I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am the head and not the tail. I am above and not beneath. I am blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. I am God’s favorite. Jesus paid it all for ME. I am more than an overcomer. I am filled with the Holy Spirit and power. I am a threat to the devil. My daddy owns the cattle on a thousand hills, so finding me a car is no trouble for him. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and well in me. I am blood bought. My future is sealed in heaven. I believe in spiritual warfare, and through me and Jesus, and Jesus’s power and authority in me, we’ll kick satan’s butt. I know who I am. God makes all things well, therefore I am beautiful because God made me. I am hand picked by God. He has a plan for me. I am going to do big things. I have a successful future ahead of me. I walk in the favor of God at every turn. I am always at the right place at the right time. When Jesus died, he was thinking of me. Jesus loves me.

Session 1

Restore 1. To bring back into existence, use. -God’s hobby is putting you back together. 2. Everybody needs to be restored. -Sin = using your mind, your body, and your heart in a way they were never meant to be used. 3. Signs of decay: -hardness -dysfunction -ego -self medicating

A. You must start by getting out of the junkyard.

B. Take the whole thing apart and clean it. -Quit being fake!

1st Peter 2:9

Session 2 1. Cover each other’s backs -get accountability 2. Never go out after dark -don’t be susceptible 3. Always be ready to fight -sin will be ruthless on you; be ruthless on sin! 4. Think about what you consume -garbage in, garbage out 5. Tell your partner immediately -if you have an accountability partner, use it!
6. Limit contact -no temptation 7. Never go near the original contact source. -don’t be an idiot!

Session 3; A. Responding to Failure 1. Learn from your mistakes -when you don’t, you put yourself in the position to keep doing it. 2. Blaming others 3. Expecting to (or not to) fail again -think it through. Don’t be too strong. Face it. •Proverbs 26:11 4. Internalizing defeat

B. We let it define us. 1. If you internalize failure, it will alter the way you view your life. •Proverbs 24:6 -Following Jesus is not about never falling. Following Jesus is about never quitting.

Session 4 1. God wants to restore you because he wants to use you as a key to restoration for others.

I’m on the way back from the girl’s basketball game. They won. :) as we are coming back, I am looking at all the beautiful outside scenery. I look at it and I think to myself, how can anyone say that there’s no God? I mean how can they? All of this did not just happen through some sort of atmospheric bang. Mohammed did not make this. The universe did not form itself. There is no way you can see all of this and deny the presence of an all-powerful, omnipresent, omniscient, amazing God. It truly amazes me that God in all of his huge, holy greatness could (and would:] ) focus on such detail, and such smallness. And to take that a step further, what REALLY blows my mind is that he does it simply because he loves me. It’s a beautiful picture to me. And also, when I see how much beauty a place like earth has, I can only know that this place does heaven no justice. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me up there! I know there will be no words to describe it that we can think of down here. I don’t want anyone to miss out. But the sad thing is, I know some people are going to.. Gabe for example. She claims to know God, but I know she doesn’t KNOW God. This breaks my heart simply in knowing that if I don’t reach her, she will go to hell. I can’t live with that. I dearly love her, and I want her to love Jesus so much more. He already does.

So a couple days ago, I read this book called Heaven Is For Real. It’s a true story about this little boy who has a ruptured kidney . The toxic acids and fluids in his stomach had been in his body for five days, causing him to pass away. He goes to heaven. While he’s in heaven he sees all these incredible things. As he later explains these things to his parents, they come to realize that he had truly been in the presence of God. As he described Jesus to his dad, he focussed directly on not what he looks like, but how he feels toward us. So many times, he told his dad how much Jesus loves the children, I mean he really REALLY loves the children. While in heaven, Colton met so many people. He met Pop, his dad’s grandfather while he was with the holy spirit. He and Pop talked and talked about how his dad was, the things they did while he was a kid, and how much he couldn’t wait for Todd to be there. He also met his sister. His other sister. His mother had had a misscarriage and lost his older sister. There was one particular day when he told his dad that Jesus’ cousin had baptized him. He said, I don’t remember what his name is, but he was really nice. He met John the baptist. Legit? I think so. During his time there, he also got to go to the throne room. He says that God’s chair is so huge, because God is the biggest one there. He said that right next to God, was Jesus’ chair, and that on the other side, was where the angel Gabriel stood. He made many remarks about all the brilliant lights and colors-colors that weren’t even in our spectrum. Colton stated that everyone in heaven was equipped with either a bow and arrow or a sword. When asked why, he simply replied that satan wasn’t in hell yet. They had to keep him out of heaven. So many more wonderful things happened to Colton in heaven, but one of the most amazing to me is that Colton was only in heaven for-get this… Three minutes. Three. That is so mind blowing to me. There’s no time in eternity. A day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. And you either spend that living a joyous, God-filled life in heaven, or you spend it burning in hell. The thought of anyone going there saddens me to no end. In the bible, it says that God is not willing that any should perish, all they have to do is choose him. That brings me to my next point. Leeann. It deeply distresses me that she doesn’t love Jesus yet. I love that little girl. She has lied to me, called me as well as Jesus mean names, and I’m sure much more. But I know that I KNOW that He loves her still. All I want for her is for her to know in her heart of hearts the Jesus loves her, and that she will be with Him for eternity. That’s all. I want her to know just how precious she is in his eyes. I pray for her continually, and I will keep doing it. She needs to know that even though bad things have happened in her past, Jesus loves her, he hasn’t given up on her, he has a plan for her life, and most importantly, that he did NOT do this to her. She told me about it today, and I just don’t know what to tell her to bring her encouragement. She needs God so bad, and she is searching for him everywhere. Just in all the wrong places. I just want her to have Jesus so bad. Since I’ve read this book, it’s almost been like God is pushing me to go farther with him. It’s been hard but it’s almost like I can hear him saying “Alright Hope, are you in or not?” I’m definately in, but sometimes it’s just hard. But if I am being counted worthy of the cause, then it all becomes worth it.

An old friend of mine blogged this recently. I’ve been seeing and feeling a lot in my spirit about worshipping in spirit and truth, and I have never really grasped it. I gotta say though, I haven’t taken the time to fully read this, I’ve just skimmed it. But from what I’ve seen, it’s dead on. I know I need to learn more about not only worship, but also what God wants from me. I committed my life to full-time church ministry at Youth America last summer, and I really felt that call tugging on my life. I still feel it, but it’s not as strong. My prayer has been that what God wants for me would be what I want for me. I believe he has called me to worship, but I have such a burden for hurting people, especially abused and exploited children. It hurts my heart that any human would do that to one of God’s own, made in his likeness. I know I am called to bring freedom to them. I can make a difference. I digress… Well anyway, here it is. Spirit and truth.

Spirit & Truth

Thoughts, questions, and confessions on worship and the Spirit. As always, I’d love to hear your heart in response. I haven’t written in a while, but just to say: I write to share my honest heart about what’s happening in my life, and hope God uses it somehow in your life. I don’t have everything figured out, but God holds everything in His hands, and I am His.

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” - John 4:23

//What do you think it means to worship the Father “in Spirit and in truth?”

//If God is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth, yet we don’t always live by the Spirit alive within us(!)… how does that affect us Sunday morning when we gather to worship together, as one body?

//What things keep us from worshipping Him in Spirit and in truth?

“So it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned. He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes. He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage… we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead.” - A.W. Tozer

I have been bombarded with this kind of spiritual oppression in my life over the past few months. I’ve been shot down, believing lies about myself - about my heart, that it is not good; about my talent, that I’m really not that great; about my image, that I am not beautiful; about my relationships with others… that I’m going to cause them to crumble.

God has been so faithful, though. He has spoken truth to my heart through His word, through His Spirit inside me, and through amazing people by whom I have been incredibly blessed. He has shone the light of His truth in the areas of my life that have been attacked. He has revealed to me that in believing those lies, I have been condemning myself and letting that self-condemnation warp my understanding of how God sees me.

 "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” - Romans 8:1-11

His word, His promise, who He is, who we are in His Son… all truth.

His Spirit is alive in me and has brought me to life.

Any feelings of condemnation or worthlessness are lies intended to steal, kill, and destroy. Christ came so we may have life to the fullest [John 10:10]

That security and love should lead us to never stop worshipping God.

//Does my worship reveal that I believe this with all I am?

//How easily am I distracted by lies that keep me feeling like I’m still in my grave clothes… still spiritually dead?

//What about you?

If you are in Christ, you are alive. Any feelings that contradict that are an attack on your heart by an enemy set against your God. You and I cannot believe those lies. We need to fight for each other’s hearts and rejoice together that we who are saved are alive, and have life abundantly. Let us unreservedly express this in how we worship any time we get to meet together!

Today, as it is valentines day, I woke up and went to school with low expectations. As I am single, I didn’t really expect much. In band today, Kara and I were joking about how we were ‘boycotting’ valentines day. Kylie was there, and as we were walking to 2nd period, she really put things into perspective for me. She told me that I didn’t need to say things like that, or act that way because I’m never alone, and I always have a valentine. Jesus! How cool is that?! I always knew about that, but I never really thought about it until I heard it come out of her mouth. It really struck a chord with me, especially because Danae retweeted that exact same thing. That is amazing to me. And not only did God use Kylie to put me in check, but just throughout the day, he just kept on sending me little blessings. :) I didn’t have any homework in geometry, I grasped the concepts in functional anatomy, I finished my practice tests in AP Euro, and even improved the second time, Holly made me a valentine, and Kylie, Nikki, and Lizzie gave me ones too, God gave me some free chick-fil-a, I turned my Spanish work in, and Mrs. Dragoon gave us all pencils, and my parents gave me jelly beans (the good kind), $10, and a card. :) all in all, it has been a really nice day so far. I feel like this has just been God’s valentines day present to me. Just to tell me he loves me! No other reason than just simply that.