“Yes, joyful are those who live like this! Joyful indeed are those whose God is the Lord!”  – Psalm 144:15

Yes, joyful are those who live like this… who live like what? Joyful are those who live as children of God! We have access to grace and lavish favor from the One who made the heavens and the earth. As followers of Jesus Christ we are forgiven, highly favored, healed, fruitful, successful, prosperous, blessed, chosen, loved, and in relationship with the King of Kings!

As we begin a new series today about JOY, my heart is filled with this thought—while we were still sinners, far from God—He sent His son Jesus to be born as a baby so that He would later die on the cross for our sins. Wow… God is so good! What joy it brings to my heart that God was good to us, when we were not even good! He didn’t wait for us to get better before He would be good to us!

Yet there are many followers of Christ who somehow believe that God requires us to be good in order for Him to be good to us. I’ve got news for you, my friend… God’s goodness is not based on your goodness. He is good all of the time – even when you are not. We don’t start out with grace and then graduate to something better.

We continue to rely on God’s grace, on how good He is, not how good we are! Does that mean we don’t have to be good or obey the Lord? No, obedience still matters to God. It’s out of His goodness that God has given us a new heart, a heart to know Him, a heart to obey, and a heart with both the right desires and power to back up those desires! He doesn’t just tell us to obey… He gives us the heart to walk in obedience. God wants you blessed so much that He gave you the ability to obey!

I pray today that as you walk in obedience and rely on His grace, His goodness would cause your heart to overflow with JOY!

“To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.”  – Matthew 13:12

I was thinking about family gatherings around Christmas. It seems that regardless how full my plate was with food, my grandmother would always say, “Would you like some more?” I love her heart that always wanted to give me more.

The Lord looks at you the same way… He desires more for you! He has some more fruit of the Holy Spirit for you to grow in throughout this coming year! He has some more understanding and revelation to give you! He has some more gifts of the Holy Spirit for you to walk in. He has some more leadership and anointing for you to step into. He has some more peace to be in your family. He has some more strategies for reaching this community as we show His love and compassion this Christmas season and beyond.

The question is not IF the Lord desires more for you. The question is – what are you doing to position yourself to receive more? What are you becoming that will attract more to you? Jesus made it clear that those who use what knowledge they have—those who will take hold of and seize what the Lord has given them—will be given more!

I encourage you to think about what the Holy Spirit been teaching you this year. How have you used what the Lord has already given you? The more you take hold of—the more you go after what the Lord has entrusted to you—the more He will bestow upon you!

My friend, the Lord looks at you today, much like my grandmother looked at me years ago, and asks you, “Would you like some more? I would like to give you some more. It’s my heart to bless you with more… to move you to a place of abundance. I want to give you so much that you will overflow with more and be a blessing to every person you come in contact with.”

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God is with us.”  – Matthew 1:23

Immanuel… God with us! I pray that as this Christmas season begins, your heart will be filled with the wonder and majesty of those words—God with us. It can be so easy, in this time of busy-ness, to miss this simple, yet powerful message that God Himself is sending to you.

Imagine what it must have been like when Jesus was born as a baby. The King of Kings stripped himself of His robe of light and wrapped Himself in human skin…. God with us! Angels celebrated, wise men traveled 800 miles to worship, Mary believed… but the religious leaders of the day totally missed it. They missed the most important person that had ever come to visit them—God’s son, Jesus!

Years later, Jesus wept as a man because they had missed their day of visitation. Jesus—God in the flesh—had come to visit them and they missed it! During a time of worship, my heart was filled with this thought: I don’t want to miss one day, one moment that the Lord comes to visit me. I don’t want to miss out on the majesty of experiencing God because I was too “busy” for Him.

I long to hear the whispers of His voice to my heart. I long to have eyes that can see what He is doing. I take delight in every moment with the Lord.

My friend, be encouraged today—the Lord has a day of visitation for you. He delights to visit you, to be with you, to help you. He has a prophetic word for you, some promises for you. God is with you… God is for you! If the Lord had a Facebook page, He would send you a friend request and then plaster your page with encouraging words. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it, along with pictures of all the cool stuff you made.

May the Lord visit you this Christmas season and lavish you with His love and grace… His presence and peace wrapped around you!

Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given.  – Psalm 105:5

As we have been reading through Mark together, you would think that the people who experienced the power of the Kingdom of God in their lives would never forget. Don’t you think the guy who was paralyzed for years, but walked away, would never forget the day his friends lowered him down in front of Jesus? How about disciples who watched Jesus still the waves with the power of His words? Certainly, the man that had been possessed with thousands of demons and driven from society would never forget the day that Jesus came to town and set him free.

But the truth is that it is human nature to forget. The children of Israel forgot the way that God had set them free from Egypt, how He made them pass the Red Sea on dry ground. Why is it that we tend to forget what the Lord has done for us? Perhaps it’s because it’s easy to focus on what we don’t have in the moment instead of what God has provided for us.

As we are reading through the gospel according to Mark together and see all these great things the Lord has done for others, I want you to pause and think about what the Lord has done for you. Why remember? When you remember what He has done for you in the past, you are reminding yourself what He is capable to accomplish in your future.

Would you take a few minutes right now to think about, remember, what the Lord has done in your past?  Why not take a few minutes to jot them down in a journal? I pray that as you are thanking God for what He has done in your past, you are filled with faith for what is yet to come in your future. Every miracle experienced today is meant to build your faith for tomorrow.

Thank you for joining me for these first 3 days of prayer and fasting for the month of November. Know that I love and thank God for you!

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.  – Hebrews 4:16

Do you hear the invitation in that passage of Scripture? Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. The Holy Spirit not only invites you to come to the throne of our gracious God, He even tells you how to come—boldly!

I love it when the kids come over to the house and they come boldly! They head right for the refrigerator and start looking through the cupboards for something to eat. The thing I love about this is that they know that what is mine… is theirs, too!

How would your prayers shift if you realized that what God has… is yours? It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Yet listen to what the Word of God clearly tells us:

You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.  – Galatians 4:6-7 MSG

The Biblical way to come to God is boldly! It’s not groveling, hoping maybe if He’s not too busy He will listen to you. What will happen at that throne? YOU WILL RECEIVE! The only people that leave the throne of grace empty-handed, are the people that are full of themselves. But when you come empty, when you come knowing that you need His help, we walk away from the throne of our gracious God with our lives full of everything we need.

Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place.”  – Ezekiel 3:12
The Spirit lifted me up and took me away.  – Ezekiel 3:14
Then the Lord took hold of me…  – Ezekiel 3:22
Then the Spirit came into me and set me on my feet.  – Ezekiel 3:24

Four times in Ezekiel 3, we read about the Spirit taking hold of Ezekiel, lifting him up, speaking to him, and coming into him. For years I have loved this picture of the Holy Spirit taking hold of me. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that everything is up to us… as if it is up to us to get hold of the Holy Spirit when He is the one that takes hold of us.

I have more confidence in His ability to hold onto me, than I do in my ability to hold onto Him!

Sometimes I picture a little child crossing the road holding onto the hand of their mom or dad. If a car is coming and the child is distracted by something they see on the pavement, we both know what will happen next – the parent will grab a hold of that child and take them to safety. The safety of that child has nothing to do with the child’s ability to hold onto mom or dad, and everything to do with the parent’s ability to hold onto that child.

Take courage, my friend, the Holy Spirit is taking hold of you. The hand of the Lord is coming upon you. The power of the Kingdom of God is coming inside of you and setting you on your feet! You have no need to fear the things you face. You don’t have to wonder how you are going to make it to the other side – the King is taking you by the hand.

A few simple questions for you today:

1. What do you sense the Lord speaking to you about today?
2. Where is He taking you in this current season of your life?
3. What is the Spirit giving you boldness to face this week?

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
– Philippians 4:6-7

 Years ago, instead of taking my big dog for a walk, I decided I would let him pull me on a skateboard. Well… it wasn’t pretty. He was dragging me all over the place and we were going much faster than I had expected. Before I knew it – crash!

Sometimes in families, we may feel like we’re getting pulled all over the place, too much, too fast, and then the crash. If we live in this state of worry and stress, we get dragged all over the place. Our minds will wander to a million different “what if” scenarios. What if I can’t make it through this? What if she doesn’t come back? What if the deal doesn’t go through? The path of “what ifs” is an ugly one.

My friend, God has a better path for you… the pathway of peace. It’s a path that is void of worry. It’s a path that is not ruled by fear. It’s a path of unusual, supernatural peace! Regardless of the challenges that you or your family face, you can have peace.  How?

1. Choose peace!
   Just as you can choose to worry, you can choose peace. It’s your call. I used to have a list of things in my office that I chose not to worry about! Instead, I chose peace!
2. Pray about everything.
   Take the emotional energy you would waste on worry and spend it in prayer.  He cares about the things that concern you!

Thank God for what He has already done.
A thankful heart is key to having a peaceful heart.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain. – Philippians 3:8

All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. – Colossians 1:10

The goal of every Christian can be boiled down to this one thing—to know God. This is my desire for your life, that with every day, knowing Jesus becomes increasingly valuable to you!

There is such depth in that word “know.” It means to be familiar with; to know by personal acquaintance; to know something on the basis of your personal observation; to begin to experience. As far as Paul was concerned, there was nothing more important than knowing Jesus. There he was, chained up in prison, and his greatest desire was to know Jesus and to know Him better. His biggest concern was not about how wrong he was being treated. His prayer for you and me was that we, too, would know Jesus and we would know Him better. As a spiritual father, he spoke of what he wanted most for his family… he wanted them to know Jesus.

Paul said that your growth is linked to knowing God better and better. How can you make that become a reality for yourself and your family?

1. Plan to encounter Him every day in the Bible! If you haven’t started reading the Bible, then start in the gospel according to Mark… you’ll want to get started today.
2. Intentionally get around other believers that know Jesus. Life Groups, Activity Groups, and Serving Groups are all great places to do just that. The fact is that nobody spiritually succeeds alone.

Join me on Sunday mornings as we continue going through the book of Mark, verse by verse. The gospel according to Mark is like watching a motion picture of the life of Jesus!

“Where there is no vision; the people perish…” Proverbs 29:18

There was a young boy in elementary school in Arizona whose father was a horse jockey. They were poor and had little to nothing, but he had BIG dreams for his future. The students were given an assignment to write down their dreams in life. The young boy was excited because he had always dreamed of owning his own ranch complete with lots of racehorses.

This was one assignment that he knew he would do well on because he knew exactly what he wanted his future to look like. He was shocked when he received his paper back from the teacher and was told that it was not acceptable. His teacher told him that his dream could never happen. He was to either rewrite the paper with a realistic dream or he would receive a failing grade.

He took the failing grade because that was his dream. Years later after graduating from college, he looked up his 6^th grade teacher and flew him out to his private ranch, complete with lots of racehorses! Then he reminded his teacher what he had told him as a little boy years ago – that his dream could never happen. The teacher apologized and said that he would never again kill another person’s vision.

God has wired you to think in terms of pictures. Your eyes take in millions of bits of information each second and create pictures in your mind. Your mind automatically converts words to pictures. So here’s the question of the day: What is the vision—the picture you have of your future?  What is the big dream God has put in your heart? What’s your picture of your relationship with God—what do you want that to look like? How about the picture of your marriage or family? Career? Ministry?

Here’s the thing: You will never rise above your vision, but if you can see the invisible, you can accomplish the impossible! Dare to dream big! Remember that God is able to do far more than you dare ask, think, or imagine. Dare to have a vision for your life that is so big that it will outlive you!

God has given me big dreams and visions for what is to come at Mount Hope Church and our community. Thank you for joining me for these three days of fasting and prayer this month. Together, we will see these dreams become a reality!