Power

The October Launching. Can you say, “Wow!”?

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As promised, here are the links to the teaching and worship of The October Launching. There were healings of body and soul. There were promotions and impartations. But most importantly, God was in the house and we marveled at being loved by Him and loving on Him.

Thank you Lord for your faithful teaching and revelation to us. We long for more of you. Amen.

All Teaching Sessions here.

Worship Songs here.

We will do another Launching next Spring. But it is important for you to know this is a building block event. Not a repeat event. If you came once, come again. Because the Holy Spirit is taking us, as a community of women, into more of what’s available in the Kingdom. And fresh revelation, fresh manna, is being poured out.

If you are hungry, keep coming. He is feasting with us.

 

Standing in These Uncertain Days…

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ISIS. Torture. Beheadings. Martyrs. Burned at the stake. Crucified.

Persecution is not a new thing. More than twenty years ago,  as brand new believers, Chuck and I worked closely with the Voice of the Martyrs organization. We heard stories that  turn your stomach turn and test your faith.  But that’s not all.  I have read many history books. And, I have read the New Testament.  Often.

Remember? It is the stories of people who experienced  overwhelming love and utter sacrifice. Persecution is not a new thing.

So as we face the current onslaught, the alarm sounds for us to move deeper into the heart of God.  Just as  tornado warnings  blare out for us to “seek shelter,”  so we  seek the shelter of the Almighty.

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.” 

Psalm 91:1-3

These are the days that separate true faith from religion. The sheep from the goats. Religion would make cowards of us all.  Social comfort zones, or playing church, do not provide a foundation worth dying for.  But “the love of God compels us” to stand against the evil of every generation.

I tell you in the Spirit, the days we are living in must produce  three things in every believer’s heart—love, power, and a sound mind.

Love will help you discern that the battle we are in is not against “flesh and blood but principalities and powers.”  (Ephesians 6:12)

Love— and I mean God’s real, relevant and consuming affection—  will help you abandon your life into His heart. That though you lose your life, you know you will save your soul. These are chilling questions but ones you must examine.

“Am I willing to die for Jesus?”  “Am I willing to lose all that I have, including my family, for Jesus?”IMG_4803

You can be sure that our brothers and sisters in the middle East live—and die— by their answers every day. We are not exempt from these spiritual siftings.

Jesus himself spoke of days just as these and declared that these things “must happen.” But his warning? He was concerned about our love. “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,  but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24: 12-13 What is your love temperature?

It a sincere love for Jesus that motivates us to follow in His sufferings should that day come. You can’t fake Christianity for long when someone is a holding a gun to your head. Be diligent then in these days. Cultivate, nurture, prioritize your relationship with God now.

Power will equip you to wage war with “divine weapons” and demolish strongholds regardless of where the enemies are located.  (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Power comes when we understand that Jesus reigns. He is the King of all the earth. Period.  When we see evil on the rise, we must respond with even greater confidence and faith. And we must respond. In prayer, in action, in faith.  The great Light of God has come into the world, and the darkness cannot put it out. Not ISIS, not anyone.

Through him all things were made;

without him nothing was made that has been made. 

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome  it.”

John 1: 3-5

We don’t wring our hands, or fret about our way of life. We speak the kingdom of God into the darkest places. We declare the goodness of God to be manifested to those being tormented but also to the tormentors. We release the Scriptures like arrows. We stand in the Spirit against our enemy, we intercede for the suffering. Just this morning I prayed that the name of Jesus would “pour forth like ointment.” (Song of Songs 1:3)

We must rise up into the power and authority that Jesus gave us to advance His Kingdom.  It is time for the church to stop its petty territory games and “follow the leader” paradigms and instead start equipping the saints for the Holy War of Love.

A sound mind has a peace that  “will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:7

It is in the mind that your greatest victory is won. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” ( 2 Timothy 1:7 )  A sound mind has already been given to you. Are you accessing it?  We know that in Him we are more than conquerors.  But so many of us live in a daily panic or state of “what if this happens.”

I challenge you that God knows your days.  He knows the hairs on your head. His job is to be God. Your job is to trust and obey. Trust His goodness, even in the darkest of circumstances, and obey His commands: Love God and love your neighbor.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

Which takes more faith? To freak out over every news report or Facebook post? Or, to love your enemies and to bless those who persecute you? ( Matthew 5:44) Our sound mind and steadfast faith releases the power of God into our lives and the world.

Perhaps, the greatest challenge we face as Christians is to finally learn the secret:  “Perfect Love casts out fear.”

Today. Tomorrow. Middle East. USA. War. Peace. Famine. Abundance. It is Christ alone.

I exhort you to examine your life. To purposely raise your spiritual expectations so that you live in the realm of Love, Power and a Sound Mind.  Then we might  truly see “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

 

 

When Words Just Aren’t Enough

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I have been trying to get my words around how the Lord showed up this weekend. We named the retreat “Yes and Amen” 6 weeks ago.  But little did I realize that the title was God foretelling what He was planning to do. We spent the weekend re-discovering the promises of God. That they are Yes and Amen in Christ. But they were not just words on dusty pages. We let those promises fill us with His power and we began to dream again. We dared to sit in His presence and let Him wash away our fears, breathe new life and courage into our hearts.

We began to believe we are more than women. We are His Women created for this time and for a specific God-ordained destiny, with His Holy Spirit power shaping and forming and giving us wings to fly. Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, “we have been disqualified from mundane and ordinary lives.”  We were made to “shine like stars as we hold out the word of life.”

And shine we did and do and will. Could we have planned any better celebration? One sweet lamb was baptized in the cold mountain water. We all stood there stupified. We had cheered, and prayed, and sung. And we couldn’t leave. We all felt it. The power of God.  You simply did not want to walk away…

Here is a beautiful offering of what happened. To God be the glory…

“Be silent
rejoice
your spirit is cleansed

You are water
free as a rushing river,
no longer dammed, damned
for I am your current

We pour and shift
around boulders
without slowing

A force
in constant motion, stop-less
Obstacles are still, lifeless

can not steal power
when you trust and live
within me

love,
God”
by Michelle Westenberger Carrico

Pink Pigs and Black Lab

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Her name is Lucy.  She is a black lab that is a little over four months old. Wondering why you haven’t heard much about her?  Because her future has been on shaky ground these first 3 – 4 months…. What was I thinking to go back into Puppyland? But the verdict is in. She is definitely going to live, and live with us. I am so glad because this morning she provided a beautiful “Ah-ha” moment with the Lord about Unanswered Prayers.

The Lord and I have been talking a lot about the difference between feelings, facts and faith. Feelings are good, only not enough to build a life on. Facts are good but can be deceiving.  What are facts to me, may be not quite the whole picture from God’s perspective. My friend Mary made a great distinction between facts and Truth. She said facts are information but Truth is power.  Wow.  I loved that. And then finally, or rather ultimately, there is Faith. Belief in the unseen power, love and goodness of God. Ahhh– the squeeze begins.

“We wrestle not against flesh and blood.”
“Faith proved more precious than gold.”
“His ways are higher than our ways.”

Talk about tension.

God is revealing everything in my life that competes for His affection. I am pretty sure I want this or that. And He says “No, but you can have more of Me.”  I ask for something else. He says “No, but you can have more of Me.”  And on it goes.

I don’t feel bad about the process. I don’t think He does either. He is trying to show me how I go looking for the wrong thing, the lesser thing, the Un-needed thing over and over. He is painfully but lovingly showing me how I believe in what I can see more than what He has promised me. Enter Lucy.

Lucy has a whole bag of toys: Old shoes, a red lobster, an orange pumkin, and her favorite, “Blue,” a blobby blue toy with a face. Go figure. But every single day, I said every single day, Lucy sneaks into Charis’ room and nabs a pink pig slipper and lays down and begins chewing on it.

Every day I say no.  Some days she brings it to me as if to say, “Today?”  Other days, she waits ’til I am distracted and slinks off to her bed with it in her mouth. And of course I see her and take it away and give her one of her own toys. She seems oblivious to the fact that her whole world is governed by me; that I know the condition of her toys. I replace them as needed and buy her new ones just for fun. I buy her food and make sure she eats. I even clean up her many messes, some that are true accidents, and many that are on purpose.  But I do more than provide for her. I enjoy her.  I am here for her, but she is also here for me and my family.  There is an emotional exchange between us.

I am like Lucy more than I care to admit.  Every day, I ask for some stupid pink pig. Every day, I think that I have to scrounge, or that I can sneak, when the reality is, my world is governed by my Living God.  But I am more than a family pet to Him; I am His bride.

Really. You are too. Really.  Maybe faith is believing that those pink pigs are only distractions and the safest place I can be is in His arms.  There has been a Holy Exchange between us. I am here for Him. And He does more than provide; He enjoys me.

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32