Pages

Monday, December 29, 2008

Your Love is Like

Your love is like the rain
Falling on my soul
It's covering every place
Making gardens grow
The sweetness overflows
Pouring from your lips
The kisses from above
Let the heavens drip
Let 'em drip down
Let 'em drip down


Your love is like the ocean
I'm drowning in your Presence
Your love is like the ocean
I'm drowning in your Presence


Getting lost in the gaze of your eyes
Getting lost in the warmth of your smile
Getting lost in the gaze of your eyes
Getting lost in the warmth of your smile


Your love is like a room
Full of precious jewels
It takes my breath away
There's riches beyond words
When it's just me and you
I can't remember storms
All I can do
Is melt into your arms


Your love is like the ocean 
I'm drowning in your Presence


Let the heavens drip
Let 'em drip down
Let 'em drip down
Let the heavens drip down


"Your Love is Like" -Rick Pino
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn4oT0QJyNY


Saturday, December 27, 2008

The last of the homeless for now...




Round 3:

The top picture is a picture of our 200+ Christmas presents that we passed out to all the homeless men.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Homeless Outreach Continued


Round 2

1. Top left: Homeless man that we have been getting to know. Top right: the guy in the yellow shirt danced and worshipped the whole time we were down at the parking lot. Paul, Sherri, Kristen, Stevie and a few others brought instruments and sang Christmas songs, and this guy was dancing 45 minutes before they started and all the way up until we left. Bottom left: this guy had been shot in both legs a few years ago, and has never been able to walk without his leg brace and cane. He got completely healed and the rest of the afternoon walked around carrying his cane and his brace. Bottom right: Scott prayed for this guy who has been deaf since birth, and slowly he started being able to hear noises from certain distances, and by the end his ears completely opened up and he could hear whispers.




Homeless Outreach

1.
2.
3. 
4.


What each picture is all about:

1. Scott Thompson got a word at Jesus Culture Dallas that whenever he'd go into a city, there would be a white-breasted hawk as a symbol that God is giving him the keys to that particular city. From the moment we got to the parking lot for our outreach Christmas party, a white-breasted hawk flew into a tree that overlooks the parking lot. He stayed til we started to pack up.

2. The Hug Line: All the homeless men had to line up and come through our "Hug Line" in order to get a Christmas gift (hygiene kits, blankets, ponchos, hats, gloves, and scarves), coffee, hot chocolate, candy and cake. 

3. Our friend Jonathan got up out of his wheelchair for the first time in TWO YEARS about 3 weeks ago. He's been practicing walking every day and wanted to take 2 laps around the parking lot to show us how good he's been getting. He has had severe rhumatoid arthritis, but God is healing him more each day. 

4. These four are all significant. The top left corner is our weekly homeless outreach team praying in the parking lot. This is the parking lot where all the men gather to get hot meals from other churches, and lots of love from us. We have taken back this territory for the last 5 months and are seeing incredible changes happen...people leaving and getting jobs, people getting healed, people wanting to pray with us for their friends....and so much more. The top right corner is Warren holding Jonathan's hand as they walked around the parking lot. "Every place that the sole of your foot treads will be yours" Deut 11:24. The bottom left picture is of Drew Kaiser praying before going down to the parking lot. And the bottom right picture is of Ralph praying over all the beds that the men sleep in every night. 


Blogger won't let me post any more pictures right now, but I'll add some a little bit later. 

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Identity

This post will be short, and hopefully I'll expand on this topic later on, but I wanted to touch on the importance of knowing our identity. 


When we become a Christian, every sin, past, present, and future gets nailed to the cross. We become engrafted into Christ's lineage and we are no longer "sinners," but saints. So when people say that they are a "sinner saved by grace," that's not right. We no longer claim sin as our own. It is no longer a part of our nature. We have a new nature and we have the mind of Christ. We have stepped into the "holy priesthood." We are adopted sons and daughters of God. To still claim anything from our old nature would mean that a)we don't believe that God's work on the cross was sufficient to cover all of our sins or b)we have forgotten what we lost and what we gained through Christ. 


We need to know our identity.  We live out of who we believe that we are. If we believe we are sinners, we are only going to see the multitude of sin in our lives. We won't see the incredible gifts God has placed inside of us, nor will we want to grow those gifts for His glory. If we believe that we were made for "greater things" than Jesus did (John 14:12), we will live to a higher standard of purity and of righteousness because we fully know and believe in who we are. We will see God's standard, and know that Christ in us makes that standard possible. Nothing is impossible with God. 


The prophetic is hearing God's voice for someone else. The purpose of the prophetic is to call out the "gold" in people. To bring out who God has created them to be. To cast a vision for the anointing that they have and the call on their life.  Scott Thompson tells a story about how purity was a big issue in his life around the time when he became a Christian. But he had all these people around him telling him that he was going to "break the chains off of a generation." We need people to remind us of the amazing things that we are called to do. Sometimes we are so bogged down in sin that we can't see the call on our lives. We're still in the "process" of realizing our call and vision. 


In our homeless outreach, we don't point fingers and tell people what they're doing wrong. We tell them how great they are and what incredible things they are capable of. Having the gold in them called out reminds them that they are called to greater things. That they are better than their situation. They feel empowered and not defeated. They feel loved and encouraged. They start living like they believe they are awesome and worth it and capable of chasing after the big dreams God placed inside them. They want to believe that they are great and talented, but the world keeps shouting at them that they are worthless. Sadly much of the Church screams the same message.


 "All creation is longing for the sons of God to be revealed..." (Romans 8:19). All creation is longing for us to start walking in the fullness of who we are. To rise up. To believe that we are called to do "greater things" than Jesus did. To heal the sick. To raise the dead. To love and give extravagantly. To know the presence of God and feel the shifts of His Spirit. To make earth as it is in heaven. Not to sit in a corner and say we aren't good enough, that we don't have the skills, to say that there is nothing good in us...saying that there is nothing good in the creation does not glorify the Creator. 


We are saints that have been created in God's image. It's time that we live like we believe who God says that we are.