We Are Like Helium Balloons Which Can Never Pop

"Jesus' blood never fails me."

Simple songs from a song chorus, but powerful words.

Faith can grown and expand until the day you die. You can know God more fully and intimately tomorrow than you do today. Each year should have a marked difference in your experience with God.

And my faith is filling up like a helium balloon right now. I am starting to understand, however slightly, that this new power at work in me is God. God manifested. Which leads me to the understanding that when I am truly immersed in the mindset of Christ, when I am at that place where for a moment or for an hour (or however long) I am completely filled and taken over by God and my flesh is truly silent for a while that I have the power of God at work in me.

I can be the finger of God in people's lives. My prayers carry weight. Miracles truly can happen. Walls can come down. People can be set free from the oppression that has haunted them for a life time because Jesus' blood never fails us.

I believe in miracles for my extended family who are in the grip of darkness and evil and so tightly wound up that there seems no hope. But I know Jesus' blood never fails and light can pierce that darkness simply because my prayers put the power of God to work in that person' s life.

In youth group on Saturday, there was such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Freedom was the reigning cry. On the hill at Calvary, the blood set us free. It healed us. It makes us whole and holy and sets a path of peace and wholeness for us. Freedom is found in Christ. We are completely, wholly and abundantly free from anything that would come against us to destroy us because we have the blood of Christ which is power to overcome anything.

God of the Impossible

Romans 8- There is a new power at work. It is God in me. It is his Spirit in me. That is so much bigger than I could ever put words to, much more than I could explain or display.

So what's coming? What's possible? What isn't possible? What is God growing me up for? What is he shaping me into? What will he use me for?

What's Going On?

Is it common for churches to run themselves in a manner that provides a great, moving service with the mentality that somehow the lost people in the community will just somehow find them and end up in a pew? God will magically move on them and transport them to the church if that's where they are supposed to be? Are we relieved of pro-actively reaching the lost because God will find them and bring them to us?

PostScript: I was thinking about Jesus' ministry. It wasn't done in the synagogue, even though he went. It was done out in the streets, in homes, on the shores, at the watering holes- out with the people.

My Story

Sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed me in. And this made me all the more rebellious. In the end, all I had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that I'm no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, I'm free to live a new life in the freedom of God.

Is that statement my spiritual experience with God? Is it my testimony? Is it my very knowledge of Christ? Yes, yes and yes!

And yet it is also what Paul says in Romans 7:5&6. (I substituted us and we for me and I.) Growing up I thought, when it came down to it, that Christianity was about rule keeping. Sure, I knew that Christ had died for my sins and that was my only ticket into heaven but I still felt the oppression of walking a fine line and pressure to keep rules.

"What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the commands into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself in all that finery, I was fooled, and I fell for it."

Once again, the above paragraph is my experience, but Paul's words in Romans 7:9&10 (from the Message).

Rules. Christians can't live with them and they can't live without them. Christ was the fulfillment of God's promise to man, and he didn't come to destroy the rules, but to take care of them. He met every rule and law so that when we walk in Christ, even when we stumble and sin, that is no longer our identity. The man who sins is dead. We are alive in Christ. We must stay in Christ and stay focused on Christ. We must live by the Spirit in order to overcome our desire to want to fall into sin and roll around in the filth and give ourselves over to destruction. Our flesh yearns to be in sin as much as our Spirit yearns to be in Christ. The decision is, what are you going to follow? The flesh that would enslave you to sin again or the Spirit that would set you free in Christ?

If you are a spiritually mature Christian, I feel it is our obligation to preach God's love and not the rules. We are to live a life beyond reproach that would serve as an example to those who might be weaker and more prone to live by the flesh. But out of our mouths and expressed in our actions should be God's love. That is the first step, the doorway to enter into Christ's freedom which prompts a grateful heart that is "sold out" to Christ. That person that is in love with Christ produces a life that would not want to hurt the Giver and that is when the sin becomes unexciting, wholly not enticing and becomes an ugly, hurtful thing in the eyes of a person.

40 Days of Prayer Done

For those keeping track of such things, yesterday was the last day of the forty days of prayer as a congregation. We have devoted five minutes a day, three times a week for the past forty days to prayer. Today is the first day of a ten day fast. The pastor said that he wasn't asking the whole congregation not to eat for ten days, but it is another dimension to add to the prayer life.

For those who don't practice praying for more than one breath prayers or even a quick stress prayer, try finding a prayer closet in your life. Give God a full five minutes and just realize you are in the presence of God and begin to talk to him. About whatever you need to. My likely topics were that I would act like a proper vessel for him, for wisdom for the church leadership, various members in my family and whatever else was laid on my heart.

At first five minutes seems like a while. After just a few days, five minutes will be exceeded if you allow yourself to continue. I bet I could spend a whole day just praying now. In fact, this "exercise" has made me pray much more through out the day, but the most powerful times are the times set apart for God.

Taking Care of Business

I have been praying that God would show me my heart where there are things that need to be exposed and taken care of. That the places where I harbor junk that would get in His way would be shown.

And so it has happened in a most unlikely way. There is another blog I keep. I have a decent readership and I circulate among many of them. Yesterday my sister was harsh in her comment to another blogger and I knew she would get a response. I was okay with that. I figured she had made her bed and she would have to lie in it, so to speak. And my sister didn’t care either.

But someone commented and called her a bitch and that made me feel like I had to rise up and defend her by being mean and vile back. I knew I shouldn’t have done it but I couldn’t take it back. I apologized the best I knew how and have felt bad since.

And it occurred to me today that this was part of exposing my heart. Anger and agreeing with “taking care of things” through my own endeavors and rising up to go toe to toe with someone, even if it is in blogland, is something I guess I have to confess and deal with before the Lord.

I had a sense of peace during my prayer time today about the whole thing. It was then that I realized God will use any circumstance to show us where our hearts are still in rebellion towards him if we are willing to see. I blew it yesterday. And I know now that it was merely showing of a weed above ground where there is a root underneath. And the Lord will have to continue to work in me to dig it out until it is dead in me so that he might live more richly in me.

I take a step and distance myself from the mess because I don’t identify with my sin. I identify with what Christ has done in me. I do not live under condemnation, but in freedom. And if I lived under condemnation, I would continue to drag around the guilt of blowing it and messing up. Instead, I can live in the knowledge that my sin and my guilt have been dealt with and the fact that I need to continue to walk rightly before God and allow him to kill that weed problem.

Father Abraham

Last night I was reading out of Romans in Chapter Four where Paul talks about how Abraham was blessed not because he was circumcised but because God chose to bless him before Abraham had done anything noteworthy. God set everything up for Abraham but Abraham's lack of faith caused him to take the blessing into his own hands and "help" God.

Abraham didn't have to do anything to help God. And when his lack of faith led him to a poor decision, the effects were far-reaching. I doubt Abraham realized the effect of his lack of faith would have on the world. His first son that he had out of doubt would end up being the son who Islamic people trace their religion back to. Father Abraham is the father of many nations.

What peace would be in the Middle East without Islamic beliefs? The line from Ishmael was foretold by an angel of the Lord like this, "He will be a wild donkey of man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers."

The Israelites cross paths with Ishmael’s decedents often in the Old Testament. And in modern day life, as Abraham’s decedents that are grafted into the family tree through Christ, we now cross path’s with Ishmael’s decedents as well and not much has changed from the angel's words over Ishmael to his decendants now.

How often do we make decisions out of a lack of faith and vision from God that have disastrous endings? They rob us of peace. The create strife. They can be far-reaching. Have peace as you abide in Christ awaiting his promises. Don’t create opportunities for God, he will create opportunities for you.