The Armor of God Prayer

Ephesians 6:10-20
Good morning, Lord. Thank you for assuring me of victory today if I but will follow Your battle plan. So by faith I claim a victory over ______________(A list of some things I know I will face today.)

To prepare myself for the battle ahead, by faith, I put on the Belt of Truth. The truth about You Lord - that You are a sovereign God who knows everything about me, both my strengths and my weaknesses. You know my breaking point and promised not to allow me to be tempted beyond that which I am able to endure. The truth about me, Lord, is that I am a new creature in Christ and have been set free from the power of sin. I am indwelt with the Holy Spirit who will guide me and warn me when danger is near. I am Your child, and nothing can separate me from Your love. The truth is that You have a purpose for me today- someone to encourage, someone to share with and someone to love.

Next Lord, I want to, by faith, put on the Breastplate of Righteousness. Through this I guard my heart and my emotions. I will not allow my emotions to rule in my decisions. I will set them on what is right and good and just. I will live today by what is true not by what I feel. I will not allow my desires to lead me into sin; I will protect Your witness and Your reputation with Your help. Lord, this morning I put on the Sandals of the Gospel of Peace. Send me where You will and desire. Guide me to those who need encouragement or physical help of some kind. Use me to solve conflicts wherever they may arise. Make me a calming presence in every circumstance in which You have placed me. I will not be hurried or rushed, for my schedule is in Your hands. I will not leave a trail of tension or apprehension. I will leave tracks of peace and stability everywhere I am sent.

I now take up the Shield of Faith, Lord. My faith is in You and You alone. Apart from You, I can do nothing. With You, I can do all things. No temptation that comes my way can penetrate Your protecting hand. I will not be afraid, for You are going with me throughout the day. When I am tempted, I will claim my victory out loud ahead of time, for You have promised victory to those who walk in obedience to Your Word. So by faith I claim a victory even now because I know there are fiery darts headed my way even as I pray. Lord, You know that they are and have already provided a way of escape.

Lord, by faith, I am putting on the Helmet of Salvation. You know how Satan bombards my mind day and night with evil thoughts, doubt and fear. I put on this helmet that will protect my mind. I may feel the impact of his attacks, but nothing can penetrate this helmet. I choose to stop every impure and negative thought at the door of my mind. And with the helmet of salvation those thoughts will get no further. I elect to take every thought captive; I will dwell on nothing but what is good and right and pleasing to you.

Last, I take up the Sword of the Spirit, which is Your Word. Thank you for the precious gift of Your Word. It is strong and powerful and able to defeat even the strongest of Satan's onslaughts. Your Word says that I am not under the obligation of the flesh to obey its lusts. Your Word says that I am free from the power of sin. Your Word says that Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. So by faith I take up the strong and powerful sword of the Spirit, which is able to defend me in time of attack, comfort me in time of sorrow, teach me in time of meditation, and prevail against the power of the enemy on behalf of others who need the truth to set them free.

So, Lord, I thank You for the armor of God. I go now rejoicing that You have chosen me to represent You to this lost and dying world. May others see Jesus in me, and may Satan and his hosts shudder as Your power is made manifest in me. In Jesus’ name I pray- Amen.
By Charles Stanley

Burma- Partners Relief and Development

Find out how to volunteer to help here:
http://www.godreports.com/organization-view/1073

Jeremiah Lanphier

In 1857 Jeremiah Lanphier was at a crossroads in his life; he was a single, middle-aged businessman without children and family. Following his heart to reach the neediest around him, he put aside his regular business and began to work with the North Dutch Church in Manhattan as a lay missionary. At that time, there were 30,000 men idle on the streets of New York. Drunkenness was rampant, and the nation was divided by slavery. Ministering in the dark slums of Hell’s Kitchen, Lanphier poured himself into the lives of people who were homeless, helpless and hopeless. Month after month he went door to door sharing the Good News, distributing tracts, and holding Bible studies with whomever would listen.

Lanphier would begin each day going from office to office, house to house, and shop to shop; but by midday he was physically, emotionally and spiritually worn out. He discovered that, even as the body needs food, the soul and spirit need prayer. Lanphier realized his need and regularly returned to a room in the church Consistory building to cry out to God for spiritual strength. This fresh, personal experience of the power of prayer suggested to Lanphier that there might be others, especially those engaged in business, who might profit from time in prayer. He handed out some 20,000 flyers advertising the first noonday prayer meeting on September 23, 1857.

For the first thirty minutes he sat alone praying. Eventually, steps were heard coming up the staircase and another joined. Then another and another until Lanphier was joined by five men. The next Wednesday the six increased to twenty. The following week there were 40. Lanphier and the others then decided to meet daily, and within weeks thousands of business leaders were meeting for prayer each day. Before long over 100 churches and public meeting halls were filled with noonday prayer meetings. God moved so powerfully that similar prayer meetings sprang up around the nation. For a season there were 10,000 conversions to Christ each week in New York City, and it is estimated that nearly one million people across the U.S. were transformed during this incredible move of God.


One man’s obedience to prayer… began a revival… that transformed a nation.

"The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do contains an appeal to desire.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not to strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -C.S. Lewis

Commentary on this passage by John Piper from "Desiring God": "There it is in black and white, and to my mind it was totally compelling: It is not a bad thing to desire our own good. In fact, the great problem of human beings is that they are far too easily pleased. They don't seek pleasure with nearly the resolve and passion that they should. And so they settle for mud pies of appetite instead of infinite delight."

Test of Faithfulness

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God. —Romans 8:28

"It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.

Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son."

-Oswald Chambers
"Utmost For His Highest"
December 18

Light up the World- Desperation Band

C.T. Studd

"Some want to live
within the sound
of church or chapel bell;
I want to run
a rescue shop
within a yard of hell."

C. T. Studd
1860-1931
English missionary to China, India,
and Africa

"Your Hands" -JJ Heller

I love this song. It is such a awesome image of God holding us in his hands. Powerful.

New website offers networking tool for missionaries, ministries

"On his first overseas mission trip to visit Carl & Lauretta DuBois, two Wycliffe missionaries in the southern Philippines, Mark Ellis was surprised by what he found.
“They lived in a 350 square foot house – smaller than most American’s two-car garage,” he says. “They had to be evacuated twice due to various threats, and they survived a bout with cancer and a terrible accident that left their son partially paralyzed. They did all this to bring the gospel to the Tagabawa people.”

Ellis, a veteran senior writer with ASSIST News Service, knew he could tell their story through ANS, but he wondered how many other missionaries had similar stories and unmet needs.

“I knew I couldn’t cover all their stories, so I started working on a website that allows them to share their stories themselves.”

On www.Godreports.com missionaries and ministry organizations can create their own webpages – their “Godreports” – where they can share their vision, passion, prayer requests, needs and updates. They can link photos, video and worship music to their page.

“They can also raise funds for vital mission projects,” Ellis notes.

During the mission trip to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, Ellis met a man named Benancio who had fallen out of a palm tree and was paralyzed from the waist down. “After the accident, his wife abandoned him,” Ellis reports. “I went to visit him at his hut and saw him trying to care for his four small children. It was an appalling living situation.”

When Ellis returned home, Benancio’s plight weighed heavily on his heart. “I checked around to see if there was some way to help Benancio and his children, but I couldn’t find anybody to give me any direction.” A few years later, Ellis learned of Benancio’s death.

“I don’t want there to be any more Benancios, so I organized Godreports with an interactive map of the world,” Ellis says. Users can click on any country and find ministry organizations making a difference in each country.

Responding to spiritual and physical needs is an important goal of the website. “Suppose a missionary needs Bibles, food, or medical supplies to meet an urgent need and he’s unaware that someone is working only 50 miles away who could help with that need,” Ellis says. “I’m hopeful Godreports will help build greater collaboration on the mission field.”
As Ellis built the Godreports website, he says he had the privilege to meet Dr. Yong Cho at the U.S. Center for World Mission, in Pasadena, California, and was impressed by one of Dr. Cho’s observations:

“Missions are now from everywhere to everywhere, and while this is a good thing, it has also created a great deal of unnecessary duplication and even confusion…We remain largely ignorant of what each other is doing.” (Cho is international director of the Global Network of Mission Structures.)

“From the local church to the highest levels of the missions’ movement, there is a lack of networking and communication,” Ellis notes. “I hope Godreports will be a great tool to remedy this situation.”

For more information, go to www.Godreports.com. Mark Ellis can be contacted by e-mail at mark@Godreports.com"

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

"Highest Place" by Desperation Band

Clay Dyer- Inspirational Fisherman

Explosion of China's Underground Church and what it means for the West

"Chinese Protestants and the West since 1949"
Written by ChinaSource
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 17:24

This article should be encouraging to all. Please read or read the article in its entirety at the link at the bottom!!!

"What has been the nature of the relationship between Christians inside and outside of China over the last 60 years?

From the dark years of the Cultural Revolution, the Protestant church has more than recovered its vigor and has see an explosion in numbers, particularly in the house church movement. Few unbiased observers would suggest that China has fewer than 50 million Protestants, and some estimates easily double this figure. Christianity has also enjoyed something of an image make-over. Once condemned as a feudal superstition, destined for the rubbish heap of history, even Christianity’s cultured despisers admit that it is associated with much that is good about Western progress. The Economist newspaper recently noted the contrast with attitudes towards the faith in Europe: “In much of Christianity’s former heartland, religion is associated with tradition and ritual. In China, it is associated with modernity, business and science.”1 In looking once again to the West for direction, many Chinese see Christianity as one of the secrets of success. Some scholars see interest in Christianity as tied closely to the popularity of Western culture more broadly or to the phenomenon of globalization generally.

Chinese Christians are participating as never before in the global Protestant movement. Many Chinese Christians no longer view the faith as Western, but as a world-wide movement—one that is gaining momentum. Nor do they reflexively look to the West for all of their insights. The old teacher-student relationship between Western and Chinese Christians is slowly breaking down. Though the faith is not unique to China, there may be a uniquely Chinese contribution to be made. Poised to dispatch legions of missionaries to the world, some to take on the re-evangelization of the West, the Christians are asking: “What can China do for Christianity?” Even in a country so steeped in the Confucian tradition, it is still possible for the student to become the teacher."

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.chsource.org/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=226&Itemid=80&lang=en

Louie Giglio- Laminin

More than 1 billion going hungry, U.N. says

(CNN) -- "The global economic crisis has caused a spike in world hunger that has left more than a billion undernourished, United Nations agencies said in a new report. "It is unacceptable in the 21st century that almost one in six of the world's population is now going hungry," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme. "At a time when there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, there is less food aid than we have seen in living memory."

The report by the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization was released Wednesday, ahead of World Food Day on Friday.

Nearly all the world's undernourished live in developing countries, according to the report.

An estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger in Asia and the Pacific. An additional 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa while 95 million come from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Near East and North Africa. The final 15 million live in developed nations. The number of hungry spiked as the global economic crisis took hold and governments pumped resources into stabilizing financial markets. The move meant smaller investments in agriculture and food distribution.

"World leaders have reacted forcefully to the financial and economic crisis, and succeeded in mobilizing billions of dollars in a short time period. The same strong action is needed now to combat hunger and poverty," said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO.

"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable."

The report calls for greater investment in agriculture to tackle long and short-term hunger by making farmers productive and more resilient to crises.

"We know what is needed to meet urgent hunger needs -- we just need the resources and the international commitment to do the job," Sheeran said."


As Christians, what should our response to something like this be?

GETTING INTO GOD'S STRIDE

"Enoch walked with God." Genesis 5:24 "The test of a man's religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights (cf. John 1:36). It is a painful business to get through into the stride of God, it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride; but when we have got into it, the only characteristic that manifests itself is the life of God. The individual man is lost sight of in his personal union with God, and the stride and the power of God alone are manifested. It is difficult to get into stride with God, because when we start walking with Him we find He has outstripped us before we have taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined into His ways. It was said of Jesus - "He shall not fail nor be discouraged," because He never worked from His own individual standpoint but always from the standpoint of His Father, and we have to learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God's Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before. Getting into the stride of God means nothing less than union with Himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose." -Oswald Chambers "My Upmost for His Highest" http://www.myutmost.org

The Challenge

The Teaching of Adversity

In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world —John 16:33

"The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . ." ( Psalm 91:1,10 )— the place where you are at one with God.

If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He is saying, "There is nothing for you to fear." The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.

God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment— "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life . . ." (Revelation 2:7 ). If you completely give of yourself physically, you become exhausted. But when you give of yourself spiritually, you get more strength. God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment. Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense. But a saint can "be of good cheer" even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God."

-Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost For His Highest" August 2, 2009

Radical Living For Christ

1. Regular times set aside every day for reading the Word and prayer.
2. Developing constant contact with God- abiding in Him.
3. Continually seeking healing of my thought life.
4. Not being a lukewarm Christian, distasteful to God. Remaining in the purifying fire and heat of Christ.
5. Humbling myself under God's hand, letting go of ego.
6. Saying only that which will build others up; watching the mouth!
7. Seeing what God sees, loving what He loves, hating what He hates.
8. Remembering that everything I have is His.
9. To make life more serene and God-oriented, eliminating from my home clutter, arguing, complaining, and constant TV and other noise.
10. Thanking God for my weaknesses as well as strengths, because He made me exactly right.
11. Ordering my mental life so as to be constantly in prayer at a deeper level.
12. Keeping in my mind that if it is the Lord's will, I will live or die.
13. Expecting Him to create in me a heart of beauty and peace, rest and hope, love and singing. Alleluia!

Taken from Pastor Ray Ortlund

1 Timothy 4:12

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." -1 Timothy 4:12

Francis Chan- Power of God

This is a must see sermon on the power of God by Pastor and Author of Crazy Love, Francis Chan.

we are, we are in desperation, we need to reach this generation

Japanese Girl Moves Mountain

After World War II, many half-Japenese/half-American and half-Japanese/half-European children were abandoned in Japan, left to die by a society that placed no value on their little lives. But Christian missionaries, seeing the children's plight, started orphanages. In one of these orphanages Irene Smith, an English missionary, cared for twenty-two of these outcast children.

One night one of Irene's orphans, who was sick and bedridden, heard a sermon about how having small faith can enable a person to accomplish great things. In the supporting scripture (Matt. 21:21 - Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.), Jesus told His disciples that if they had faith and didn't doubt, they could not only achieve "small" feats such as making a fig tree wither as He had, but they could overcome much bigger obstacles with their prayers such as moving mountains and casting them into the sea.

This sermon caught the little invalid's attention for a good reason. This little girl wished to see the Japanese Inland Sea again. She couldn't go to the beach herself because of her severe illness, and a huge mountain sat in front of the old building that housed the orphanage, blocking her view of her beloved sea.

At bedtime that night, the little girl asked to pray that God would move that mountain. Irene kindly replied, "No, God doesn't want to move a big mountain like that. After all, if He put that mountain there, why would He want to move it? When the Lord Jesus made that statement, He meant we should pray about the big mountains of trials in our lives."

"But, Miss. Irene, it says if you have faith and do not doubt, the mountain will move. God is great and almighty, and He could do it. For the Bible says so."

"Then go ahead and pray, child," Irene responded.

So every night the other orphan girls joined the sick child at her bedside for prayer and agreed together according to Matthew 18:19-20, earnestly praying that the Lord would move the mountain so the sick little girl could see the sea. Irene temporarily left the orphanage while on leave of absence to England. Months later, upon her return, she walked into the dormitory and found all the little girls in front of the window. Looking out, Irene could hardly believe what she was seeing: the Japanese Inland Sea!

"What happened to the mountain?" Irene called out, amazed.

"All we know is that we saw many kinds of bulldozers going up-and-down the mountain moving dirt," the girls answered, as their eyes lit up with joy.

Curious about this mystery, Irene went to the town office and spoke with local authorities about the mountain's disapearance. The mayor explained that coastal waves were eroding the land, so they needed the earth from the mountain to backfill the coastline. Sure enough , they moved the mountain and "cast it into the sea."

A few months later, the little girl who had diligently prayed to move the mountains passed away. And eventually, the old building housing the dear orphans was torn down. But the view of the Japanese Inland Sea is still there.

Friends, the mountains we encounter may be different shapes, sizes and location (whether literal, financial, physical, emotional, etc.) How we end up with our results clearly depends on our attitude and our approach. Nothing complicated, but just the simplicity of only believing.

That's My King! Do you know Him?

The Bible Online

http://www.youversion.com

This site has a great version of the Bible online with tons of ways to comment or read commentary. Also, you can also talk with others. I would highly recommend it.

CCC Media Ministry Records Over 1M Decisions for Christ in 1 Month | Christianpost.com

"For the first time in its five-year history, the media arm of Campus Crusade for Christ recorded over one million decisions for Jesus Christ in a single month.

In its announcement Wednesday, CCC’s Global Media Outreach (GMO) reported that 1,030,581 people indicated either a first-time decision to follow Jesus or a decision to recommit their life to Christ through one of more than 90 GMO-hosted Gospel Web sites in June.

"This is an historic event only possible by God's power," said GMO founder and chair Walt Wilson. "Over the past few months, we have seen an increasing number of people come to our evangelistic web and mobile sites."

Since its inception in 2004, GMO has seen the number of people making commitments to Christ grow from 21,066 people annually to more than 3 million people in 2008. For this year, the ministry had projected around 5 million decisions. In the first six months of 2009, it has already recorded 4.1 million.

The demand is so high these days that GMO has had to enlist the support from Northland, A Church Distributed, one of Florida's most prominent megachurches, to recruit and train 5,000 online missionaries by 2010. Even with the added support, the ministry admits it needs about 10,000 to meet the demand – 7,000 more than they currently have.

On an average day, sites like Jesus2020.com get 150,000 visitors, and about 25,000 of them click a button to say they want to learn more. Of those, about 5,000 a day fill in a form so an online missionary can contact them via e-mail.

In the first six months of this year alone, GMO’s 91 websites have drawn over 22.7 million visitors, prompted over 5.6 million Gospel inquiries, and led to over 800,000 e-mail being sent."

Read the rest at: CCC Media Ministry Records Over 1M Decisions for Christ in 1 Month | Christianpost.com

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Worship

Vision for this Generation

one generation standing firm. united as one body in Jesus Christ. rising up. following God. desperate for more of Him. because its all for Him.

loving Him. seeing Him. hearing Him. stepping out. stepping up. believing. having faith that moves mountains. faith that knows no bounds. through Him the impossible is made possible.

we take our cue from joshua. samuel. nehemiah. ezra. elijah. paul. we build our lives on the rock. we refocus our churches like the churches in acts. not on us but all on Him. establishing community. banding together. pushing one another. sharing. growing together. loving one another. doing life together.

raising our voices throughout the world. in worship. in prayer.

against inequality.

protecting the unprotected. eradicating poverty. mobilizing to spread truth. reaching the lost. establishing the great commission. sharing God's love. loving the unlovable. loving our enemies. fighting injustice. hoping for more. longing for heaven. fire in our gut. face down. hearts aflame. praying. seeking. living counter cultural. employing truths that shake foundations. resisting norms. defying low expectations. looking upwards and outwards. wanting more. passion overflowing for more of God's heart.

pursuing. pursuing significance. pursuing eternity. pursuing purity. pursuing holiness. pursuing relationship with our creator. pursuing God desperately. with all our being.

a movement. a revolution. a mission. a marathon. a relationship. in pursuit of something more. something deeper. a holy ambition. to see God change the world. to bring heaven to earth. change lives. save lives.

therefore we cling to Him. talk to Him. worship Him. believe in Him. love Him.

we are just ordinary people with a fiery passion to see an extraordinary God change the world. we despise evil. champion truth. we give anything in pursuit of God's will for our lives and His heart for this world.

we are the desperation generation.

We're All in This Together

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' -Matthew 25:37-40

Where is God calling you?

The Revolution of Jesus

Jesus has been, and always will be, a threat to the established order of things. if we understand his birth as a revolution, then we may glimpse the revolution that his life will bring.

instead of being born into a well established and powerful family, Jesus was born to a couple of teenagers who couldn't even stay with their family in bethlehem, most likely because of the scandal of her pregnancy before their official marriage.

this is how love invaded our planet. this is how the revolution began. it’s unlikely, even absurd. but the last thing it should be is boring or predictable or explainable. this should incite passionate joy or passionate distain. this is either the greatest thing to ever happen or the most ridiculous idea ever suggested. that God should come among us as one of the "least of these".

not only did Jesus’ birth turn everything upside down; so did his life and what he taught. you must die to live. you must lose to gain. weakness is strength. joy exists in the midst of suffering. power is restraint. love those who persecute you. pray for those who hate you. it is not the strong or the wealthy who will inherit the earth, but the meek. the kingdom of God won’t be given to the religious leaders, but to the spiritual idiots (the poor in spirit). mourners, peacemakers, the merciful, and the persecuted can all find blessing in the kingdom of Jesus.

Jesus Christ is the most subversive man to have ever walked the earth.
this is revolution.

if you follow Jesus, you follow the most radical man who ever existed. He marches into the world with kindness, peace, and love, and offers people a whole new way of looking at the world and living within it. His is the most radical message you can preach or live. He turns everything upside down and calls us to do likewise. Jesus is not vitally committed to our comfort and safety; He is committed to the advancing of his kingdom revolution in the hearts of people everywhere.

in talking about what his kingdom is like, Jesus announced, "from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing. and forceful men take hold of it". in other words, God is doing something so powerful and dangerous that only those who are willing to embrace it with forceful intensity may take hold of the movement of God’s kingdom. the revolution of Jesus isn’t for the faint of heart or the middle-of-the-road. it isn’t safe. it isn’t comfortable. it costs us a great deal to say yes. we take hold of the revolution by abandoning ourselves to Jesus and letting go of everything else.

will we choose to follow a safe Jesus of suburbia – who exists to provide us with health, wealth, comfort, and happiness? or will we press on to find the Jesus of nazareth, the most dangerous and radical man to ever walk the face of the earth? we want the real thing. we don’t want to worship the counterfeits and settle for less than the revolution Jesus brings. we are moving beyond the unbiblical idea that the primary work of Jesus is giving us a ticket to heaven, and now understand that he is asking us for everything, to stand with him against all that is unloving and untrue in our world.

together, we are pursuing this revolution of Jesus.


Borrowed from http://www.rockharbor.org