Welcome to a collection of articles for Lakewood Chapel and Eagle Rock Church.
Jesus is teaching us to Live in the Blessing Zone - Called to Live in the Fullness of Covenant Blessings
As He teaches, we will share with the body ... each of these articles will lift you higher ...
Holy Spirit is pouring His heart of Grace and Favor into our two churches - Why we were created and how to live in our inheritance RIGHT NOW!
Lock in to the promises of God by faith, and do not waver. Trust the Lord in these times,
no matter what your circumstances look like. Choose to live in the blessing zone!
Good Friday Service testimony of Grace and its impact! By Beth Hendricks 4/2/10
“He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”Psalm 24:4-5
In all my Christian years (except the last one) I knew that I didn’t have clean hands, or a pure heart, but I wanted to receive a blessing and righteousness from my Lord.What to do?
Ok, I’ll get up E A R L YE V E R YM O R N I N G and read my Bible, and pray, and I’ll attend every church service, and I won’t swear, I won’t get angry, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
Well, at first, getting up early and reading my Bible worked really well because I was really hungry for God, and I found Him in the pages of the Bible – really found Him as a Father, and Jesus – like I had never known Him before.
But then I read passages like the one in Psalms and I wondered…do I have clean hands?Do I have a pure heart?Am I doing enough?
You know what?I fell short.So I ‘struggled,’ which I understood was really great because it meant that my sin ‘bothered’ me (as it should!).
I raised the kids and went to work, and struggled to be ‘everything God meant for me to be.’ Falling short, getting really discouraged, and feeling pretty much condemned most of the time, I gave up and just coped with the struggling.
ah, Now, however, things are a little bit different in my house, in my life.There’s a revolution of LIFE.
If you remove the struggle, remove the guilt, remove the shame & condemnation, what do you have?
A new creation who is righteous in Christ!
If you remove the law, remove the old commandants, remove the blinders of religion off your eyes what do you have?
Grace!
In this past year I have fallen in love with Jesus!When I think of the finished work of the Cross, planned before the foundation of the world – I love Him more.I am no longer envious of those who speak of the beauty of Christ as though the know Him intimately and I do not.I gladly weep before the Father and His Son for the work they have done so that I can enter their rest.Do I want to sin more?No!I want to love more.I am in total awe of the mind-boggling realities of Christ in me, me hidden in Christ, and the eternal provision for me as I grow in belief and understanding of my identity in Christ.
Do I still struggle with my sin?
No!Not when I realize that I am a totally new creation – that old me with that old struggle is dead. I do have to renew my mind because 33 years of struggling with sin & trying to live under the law has left its imprint.
Then does that mean that I just go ahead and do whatever I want?
Again I say no!All I want to do is love more.
Was Psalm 24, the psalm I quoted in the beginning fulfilled completely in Christ?
yes!Listen to what it says in Hebrews 12:24, the Message: You’ve come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God.He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus became a proclamation of grace.
Hebrews 13:20:May God, who puts all things together, makes all things whole, who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus, the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant, who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd, up and alive from the dead, now put you together, provide you with everything you need to please him, make us into what gives him most pleasure, by means of the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah.All glory to Jesus forever and always!Oh yes, yes, yes.
God sees me and is happy with His Creation, and not only me – He loves ALL His creation and died for ALL of us.How can I treat my fellow man any less than with God’s compassion & grace.
In yet another paradox of God, when it is not “all about me” in my life and in my own thinking of how I have to change I have to be better – when it is not “all about me” and I believe and yield and trust Him –
then it becomes “all about me” in His eyes.
His care for me,
His love for me.
Me hidden in Him, Him in me as … me.
“HOW MUCH MORE? … MUCH MUCH MORE!” by Patty Steele
Matthew 7:11 If I then, once being evil, but now I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, know how to give
good gifts to my children, how MUCH MORE will my Father who is in heaven give good things to me. . . .
If I can give good things to my kids, my love, God's Love, impart to them life and hope, I can surely give these
things to them, how MUCH MORE will the Father give good things to me!
How MUCH MORE?
Father, I am asking to be totally blown away by Your Love MUCH MORE than I have ever experienced up until now.
The Father wants, desires, longs that I come to Him and, as Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, draw from Him MUCH MORE!MUCH MORE love!MUCH MOREGrace!MUCH MOREof His Goodness!
And the best part is that He says all I have to do is ask!
The Goodness of God – God’s Goodness by Pastor Janelle Fant
Matthew 19:16-17 (NIV) Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Jesus replied "Why do you ask me about what is good? "There is only One who is good.”
Jesus, in one brief sentence, directs this man attention and ours away from what is mankind’s propensity since the fall, to find a way to “get” to eternal life, to attain to God’s Life, and Jesus points to the only One who is good. For goodness is not just a behavior, something we must do neither is it a characteristic, it is a Person.
Jesus goes on to tell him, “But if you want to enter into this God life, keep the commandments.”
Now, we come face to face with the harsh reality of man’s total depravity, it is impossible for anyone to keep God’s commandments. On one side is this ancient need in man to get back to what is but a distant memory imbedded in the race that was created in the image and likeness of God, who shared and enjoyed a relationship and connection with his creator. A need that mankind isn’t even aware of but driven toward.
On the other side, man stands in the hopelessness of our bondage to sin and death and eternal banishment from the presence of God that our disobedience brought on us and has so totally and completely held mankind in its grip. We echo Paul’s anguish in the book of Romans, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death!
And in that very moment of deepest, darkest despair, when man cries out for what must I do . . . we hear the words: “there is only One who is good.” We lift up our eyes to see the One whose very Life is the embodiment of God’s Goodness to man. Who is the Brightness of God’s Glory and the express image of His person. We lift up our eyes and we see Jesus. In His splendor, in His beauty!
In man’s redemption we have such a wondrous view of divine goodness, a special kind of goodness. Luke 2:14 tells us what the angels cried out to mankind at the birth of This expression of the Father goodness: “Peace has come from God, Good will toward men.”
The heralding that God in His goodness had provided an atonement for sin, a perfect sacrifice. That Christ would take the sin issue that separated God and man out of the way by taking on all our sins, past, present and future on the Cross, once and for all, and endure the punishment that we deserve, eternal death. He became sin for us, the One who knew no sin. Goodness overcomes evil.
In this we find the true meaning of the GOOD news and it is truly even more glorious than this, God in Christ did not stop there for He is Good and that very Goodness has and will continue to transform us into Christ’s image.
We now have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, He was made poor, that we, through His poverty might be rich. We are partakers of the divine nature, that we have divine fellowship and oneness with the One who created us to show forth His goodness, grace and glory throughout the earth and enjoy Him forever.
God is Good, His very nature is Good. He is unfailingly good. And it is our destiny to have the goodness of God pass before us, to live in the constant reality of His favor dwelling with us. He is a Covenant maker and a Covenant keeper. We are to be secure in the nature of God, in His goodness for us and to us, resting in it, walking in it, living in it.
For the Lord is Good, and His mercy endures forever!
* * * * * *
Signal Fires on the Hills by Laura Williams
Prophetic Declaration: “Those who push through in this season during the birthing process, during the sieve process,
if they faint not - will see things they have only dreamed about! You are moving, you are being shifted and IT IS ALL GOOD!
Keep pushing, keep pressing forward – never look back. Follow the signals I have placed for you.”
During the worship one Sunday morning, I saw blazing signal fires set on hills, blazing bright fires – not small camp fires!
The hills were spaced very far apart and the terrain was lush and deeply green. These hills looked like Irish or Scottish
hillsides and those fires were very similar to the ancient fires used to communicate the start of ancient holy days, or when
the enemy was approaching. Many times these signal fires were also lit if a King was near and to prepare for him and the
company. What are signal fires?
The Irish and Scots also used signal fires to keep track of the English army during various rebellions. The Chinese used them
on the Great Wall of China to communicate over the great distances. American Indians used similar fires on the tallest hills
in the plains, and especially in California, to communicate over far distances.
Signal fires also had an ancient use by druids and the early American Indians tribes during religious rites
besides communicate. They were most often built in areas that had 4 intersecting roads (a very important point as
to where the fire is to be placed. All through Europe the sacredness of four roads meeting was often made significant
by heaps of blackened stones showing centuries of use). What is the significance of four lines meeting –
they form a cross! God was foreshadowing His Son even in other religions!
Here is what I sense:THAT morning during worship, God let me glimpse signal fires being set ablaze for the Great King
Jesus. I realized these signal fires were for the King coming into the field – HIS field. The field He bought with His own
blood at Calvary. He is coming and even now fires are being lit from hill to hill! The King of Glory is coming… and He is
coming in a new way to release new fire and new glory! Some of the fires I saw were strong and blazing, others were
weak. WE (the church) had the stuff to put on those fires to make them stronger. I realized that it was up to us to pile fuel
to light the way... to light the night....in many instances we were the actual fuel!
Then while I was seeing those fires in the Spirit realm during worship, my friend leaned over and said to me and
said, "Fires on hills!" She heard the words to the vision I just saw!
I showed her what I had just written down about what I saw in the spirit, and she showed me
the verse God gave her about the fires from Isaiah 30:33.
When I checked in my bible, the notes I have next that verse shows it is the triumphant end of a section beginning
in v.27 That section is a prophecy of how God was going to destroy the Assyrian army camped outside of Jerusalem.
The city leaders had left the city in fear to save themselves while Assyria was encamped outside ... these leaders were
caught (accurately prophesied by Isaiah in 30:15,16) then that very night the people in the city experienced Heaven's
host which came during deep darkness in a very scary way! These had to be blazing angels which passed over the city
(literal Hebrew meaning "decent of His arm" means 'passed over'. This specific Jewish phrase was used when the skeniah
glory was used in judgment and might by God) and actually through noise, hailstones and vibration destroyed the ENTIRE
Assyrian army. The city people then buried the huge dead army they found the next morning in that valley!
Signal fires and Isaiah 60 - The longer I held this word in my heart to gain deeper meaning - the more I realized God
is revealing mysteries to eyes and ears today. I am now crying out along with Heaven, “Pile higher the wood for the King
to see – let the fire heat bright and red-hot so all dross is burned away and what is left is a pure, shining signal
– COME LORD JESUS!”
Your passion in prayer, your exuberance in worship, your desire to make Jesus the central focus of your life will cause
the fire to burn bright! Become Isaiah 60 - THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHINING IN THE EARTH …. Become the stuff those
signal fires are made off! We (the church, the bride of Christ) will shine greater and greater as darkness increases.
When I Made My Bed in Hell, God was my Fireman! (Psalm 139:1-24)
By a grateful grace filled saint of God
Can God truly turn our blunders into blessings? Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever struggled to believe that He can? Yes, God can and He will! This is His heart!
Do you question God's unconditional, perfect love for you? I have, not because I doubted His ability or faithfulness, but like the man with leprosy who worshipped Christ and called out to Him, "Lord, if you are willing, would you make me clean," I think it's, "Lord, are you willing," the fear that He won't be, as if He could be compared to man who wouldn't be and didn't care about our needs. What is our faith in?
The goodness of God and His covenant with His Son, Jesus Christ, undoubtedly surpasses our human weaknesses and failures.
It is His covenant that even when we're not faithful, He still is. It is discovering the depths, height, width of the love of Christ for us, then learning how to receive it and enjoy it; learning how to be an intimate friend and covenant partner with God, not in fear, but with expectation that He's going to meet with us, that He wants to bless us; not based on our performance, but just because He's our "Daddy," Abba God who loves us.
My blunders have been so obnoxious and huge, it's amazing they haven't merged together and become one great big Blob. But "instead," God has turned them into blessings, some of which I least deserved and least expected, one of them, my wonderful son. This is GRACE!
Faced with an unplanned pregnancy seven years ago, at 36 yrs old, fearful of rejection & disapproval of man, feeling like a failure to God, myself and everyone around me, not knowing who I was, let alone how loved I was by God, feeling betrayed and abandoned by people and believing the lie that God had forgotten about me, doubting His promises He made to me, I thought my life & my unborn child's life would be cursed. Many negative thoughts went through my mind. Yet the Lord knows our thoughts and He knows the intent of our hearts.
Upon reading my bible, in spite of my soul's despair, God spoke to my spirit out of Isaiah 44 and reassured me I wasn't cursed, nor would my unborn child be, but "instead," the promise was this: "Don't fear you whom I have chosen, whom I formed in your mother's womb. I will help you. I will pour out water on dry grounds. I will pour out my Spirit and blessings on your offspring and descendants..." That pretty much did me in and helped me not abort and keep my baby, and oh, what a tremendous blessing and awesome child of God he is, this child of mine. That's just one promise. God restored a beautiful son to me, who is a miracle and a gift, as I gave birth to a son that died prematurely 18 years ago and was told I most likely couldn't have any more children.
A couple years ago, another display of God's restoration and love towards me when I made my bed in hell; God was my fireman! Have you ever struggled, as a Christian, in the area of purity? You try and try but that flesh seems to keep getting in the way? There are tests we must go through in the trying & proving of our faith journey; if we will yield to and allow Jesus to restore us with His all-sufficient love, even when lies are governing our emotions and we struggle with identity. I did for most of my life because I didn't "KNOW" God's love for me, His amazing grace, but rather believed I had to perform in order to earn His love, His approval and acceptance of me; and when I failed or something bad happened, I thought God was mad at me and bad things were going to occur, that He had forgotten and abandoned me, trying to find identity and love in all the wrong places, people and things.
When someone close to me seemed to have rejected me or betrayed me, I would turn to people and things to comfort me, instead of God. That's such a lie that robs us of life's vitality. It robs us from the truth God wants us to know about our sonship in Him, as well as our inheritance that He died for to give us!
Moral failure nearly destroyed my life and functionality. However, I've learned the cost and sacrifice of His love and life for me, and I am now whole and complete in Him.
Being a leader in ministry who falls within a church is difficult. It is most gut wrenching to disappoint people and believe they truly love you. I went to my leadership and told them what happened and began a journey of restoration. The hardest thing for me to release was ministry and pride, as I didn't believe God or anybody else could love me just for me, not having to perform for it. I was so fatigued "doing" for God that my "being" with God ceased and so did my relationship with Him. I was trying to please God and others, not knowing that God was already pleased with me through Christ's finished work on the cross.
When our "doing" becomes more important than our "being" with Him, we are headed for destruction. He wants to have our fellowship, our love, and when we put people, things, ministries before Him, before our love and time with Him, we are in great danger of being seduced by temporarily satisfying things. But only the Lord's love and fellowship can truly satisfy us, spirit, soul and body.
The beginning of my comeback was knowing and seeing and feeling and believing God was still pursing me with unfailing boundless love….even in the self-seeking condition I was in. People loved me and the Father's perfect love loved me back to life. Just like when the prodigal son was far off, the Father ran swiftly to meet Him, and before the son could say anything, the Father embraced him and kissed him. God pursues us and loves us even before we repent to Him. It's because of His GREAT GRACE through Jesus Christ that we are loved so perfectly, so abundantly, so restoratively.
When we start believing that we are everything to Him, come out from under condemnation, guilt, shame, and come in agreement with what He says about us, what He thinks about us, which is good, not evil, THEN that our lives can begin to be transformed. It is also then we can begin to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, then to truly love ourselves and others, because His great love enables us to love! God can speak to us through so many different venues: through unconventional songs, through billboards, through various people, books, any way He wants to get our attention, devotion and allegiance.
Whether we are leaders in ministry, or in the marketplace - no matter who we are - we all are susceptible to the lies which surround temptation and can fall. If that has happened in your life, I am here to tell you that GOD IS IN LOVE WITH YOU and will embrace you, will heal your emotions, will deliver you by His love alone. It His grace that is sufficient for you, and it is His sufficiency, El Shaddai, that He wants us to rest, rely and trust in to lead us into wholeness and ultimate success, not our self-sufficiency. The more you know who you are in His Love – the more you can come against those lies and instead believe HIM!
Here are some tips to make the journey easier!
1.) Stop fighting in the second heaven, relying in your ability or fighting against powers that are bigger than you, and start "going up" to Daddy God in the Spirit that He gave you, the Holy Spirit, deposited in you when you make Jesus Lord, where we rule and reign with Christ.
2.) Start reading that bible, praying the Epistles over your lives, believing that greater things are yet to come for your life, and believing what God says and thinks about you, focused on Christ and His faithfulness and love for you, not on your sins.
3.) Cling to the Lord and to His word. Let not unforgiveness or bitterness rule in your heart, but confess to God alone all your fears, all your hurts, just talk to Him and He will enable you to forgive others, give you answers, hope and a great future and even help you to see clearly.
4.) Don't stop going to church, no matter how the enemy attempts to dissuade or lie to you. We need one another and love! I know because I have experienced love and am finally free and whole, and every day I am experiencing what it is to know the Father's love for me and my household, and I want to give it away to everyone.
God told me two years ago, while I was running away from Him, thinking He wouldn't want anything more to do with me, that I was His Prodigal, He loved me and welcomed me Home, and lifted me out of the pit of hopelessness, depression and condemnation. This was when I made my bed in hell with another lover, not the Lover of my soul. God came to me at my very lowest, to my embarrassment, and I said to Him, in my heart, "God, what are you doing here?" He gently replied, "What are YOU doing HERE?" I didn't answer, shocked by His presence in the midst of my sin, thinking God couldn't want me back, wouldn't take me back, yet all the while He was right there watching, waiting for me to choose Him, the perfect Lover, pursuing me with radical grace and unconditional love. He never looked at the sin but looked at me with LOVE!
That love won me back. That love is keeping my soul!
There are many books that have given me strength and helped the renewing of my mind In Christ! I highly recommend Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince; The War is Over by Andrew Womack; The Power of the Blood Covenant, Grace Works, Grace Walk by Steve McVey; and the New Testament of the Bible, starting with the Pauline epistles, all of Romans and especially chapter 8, Hebrews, Galatians.
We are humans and sometimes we fail. "Whomever ABIDES in Him will not sin." The more you Abide - to rest, to dwell, to submit to, to fellowship with, to know – the more the sin issue dissolves and LOVE surrounds all your steps.
When we know, really know the finished work of the cross and all that it represents, the depths of God's love for us, that is the beginning of our restoration, our healing, our wholeness, our prosperity, our loving ourselves and loving our Daddy God!
God is in love with you. Come back to Jesus. Come rest in Him!
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