The year of God’s fire!
It’s time to begin living what we believe! My new years declaration is to be a better listener of God’s voice, to become a vessel that holds more than just air, to open my heart to him, to declare his name and make his name famous! I want to see Jesus’ name written in the sky, to see his body rallying together and building each other up, to see children witnessing in the playground and to see people taking a stand for the freedom that Jesus offers freely, invading schools and unversities and work places! To become a body that is no longer ashamed of who we belong to!
From 6 to 19
Tonight are local tiny prayer gathering shot from 6 to 19 people…. Let that sink in, because I can’t yet. Last year we prayed for growth in quantity of peopl and now… YEAHHH!!! God’s so awesome!!!!!!
Random thoughts on …
Lately I’ve given some thought to my blog articles… I find it’s a great way to vent my frustration but also to get some cool new thoughts I’ve learned lately, so it goes both ways. I have found out that I’m not an ordinary person, actually, nobody is, except some people seem to be kinda differenter. Now, this has all to do with God and his Spirit and nothing to do with what I’ve done. That is, except choose to let HIM mold and shape my life and character.
It for sure isn’t easy, but it’s always great to know that your never alone, especially during those hard times.
So what are you gonna do about it?! Sure… just ignore this blog and hope you never see it again… or maybe let your mind roll a little (or lots) about some of these “words” on this blog. Because that’s what they are, just words, if you don’t learn from ‘em, their there for nothing and writing this is a waste of time and your saying that Jesus died for nothing because your not letting HIM be a part and THE guide and teacher in your life…
…Think…just think….
Bloomin’ flowers
How great is our God!
Wow, that is so inexpressive. If you were here and you heard me say it there is no way you couldn’t keep from joining in! How great is our God!
Yesterday was amazing, so is today, but it just started, anyways… Our prayer group came together yesterday, first time without girls there, so it was a bit different than normal… First came the jokes and dis-attention. Then my buddy and I who had started these evening in the first place took leadership and it turned out to be an amazing time! The two other guys just came for the second time and their so spiritually hungry and we were more than happy to share our experiences and joys with Jesus. We prayed for rain (it’s raining right now), we prayed that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit of Jesus (we still are), we prayed for different friends that are struggling spiritually (I’m going to talk to one of them today). See a theme going on here?
Well, at the end we decided we should go to the “Youth building” (an old church were the youth generally meet every week) to pray over the building and declare it a holy place were no darkness may reign and that the fire of God may illuminate everybody that gathers there. We were huddled together in front of the building, praying… cars past by… we continued praying. It really hit me that these guys didn’t care what the passerby’s were thinking. We finished and one of the “newcomers” said, the building is good now, meaning whatever your imagination can come up with…
God is doing amazing things. Preparing leaders, spreading his love and grace to this community. I know that wherever we go, God’s light will shine and darkness and fear will flee. “Darkness tries to hide, and trembles at His voice… How great is our God!”
This is what it looks like outside right now
And this flower decided to bloom quite nicely today, if only everybody that calls themselves followers of Christ would bloom without fear…
–Cory
Rivers & Bridges
- We are here
…………over here is a river……………………….over here is Jesus. - We
……in this space…over the river…try to build a bridge…..to reach Jesus. - We
….use toy building blocks….to make the bridge over the river…to Jesus. - We
…can’t help that the rivers current takes away the toy blocks…to Jesus. - We
…….give up………..and then start………and give up………..to reach Jesus.
Sorry for my poor illustrating skills, but I think you get the point. Now, what do I want to say with this? I’m saying that all your work to reach Jesus is in vain. Totally in vain. You know why? Because Jesus is waiting for you to give him the hammer and nails so that he can build the bridge. Actually, he already built in a couple thousand years ago when he sent his Holy Spirit, who is the bridge. But noooo…, we think we have to build that bridge… Oh what demented thinking…. Even a young child knows that it’s parents will carry it where it can’t go by itself.Sometimes we put such a ridiculous amount of effort into building that bridge that it’s sad. You put a block in the water, the current washes it away. You put another one,maybe even getting three blocks stacked. It gets washed away again.
Now, what does Jesus want. Very simply, I’ll show you with another silly drawing thing.
- We give everything to Jesus
…he build(t) the bridge…….and we reach Jesus.
Now why is it so hard for us to accept that, huh? Sheer stupidity which causes us to want to do everything ourselves.Now think about that for a while.
Stars
“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” (Philippians 2:14,15)
That is definitely one of the coolest verses in Paul’s letters. How many of us are guilty of what Paul was telling the Philippians? Do we spend a lot of time arguing about things on which are faith doesn’t depend, for instance, arguing with a christian friend who thinks that the days must have been longer when God created the world or something like that. It’s irrelevant to what Jesus has in store for us. We can’t change the past and definitely a past that long ago.
As Paul writes, let’s concentrate on being God’s children in a crooked and depraved generation. It is impossible for you, me or any other human on the planet to be blameless and pure, no matter how hard we try. Jesus did it though. He was like a sheep in a pigsty and stayed clean, it’s amazing and wonderful, a miracle in itself. His spirit is here, everywhere and he is working in or on your heart, depending on whether you’ve opened the door of your innermost self or not…
Jesus doesn’t want a bunch of puppets that hide behind a wall of religion or/and tradition to keep themselves “blameless and pure“. The sad thing is they actually believe it does keep them clean. Jesus was a “dirty” saviour, in a manner of speaking, he spent time and loved the people that we “blameless and pure” reject because they might dirty us. He didn’t mind getting “dirty”, he didn’t approve or accept the negative lifestyles that a lot of people led, but he still loved them and wanted them to follow him. Most of them did, in fact, there were more “dirty” people that accepted him as Lord and Saviour than “clean ones. Ain’t it sad?
Now about shining like stars in the universe, that’s the real awesome part about this verse. The thing about most stars is that you can basically see the same star in almost all parts of the earth, they don’t move as far as I know, although the earth does. Stars are fixed and anchored in one spot, their a pillar, a fixed point of reference. The Bible is this. Jesus is this. Are we this? No. Not by ourselves, no no no, we’re missing one little (OK, BIG) thing. Jesus! Jesus is our star, our light, salt, path, lamp and other things that get mentioned in the Bible. But together, oh wow, we are right there with him, shining, giving flavour, being a guide! Ever heard of “Me+Jesus=1″? That’s what this is, except, you and I are the “reflectors”. Jesus’ light and shining bounces off us and hopefully we absorb some of it too. Jesus is the big star, the fire that burns in the lighthouse that gets reflected off the reflectors, the sun that gets it’s light reflected in the moon. Following along? It’s a great, awesome and wonderful, for lack of better word in the English language, concept. You can’t just grasp it just like that. You have to learn it. Learn to reflect. Learn to love and get “dirty” to help and get close to the people who are “spiritually sick”, the ones who need the doctor. The people in your church have the doctor, not that you shouldn’t love them or anything, but it’s the sick ones that need more attention. God will use you and me to reach those he has made and loves, no matter how much sin they are carrying.
Let’s be Jesus!
Youth leadership…Are you ready?
OK, just to clarify were I’m going on this topic, I have to tell you where I heard it. Yesterday, Friday, I attended a Youth Leadership conference in the city of Caaguazu. Today I attended a Youth conference. The speaker at both events was Dr. Jeffrey de Leon (PhD) from Miami and he definitely has a most interesting way of portraying how a Youth ministry can be better “managed” nowadays. Here’s what I have learned:
First of all, let’s dispense with the title of “Youth Ministry” if it keeps the youth from feeling welcome. It’s may not seem important to us, but to someone that turns around at the word “ministry”, it can be quite important.
Let’s get rid of the whole idea of having OUR church that includes OUR christian principles, language and mannerisms. Let’s be what Jesus intended us to be, a BODY! The churches make up the body of Christ, as do it’s members. What do we do when someone in church sins? Do we send them home and tell them to give up their membership? That would be like taking a knife and cutting off your finger because it was hurting and swollen. That’s stupid. Rather let’s help heal the wound, the person that has sinned, that has brought shame to himself. Let’s act like the body we are. If the finger hurts, you can feel it. Being sensitive to the hurts and needs within the body is something every church needs to learn.
OK, now back to youth. Give them leading responsibilities. Jesus gave responsibilities to his immature followers. Take Judas, Jesus trusted him as a treasurer. If that 15-year old is interested in leading worship, let him lead worship. If someone appears to have good entertaining skills with her choreography, let her do it. Giving the youth responsibilities, giving them the power to lead, will help them mature and grow a LOT more than if the Youth leaders go nuts coming up with ideas try to entertain them. With time it will become less awkward and more and more people will get involved and if the Lord is behind it, as well as the prayers of the prayer warriors then “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
There is alot of goodness within all of us, that’s what Hollywood keeps telling us. We just have to let it out. And all that rubbish about looking within yourself to find answers, it won’t help. Your the one who’s confused…
OK, so why all the emphasis on teaching Youth to lead? You tell me how all the big wars would have been faught without them, and the revolutions and different movements… Hitler trained Youth to fight, it was mostly young people that made the ruccus in the states in the 60’s, most of the army’s of the world are made up of a great percentage of people under 20.
Now to the point of preaching. Why do we have the leaders on a stage behind a pulpit preaching “at” the congregation? How many sermons can you name right now, by name, that you have heard this year? Jesus didn’t put himself on a stand, he washed his disciples feet and taught them on a whole lot more personal level that can ever be accomplished from behind a pulpit. I’m not condemning the pulpit or anything, just think about it… Let’s not let the titles of “Pastor”, “Deacon”, “Reverend” and others come between the teachers and the students. Again, let’s look at what the ultimate teacher did when he was on this earth as a human being.
Let’s get past the idea that the pulpit is a “medium”. TV, the Internet, movies and radio are “mediums”, the pulpit just ain’t. You know why? I quote “The medium has become the message”. TV isn’t just a bunch of shows, it’s a message, it doesn’t just transmit the thoughts of the writers and producers, the thing in itself is a message. The pulpit isn’t a medium because it doesn’t transmit the message, we are just hiding behind it. This is kinda hard to wrap you mind around and I don’t fully understand it myself. I’m not condemning and of the things mentioned, as almost anything, they can be used for good and bad.
Our faith doesn’t validate the Bible. I don’t know were some of us have gotten the idea, but it doesn’t. Just because I believe that it’s true doesn’t make it true. Jesus’ resurection does though. That in itself encompases the whole bible, it validates it, because of all the prophesies and things that were fullfilled through Jesus, especially the resurection. An example of this concept is that the Bible is like a lion, we don’t need to defend it, it’ll defent itself.
How many times do we condemn things saying they come from Satan? Some music styles, tattoos, piercings, movies, TV, Internet, some books… They do not belong to the devil, he never owned them. Let’s stop giving to him what does not belong to him. Those are all human ways of expresing themselves. Not Satans way.
Young people are having a hard time deciding what is good and bad. Some don’t even know the difference. As leaders, we are responsible to give them the tools they need to find out (to differentiate) for themselves what is right and wrong. This applies to so many things, from music to lifestyles.
Did you know that the definition of “tolerance” has changed over the years? It used to mean “to bear”. That meant, I could sit beside a homosexual and tolerate him, meaning bearing but not accepting his choice. Today, tolerance means to accept the beliefs, lyfestyle, etc. Jesus wasn’t tolerant by any of the above definitions. He didn’t “bear” or “accept” the lifestyles of the “sinners” he met. He told the woman that had commited adultery to “go and sin no more”.
Let’s get to know the auther behind the Bible. It wasn’t Paul, Moses, John or any of the writer. They were the writers, but not the authers, same as with this Blog. God is the auther, he is behind the Bible. Let’s not just read the Bible, let’s read “between the lines” to get to know Jesus.
Think about it…
