Being "like Christ"

I attended a conference held by two key members of the band Sleeping Giant. There we were taught how to strive for Christ-likeness. We saw live testimonies of people who couldn't be healed by doctors, but through prayer and declaration, they were healed. A quick example is a kid who had blindness in one eye due to a scarred retina from a rock that was thrown and hit his eye. Doctors did "everything they could", but three years later, he still had just one good eye. One of the members of the band prayed for him, and now he has 20/20 in both eyes. For the first time in three years this kid can see through both eyes!

We are commanded to be like Christ. Through relationship we can understand what that means. Christ healed the blind, thus we are also called to heal the blind. Christ healed the sick, the broken, and raised people from the dead. We are also called to these things. And if you doubt whether or not we are actually called to do this, think about the disciples. They cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, and all through the name of Christ. They weren't supreme beings in Heaven sent to save the world, yet they could do what Christ did. Christ commanded them to go to the world and make disciples, as they were. We absolutely can do these things through the power of God, in the name of Jesus. Will we see results every time? Possibly not. But what's to stop us from thinking we CAN see results every time? CAN God do these things? Yes. So why wouldn't He WANT to? If He commands us to be like Christ, then He is also COMMANDING us to be as faithful as Christ was. I've seen healing in person, I've been healed. It DOES happen, even today. Miracles are real. But the church is afraid of something they don't understand. They won't tell you that instant healing can happen.

When we pray for healing, declare it! Don't ask like you hope something will happen, declare like you expect something to happen. Faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. That's a bare minimum, so how much more can we achieve with much more faith than the size of a mustard seed? Wanting to see healing is part of loving the world as we are told to love. Love everyone, seek healing and restoration, and rely on the God of creation to come through. Doing what we are supposed to do, being who we are supposed to be, can change the world for the Kingdom. Love! Love! Love!

Grace.

A Quick Prayer

Father, I pray for breakthrough in this world of darkness. Shine Your light through all who follow You. Also, I pray for breakthrough for those who are sick and dying, but don't know the love You offer. Only You can save us. In Your name, I ask You to heal the broken, to renew those who need renewal. I ask for breakthrough in the church, that we would stand and initiate a revival in this world. Let us be who we are called to be. And I ask for breakthrough in our own lives and souls, that when presented with opportunity to declare who You are, that we will see with Your eyes, respond with Your love, and engage with Your wisdom. You are my King, my Savior, my Love. I praise You and thank You! Amen.

Be Bold

Today one of my co-workers was mocking me about being a christian. I didn't see it as a negative thing, I actually felt happy. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right. But in the midst of his mocking he challenged me. He started going on about how people have died in the name of religion, and it seemed he was trying to frighten me. I told him that I would willingly give my life in the name of Christ. Notice I did not say Christianity, for religion is not what I want to die for, but for Christ himself. He didn't say a word to me about it after that.
As I was driving home I couldn't help but think about what transpired in that moment. Not only did I represent Christ in a loving way, but I accomplished something I have never done before. I stood up in the face of intimidation. I can only give credit to the Holy Spirit, for I have a shy and avoiding personality.
It really got me thinking about how we as Christians tell each other to be bold, and stand for Christ. And I understand what that means just a little better I think. I did not start preaching, I did not get defensive. I simply smiled and stated exactly where I stand with my relationship with Christ, that I would give my life in His name.
We as Christians need to be bold, but need to understand the limits of our situation. If I had said anything else, he would have completely disregarded me and what I had to say. I know this because it's not the first time we've had discussions regarding this matter. But some situations call for us to preach, some call for us to simply be examples, and sometimes we are required to give a little push, and challenge the people who need to be challenged. The Spirit inside of us knows what the situation calls for, just let Him guide you in your boldness.
In conclusion, we can not be scared to state where we stand in our faith. We can't let the world intimidate us into silent submission. If someone threatens your life because you love Christ, is that not the highest honor we can achieve in this world? We have nothing to fear, for Heaven is our reward for being bold for Christ. Death can not taint that gift to us. So I encourage anyone who claims Christ in church, and around Christian friends, to claim Him everywhere else even more! He went through more pain then we will ever know, so how about taking a little pain for Him.
I want to especially acknowledge my sisters in this message. Girls you are in a time of your life that loving Christ will only get harder. Junior high is a tough place, a lot of kids will tease you and laugh at you, maybe even show anger toward you for loving Christ. I hope and pray that as you go through the rest of your school years, and the rest of your life, that you strive to be bold for Christ, and stand up for what you know is right. Not using bad words, loving others enough to help them when they ask, or simply when they look like they are struggling. Christ is the only thing we should be focused on, and when He is, boldness will become second nature. I love you both! And you are in my prayers that God will instruct you and use you in your generation.

Food for thought

I haven't posted anything in a while and I had a lot on my mind today, so I'll just throw this out there.
I've been training and taking classes to become a commercial diver. It is physically demanding and also very closely related to any construction job, the only difference being the way in which we reach the job site. So naturally this profession draws a lot of guys that are completely lost. The world of sex, drugs and alcohol is all they know. Profanity left and right, and choices that could not only ruin their career, but their lives as well. And then I walk in and change it up a bit. I don't have sex, do drugs, drink alcohol or even use profanity. At first I wondered if anyone saw me as a different person then everyone else, or if I blended in. Of course, knowing Christ does not want us to blend in, I hoped I wasn't.
A couple of weeks ago I had a guy at work ask me why I don't swear. I told him because I choose not to, I see no point for using language that usually will make people uncomfortable or bring them down in any way. He told me that he noticed I didn't use profanity and he couldn't seem to grasp it. I tried to make him understand that is through love I do not use that kind of language, he already knows I'm a Christian. So I clearly am being noticed. I even had a classmate tell me that he was working on cleaning up his talk. He came up to me to tell me that. I don't know if it was a sense of I might be judging him, or if I really am making an impact.
Everyone I work with and go to school with know I'm a Christian. Mostly because of my tattoo, which for me being not too engaging with people works out great because quite a few people have asked me about it.
So I guess the food for thought part of it is this. No one seems to dislike me. I'm easy to be around and everyone seems to want to talk to me every now and then. I am in no way being persecuted or mocked or mistreated. Now, for the record, none of that sounds like fun. But I almost am starting to wonder if I'm not doing enough. Am I really representing Christ like I should? My actions do, but should I be doing more? I feel that if we are really Christians that are really representing Christ, then we should be feeling persecution from somewhere. Now I don't know if they talk about me behind my back, but even if they do, I can't feel the persecution without knowing it exists.
So I guess if I was turning this into a message I'd say, we need to do more. We need everyone to know what we are, who we serve, and why. We need to show the merciful, yet just, love that Christ has for us. You can't be sitting and having a drink with the enemy on a battle field, can you? Not when the enemy is trying to kill you. But if the enemy is not trying to kill you, then are you really their enemy? We are in a spiritual war, and every battle has it's resistance. So shouldn't I be feeling it? Shouldn't we be feeling it? Time to kick it up a notch.

God's hand has been revealed yet again!

I just experienced the hardest 24 hours of my life. And God had His hand in every minute. So let me tell you about it...

I was having a normal day off, took care of some personal stuff and took it easy for the morning. My roommate and a couple other people decided that we wanted to take a boat to the backside of Santa Catalina Island in southern California. We were looking for some crazy waves to body surf and body board on. On the way out there we came on a huge pod of common dolphin. So I quickly put on my freediving gear and jumped in the water. Officially one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I had about eight dolphin swim about ten feet from me, and they were chatting up a storm. One even took a closer look at me to see what I was about. It was amazing! After I got in the boat, we found where they were headed. To a giant ball of fish that the birds and sea lions were getting in on. Just watching the dolphin feed on this huge ball of fish was simply incredible. Well, simply put, God's creativity and beauty was evident in all of it.

So we found a place to anchor a little farther down, on a beach with some sweet waves. Awesome beach, a lot of sand, a lot of big waves. At one point I was able to body board a wave about 30 - 40 yards into shore. It was exactly what we were looking for. As the afternoon progressed the waves got bigger. It became harder and harder to get past the surf to get back to the boat. The big sets went from 4 feet to about 6 feet in the two hours that we were there. Three of us were on the beach and one stayed in the boat. The two others I was with on the beach were having a hard time getting past the first set of breakers and it was getting dark. So I decided to go the boat by myself, because I was a stronger swimmer and more experienced with big waves. When I got there I grabbed all the ropes we had on the boat and tied them together and put a rescue float on the end. I pulled the anchor and backed up five or ten yards from the break waves. I threw the rescue float as far as I could so that the two on the beach could swim out grab it and I could pull them through the surf. I was right on the edge of the breakers, so I decided to begin to move forward. I looked back to see my roommate grab the float. As I turned around to start moving forward, a wall of water three feet above my head was coming at me. A wave that was about 7 or 8 feet tall. I immediately told my friend that was on the boat with me to hold on to something. At that point in time, five million things rushed through my mind. I was hopeless, I couldn't do anything but accept that this wave was going to crash right on top of us. I was ready to accept that Christ was going to be the next person I saw. I braced myself in a way that I would be able to push myself from the boat if I had to.

Then, like a concrete wall moving full force, it hit the boat. The initial shock from the wave was so powerful I felt the steering column attached to the bow being ripped off, and a few other things. The next thing I remember was being under the boat upside down. I shoved off and away to avoid getting rolled with the boat for another round. As I came up, immediately I began to look for everyone else. Somehow I ended up back in the boat, frantic, trying to do everything I could to try and save it. But it was full of water and barreling toward shore with every big wave. So I jumped out and helped one of my friends to shore.

From that point forward it was a lot of waiting on an inactive beach with no sign of life anywhere in the area other than the plants. We had no idea where the trails were and just ended up waiting on the beach, huddled together by a fire that we started with gas from the boat and a flare. After a lot of prayer, and waiting for about an hour and a half after the wreck, we heard a helicopter. Two actually ended up coming around the corner. I shot the flare gun and my roommate lit the stick flares. We had clearly gotten their attention and waited for someone to give us the next step. Nearly three hours later we saw a boat pulling into our area. A rescue swimmer came in and started to form a plan for us. What he came up with was, get back in the water and swim to the boat. The waves at this point were nothing short of six feet, and four to five waves were breaking at once. It was a nightmare coming to life. After a couple hours, the rescue swimmer swam my three friends to the boat, and I had to free swim on round three. It took everything inside of me to not turn around and head back to shore. We were getting pounded continuously by the waves, with only a couple seconds in between each one to take a breath. Every wave would push me back and I had to gain ground to get under the next. If I failed to get under any of them I knew I would get rolled back into shore. Bottom line, we all made it to the boat. We all had hypothermia before the boat had gotten there, so we all were freezing once we hit the deck.

Several hours later ended up back home at the camp we all work at. I went to sleep, three hours later, went to work. Of course, I couldn't sleep anyway, so I was feeling fine on the sleep front. I was beginning to feel all the pain that I couldn't feel that night. The others felt it all as well, I'm sure. Needless to say, the longest 24 hours of my life thus far.

So all that, and all I can really say is that God protected us. There is no other answer. We came to find out that the two helicopters were Navy and made a random run on the backside for no reason really. In that weather, it was a guarantee that no boats were going to pass by. God had His hand on us for sure. We left that place with nothing but sore muscles and a couple bruises, MIRACLE!

Thank you Lord for keeping us all safe, and whatever Your plan is for us, reveal it to us! I love you my Lord, Jesus Christ!

Christ said it, we live it.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Mt 7:21-23)

How many people claim the name of God, but still do not do the will of God? This is one of many verses that Christ speaks of us, christians, disciples of Christ, needing to be followers and doers and not just claim His name and accept what He has done for us. We are a body, but only the parts that function do any good. If we have a deformity or have lost the ability to use something that is a part of our body, God will restore that when we stand before Him and rid us of our deformity. As is what He will do to the body of the church. When we stand before Him, if we did not function the way we were called to, we will be thrown away. God will only keep the parts of the body that really served Him. Christians today don't understand this, and it is on my heart to make it known. It is time for us to stand up and make a difference.