God is GOOD!!

Man, God is so GOOD!! I was just in San Francisco this last week and now I have a new heart for that beautiful, amazing city. God met us there in such an incredible way, blessing us with his daily presence, sending us love notes from heaven. I’m sorry if I seem on cloud 9, but in fact, that is where I am!

Being in Discipleship Training School has been one crazy roller coaster ride. I’ve had some real lows, and then normally followed by a real high. I’m all over the map, but the highs are getting higher and the lows are becoming a necessity. I find myself somewhat looking forward to those lows in some strange way, knowing God is walking me through a trial that will force me and stretch me into growth. My faith and trust is really starting to all lean on Him now, and it is the best feeling in the world, even though I still get scared that He will leave me to just topple over; but that is not the character and nature of our amazing God, and I can trust in that.

God has been speaking to me in such a powerful way that I can feel his breath on my face. He is so close right now, and I am cherishing every moment of it because I know that there comes times in our walk when he hides his face from us. I haven’t felt this close to God since Italy. So, what is it that I’m learning during this season???

I’m learning to not focus on the things that are seen, but in what is unseen, because that is where reality lies. Jesus tells us that the things of this world are of the world, and the things that are not of this world, the things of the Kingdom of God, are unseen. That is where faith has to step in so much. The good news is that God even shows himself to us in seen things, such as nature and creation; thank God for that, because without his physical presence in what’s seen, this earth would look like a glimpse of Hell!

God is revealing to me the importance of the cross. He is showing me the importance of fully dying to ourselves so that He may live through us. See, if we are on the throne of our own lives, then we are all about our needs, our wants, our desires, and even our own rights! It’s me, me, me, me, me! When our lives are about what we want, it is actually separation from God. We focus on ourselves, and our broken and sinful in nature. We are naturally selfish creatures because of the fall, and God has been trying to pull us back into relationship with him ever since. Here is another thing.. Religion is trying to work our way up to God, but relationship is God coming to meet us right where we are. There is a HUGE difference. Even as Christians, we are so focused on ourselves. One thing that seems to be “good,” but in fact is very damaging, is that as Christians we are very sin conscience. We focus so much on our sin and our brokenness, that we continue to feel incomplete and a mess, and it becomes a hopeless and defeating situation. We focus on where we are inadequate and where we don’t measure up to any of God’s standards instead of realizing what Christ did on the cross for us. See, when we put our hope and salvation in Christ, we died with him on the cross. Who we were in our old nature is completely dead! Our old sinful nature is gone and dead, so every sin past, present and future is nailed to the cross with our dead bodies. So we died with Christ, were buried with him, and rose again with him. That is what the representation of baptism is, it is symbolic of our death, burial and resurrection with Christ. So when we die, we also rise again. We now have the Holy Spirit in us, which is Christ’s spirit, and he now lives in us and wants to live through us. We have the same anointing and power that Christ had on earth. We are now co-heirs with Christ, and we are meant to live our lives through the power of his spirit! Jesus told us that we would even do greater things than he did, and that anyone born again of the spirit that is living in the reality of the kingdom of God is even better than John the Baptist! Now that is truly remarkable! So here we have all this anointing and power within us, here we are, God’s children in his living Kingdom, and we are all still oppressed by our old nature and the things that are seen. We are oppressed by the ruler of this world, and not living in and walking out the truth of what is in the unseen. So here we are sin conscious, focused on our dead man nailed to the cross, looking at the places where we fall short and are broken and are inadequate, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. See, if we focus on the unseen, that is the work that lies within us and in who we are, plugged into Christ, co-heirs with him, then we will truly come alive in Spirit and the old nature will completely fall away. Being in relationship naturally works the crap out of us and then fills us again with the very things of God. It becomes a natural process instead of having to work for it, that is only when we are focused into who we truly are. When we die to our needs, wants, plans, desires, and even to our rights, we then come alive to God’s will for our lives, and it is only then that our lives become transformed into the image of Christ. For example, did you know that nothing you own is actually yours? EVERYTHING we own and are possessive of actually belongs to God. We are possessing God’s property, and we are to do with those things as God pleases. That means your car, your home, your clothes, your MONEY, your food, your jewelry, your every single thing. Yes, they are all gifts to us from our great provider, but if he tells you to give, then you give without question. It’s not about giving your 10% anymore, it is giving your 100%. Jesus didn’t give 10% to God, he gave his everything to God, to do with his belongings and possessions as God wanted. We have to break the spirit of poverty, that is clinging on so tightly to what we have out of fear of your needs not being met. We should come into the full realization that when we cling to what we have, then we can’t empty our hands to make them open for what God has in store for you. Don’t you know that God will never leave you hanging? When he asks you to give, he will meet your needs with greater things than what we had before. It’s an exercise of faith, so again, we have to focus on the unseen realities of this world. If we budget God in, then we have no faith or trust. It’s an extreme way of living, but it is the only way to live. It brings you into relationship with our living God, and you will then see miracles and major transformation in your life! So when God asks you to give a car he provided for you, then you give the car with great expectation that God will fill and meet that or some other need in your life in an amazing and miraculous way! God is AWESOME, and when you exercise faith, he will never let you down! Exercising your faith is like working a muscle, it is so hard and can even hurt at first, but the more and longer you do it, the stronger that muscle grows, until before you know it, you wouldn’t ever live back in a spirit of poverty again. Do you see where that forces you into a trusting and faith building relationship with God? I’m telling you that it is in all reality a truly exciting and amazing way to live because you get to witness miracles in your life, and if you aren’t witnessing miracles in your life, then you aren’t living and operating in faith! And it is ok to give with expectation of receiving, because when you come to God with great expectation, you are expecting him to fulfill his promises and to be working on his half of the relationship, and trust me, he will never let you down. He always fulfills his promises!

I don’t really know how I got into all that, but I think the original point was that we are to be living in relationship with God and putting our faith and trust into those things that are unseen. I’ve finally come to a place in being here of completely laying my life down, to the very best of my ability, dying to myself and what I want, so that God can come in and take over what He wants to do with my life. Christians are so resistant, so he is forced into slowly stripping away those things from us because we are clinging on so tightly to our needs, wants, plans, and rights so it becomes this slow process of change because God is working on his end of the deal, he is working in his end of the relationship, but we are not working in ours. So instead of God having to force us into a spirit of humility and brokenness, we all need to come to him humbled in knowing that we have no idea what is best for our lives. That’s why so many have to finally hit a place of rock bottom before they come into relationship with God, because God can only work in those who are humbled and broken, because it is only then that we are fully willing to die to ourselves and give our all to God. When pride and selfishness is working in us, then we are absolutely incapable of listening to God, so God has to bring us to our knees in humility so that we may finally seek his face and want to come to him knowing we don’t know anything about this world and what is best for us. Isn’t that so good?? That God, in all of his love for us, strips us bare and brings us to a place of humility and brokenness so that we may finally know him, love him, and long to be in relationship with him? Isn’t that the most loving thing that he can do? Thank you Jesus that in all of your love for me that you brought me to this humble place!! He truly does use the fools of this world, because every person that worships worldly wisdom and money and every other worldly god has no humility. Any time that we trust in ourselves and our own capability, we are in a very bad place because we are telling ourselves that we don’t need God. We are to trust in God and God alone. We are to never trust in false idols, such as money, or in ourselves and our abilities because then we are not trusting God!

Wow, I didn’t expect to get into all that. I hope that is ok. I guess to finish off, I am in a good place, and I’m finally dying to myself and letting God in to work through me by the power that is at work within me. I’m experiencing Jesus being activated and coming alive within me, so that he lives through me. I have found that that is truly the only way to come to a place of fulfillment, worth, and identity. In dying to myself, I’m no longer worried about what others think of me and whether they judge me or not because I have died to my insecurities and rights to being known and understood. I don’t need to be understood anymore. I don’t need to feel important anymore, because what is truly important is my relationship with God and his working through me. Everything else just seems to fall in place after that. It is a wonderful feeling. It is beyond awesome to get your vision off of this cruel, ugly world and instead on to Jesus and his kingdom, because nothing is more beautiful than that. Nothing fills me with more love than staring up into heaven at my Father. Good is soooooooooo GOOD, and soooooooooooooooo LOVING!! I can’t express that enough!!! I love you guys so much, and mean that from the bottom of my heart!

Kels