Faith

This is awesome . . . Peggy Moore is at Dr's Regional Hospital as she had a stroke last week caused by her chemo . . . Her body may not be functioning at 100%, but her trust in Jesus is!! God would you give us all a real and powerful faith in Jesus!

This is an email I got from her husband Clarence tonight:

I have to share this with all of Gods childern. Peggy ask a company she had bought a shawl from would they help her in giving shawls to people with cancer? They said that would be great. We were in ICU an one of her nurses said her mothers Guilda has cancer & it has come back 3 times & she would like to have a pray shawl like peggys. I told her i would be glad to give her one . Her mother also works at the hospital. Peggy is in ICU.
Today i noticed this lady walking around with a scarf on no hair and i asked are you Guilda? Yes. Can we pray for you? Peggy's memory is not good at this time, but she begins to pray for this lady & tells her don't worry Jesus will take care of you he is going to heal you & your cancer is gone. This was so powerful Guilda said angels were everywhere. She then said you are the one sick Peggy I should be praying for you. Peggy said God will take care of the both of us. It was awesome.

clarence

God Dreaming

Someone came into my office yesterday with a dream. A pretty big dream to impact hunger in our world. That excites me!

As we continued to look into Nehemiah's life on Sunday, I presented this truth from his life:

FAITH + COURAGE = ACTION

Nehemiah had a dream to change the trajectory of the situation in Jerusalem. And in verse 11 of chapter 2 it says this: "I went . . ." He did it, He lived His dream! And changed the course of history in the process.

What dream has God given you?

Someone just sent me the Rick Warren email pasted below . . . it reminds me that if God gives us a dream, He will provide the means for it to be accomplished . . .

July 13, 2009 How God Builds Your Faith: Dream by Rick Warren "Now glory be to God, who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes" (Ephesians 3:20 LB).
Faith is like a muscle: it can be strengthened. It can be weak or it can be strong, depending on how much you use it. How does God build your faith? He uses a very predictable pattern that we will look at this week, and, if you understand it, you can cooperate with Him in developing greater faith. It's like when the father, seeking help from Jesus for his son, said, "Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!" (Mark 9:22 TEV) Jesus replied, "What do you mean, 'If I can?' . . . Anything is possible if a person believes" (Mark 9:23 NLT). The first thing God does to build your faith is give you a dream. When God wants to work in your life, He'll always gives you a dream—about yourself, about what He wants you to do, about how He's going to use your life to impact the world. There are many examples in the Bible of this. • God gave Noah the dream of building an ark. • God gave Abraham the dream of being the father of a great nation. • God gave Joseph the dream of being a leader that would save his people. • God gave Nehemiah the dream of building the wall around Jerusalem. How do you know when a dream is from God or when it's just something you've thought up yourself? The Bible tells us that God, "by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes" (Ephesians 3:20 LB). In other words, if a dream comes from God, it will be so big in your life that you can't do it on your own. If you could do it on your own, you wouldn't need faith. And if you don't have faith you're not pleasing God, because the Bible says whatever is not of faith is sin (Roman 14:23). God starts to build your faith by giving you a dream. He may be speaking to you now, but you just don't recognize it for what it is. That dream you have—the idea, the concept, that thing you've been thinking about doing that would be of real benefit to other people—where do you think that idea came from? God will never tell you to do something that contradicts His truth. In other words, He won't give you a dream of leaving your family and kids and moving to Hollywood to be a movie star. If you've got that dream, then you can know it is not from God. God starts with a dream as He works within your life to build faith.

A Wednesday Thought

"Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God."
William Carey

Do We Believe?

Below is a post that I copied from Bob Roberts blog . . .
What do you think? Does it make you sad? Make you mad? Does it make you more hungry for the Spirit of God and believing Him for the impossible?

In light of what I talked about on Sunday about the hypocrisy that fills the church and the need to be real, in what ways do you need to be real about your faith?


Luke 18: 8b “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? ”

As I traveled this past week to Kenya, Africa with Bob Roberts, we walked through the largest slum in Africa called The Kibera--1.2 million people living in a 2 square mile plot of land. We met with church planters that are planting churches in the middle of hell. We joined our brothers and sisters in passionate prayer, exuberant worship and world class dancing in church . . .

They had very little on the outside. Their buildings were make-shift wood and zinc, tents, plastic chairs, horrible sound systems that punished your eardrums. Yet, I observed a vibrant and robust faith, a faith that was pleasing to God.

Here in America, we have nice buildings, incredible sound systems, soft chairs lest we offend the backside of our overindulged lifestyle, but our faith is weak, feeble and anemic. Many times it is non-existent.

Why do we need faith when we can do it ourselves? Will God find faith in America when He returns? Are you living by faith in any area of your life? Are you drawing upon the supernatural resources of God for any area of your life, or is everything in your life very manageable by your human strength?

By faith, Abraham went out not knowing where he was going? Not knowing is our curse. We hate not knowing because we are a culture of know-it-all. We have it figured out. We have broken the secrets codes and wrote the books to inform the world. They are not buying it. The other side of the world has figured out that all we do here in the west is talk. . .

By Faith, Sarah received power to conceive, even when she was past the age. Faith not only calls us to the unknown but also to do the impossible! If it is possible for you to do it, then you do not need God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, and when God says it is impossible, trust me, it is impossible.

Faith Anyone?

There's a question that was posed to me a few weeks ago by Francis Chan in his book Crazy Love that keeps rolling around in my soul.

The question is this: "What are you doing right now that requires faith?"

Right now? How would your life be different if you didn't believe in God?

I've been leading Oso Creek 9 years as of today. It's so easy to become complacent, comfortable, or just lazy.

Our entire life is supposed to be an adventure of faith! Not a spiritual sleepwalk. Not just a life of to do lists that we can accomplish on our own. But an adventure that is ONLY possible because of God.

So I ask you - and me - What are you doing TODAY that requires faith?

Slowly Transformed

As I said a couple of days ago in a post, I've been knowing that it's time to really listen to God's heart for the future, and yet it seems like the present is always here!

Then as I was reading Bob Robert's book Transformation yesterday (which I highly recommend!) this quote by Elise Bouding hit me between the eyes:

"If one is mentally out of breath all the the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future."

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who finds themselves caught up in the urgency of the moment, when what is really at stake is the unseen depths of the future.

He went on to say this: "Faith is a long-term perspective toward others realizing a future reward. In contrast, fear is a short-term, me centered 'now' that gets it all now, but nothing for the future. . . . What happens fast is illusion; what happens slowly is reality."

What do you think? Are you living fast for the now, or patiently for the future?

I'm Different From My Dog

Surprised?

And it's not just that her hair is black and mine is brown. Or that she is a her and I am a him. Or that she lives in the backyard and I've got a room inside. . . .

But you see every time we get a thunderstorm or a big wind, or some other meteorological change, she goes crazy. I've told you in worship about how she goes nuts when it thunders and lightnings. She runs up and down the fence barking and jumping and making a complete fool of herself.

As I was watching her today when a thunderstorm rolled in (and yes, this was her today), I was struck that she always has been and always is in awe of the wonders of God.
Now, I'm not trying to say that she thinks about God a lot (but she COULD . . . after all she does have a lot of free time!) - but just that her sense of amazement never ends. Barking at a thunderstorm never gets old . . . or embarrassing.

This is one way I wish that Georgia and I were NOT different. It seems like I miss most of the wonders of God in this world - just hurry right by them . . . and I'm always pretty careful not to make a fool of myself.

Yet that's not really what I want. I want to always be in awe of God's presence and power. I want to feel free to make a fool of myself when God shows up.

How about you?

Bible Reading

It's impossible to deal honestly with God's Truth and not be changed (or flat out reject change).
As I've been continuing to read in the book of James here is some of what God has been showing me:

James 2:14-16 - Is it possible to have real faith in Christ and consistently look past the very real needs of those around us? Hmmm......

James 2:17 - Jesus said that a tree would reveal it's true nature by the fruit it produced. No matter how much makeup you put on it and how nice of clothes you dress it up in, a corpse is still dead!

James 2:18-19 - There is a cerebral - or theoretical - faith that never travels beyond mental assent and into the realm of abiding in Christ and obeying His commands. This is no different than Satan's belief in God (i.e. mental assent in the reality of).

James 2:26 - I take it that since he said it about 10 times in the last couple of hundred words that God isn't real excited about folks who talk about Him (and/or show up at church) and whose lives don't reflect Him.