Cher

STAND - RUN - WORK HARD

2006-02-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

"A true soldier when on duty will not leave his post to go and participate in civilian affairs; A soldier's aim is to follow the orders of his commanding officer.

An athlete who enters competitive games will not receive a medal unless he competes fairly, according to the rules that have been laid down.
A farmer who watches over his field and works hard will be the first to receive from the harvest.
Now think over these things that have been said, take time to consider them, to understand and grasp their meaning, and see how they can be applied to your life; for the Lord will give you full insight and understanding in all these things."
2 Tim 2:4-6

Recently I was confronted with the confounding question, "What should I do?!" I really do love to problem solve, look at the situation as a riddle with a specific answer hidden in there somewhere. It is so easy to slip into the cycle of looking at problems and try to do our very best to make it better. But in this passage Paul uses three very different people to make the point that we must go to God for all of our answers.
We are all three of these people:

As a soldier we have to stay standing at our post that the Great Commanding Officer has appointed us. Yes the worldy ways and fun may try and entice us away from our post and difficulties may cause us to want to sit down on the job - but we are told to stand and stay standing and when we can stand no longer, stand strong!

As an athlete we are running the race set before us on a narrow path. The only way that we will reach the finish line is if we follow the rules that God has for us, to keep us under the safty of His wing. If we become distracted by the people of this world and do as they do, we veer off the narrow path and become lost and confused. That is why we must run with eyes fixed on the throne of God, diligently and steadily moving forward.

As a farmer we must not become lazy or stagnant. There is much work to do as a child of the King. We are standing in the middle of harvest field, as we put our hands to work we will reap great blessings in all areas of our lives. To experience overflow you have to flow over the rims and ridges that have been holding you back in fear. And that is work!

God wants a people of Godly understanding and wisdom to take this generation by storm! Get into His Word and turn it over and over in your mind, ask God to decipher what it means, ask for deep revelation. He's ready to give when you are ready to receive.

DO YOU SHINE BRIGHT - OR PICK A FIGHT?

2006-02-10T01:37:00.000-08:00

It is quite early in the morning, and I have been awake since around 2 am. I was awakened by the loud snores of my husband and the rattelings of a cold and cough. Finely I made my way downstairs and logged on. While checking my email I came across a forward from some christian association calling the church to contact NBC and voice our concerns about an up and coming episode of Will and Grace that will be making fun of the crusifiction. At first I thought this is a good enough suggestion and then logged on to the associations site. As I read the site I was quite disheartened - so much negative speak and I have to say slandering of not just the world and it's evils but also against other christians. What a proud people we have become! To use our title as "Christian" and sit in judgement of everyone else... I have to ask, what is the diffence between that and the ways of the world?!
It is the day that we, the holy and righteous children of God, must take a stand; but we must choose carefully what that stand is going to be. Reading though the writtings of the Apostle Paul, there is a clear call to who we are in Christ Jesus and how we are to live. His attacks on the evil and vile lifestyles are to those within the church, and he is reminding them of their commitment to live a life of change to please God.
I can see this image of a parent telling their little baby, "You stink! Change that poopy diaper and wash yourself up - I can't breath in here you smell so bad! Go on now, get in the other room and get changed!" Sounds ridiculous I know, but that is what confronting the world with being worldly and expecting them to change is like.
If we want to see change, we have to become change. Our first and foremost responsibility is our own personal relationship with Jesus. The more time we spend in the Word and before His face in prayer and worship, the more like Him we will be. Yeah, there is also effort that has to be applied to being disaplined and obedeant.
As a population of people on this earth, we have become way to rights conscious. And unfortunately this has spilled over into the christian community as well. What makes me laugh is when the christian community is concerned, worried, anxious and fretting about how the world is stomping all over their rights! I think they are suffering from the "looking in the mirror and then forgetting what they look like syndrome." It's in the knowing Jesus and then knowing ourselves through Jesus that we can stand strong without ever having to say a critical word but bringing the everlasting promises to life in our generation.
I'll leave you with some words form Paul;

"It can never be out of your own strength!
It is God working in you,
energizing and creating in you the power and desire
to want to do and be able to do what pleasing,
satisfying and delightful to Him.
Do everything without grumbling, faultfinding,
complaining or questioning God,
or doubting amongst yourselves.
This way you will show yourselves to be the children of God
without blemish while living in a crooked, wicked generation
and you will be seen as bright lights, shining out clearly in this dark world.
Hold the Word of Life out, and offer it to all men."
Philippians 2:13-16a

TIME TO STOMP THE GLASS

2006-01-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight at worship practice while praying, I saw the image of the stomping of the glass at a Jewish Wedding and heard the cries of "Mazel tov!" I have never been to a Jewish Wedding, and really don't know that much about them, but God spoke to me from what I saw:
That during the wedding ceremony there are many rituals that must be followed, each having symbolic mean. The stomping of the glass happens at the end of the ceremony and the celebration and rejoicing begins. God is requiring of His people to be demonstrative (unreserved displays of feeling) and passionate in their relationship with Him. He wants us to "stomp the glass" and bring an end to ceremonialistic patterns. It's time to whoop and holler, to dance and sing. It's a joyful people that are willing to make fools of themselves celebrating Him, that's what God is after.

IT'S NO FUN TO EAT ALONE

2006-01-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

I was reading in 2 Samuel4:4 and chapter 9 about Mephibosheth. This poor boy was dropped at the tender age of 5 by his nurse as she fled their home in terror after hearing of the death of his father and grandfather. This boy, who was in line to someday be king, grew up in hiding probably in fear for his life, unable to walk - known as the cripple.
In chapter 9 David is found in his palace, crowned King, asking, "Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul that I can show kindness to for Jonathan's sake? I there someone of the house of Saul to whom I can show the unfailing, unsought, unlimited mercy and kindness of God?" And it was then that they dug out Mephibosheth. At this point in his life, Mephibosheth had such a low opinion of himself that he refers to himself as a dead dog that David should not even look at. But David, known as the man after God's own heart, restored all that belonged to Saul and gave it to Mephibosheth and had him eat at the king's table as one of his sons.
Now as I was reading this, it occured to me that should be the cry of my heart - Who can I show kindness to? To whom can I show the unfailing, unsought, unlimited mercy and kindness of God? There are so many people out and about that are living lives crippled by fear. They live in hiding, afraid that someone may discover what is twisted and disfunctional in them. How many "Christians" do we know that think that all they deserve is scraps and go through life with growling tummys. As sons and daughters of the King of Kings we have seats reserved at His banqueting table for eternity. And we have been given the authority and rulership to usher others to sit at the King's table so that they can feast on the goodness of God with us! I would love to hear the angles say, "Hey, we've got to put another leaf in the table! Cher's bringing guests to dinner! How about you?!

TAKE ADVANTAGE

2006-01-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

As I began this weeks Beth Moore study I ran across and intersting statement she makes in her opening remarks - "...this will be a supernatual turning point for all who take advantage of what they learn." Immediately the Holy Spirit screamed "STOP!! Listen!!" As I did He began to show me a key that not only I have been missing, but many of us have.

The Key is to take advantage of what you have learned. I know this may sound ridiculously simple. And yet, how often do we go through situations, thinking we have learned a valuable lesson only to have to go through the same situation to learn the same lesson all over again?! My hand is up in the air waving, "Yes, that's me, been there, done that!" An Advantage is the benefit you gain from what you learn and this puts you in a winning position.

God is so good and gracious that He will time and time again bring us to places of understanding. But, it is up to us to reach out and grab ahold of what He is offering. God is calling out to us, "It's time to stop the window shopping. I've got the goods here for you, they are bought and paid for. Take it, just reach out and grab it, its yours!"

Re-read the Beth Moore statement,

"...this will be a SUPER NATURAL TURNING POINT for all who TAKE ADVANTAGE of what they learn."

2006 is the year of the supernatural, breaking free, breaking open and overflowing! So take the Advantage that God has put out before us.

THE FEAR FACTOR

2006-01-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Good, healthy, righteous FEAR - a feeling of reverence,
awe, and respect

This is the kind of fear that God requests and requires .

Deut. 10:12 "And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you
but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him,
to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
and to observe the Lords commands and decrees
that I am giving you today for your own good."
respect, follow, love, serve and obey

I was a bit disappointed to find this late in the game I had still misunderstood what to fear the Lord was. When I looked up fear in the Dictionary it said:

1. An unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation
or awareness of danger
2. Anxious concern; SOLICITUDE
3. Profound reverence and awe esp. towards God
4. Reason for alarm; DANGER

Now honestly, I had the understanding that to fear God was to live in that constant state of the unpleasant emotion caused by a sense of danger - and that danger was that if I stepped out of line the hammer would fall. Even reading the Dictionaries definition it looks like -anxiety, reverence, awe, reason for alarm - are mixed up together. It's so sad that all those years I had interpreted life events from the perspective of a "bad girl" living in terror and dread of the "strict disciplinarian." But thanks to the interpertation of a Bible Dictionary, the Word of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit I have found that there were two types/definitions of fear. And all that time I had been living the kind of fear that the Word of God warns us against in:

2 Tim 1:7 AMP
"For God did not give us a spirit of fear
(of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning timidity),
but He has given us a spirit of power, of love,
of a calm and well-balanced mind, discipline and self-control."

1 John 4:18 AMP
" There is no fear in love, dread does not exist,
but full-grown complete, and perfect love turn fear out of doors
and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the tought of punishment..."

I know that I have not yet reached the full maturity of love, but now I'm beginning to experience the peace and joy of my new found fear of the Lord. It was when I ran across Psalm 55:19b

"Men who never change their ways and have no fear of God" NIV
"In them there has been no change of heart and they do not fear, revere and worship God" AMP

that a bell went off and I had to research. Having the right kind of fear was a key for me to grow and change without the anxiety and stress I had always known before. In my research I read something (but I can't find it now to quote it directly or give the proper kudos) that went something like this:

A harmful fear with it's sense of terror and dread
causes people to act decietfully in the attempt to hide their sin and shame.
This kind of fear will never lead to repentance because it only brings panic stricken condemnation, the denial of God's truth and righteous claim on the person's life.

That was exactly how I had been living! But now I understand the "FEAR FACTOR," there really is no fear in a Righteous Fear.

CELEBRATE!!

2006-01-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

This is the Day of Rejoicing! A Time to Celebrate! A Season of Joy!
Because we live in the never ending Favor of the Lord God!
He has set us free to live in freedom and truth!

"For the word of the Lord is perfect in truth
bringing joy and rejoicing to the heart"
Psalm 19:8

So laugh out loud! Dance and sing!
This is our year of Jubilee!

STRENGTH

2005-12-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Be strong in the Lord!
Be empowered through your union with Him!
Draw your strength from Him!
That strength which His boundless might provides!
Ephesians 6:10

How many times a day do you have to muster up some strength to get a job done, talk to a certain person or just to deal with your day? Where does that strength come from? As I was reading this passage I saw the connection to strength and the armor of God. Verse 11 says

Put on God's whole armor
the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies,
that you may be able to successfully stand up against all
the stratigies and deciets of the devil.

Ephesians 6 covers seven articles of the armor of God:
These you clothe yourself in:
1. The HELMET OF SALVATION - guarding and renewing your mind
2. The BELT OF TRUTH - knowing the Word of God
3. The BREASTPLATE OF INTEGRITY - right standing with God
4. The SHOES OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE - preperation to face the enemy with the firm footed stability, promptness and readyness produced by the good news.
These you defend yourself with:
5. The SHIELD OF SAVING FAITH - this is a covering which you can quench all the flaming arrows of the enemy.
6. The SWORD OF THE SPIRIT - wielding through our speach the Word of God
7. PRAYER - at all times, on every occasion with all kinds of prayer

True strength can only come from God. Trying in and of ourselves to be strong is really just a camouflage that we hide under, kind of like a squid excretin ink to distract it's enemy while it ducks and hides. True strength can only come when we are securely dependant in our relationship with Jesus.

For so long this simple concept really confused me 'cause it seemed like an oxymoron - How can you be stong when you give up all control?! But after sincerly asking God to rule and reign in my life, He showed me something that really changed the whole course of my life - HE WAS ALREADY RULING AND REIGNING but there I was sitting in the corner of a room throwing a temper tantrum because all I was choosing to look at was that crampted little corner. Let me explain what God showed me a little better - it was a huge eleganly beautiful throne room, with God seated on His throne. Everything had a warm glow to it and there were gifts and treasures everywhere. I was tucked tightly into a corner with my nose pressed to the wall having a fit because I wanted more, I wanted it all, everything that God could ever possibly give I wanted it and all I could see that I was getting was punishment and a flat nose! And there was Jesus on His knees as close beside me as He could get, without getting elbowed or hit, gently saying "Cher, Cher... just turn around. Come on now, don't be so stubborn with me, I created that stubborness to be for Me not against Me. Come on Cher, it's time to turn around." It took a bit for me to actually hear Him, but I was soo amazed when I finally turned around and saw what had been behind me all along. Then Jesus pulled me up to my feet and said, "This is all yours."

I hope that was not too much of a rabbit trail. Back to the subject - Stength in connection to the armor of God and our relationship with Jesus. How weak and limited we are in our view when we choose not to communicate and relate to God, when we try to solve all problems on our own and then who do we blame when it all goes wrong ... God, Why did that happen?!

God wants all, ALL His children to know and be firm in the knowledge of their salvation; to be saturated and tightly wrapped in the truth of His Word; to clothe ourselves in righteousness by living lives of obedeance to His will; to stand firm anchored in the Good News; to lift up and cover ourselves with faith; to speak the Word of God with boldness and confidence; and to pray all types of prayers at all times. To do all this is to be in realtionship with Jesus. That really doesn't give much time for anything else.

NO LOOKING BACK - SEE THE NEW VIEW

2005-11-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

As I was driving today, I was thinking about the upcoming holiday - Thanksgiving. As I began to go through the list of things I was thankful for, I stumbled across a very bad habit. As I thanked God for my car and all the nice things about this wonderful automobile, I said something very stupid. I tacked on this dumb little disclaimer at the end of my car thankyou, "...but it's no mini van." This may sound harmless enough to some, but I suddenly became aware of how dangerous that little statement was -THANK YOU DR. AUBREY!

I had to ask myself if I was really thankful or was I determined to look back at a time in my life where I thought I was living large because I had the means to load everyone and everything up and take it where it needed to go, and allow feelings of dissatisfaction with the little car and inability of living my old way to rise up.
Earilier , I had been reading from Isaiah 43 and at that moment verse 18 began screaming at me, "Do not earnestly remember the former things; neither consider the things of old." And that was exactly what I was doing, I was reminisicing of the good old days when I joyfully drove around in my lovely mini van, aimlessly collecting and carting things here and there; finding disgarded chairs by the side of the road in need of some love and a good home...

-The word EARNESTLY means a seroius state of mind, with intent and determination.
-And the word CONSIDER means to think about by giving thoughtful attention to, pondering, thinking over and over, to fix the eyes upon and hold in high esteem, to view as right or true.

And that is when God began to speak to me. In my "Thankyou for the car, but it ain't no mini van!" statement I had completely nulified the thankyou and also disobeyed God by looking back and longing for the old. The story of Lot and his no named, salty pillar of a wife should be enough to cause us to keep our eyes forward. But God has promised us AND proclaimed to us that He is doing a New Thing and it is springing up right before us (vs. 19).

I realized that for the last year since getting this new car I have looked at life through mini van eyes. Now don't laugh - but it really did permiate into almost every area of my life, so this is a big deal to me, and I am still realizing the spiritual parallels. I can fit where I was to big and cumbersome to fit before, I get better gas mileage, I'm not in need of the repair shop as often, I look classy and sporty...

When God does something new in us, we have to change the way we look at life to fit our new perspective. Getting the new car I was forced to see from the car perspcetive because it is much lower to the ground, rather than the birds eye view of the van. But instead of happily accepting this new view, I am sad to say I did much growling - until now! I repent of my mini van ways and glady accept the new thing God is doing in my life. I will see, hear, touch, taste, smell, think upon and speak about what God is doing today.

I WILL NOT LOOK BACK
AND I WILL NOT SLOW DOWN
AS I RUN INTO THE PROMISES OF GOD

ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF!

2005-11-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Most of us, when we think of love we think of a heart and warm fuzzies. As I was going over Sunday's notes and the Breaking Free Study I began to see an intersting connection between my love walk and my health.
In the Breaking Free study Beth states that there are 5 benefits that every child of God should be experiencing everyday
1. Knowing and Believing God
2. Glorifying God
3. Finding satisfaction in God
4. Experiencing God's peace
5. Enjoying God's presence
The first one seemed to be a no brainer for me, but as I reflected over the last few days, months, and years I can honestly say that the other four ebeded and flowed depending upon ( I really hate to admit this!) circumstances!
And going over Sunday's notes, Andrew taught about how faith doesn't just work on its own but with the actions of hope, prayer, speaking, perservering, doing, forgiving and LOVING. He went on to define Agape Love as the love we are to actively live out - seeing, recognizing, understanding, and appreciating the value of others and beholding them in great esteem, awe , admireation, wonder and sincere appreciation. Believe it or not, that is how God loved and loves us. That's why He sent Jesus to sacrifice His perfect life for the unperfect, sin-encrusted us. So that through Him we can love others with no strings attatched, not looking for what we can get - but only what we can give. And it is loving with that kind of purity that we can experience the five benfits listed above. Because when you love with such a pure love, expecting nothing in return, it is impossible for you to feel hurt by others or let down by their bad behavior --- this is the God-kind of love.
As stated in the picture above Grief and Fear stimulate the body in a reaction that is unhealthy for the body, especially over long periods of time. Grief is defined as any emotional suffering or distress of mind caused by disaster. I think we could add worry the the list. But what I'm getting at is that there are so many little things that happen throughout the day (thoses little disasters) that we allow to rob us from our benefits. Would we just sit idely by if someone broke into our homes and tried to walk out with our T.V., computer, microwave... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! There is no way! So why would it be any different when it comes to satsifaction and peace in the Lord? Let me put it this way --- You are killing yourself with all that worry and fear over the stuff that shouldn't even matter. Let your heart overflow with the lovw God pours in, don't let it react to the stimulants of this world.

2005-10-31T20:04:00.000-08:00

THE LITTLE SENORITA AND EL MATADOR
They made their debut today
(At school party and door to door in the Sikkema neighborhood)
Their next appearance will be this Friday night 7:00 pm at
The Mexican Fiesta
(Corner of 76th Street and Hanna Lake)
Where they will be preforming
Latin Interpretive Dance and Evasive Bullfighting Techniques

Seeing With Eyes of Faith

2005-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

"With eyes of faith, ISAAC looked far into the future,
invoking a blessing upon JACOB AND ESAU."
Hebrews 11:20 Ampified

The Message says,
" By the act of faith ISAAC reached into the future as he blessed JACOB AND ESAU."

The New Living Testament says,
"It was by faith that ISAAC blessed his two sons.
He had confidence in what God was going to do in the future."

ISAAC had faith, he possessed it, he owned it, it was a part of who he was. So when he went to do something faith was a part of what he did, he moved in the action of faith.
A blessing is the act of declaring favor and goodness upon others. A blessing in not only effecting the person with the goodness of having warm words spoken to them; a blessing also has the power to bring thoses words to come to fulfilment when spoken in faith, lead by the Holy Spirit.

I envision blind, old, decrepit ISAAC reclining on his elbow with his sons sitting there before him. As he reaches out before him and pushes away the thin viel of the present and then thrusts his arm and clenched fist into the future. There, with his hand plunged into the future, his confidence and total relyance on God, he slowly uncurles his fingers releasing the promises and blessings of his God for his sons.
This scripture applies to us and how we are to live out our days, seeing others through our eyes of faith, speaking the promises of God into their future.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

2005-09-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.
Long before we first heard of Christ and found our hope in Him,
He had His eye on us, and had designs chosen for us to live a glorious life,
part of the overall purpose He is working out.
It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it
(this Message of your salvation),
found yourselves home free--signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit.
This is our guarantee, the first installment on what's coming,
a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us,
a praising and glorious life.
Eph. 1:11-14

As I was reading this scripture God spoke to me about how through the Holy Spirit we are sealed up in Him, possessing a continual freshness. A tag line from a commercial, "For life's little unexpectanies" jumped out at me, and I got to thinking... as we go through our day to day, things happen UNEXPECTATLY and we get startled, bothered, anxious, frustrated, angry and on and on. WHY??! Now I know there are 101 reasons why, but what I'm getting at is that if we are sealed in the Holy Spirit there is full up freshness in us that we just don't seem to tap into! Life, our families, friends, co-workers, and even the enemy should be able to tear into us and there should still be freshness at our core that we draw from to deal with such things.
DO WE HAVE A RESOURCE THAT WE ARE JUST IGNORING?

KNOCK, KNOCK

Who's there?

THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit Who?
THAT'S MY POINT!!

Do we even know who is right there trying to speak to us with words of wisdom
to keep us in the ever freshness of the will of God?
I'm preach to myself here, getting a bit of revelation....
.... think I need to go pray in tongues awhile!

Help! I'm being eaten by a whale!

2005-09-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a "Jonah Moment" where you knew what you were supposed to do --what God wanted you to do-- but you did just the opposite? Well, not so long ago I found myself in the middle of such an occurance, and just like Jonah sleeping quite comfortalbely in the belly of the SHIP I was rudely awakened and thrown overboard into the cold water.
Now here comes my point:
When you are awakend to the fact that you are running from or ignoring the will of God, you do not actually have to go through the "belly of the whale" experience.
When you read of the account in Johan 1:17-2:1 it says that "The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed..." Why the man waited three days and nights to cry out to God I'll never know - maybe he had a bit of a stubborn streak (I can understand that).
I believe that if Jonah had repented with the little breath that he had when he was first thrown into the water, he could have had a "walk on water" experience and just walked to the shore and then on to what God told him to do.
So, when you wake up to find that you are headed in the wrong direction away from the Will of God, quickly repent and turn around. Don't waste time waiting for the whale to gulp you up -- there are sharkes in that water too! They would love to feed on you until you come to your senses!!

Smiles

2005-09-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

A SMILE is a facial expression with one's eyes shining bright
and the corners of the mouth turning upward in hight.
A SMILE is used to convey amusement, satisfaction, enjoyment, and delight.
When one SMILES they beam, glow, gleam, radiate - they send out light.
What a joy to know whether young or rather old,
that it is the light of Christ within that shows forth in our grin.

Vacation Fun

2005-09-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

We had a great time over Labor Day Weekend. It started out kind of crazy- Gas prices jumping sky high, Katie getting sick and puking -but all ended well. The drive there and home was uneventful without much traffic and Great America was nearly empty as well. We got right on all the rides without a wait and could ride them as many times as we wanted. Jilly thought that she was going to be big and ride all the coasters, but the first one they went on was the Batman -she hated it! As the day wore on she got brave again and absolutely loved the Superman and the Demon. Katie thought the American Eagle (running backwards) was the best. My sister, Dee and her husband Joe, joined us in the adventure. Dee is about 4 Months preg and only rode on the River Raft (Pictured) and we all got totally drenched! Oh the fun!! Guess my age is catching up to me cause these theme parks aren't as big of a deal to me as they used to be. I'd rather go shopping!!!!

Ice Cream Outreach

2005-08-28T01:10:00.000-07:00

The Outreach went great!! We had over 100 people stop in and everyone had fun. Our focus was to reach Jon and Heidi Nebbeling's neighborhood and used their recent move as our oppertunity. We had a bounce house/castle, face painting, craft for the kids, live music, clowns and of course the ice cream. The neighborhood is so warm and recieving and everyone that came willingly jumped into conversation with us. The responce was mind blowing to me and I can't wait for the follow up. The next four weeks we will be having our Life Group meeting at Jon and Heidi's. I keep seeing ripples from a stone being dropped into the water and I believe that we had an impact that will reach father that we could ever expect.

HOLINESS

2005-08-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks God has been speaking to us (the worship team and the body) about holiness and reverence. We have had moments in corperate worship when I have so zoned into the presence of God that I had totally forgotten where I was (supposed to be playing the piano). There is something of a renewed awe that is come over us.
I looked up Awe: respectful fear and wonder; emotion inspired by the awakening of one's deep respect - honor and devotion.
And that is exactly how I feel, like my emotions have been woken up. I find myself looking at everything that happens in my day differently - from the perspective of actually feeling God's approval, His love, His view... I may not be making this easy for you to understand, but truthfully I'm not actually sure how to put into words what is going on with me --- but, SOMETHING HAS CHANGED and it's really cool!
I found this picture when I downloaded my camera (but I had to play on photoshop with it first) and was surprized - who, I ask, took this picture? I was on the stage playing the piano, Mike was on the sound board and the girls know the severity of consequence for getting into my purse. Some one would have had to reach into my purse and unearth the camera right under my nose (since I always leave my belongings second row center isle). Any theroies of who did this?

Hello Folks - Here I AM

2005-08-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I have jumped on the blog bandwagon after much insisting from Mike and Kassie. Mike thinks this will be a better outlet for all my thoughts and ideas rather than his ear ( he is soooo wrong) and Kassie is tired of me using hers to check in on everyone else. Here we go!
My thoughts and ramblings for today: Doorknocking is not so bad!
As of last Saturday a small group of us went out in Jon and Heidi Nebbeling's neighborhood handing out fliers and back-to-school supplies advertising the outreach we will be doing the following Saturday (Aug. 27th). After hitting about 15 city blocks the team only had two rejections and they were not all that awful. The overall response from the neighborhood was tremendously warm and welcoming. Now my mind is reeling with ideas of how to reach out in our neighborhoods and gather our neighbors into our homes. But more about that later.
As you can see from the picture, Spaz is very interested in all the Blogging as well. Don't be surprised if she has a Blog of her own up and running soon. Love and all the good stuff - Cher