My Heart's Cry: I Am A New Creation!!!

Today after class my heart was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, and all the scriptures that I had been meditating on these past few weeks, came boiling up inside of my like a hot tea kettle. I ended up writing this out in between classes and thought I would share it with you. My hope is that you would not only see a glimpse of my heart in this declaration of the new life that I have in Christ, but that God would also use it to speak to you, and that you would receive a deeper revelation of the new life that you have in Jesus.

God has made you a victor; and he has commissioned you to go and walk in this victory.

Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, leads you in a triumphal procession.

The fullness of the deity now lives in you and has given you power and authority.

The name that every knee shall bow to, that is above ALL disease, ALL sickness, ALL lies,

Now lives IN you, and YOU bear that name.

YOU are co-laborers with Christ. YOU are now an HEIR.

YOU now approach the throne of grace with confidence

YOU now ask for anything in His name!

The question is WHAT ARE YOU ASKING FOR!

Father I want to know you; I want to know the hope to which I’ve been called to,

 To know the riches of the glorious inheritance I have been given in the saints,

And to know the incomparably great power you have given me who believes.

I want to know you and your voice.

To know who I am in you; to know that you have given me NEW life. 

To know that in this life, NOTHING can stand against me.

 I want to know your love and to become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

 I want to live my life with a revelation of who you are and to be renewed in the attitude of my mind.

 I want to know that the healing power of Christ resides in me and that because of that, no fear, no insecurity, no hurt, no pain, no bitterness no lie has ANY hold over my life.

I was dead, and now I am alive.

I used to be corrupt; broken; alienated; and hostile towards God.

But now-- I’ve been made new;

 Whole; adopted; redeemed; reconciled; and restored IN Christ.

No longer am I in rebellion but now I am in submission; Submission to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; my precious King who waves his banner over me in love.

My King who does not treat me as my sins deserve or repay me according to my iniquities; who forgives ALL my sins and heals ALL my diseases,

Who redeems my life from the pit and crowns me with love and compassion.

I sing in his presence; in Him I can do all things. ALL things are possible for me.

 My competence does not come from myself but from Him who equips me and sustains me to do the impossible

 I am no longer a natural being living an average life but a supernatural being living an extraordinary life.

There are no boundaries for what I can do in him.

I can do everything through him who gives me strength

Making the decision to honor in areas of offense

  The last day of Powerhouse Summerfest was awesome! Worship was insanely great and on top of that, we had a techno rave party that was CRAZY along with a heavy metal band called “The Chariot” which rocked the roof off of our church. Sometimes I wish I had enough guts to jump into a mosh pit but I know I would get absolutely destroyed if that ever happened haha! (and I’m sure I’d break a toe or something considering that I wouldn’t be wearing closed-toed shoes but rather my good and faithful Chacos; aka: my Jesus sandals :-)

Out of the various talks on Friday my favorite came from Hillsong City campus pastor Chrishan who gave an unbelievable message about honor.  Chrishan pointed out how easy it is to become offended by the people we were so amazed by; it’s easy to grow an attitude of offense towards people. We need to learn to honor what we’ve grown familiar with (so good!!!)

How true is this statement! I can’t even begin to count the number of people that I have placed on pedestals or have had high expectations for only to be let down or disappointed once I realized that they’re broken just like me. We’ve all done it; it’s part of our human nature. The challenge here isn’t to stop placing people on pedestals but rather, to change how you respond to someone once you see that they aren’t who you thought they were. What do you do in that situation? Do you run? Do you cut them out of your life? Do you begin to talk bad about them? It’s funny how fast the pendulum swings once the junk in other people’s lives come out. Now instead of being amazed by your preconceived notions towards an individual, you are not only let down by these expectations, but now this person’s behavior OFFENDS YOU! It actually bothers you and causes you to become bitter or resentful and even pissed that you ever thought differently towards them. Clearly this is bad! But I must confess, the reason why this talk was so influential for me was because there were people in my life that I was wearing offense from.

So how do we get out of this cycle of having expectations for people only to be let down over and over again? Chrishan made an excellent point by saying that we need to adopt an attitude that seeks TO honor; not to BE honored. Wow. How freaking humbling is this!?! This statement is literally the opposite of how my flesh is designed. But isn’t that the beauty of the gospel; it takes the standard by which we measure the world and ourselves and flips it upside down. Imagine the change that would occur in your life if your heart really got this. Imagine what kind of freedom you would walk in if your thoughts, actions, and energy were focused in a way to honor OTHERS instead of seeking honor for yourself. Scripture is clear that we are called to take on the nature of a servant. Jesus repeatedly challenged his disciple to not be concerned with titles or positions but to humble yourself and that the Lord would lift you up in due time.

So how do you honor all people?

You search for the gold in someone and put weight on that. Honor = putting weight on something

Ø  Even in the midst of discovering the insecurities in people make the decision to honor.

o   If you choose the path of dishonor the only person who will be damaged is you

Ø  Maturity = the ability to honor AFTER you see how fallible and insecure people are

Ø  Decide to honor for every reason there is to dishonor

Ø  When we fail to honor people we aren’t allowing God to use us to work in other people’s lives. We are robbing ourselves

Ø  We can honor others with…..our possessions, words, actions, and heart

Ø  When we honor we bring back wonder and amazement in areas that were once full of offense

Ø  Luke 14:7—parable of the wedding feast; take the lowest place so you can be esteemed and not humbled

Anywho, hope you enjoyed this blog and were challenged by some of the points. I know for me, I’ve been challenged just by revisiting this talk.

My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord....

Quick update: last night our church had "Vision Sunday" where our senior pastor Brian Houston gave vision for the entire Hillsong community (one thing that Hillsong does extraordinary well is leadership. Even if I don't learn a single thing from a theological perspective during my tenure here, I'm learning a crap load about leadership, character, vision and longevity). On top of that, we had baptisms where hundreds of people got baptized. Long story short--I got completely WRECKED by the Holy Spirit! I am not kidding when I say wrecked. At one point I was hunched over, head down, ugly crying my heart out (you know the kind of crying where it's almost like you're barking? Yep that was me) Praise God that there was music playing, otherwise people would have thought I was possessed if they had heard my wailing haha!

I don't know how to put into words what happened but basically I feel that God gave me a glimpse of his heart for humanity. I saw the world's need for God; I saw on a greater scale the world’s brokenness and how God is the ultimate solution. Over and over I could hear God telling me "I am the great solution; the ultimate hero. I specialize in making things as they should be; restoring, redeeming, breathing life upon."

JESUS IS THE HOPE FOR HUMANITY!!! (I got a deep deep DEEEPPP revelation of this!)  At one point I couldn’t even lift my head towards heaven because the glory of the Lord was too much for me. All I could do was sit down and bend over and literally sob. Hysterical sobs. My body couldn’t contain all that my heart was feeling.  God then went on to tell me that the church exists to carry this message; a message of hope to a broken world. He is the answer for all of humanity and his message of reconciliation is one that needs to go to ALL the ends of the earth impacting every social stratosphere, race, gender, culture etc...HE is the answer to the human condition! HE is hope!--and I am his ambassador; he uses me to make his APPEAL to people (“We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us”—2 Corinthians 5:20) On top of that, He's allowing me to become just like him ("and we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit"—2 Corinthians 3:18)—Christ is patient, Christ is kind, he does not envy, he does not boast etc...

I also got a glimpse of his steadfast love for creation (go read psalm 145 and basically I saw that). I don't know how to describe what happened next except that "my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" At this point while I was crying out to God, it randomly turned into groans (only a few). I felt like that passage in Romans where it talks about how all of creation groans with eager expectation;" We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:22) I felt like my heart was screaming to the Lord that He lives! He is my rock! My rescuer! Abba Father! What a friend we have in Jesus! In his presence there is fullness of joy!—I felt the heart of the Father and wept uncontrollably for 45 min (and I mean uncontrollably!) To sum it up I saw the hope of the Lord like never before. What made this night extra special for me was the fact that I had been praying Ephesians 1 over my heart/mind for the past few weeks asking that “the eyes of my heart would be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which I’ve been called to” Yep I'm pretty sure God answered that prayer.

Anywho, thought I'd attempt to share what happened but honestly I'm still processing it all. I've never encountered the Lord like that before but I'm definitely not complaining about it! I'm looking forward to continuing to receive deeper revelations about his character and heart and pray he continues to conform me to his image.