following him, is the kingdom of God advancing and are we maintaining a white hot love for God. (and yes, i struggle with the numbers game at times). back to my original point. i know that we are going to miracles. people will be healed this weekend. there will be tremendous energy and momentum in our meetings. God will be there. I am so in love with God and looking forward to being with him in a corporate gathering for the weekend. may God grant us the wisdom and revelation needed to steward His deposit. anyway....that's enough for now....

until next time...