Ps 150 “..Praise Him with the trumpet…. with the tambourine and dancing…. with the strings and flute… with the clash of cymbals”

Another Super Bowl Sunday has arrived….

There is nothing wrong rooting for your favorite team, or rooting against another. Yelling at bad calls, or great plays. A couple hours spent watching an epic battle, seeing players realizing the dream of being a champion.

But, as the game is over and the commercials are forgotten, don’t put away your voices and fervor until next February.

Remember what He says in Ps 150 “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” You can have Super Sunday every week!

1 Thessalonians 5:6 - So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.

I have a long commute to work (1 hour each way). Sometimes, I drive on autopilot. I’ll get to a certain point and not even remember driving that far! I pass road signs, speed limit signs, other cars oblivious to what is going on around me. Then, I may see a police officer, or almost change lanes with a car next to me. I snap back to awareness, paying attention to all around me as I go. My senses are on full alert.

Do you ever find yourself that way spiritually? You are cruising along, going through the motions. Something happens and you look around - “How did I get here?” You realize you’ve been on autopilot - not reading the Word, not listensing to His voice, not repenting or giving thanks.

This scripture reminds us that we need to stay aware and alert. He won’t let us stay on autopilot for long before he sends a wake up call!

As I sit here, I am considering that there is a new four letter word in our society that no one wants to hear today. It is the word WAIT. In the fast paced, fast food, drive thru society we live in today, people have lost all patience with everything. Take driving to work in the morning for example, more and more it has become more of a race track experience than anything. They weave left and right to get ahead, only to be right beside you at the stop light. They honk and make unkind gestures to you and give you looks that could kill all because we have lost all will to wait. What about the Christian you might ask, surely they are different? But are we so much different, when God doesn’t move fast enough for us, don’t we always have a plan B ready? If church goes a half hour over aren’t we on the edge of our seats?

 I challenge us all to fight the culture of the day and to study the deep riches of those who faithfully waited upon the Lord in His word. I am reminded of the many songs that sing of this experience, “As I wait upon the Lord I grow stronger,” “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” and my personal favorite, “Waiting on You, waiting on You, patiently waiting on You, I’m not worried about the time, cause Lord I seem to find, strength while I’m waiting on You.” You may have been waiting days, weeks, months, or even years, but don’t give up, God is faithful to do what He said He will do. Wait upon the Lord, and in that you will find strength.

ONE TIME JESUS CHRIST WAS ASKED WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT GOD TELLS US TO DO.? AND HE DIDNT SAY EARN A SIX FIGURE SALARY.HE DIDNT EVEN SAY LIVE A HEALTHY LIFE.HE SHOT BACK THE ANSWER IMMEDIATELY. HE SAID LOVE GOD,LOVE PEOPLE. THATS IT.NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT.NOTHING MORE VALUABLE.EVEN WHEN TALKING ABOUT CHURCH AND WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN AT CHURCH THERE WAS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT OR VALUABLE TO JESUS CHRIST.

2 Peter 1
God has given us ALL we need through our knowledge of Him. But, what do we need to do to tap into it??

In v5, Peter says “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive…”.

In v9, he goes on to say that we that don’t have those, “has forgotten that he has been cleansed from past sins.”

Day to Day life tends to lead us to forget that we have been cleansed, that all we need is the knowledge of the Lord.

Daily add to your faith the knowledge of Him and become productive and effective, and escape the corruption of the world.

Beloved,while i twas very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation,i found it necessary to write to you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 3

You cannot read the New Testament without concluding that healing and signs and wonders were at the core of both Jesus’ and the early church’s ministry.As we read those accounts in the Gospels, the book of Acts, and the Epistles and read about what God has done through modern Pentecostal history,we can feel like Gideon before the Angel of the Lord saying…..” where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about….?’ The answer to our cry to see Gods power is us: We must position ourselves and stir ourselves to move in the anointing God has given us. The question is, “Are we willing to cross the hurdles we must cross to get there?” The path will be filled with obstacles and set-backs. However, the passionate contenders will possess the promises of Scripture. Like Israel,we have an inheritance if we will fight for it and believe.

Isaiah 43:18-19, 25 - 18Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert……v25I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

If we’re going to move forward, we’ve got to stop living in the past, and to do that, we need to understand that it isn’t God who’s bringing up the past! In verse 25 He says that He is the one that forgets it, erases it, and puts it into the past. So who is it that brings it up? Who keeps rehearsing the failures of yesterday? It’s not God! Well it would have to be the one that doesn’t want you to move forward! Satan fights your future, with your past.

Remember Joseph? Notice that in Joseph’s life, there is not one passage of scripture where there is mention of Joseph looking back. Not once did he say, “My life would be different if my brother’s wouldn’t have thrown me into the pit, or my life would be different if that woman wouldn’t have lied on me, I’d be doing really good in Potiphar’s house.” Once he was cast into the pit – not one mention that Joseph looked back. He refused to look back; he was convinced that God had put a dream in his spirit.

When you’re having one of those days, you might have to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself “get over it.” Or get past it. Nobody can impact your tomorrow like you can impact your tomorrow. You’ve got to believe the promises of God. See God didn’t just erase those things in your past, He blotted them out!! That’s better than erasing it! You could take the piece of paper that your sins were on after God blotted them out and give them to the CSI team, in Vegas, Miami, or New York and THEY couldn’t find any record of them!!!
So we need to FOR-get-over it

In Genesis 41:51-52, Joseph named his firstborn son Manasseh…which means “He made me to forget” – the name of the second he named Ephraim, which means He made me to be fruitful in the midst of my affliction. I believe that order is correct! If we’re going to be fruitful, we must first “for”get over it!

There are no successful people that haven’t had to overcome some things, some mistakes where they just blew it. Everybody’s been through something!

It’s time to stop looking back – and move forward!

SALVATION TESTIMONY

I was born into and raised by a large secular family of 11. Yet God called me at age 3 ½, saved me at age 4, and branded my heart with evangelistic purpose for life that compelled me forever to seek God.

God gave me a Word in my spirit, consecrated me, and anointed me with extraordinary abilities and blessings as I grew up. However, within one year of graduation, the purpose it seemed that God had prepared in me throughout childhood, seem to disappear overnight.

I awoke into a wilderness where I have lived for 30 years—which is the same as until 4 ½ years ago, when God revealed Himself to me in the hospital and made covenant with me on July 2004. Within a few months, Larry and I were led to Life Church and have been growing there since. It’s God’s Provision to the request I made in the covenant —which I asked to connect, belong to, unite with Holy congregation and have Holy mentor for spiritual guidance.

You see, Larry and I never attended church anywhere our whole lives (except as visitors with friends), nor ever belonged anywhere until Life Church. And we are 54 years old! It’s a MIRACLE!!!!!! Oh there are so many…I’ve been writing them the past few years…obviously it’s becoming a book.

In me is a very rich fountain springing forth. A fountain in me that is not new, but for you to see in me is new. This is as brief as I’m able to get. Amen!

Few things mean as much to parent’s hearts as raising their kids to love and serve God. But in this day and age, how is that accomplished? When the Israelites first entered Canaan, the pressures of a pagan world threatened constantly to lure them and their children into sin. God’s words to them for parenting and life apply just as much to us today as ever.

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-12

You will never succeed in raising children to love God by using rules. Paul stated clearly in Romans 7:4-6 “that the law brings death and only the Spirit brings life.” You may succeed in temporarily curbing their outward behavior, but capturing their hearts requires much more.

True love for God is more “caught” than “taught”.

Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all YOUR heart, all YOUR soul, and all YOUR strength” (NLT).

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 “And you must commit YOURSELVES wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your CHILDREN.”

In the New Testament, Jesus affirmed that the greatest commandment of all is to love God with YOUR whole self. If you really want your children to love God, you must begin by taking an inventory of your own love for Him.

Consider the following questions:

Is your love for God a love of words or actions? (See 1 John 3:18.)
Do you really know Him, or do you just know about Him?
Do you depend on Him? Does His opinion mean more to you than anyone else’s?
Do you hunger to spend time with Him, and do your children see that hunger
played out?
Are you as in love with Him, as you want them to be? Is your love
sincere?

You will never succeed in raising kids to love God if you do not first wholeheartedly love Him yourself. Instead, you will be modeling before them a hypocrisy they will see through or worse still, learn to imitate perfectly.

Luke 24:13

As the women were walking to Emmaus, Jesus joined them. They did not recognize Him. Verse 16 says they were kept from recognizing Him. Why?

It is because the were focusing on what they saw (or didn’t see). They didn’t see Him at tomb even though they were told He had risen. They said they had hoped He would be the One to redeem Israel. But they lost hope, because of what they had seen.

Jesus chastised them for believing what they saw, instead of believing what the Prophets and Scriptures had said about Him. They even noted that their hearts were burning inside them as Jesus opened the Scriptures to them.

Oh, how often I miss that I am in the presence of Him, because I am so focused on what I have seen, or not seen, instead of concentrating on who He is and what He has said…

I will NEVER leave you nor forsake you…..

Lord, let your Scriptures burn in my heart also!