Calling

   I know that Jesus did not die on the cross so that i could just go to church on Sunday mornings. There is a very specific reason that the Father called me into knowledge of His Son. We know, because of so many references in the Scripture, that the reason we were created and why He saved us, was to bring Himself glory. ( a few being: Is 43:6-7, Jer 13:11, Psalm 106:8, Rom 3:23)
   But there is a very unique and specific calling for me. One that He had in mind before I was even born.  Paul and Barnabas were called out by His Holy Spirit for a specific mission.
Acts 13:2 "While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

   In that passage it does not say what the specific calling was on the two. But He had obviously told them.  When Paul wrote some of the letters to the churches, he told what his calling was.  (Rom 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; Gal 1:15-16)

 Can you bring Him the most glory from your life without knowing a specific calling?  Could Paul have been as effective in spreading the gospel if he had not received a specific calling? 
     He knew he was called to preach the gospel to the gentiles. He had his target, so he could stay on mark.  That was how God wanted to glorify Himself in Paul.
  Think of how much time we waste when we do not know our calling. We stand around not knowing what to do.

 2 Peter 1:10b "Therefore, Brethren, be all the more certain His calling and choosing you;"

1 Thes. 5:24 "Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass."

O.K., so this is where I'm at...
Absolutely stuck here. Though the solution seems simple enough, I haven't done a thing about it!

James 1:22 "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves."

Romans 2:13 "for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

James 1:25 "But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does."

I do not want to be merely a "hearer" of the Word; I want to be a "doer"! But the sad fact of the matter is: I only memorize Scripture, I do not live it!

I must tell this wonderful analogy by Francis Chan. See if this sounds familiar to you.

I am paraphrasing:

[ My daughter knows better than to come back to me after I have told her to clean her room and say, "Dad, I thought about what you said. I even memorized it in Greek. Later I'm going to have my friends over and we are going to discuss what it would look like to clean my room." ]

I would have never told my dad that. But for some reason, I think that it's O.K. when Jesus tells me to do something.
How in the world, when I am standing before HIM and giving an account of all I did for him, can I look at Him, with the scares in His hands, and maybe even the ones on His brow, and tell Him all of the little memory verses I know???
Just think about that.

Now I am not belittling memorizing the Holy Scriptures. You can not be a doer of the Word without first knowing the Word. But we are merely hearers. I can't think of anyone that I would call a "radical" for Jesus Christ. To me, someone who is radical is someone who lives like Jesus.

So the question for me becomes, What do I do? What is it going to take for my life to be radically changed for the name and renown of Jesus Christ?

The Engagement

What a day it will be when we are married to the Lamb!
We are to spend our time getting to know the One
whom we will marry. Enjoy the courtship to the king!

Courtship: 1. the wooing of one person by another.
2. the period during which such wooing takes place

As a man gives an engagement ring to that special girl as a sign that they will be married,
so He gives His Holy Spirit as a promise that He is coming!

There is going to be a wedding! Are you engaged to the KING!?!

2 Corinthians 5:4-5 "For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge."

How bad do you want it?

"Now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also Now it was during the days of Unleavened Bread. When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people. So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God. On the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter's side and woke him up, saying, "Get up quickly " And his chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, "Gird yourself and put on your sandals." And he did so. And he said to him, "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me." And he went out and continued to follow, and he did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened for them by itself; and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. When Peter came to himself, he said, "Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting." Acts 12:1-11

I don't believe that I will ever truly comprehend the depth of prayer. But I have seen and heard what He does when His children are on their faces before Him.

We want so many things, good things. We want our families to be saved. We want healing. We want miracles in those impossible situations. We want to see a move of His Holy Spirit. We want, dare I say it, Revival in the land! We want our churches everywhere to be burning with passion for His Name! To carry out His vision. But do we really want those things? I submit that we do not! It's just talk! It sounds good to us, just like going on vacation sounds good.

There's only one thing that brings those to us, PRAYER.
And I'm not talking about the little prayers that you shoot God's way in the morning before you rush off to do YOUR business for the day. I'm not talking about the half hearted prayer you mutter because it's the thing to do. That's NOT Prayer!

I'm talking about anguish, fasting, keeping you up at night, labored prayer. If you've never seen God do a great work through your family, then you haven't labored for it. If you've never seen Him do a great work through your church, then you haven't labored for it! If you are facing an impossible situation, why would you do anything else but drop to your knees in prayer? It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to get an answer, you stick it out and fight in prayer to the end.
Where are the people who are on their faces before a Holy God with prayer and fasting?
If you are not praying, then you don't want it! It's that simple.

From reading Acts 12, this is what we know happens when people are praying:

Chains are broken
The enemy is blinded
Doors open by themselves &
People's lives are saved

That should be enough to keep us on our face.

Nat

We Are a Sent People

I wonder when it happened that the church today, the true church, -those who are in Christ Jesus- missed what the great commission is all about. Matt 28 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."

When were we taught that it said "IF you are called to be a Pastor, Evangelist, or Missionary, THEN go into all the world...?

I know, as a ministry leader, I have been very frustrated in the past at the lack of participation in different in reach and outreach ministries we have done in our church. But here lies the problem....
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, and each church will have to answer that, laymen ( just regular church folks) are being told from the pastoral staff or teams that it is the job of the pastors to evangelize our friends, family, & neighbors. That for some reason the laity does not know enough to tell anyone about God and what the Son did for them. And I know that well meaning pastors never intended for that message to be broadcasted, but that is what is being heard.
How many times have you invited people to come to your church? A few times. But how many people have you yourself told about Jesus Christ and what He did for you? Not too many.
My point is, without even thinking about it, we have pushed the responsibility of reaching "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest part of the earth.(Acts1:8)"off on someone else. What easier way out than to put it on the Pastor. And of course the Pastor, he's "called".

IT IS NOT THE CLERGY'S JOB TO EVANGELIZE YOUR FRIENDS & FAMILY. IT IS YOURS!!
We are convinced that somehow we are fulfilling our Christian duty when we invite them to church. "Oh I've got to get them to church because church will fix all of their problems."
It is a lie that is straight from hell. And we have taken the bait with no reservations. The enemy is winning this battle by far! And I'll tell you why. This may actually shock you so get ready.....

LOST PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO COME TO YOUR CHURCH!!

I don't care what program you are doing, I don't care if you have the latest technology, the most popular songs, or the greatest carpet in town.....they do not want to be apart of your church. If they did, they would come.
Let me prove this point. How many people of the world that do not know God are coming to your church? If your church is growing, is it because of salvations, or are you just swapping members? People that come because they got bored at their old church or got their fragile little feelings hurt. That's expanding the Kingdom? I don't think so.

So the enemy is winning. Not because we don't love God. Oh we love God! "How great is our God", we sing! And we mean every word of it. We love our pastors, we love their teaching, the music, the people(most of them), the programs! It just makes us so happy to be there! And there's nothing wrong with that. We need to be there. The problem is that we expect the world to come to us.
You want to know what they are thinking about your church. "All they want is my time and money." and that says "they don't care about me". That saddens my heart. We have convinced ourselves that the world will come to us and it is simply not true. Gone are the days when everybody went to church. Jesus used the word Go because he knew that they would not come to us.

Here is a TRUTH for you. No matter who you are, or what your job is when you wake up in the morning, if you know Jesus Christ as your savior, then you are called to the ministry and called to be on God's mission. So if you have been struggling, not knowing if God has "called" you, Then stop. The answer is a big YES. So that is no longer a question for you. The only questions you should be asking is Who and where?

It would be so easy just to read this and say, Amen, right on, preach it girl. But what difference would that make in the kingdom? Are our lives backing up our words? We can hear good whole truth all day long and still be completely ineffective for the Kingdom.

Lord, let me be the first to confess that I have just been full of words. I know what sounds good. I know how to talk like someone who is really on fire for God. But that's all it is. Talk.
When will I realize what I'm doing? When will my actions back up my words? I want my life to reflect someone who is empowered by the Holy Spirit and who is faithfully fighting the good fight.

We must live as a sent people. Letting go of everything that we will not take with us when we die. If we did not love this world, we would have no problem going where ever the Spirit leads.

Can You pour Your Spirit out on ignorance?

This morning after I dropped Steve off at work, I drove back here to the office at HHBC. It was 7:35. I had 25 minutes before I was supposed to go in to work. So I decided to read my Bible and spend some time praying. ( This is not every easy for me to do because of all the commotion that is going on around me. WAY too many distractions)

Something caught my attention though. As I was looking out of my jeep window, I glanced up at our WC and immediately prayed, "Lord, can you pour your Spirit out on ignorance?" I have asked this many times but never get a reply....usually because I'm complaining and not really being sincere. But I meant it this time. I really wanted to know if He would pour His Spirit out on people that do not even want it. Or that just flat out deny that He pours out on people. But the very instant that prayer left my mouth He reminded me of Numbers chapter 11. So I turned there and read it.

I had not read this in a while, and even when I had read it before, I didn't see this. These Elders were complaining and whining to God. Actually, most of the Israelites were. They were tired of the manna that miraculously fell from heaven. They wanted meat! And the Lord punished them for it....it says in vs.33-34 that "But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.".After all that God had done for them they still longed for their old life as slaves in Egypt!! But He called all the Elders to come and He poured His Spirit out on them so that they began to prophesy. And even two old dudes that didn't even meet with them couldn't hide from the Spirit. They began to prophesy in the camp where they were at! Amazing!!

So Yes, the Lord can and will pour His Spirit out on people who are not even expecting it! Praise God!! Holy Spirit, pour out on me and this church and hold NOTHING back!!


~NaT~

A Call

January 3, 2008 '.....I am asking all of you to go before the Lord with fasting and prayer! Present your requests before the Lord and intercede for this nation and the coming elections!! We are at a very crucial time, saints of God! And I am calling the Christians out! No more are we going to vote for someone because they will put money in our pockets!! No more will we vote for someone because of a political party! No more will we sit on our hands and do NOTHING!! We need to be on our knees in prayer right now for the election of 2008. Don't wait until that day to start shooting prayers to heaven! It is our responsibility! I pray that the Lord would turn His house back into a house of prayer!!
There is a war that goes on in the heavens that does not sleep! The enemy is working hard to put his people at the top. They are the one’s that legalize the shedding of innocent blood! Psalm 94:20-23 “-They band themselves together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. But the LORD has been my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge. He has brought back their wickedness upon them and will destroy them in their evil; The LORD our God will destroy them.” I have to tell you Beloved, someone must cry out for mercy for this nation! Just as Daniel went before the Lord on behalf of his people, (Dan. 9:3-5) “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, 'Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances.”
His prayers shook the heavens. He fasted and prayed for 3 weeks and it stirred the Spiritual world. A battle was going on that Daniel was totally unaware of until Gabriel told him! That story is so encouraging! We must not give up on praying because we do not see immediate results. For who knows what is going on in the spiritual world that we can not see. ( Dan 10 - Then he said to me, 'Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.)
Saints, now is the time to pray! We can not vote for a man that does not believe in the sanctity of marriage! And we can not vote for a man that legalizes murder! Questions. What about the war? Will this man protect us from terrorist? I tell you now, No president can keep us safe from terrorist with out the blessing of the hand of God! And God will not bless this land and protect us when we are shedding innocent blood, I don’t care who is in office!! But I thank God for the blood that cries louder than the 50 million innocent babies’ blood that cries up from the ground! (Gen. 4:10)
O Lord, our God, have mercy on us. A nation that has turned it’s back on you! And have mercy on your people that do not follow after you!
It’s time to take our ground! It’s time to stand on righteousness and not political correctness! Heavenly Father, awaken your people again, for we have fallen asleep! In Jesus' Name!

Natalie Y Jansen

It's amazing to me how much people

THINK they know about the Bible! And yes even those who have been reading it for more years than I have been alive! It's like they just start spouting stuff because it "sounds" right. I really wish the people of God would stop running their mouths and get into the WORD! Not to stereotype or anything, but I think it's the hardest for the older people who have been in the family of God so long and have read the Bible 5 times through. They began to think that they know everything there is to know.......and the trap is set.
If you haven't read the Holy Scriptures today, I strongly advice you to do so. You have been called to be a warrior. And no soldier in a war waits to pick up his sword the day he fights. But he trains DAILY becoming swift and sure with every movement. His life depends on how much better he is than his enemy......

So I found these in my search for answers!

Numbers 12:6 - he said, "Listen to my words: "When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 - If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" - "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.

13:5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.

13:6, 8-11 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

Seriously, just read all of chapter 13!!

Deuteronomy 18:17-22) The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."
You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

Hebrews 1:1-3) In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.-

Last one, because there's too many!

Matthew 7:15 Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.