Where there's Life there's Hope

These past few weeks have been so awesome and amazing, I have not even been able to find time to blog about it. My apologizes friends. Two weeks ago we had Gary Weins from IHOP come and teach in our class for a week. It was mind blowing. Gary Weins has so much wisdom and knowledge of the Bible. The Word really started to come alive to me during this week. The first few days he spoke about why we pray. Many people see prayer as a "christian duty" but it is so much more than that. Prayer is fellowship with the Lord. The Lord desires to communicate with us and show us who we are. The greatest calling in our life is for us to love him like the 1st Commandment says. God wants chosen lovers who are choosing to love Him. Something so simple as loving the Lord carries so much power when we actually engage with the Lord. So cool. We also talked about the book of Revelation. I never understood it much before but Gary's teaching was super solid on it. Really opened my eyes to the meaning behind the book. It was a really inspiring week.
This summer has been a lot of laying down things for the Lord. God is breaking me out of my comfort zone and teaching me to live outside the influence of fear. God has especially been doing that in the area of local outreach and evangelism. This past week we talked about power evangelism. One quote from Francis Chan that stuck out in my mind this week says, "Simon says, 'Pat your head,' we pat our heads. Jesus says, 'Go therefore and make disciples,' and we memorize that verse." Jesus' model for missions has not changed. It is the same today.You can not convey the gospel without preaching it. So many things get in the way of people actually doing that. For me it's been pride and fear but God has been constantly breaking that down this summer. I know what I am called to do and I carry the testimony of what God has done in my life. We all have powerful stories. The stories are never ending. Each day is a new testimony of what God is doing in my life.
I want to live the kingdom lifestyle that we read about in our Bibles. God has been revealing so much to me about what that means in just one month. I know he is not finished. There is so much hope in living a life for Jesus. I never want to serve anyone else but the Lord. Everything else is meaningless. I want to grow into who God made me to be. God has gifted me in so many things that I hadn't even realized. I want to use all those gifts for his glory. I ain't playing now. This is for real.