Week of May 31, 2010

Intro for the week:
Hebrews 4:2 says that the Word profits us when it is mixed with faith. The reason the Word hits us so close to home is because we have claimed many promises, and the key for us now - to keep moving forward, expanding, and increasing, is for us to mix faith with the promises. God will do for us what we believe Him for! Here is your encouraging Word for this week.

Monday
It is important for us to keep our faith active and alive. When God’s Word speaks specifically to us, we need to put action to our faith. Here are some things that I am believing for our church and community. They are things that together we can believe God for in your sphere of influence and in mine. Let’s pray for:

• People to be saved every week – altars in Bible believing Christian churches filled with people who are hungering and thirsting for the fullness of God. (That’s what its all about!)
  
• People to grow in the Word of God, and be obedient to walk the walk – becoming true disciples.
  
• People available in abundance to do the work of the ministry. – Connected and plugged in – being doers of the Word and the specific assignment God has for them.
  
• An abundance of finances to press ahead and do more, build more, expand more, and reach more – for the Kingdom of God!

James says that faith without works is dead! Not just broken, or dying, but dead! Let’s have alive faith! If we have faith, there should be evidence! We should see some breath on the mirror to prove it is alive! There should be some movement, some kind of action! Let’s make sure there is enough evidence in our lives to prove that faith is living and active. God’s Word doesn’t go out and produce nothing, and so it is with faith. Faith with corresponding action produces results! Be encouraged today, to change your world by activating your faith.

Tuesday
One verse that keeps coming up in my heart is one most of us don’t like to think about. It is in James 4:17 and it says, he who knows what is right to do and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin. I’m not feeling very encouraged after reading that verse. I know there are things that I know I should be doing that I don’t do. I hope you’re agreeing with me, I don’t want to be alone in this!!!! What is important for us to discover and put into operation in our life is to know the difference between conviction and condemnation. The Holy Spirit will convict us of sin, and we will know it in our “knower” – our spirit- the real us on the inside. But the devil is the accuser of the brethren (and sisters!) and he will bring condemnation to make us feel bad on the inside. The difference is, with the Holy Spirit’s conviction there is hope. With the enemies condemnation there is hopelessness. The Bible says in Romans 8:1 that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. So instead of letting condemnation try to intrude in our life, why not choose to obey if the Holy Spirit convicts us? If we know what is right to do, why don’t we just do it? Obedience really is best!


Wednesday
This is your moment. Right now God wants you! Are you sure he wants me – you may ask. YES! It is you He wants. Your age, social status, body shape, personality, all the things that make you uniquely you – that is what God wants! He doesn’t do copies, and he made you an original. What is different about this moment from any other? It is the moment that you have right now, and now can be the best moment of your life! Why not choose to make it amazing? Think about these things – they should bring up a specific scripture reference.
Live for God now! (Eph 5:15,16)
Don’t get stuck in yesterday. (Phil 3:13)
Don’t be waiting for your big break in the future (Phil 4:6)
Choose to be joyful and happy now! Live fully alive today (Phil 4:4)
Now is your time:
To seek God’s face (Matt 6:33)
To become more intimate with God (Phil 3:10)
And then - help someone else with what you learn! That comes right out of one of my favorite scriptures in II Cor 1:3,4 where it says that what God has done for you, in you and through you, you can use to help someone else. How awesome is that! God’s comfort in your life is a seed sown in you to comfort someone else! He has begun something great in you. He wants to see it come to completion as it says in Phil 1:6. So live today – full on for God and expect great things!

Thursday
This is the time for overflow, unexpected blessing and abundance of favor. Those are encouraging words! I love overflow, blessing and favor! If we look at the full counsel of the Word of God, we can see that Jesus came to bring not just life, but life in abundance……that sounds like overflow. Even in Psalms 23, it says our cup runneth over….that sounds like abundance. If we looked at the Beatitudes in Matt 5, Jesus gave 9 ways that we will be known as blessed….if we are #1) humble, #2 contrite, #3) meek, #4) hungering and thirsting for righteousness, #5) merciful, #6) pure in heart, #7) a peacemaker, #8) persecuted and #9) insulted. It sounded pretty good until we got to 8 and 9…..but it should be no surprise that the world’s system doesn’t like to see God’s people blessed. They get a bit jealous, and testy, and will persecute you and insult you. But if that happens - know that you are blessed! One of the blessing of being blessed and favored is everyone is not going to like you. That is a good thing to learn early on! God’s favor is on you, because you’re part of His family. We’re favored because of Jesus, and that favor spill over, not only in the family of God, but in the world as well. You will get the best parking spots, the shortest lines, and people will be helpful wherever you go. That happens to me a lot! God goes before me and you…expect His blessing. So are you ready for some more overflow, blessing and favor in your life? Why not start expecting it…..you’re God’s favorite!

Friday
Yesterday we talked about all the things we get with being a part of the family of God….God’s blessing, abundant life, and favor. Today we’re going to talk about what we get to give since we are part of God’s family. Don’t get scared, this won’t be painful at all. We have the same spirit on the inside of us who is the biggest giver of all, so none of us should have any issue with giving….it should be as natural to us as breathing. If it all belongs to Him anyway, giving some of it away shouldn’t hurt at all! I want to encourage you to develop a giving spirit. We want to look like and act like our Father, so one thing we can start doing is giving more! The tithe that we give to our local church demonstrates obedience. We move a decimal over, and tada…we have one tenth. That’s easy math. It is the size of “the offering”, not “the tithe” that demonstrates our generosity. The tithe is set, but offering is optional. We can give a spoonful and get a spoonful back, or give a dump truck load, and get a dump truck load back….it’s our choice. One thing that is important is that we lead with your seed. We lead our families with them watching what we do…..if we want generous children, we demonstrate generosity in front of them. The Bible tells us to cast your bread on the water – it will come back with every wave. If you’ve tried that with bread, you may have gotten soggy bread back! That’s not what it means! What it means is that if we give of what we have, it will come back to us, over and over again. Give and it shall be given unto you! I’m believing for more seed to sow this year. Each year I want to give more than the last. Wouldn’t you like to give more this year than you ever have before? I want to encourage you to increase - so God can increase back to you!

Saturday
Eword for Kidz
If you are anything like I was as a kid, you probably can’t wait to drive. When ever I could, I would just go sit in the drivers seat of any car and pretend to drive, until the day at 15 years and 9 months old, I got my learners permit. Boy was I happy! My brother who is older and wiser (3 years to be exact) was determined I wouldn’t drive like a girl. He taught me all the important things to know, and to this day, he is a great driver, and so am I!!!! I really do like to drive….one of my uncles who lives in Switzerland calls me Doretti Andretti, after the famous race car driver. Okay, enough about me. Cars and driving can give us a great lesson for life. If we want to go anywhere in a car, you have to have a driver’s license. Let’s pretend that is salvation. Salvation is like the key that starts your car. You can turn the car on and just sit there in park and go nowhere. But that is no fun. You can put it in reverse, but you have to go slowly, and very cautiously. You can leave it in neutral and just rev the engine, but you are not going anywhere. To go somewhere we have to take off the parking brake put it in Drive. When you are first learning, you go very slowly, taking it very easy and being very cautious. There are times in life, when we have to do that. We don’t want to jump the gun, and get into a mess, or a wreck in life. We should always watch for road signs and places where danger might be lurking. There are times when the road is wide open and you can go all the way up to the speed limit. But when the road gets twisty and turny (a newly invented word!), you had better slow down. What does that mean for us? Life is like a ride in the car, we have to get in the car, turn it on, and then get in drive if we want to go anywhere. For the Christian, if we want to do anything for God, we need to quit sitting around, and start moving. God has great things for you in your life, and I know you’ll be a great car driver someday. I also believe that you will fulfill your purpose and destiny in life, because you’ll know how to drive wisely- putting your pedal to the metal…..Just kidding! Really, please don’t do that, just make sure your rear is in gear!

Sunday
None of us are batting 1,000 at our faith walk, but that certainly shouldn’t make us discouraged. It should encourage us to believe for more. We can all improve in the area of believing! All God wants is for somebody (you and me) to believe something (His Word)! We all know that we need to base our faith on scripture. It is important to have a solid foundation, and there is nothing more solid than the Bible! But believing alone isn’t even enough. To make our faith produce, we must believe it in our heart, and then speak it with our mouth! Faith speaks! If it is not speaking, it is not faith! Just like cars drive, planes fly, and shovels dig, faith speaks. It is the corresponding action that goes along with faith.

Just like the car needs a key to start, to activate our faith, we need to get our engine going and shift into gear to move ahead in God. In other words, get our rear in gear! Let’s get out of park, out of reverse and neutral, and start moving toward God’s will for our lives. It isn’t that we need an army tank to move ahead, we just need to get moving in our vehicle. (In other words, we don’t need more or bigger, more impressive faith. We just need to use the faith we have!) Just put your car in drive! We need to be disciplined and be reminded to keep moving forward by putting our words in line with our faith, and believe God for great things!!! Let’s not go backward, or roll backward. Stay out of neutral and never sit around wasting gas on idle -especially at these gas prices! God is into progress….let’s get moving….!