Month: July 2013

Benefits fo Genuine Worship/ Part 2

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Every opportunity we have to meet with and worship God is an opportunity for God to release into our lives all of His goodness. When He shows up, he comes with healing, deliverance, and power. Worship releases God’s promise I remember hearing an old preacher many years ago saying the following… “praise is the plow that prepares the heart for the planting of the promises of God.” – Psalm 103:1-5 says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Sometimes, before there is a healing, a deliverance, a releasing of love and mercy or the comforting presence of God, there must be worship. This is one of the easiest ways to walk in God’s blessings. Heartfelt, genuine worship of the King. Worship has …

Benefits of Genuine Worship/ Part 1

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I remember walking into service that Wednesday night just when the amen to the opening prayer was said. I sat down in the very back of the church, but that didn’t stop the Holy Spirit from reaching me that day. The worship leader had his eyes closed, head tilted back as he pounded on that Kurzweil Sp2x from the beginning to the end of the worship experience. The music was loud and the atmosphere charged with something that words can not explain. Before long I was lost in worship of Almighty God and it was beautiful. All of a sudden, tears started flowing down my cheek. It escalated bit by bit until I could not control myself. For the next 30 -45 minutes, with hands lifted, I wept like a baby. By the time worship was over – Almighty God had broken me and soften my heart for something I still can’t get enough of – “genuine worship.” Every opportunity we have to meet with and worship God is an opportunity for God to release into our lives all of His goodness. When …

ReThinking the way you grieve

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There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How Should a Reformed Pastor Be Charismatic?

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The message by U.K. Pastor Tope Koleoso is entitled “Sovereign Grace, Spiritual Gifts and the Pastor: How Should a Reformed Pastor be Charismatic?” He encouraged church leaders not to sidestep the supernatural in the Christian faith and ministry, but to rightly understand and exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit while shunning fanaticism. The freedom in Spirit must not surrender to fanaticism, our openness to the Spirit must never violate the Word of God, and our expression of joy must never degenerate into mere excitability.     Video via Joshua Harris

7 Signs of Authentic ongoing transformation

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1. Getting Better When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that’s left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. C. S. Lewis 2. Obedience not Sacrifice When a man makes obedience, not the lifting up of sacrifices, the thing to pursue – he is on the path to transformation. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. John 14:23 3. Uses Grace as Empowerment When a man no longer sees grace as a big cover up, he is on the path to transformation. ”Grace  is not to cover up our weaknesses but to empower us to lead a life pleasing to God.” John Bevere 4. Feeds the Spirit and not the Flesh When a man spends all his energies not on activities to feed the flesh, but on spiritual disciplines that edify, built up, encourage and sanctify, he is on the path to transformation. ”For if you live according …