His bigness

I shared this with some friends this morning because since the new year, I have had a desire to know the bigness and majesty of God. I know what he can do, but I have this strong desire to just become more aware of Hid greatness. This is what I shared,

"To know the bigness and majesty of God, all we have to do is read Genesis 1 and stop our busy lives for 5 minutes to look around us at this amazing creation."

I also shared a paraphrased quote from AW Tozer that reads in full,

"With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence."

How scathing is this to our attempts at times. We come in with big problems and big concerns any given Sunday, but we don't stop to recognize the bigger God we worship and serve!

We must come together in corporate worship with first a big and majestic sense of who God is BEFORE we can ask for anything. How can we see His ability for big solutions if he is smaller than the problem in our hearts and minds? We must sing of His glory, power, character, and Kingship. We must remind ourselves and each other of this before we do anything else.

I love the amazing cathedrals you see in Europe, but not because of an admiring of the workers skill and artistry although wonderful. I love them because they were attempting to show everyone that entered the greatness, bigness, and majesty of the
God these people have come to worship.

He is so big....... Have you taking a moment to stop and look at this creation he made? It displays all these things for us to see.

You may love the work of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, or Van Gogh, but when we step back from there work and look, we find they are only attempting to make a reproduction of the greatest artist and creator in History.

Jehovah-Elohim -- The Eternal Creator!

Take the time to stop, look, hear, and feel the creation our big and majestic God!

"God, fill our hearts with awe and wonder to your bigness and majesty! Show us who you are before we come to ask what you can do. We worship you, our God and King! Creator and father! Amen"

- Posted in the moment

Living by supernatural trust and not by what we see

"For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, then, and would prefer to be away from this body and to live with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away from home, our goal is to be pleasing to him." 2 Corinthians 5:7-9

I really feel strongly about this year ahead of us. I haven't been this fired up about a sense of a great move of God in awhile, but I have also learned a lot over the past couple years. I have found that if God has given you a burden for something, you have a responsibility to be faithful to see it through even when the natural doesn't seem to show it. He gives us a responsibility to believe that the supernatural things are being put in place and the natural will follow suit in His timing. We live by faith or a trust in God and His plans and not by sight or how things feel, look, or sound like. That's tougher than it sounds sometimes because we are so driven by the 5 natural senses we experience everyday! But he has given us a 6th sense by the discernment of His Spirit living in us and we have to trust in Him, His word, and His Spirit. When we live in this way, we please God! This scripture speaks of this life style and also,

"Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists......Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him." Hebrews 11:1,6

So I will continue to live by the faith and trust that God has given a word that we will experience His Holy Spirit Fire and be compelled into His mission like never before! Our desire is to please Him, so let's walk by faith and let nothing stop us from seeking His fire for our lives everyday!!

"Father fill us with a supernatural faith to please you and see your fire come! Send the Fire and consume us!"

- Posted in the moment

Your fire or God's?

Leviticus 9:22 - 10:3

Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he stepped down after making the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. Then fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the portions of fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the LORD spoke, saying,

'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'" So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.

Wow this has been on me all morning! What a revelation to realize that there sin was "bringing there own or strange fire". I have to ask myself and you,

"Do we bring our own fire to our life's and when we gather? Do we bring our own agendas and expectations to our gatherings?"

How convicting this passage is when we look at ourselves and how we approach God. Our first concern should be, what do you want God? What do you desire? So often we come saying this is what I want to do or what I want to see without even looking to him!

We may do it out of stubbornness, zeal, or even pride, but none of them will place us in the will of God or being lit up by the true fire of the Holy Spirit!

God we are listening and desire to only have your fire! Ignite us with the true fire of the Holy Spirit and show us your desires! Amen.

- Posted in the moment

On fire!

"I believe that tonight the world is going to hell fire because the church has lost Holy Ghost fire, it’s as simple as that." -Leonard Ravenhill

I always find myself railing against what I see as an inactive world church powerless to be apart of the extraordinary mission of God. I think at times it makes me less friends than detractors, but every time I read the bible, I find a church filled with the power of the Holy Spirit on the move. They didn't come to church. THEY WERE THE CHURCH! But not on their own power or cleverness. It was because they were filled over flowing with the power of the Holy Spirit that compelled them out into a world in darkness. A group of torch bearers spreading the light of Jesus and His Gospel message.

We and I mean I so many ways, have become so stagnate. We come to church, we expect a emotional build up that makes us feel good, and then we dissipate in excitement until next Sunday, but that is not the model of the bible or of our examples given to us is it?

Acts 2:1-4 "When the day of Pentecost was being celebrated, all of them were together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like the roar of a mighty windstorm came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated, and one rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them that ability." Acts 2:14 Then Peter stood up among the eleven apostles and raised his voice to address them: "Men of Judea and everyone living in Jerusalem! You must understand something, so pay close attention to my words."

At the encounter with the Holy Spirit, we see a group of people working in their giftings openly among the people and at the height of this as people are saying, "These men must be drunk!", Peter stand up and begins to proclaim the Gospel!

This then begins the Church of Jesus activated by the power of the Holy Spirit being compelled to share this amazing message! We see Peter, Stephen, Paul, and so many others empower to Go to the far reaches of the world.

My questions I guess are:

Is it that we aren't educated enough in scripture?

Is it that we don't have that calling anymore as a church?

Or is it that we have lost focus on our first love and desire for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in power in our gatherings?

Before this upsets someone, I'm not saying those that believe that it is possible have stopped believing, but that to wait like these men waited....to place the timetable in Gods hands as become an inconvenience. Have we time managed the real reason for gathering out of our church's? Have we allowed a board meeting business model to take the place of a Holy Ghost encounter?

Church this way is the way of the Methodists and many other denominations that at one time were in the midst of revival and the fire of God, but now stand broken and hollow in many places.

Dominion of this land was the very first mission God gave mankind and we are letting it go to the way side for convenient end times eschatology that says this place is going down and we are going up. "Take dominion" is still the mission as shown by the live of Jesus and his command, "Go and make disciples of nations!"

If this has stirred something up, go to a place....any place and begin to pray like I have began to pray this year,

"God send the fire! In my life, send the fire! In my church, send the fire! In the leadership, send the fire! Light this city up God and send the fire that compels us into your mission to take dominion of this land for your glory and honor in Jesus name!"

- Posted in the moment