What a beautiful the week the Lord decided to gift me with. A song that has continually been singing in my spirit is "Lord, You are good and Your mercy endureth forever", and what a true statement this is. Forever... No matter what... Good... No matter what... He is Lord... No matter what. So cool.
This week we had the privilege of Jaeson Ma and Erik Fish speaking to us. The topic was "Planting Churches". Going into this week I wasn't super stoked, I didn't really have a desire to plant churches but that has definitely changed over these past few days. One question that was the basis of this week was, "What is church?" Not "what have Americans made church to be"... but really, what is the biblical view of church? Church is any amount of believers committed together to obey the commands of the Lord. As Americans, and in many other places, we have picked up the belief that church is on Sunday morning and people meet in a building for 1-2 hours. But we have it wrong. YOU are the church. I am the church. WE are the bride of Christ. It can be translated into DNA... D- Divine Truth (Love God), N-Nurturing Relationships (Love Others), A- Apostolic Mission (Loving The Lost - Apostolic= Sent/Go & Mission = Assignment). So in this Church is "The Presence of Jesus among His people called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet". Now doesn't that sound like something you'd like to not only be a part of, but actually live out and BE?
During this week we learned to how to not only do and be this, but to go into the places with no church and start planting them. It all starts with going. We have to go. Whether that means in your own backyard or going half way around the world - we are called to GO. Next, we Make Disciples. This comes through relationship. So many times we just try to pour information out - and it only goes to the head. We walk with these people, we help them through things... we establish friendship and through that, without us teaching them "information" we are showing them day to day how to live out what we are called to. And this is not just about with Christians, this is with everyone! Then we baptize them!! This part of the week really hit me hard. I don't like that for so long I have thought you only do this in a "church building" or that a pastor or someone ordained has to do this... No. We have inside of us everything needed to baptize someone. We speak life over them! They declare their new life! And then we have the privilege to baptize them into that new life, leaving everything behind, in the name of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. We watched a video of all of these college campuses getting wrecked by the Love of the Father... and they started to baptize each other. I started welling up with tears and looked at the my friend and said "Hannah! Why haven't I been doing this my whole Christian walk? Why aren't we living this out?" Then... We Teach Them To Obey. We are taught all of this in Matthew 28:18-20. This stirred me up so much. What a beautiful order. The realization came that we have done this 100% backwards. We try to teach them how to obey, without having any motivation or heart revelation of why they are doing it. Then Baptize, and then start to disciple, and then we go. Haha, so backwards right? We do not have to do anything to become qualified to do these things. God has approved us from the beginning, and has given us power to walk this out. He wouldn't set out this amazing process and then say we have to train at a school for 3-10 years in order to really know what we are doing. Once we start walking it out, that is where we truly learn. And we will make mistakes, but that's the beauty of it all - Jesus just keeps rooting for us and helping us along with the Holy Spirit being our Leader. This is Grace.
The second thing that was most profound over this whole week - and I believe a revelation that just keeps hitting me... is the power of Prayer. It is the basis of everything. It is not setting aside time for God 30 minutes - 2 hours a day... It is walking in constant communication and adoration with the Father... choosing to rise above higher than ourselves and have our body & soul submit to our Spirit. Having intimacy with Christ is really waiting upon the Lord. It is the ultimate act of faith, it is choosing not to just go to the outer court (Good- Repentance), not just the inner court (Great - Prayer/The Word), but into the Holy of Holys... because that is the best and Jesus died so we could have access! We can have all the presence of God, but it requires that diligence and focus. We choose to have daily bread, not yesterdays revelation - but TODAYS. A fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit every day, a daily encounter with God, WALKING... not just stopping by, but really dwelling in that place with Jesus. This is where life is birthed, endurance is created, Love is cultivated. God desires to be with us. He doesn't want what we can DO for Him, He just wants us. When we SEEK Him, we WILL find Him and out of wanting God, you'll begin to want what He wants. "Once you've tasted the best, you won't want the rest." Prayer is not something we just choose to do, or feel obligated to. For so long I felt so obligated to pray. It was sooo boring to me. I dreaded "praying. But that's because I didn't have a revelation of what prayer really is! So I really had to come before the Lord repent for that. It's not an obligation - it's truly our great reward as Children of God. God desires for it to be enjoyable and powerful, and if we truly want revival in our nation, we have to be committed to cultivating a lifestyle of intercession. We need to start infiltrating this into the church now, it has to be a place where the core identity is constant prayer.
God is calling this generation, yes you and me, to go TO Him before we go out FOR Him. Because if we are going out and doing stuff FOR Him, before we go TO Him - what are we truly giving out? Is the love and knowledge we are transferring from ourselves, or from the source of those things? We will continue to be tired, and quickly burn out in ministry if there is a lack of dedication to prayer. This brings the statement, "Practice What You Preach" so much closer to home... and honestly stirs up a desire in me to truly do that. Not just so what I am saying is valid, but because the power of God is so much stronger when there is truth in our words because we have walked it out rather than just somebody else's revelation. And honestly, I'm tired of trying to live off of somebody else's left overs rather than God Himself feeding me.
So basically in a nutshell.. God is good, haha. It is so wonderful that God would choose me and you. He doesn't need us for anything. But He loves us so much that He desires us to live with Him inside of us - and when we choose to really let that consume us, everything we have ever had a desire for begins to come true. Literally, I can say with full confidence that my dreams are coming true. It isn't YWAM that is making my dreams come true. It's the fact I've tasted and I've seen that God is good and I realize that there is no better place to be in His presence... and He LOVES when I am there with Him. He longs for the times when I fully let my heart connect with His. It brings Him such joy to have me around - what an incredible thing!
After writing this, I think this song really begins to sink in and the revelation of how true it is hits me all over again...
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