Hey, Sweet Things!
I’m writing this post to you on Saturday night from the seat of a gigantic United Airlines plane on my connect flight from DC back to Houston. The Living Proof Live team and I had the tremendous privilege of serving in Providence, Rhode Island and God worked in such a distinct way that I will remember it for many years. I hope forever. God is doing something different this year at LPL. I don’t quite know how to define it but I have been flat-on-my-face grateful that He is not only still in it but stirring the pot. Not one of us on the team wants to be there a moment longer than Jesus is. We don’t even want Him to make an obligatory “appearance” because He loves us and feels sorry for us after we’ve scheduled all of this. We want the event to be proactively Jesus for His own sake and for His own glory and because it is a delight to Him and because He looks forward to it. Nothing less than that and, if it’s not that, we want Him to move us each elsewhere.
It’s so strange. We began this year looking back to the previous 15 but, by our 3rd event, it was like we all fixed our faces forward as if nothing in the world mattered but what was in front of us. No “yesterday’s plan.” No “yesterday’s work.” This is today. Something is up. Something new to us. There is something liberating and also a little frightening about just saying to Him, “Do what You want, God. Anything You want. We’re in it with You or we’re not in it at all. All bets are off.” Anyway, I’m not sure why I went off on all of that. God just really has my eyebrows high on my forehead right now wondering what He’s doing.
I have a group of about 30 of you Siestas fresh on my mind because we met up quickly after the event for our group picture. These were your northeastern sisters and the cutest things you can imagine. Well, just like all of you are. All ages and types, with this one glorious bond: the lively love of Jesus Christ. I am so crazy about you guys. I cannot fathom the grace of God to have stirred up a community of encouragement in Christ where relationships really do seem to have some substance to them. It’s an anomaly that still isn’t wasted on me.
You have marked my journey of faith. You’ve encouraged me and made me want to keep running my race energetically and earnestly. You’ve helped me get back up even at times when you didn’t know I was down. You have been a harbor of joy, peace, and laughter in an online Christian world that can be astonishingly fractured. You are a corner of courageous gentleness in a culture that has lost its manners.
And, good grief, you guys have impacted my Scripture memory life so dramatically that I hardly have words. After every Living Proof Live when we meet up for our (clandestine) Siesta picture, I always ask, “Will I be seeing any of you in January at our SSMT celebration?” Invariably there are those who answer with infectious enthusiasm, “YES!” It makes me so happy. The previous celebrations have been like a family reunion on steroids. I hope so much you’re staying up with your Scripture memory, saving your money, and planning to head to Houston that weekend. We aren’t really a beautiful city but we’re a happy one and a hospitable one, I believe I can confidently say. And we can offer you Tex Mex at virtually every four way stop. I mean, what more could you want, people?
The verse I’ve chosen this time around is one God seemed to lift from the page of my early morning Scripture reading last Monday. I continued to say it and pray it throughout the week and referenced it several times this weekend in Providence. It’s easy to memorize and it puts a concept in a nutshell that is as vital as breath to us in this believing life we’re living. Here it is:
Beth, Houston. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
God is using it to remind me that this thing isn’t about incessant chatter and nonstop Twitter noise and learning to speak fluent Christianese. It’s not tantamount to Bible banter and doctrinal debates and holy hair-splitting. It’s not about getting together at church and threatening week after week to live changed lives and think renewed thoughts. It’s not about getting all lathered up and sweaty-headed at events over theories of effective, influential, and abundant lives. This Christ thing to which we’ve been called is about actually doing it and through an unction not remotely our own.
When the Holy Spirit comes, He comes with power.
Where the Holy Spirit goes, He goes with power.
Whom the Holy Spirit infiltrates, He infuses with power.
Our lives were meant to be powerful. Less talk. More demonstration. Through things like a love that we know good and well is utterly beyond us and a faith that emerges in tact from a minefield soaked in blood and strewn with flesh. We were meant to be able to do what we can’t, like who we don’t, bless who we’d curse. We were promised strength in weakness and extravagant grace in our deprivation.
We were meant to wonder what has derailed or gone awry when a season of our lives persists in powerlessness for weeks on end. We were promised more than this. We’re not meant to write our own personalized chapters in a revised standard version of The Emperor’s New Clothes so the world could have a harder laugh at us. We who have placed our trust in Christ Jesus, the living, breathing-on-us Son of God, have been clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49) And it’s supposed to show.
Every limb of our lives where we welcome the Holy Spirit can be infused with strength not of this world and, yes, even in continued weakness or infirmity, should that be the case of our present calling. The coexistence of the two is the mystery of it. We’re not superwomen. We’re a long shot from perfect. But we were meant to be vividly powerful through the One who saved us and made Himself at home in us. Let’s not forget that today. Let’s not be satisfied just to talk about it. Let’s not just clap and cheer during that part of a service when a pastor or teacher tells us we’re called more than conquerors. The New Testament is not the theory of Christianity.
You may feel powerless right now, Sister, but, if you are in Christ, make no mistake: you are not. Get some backbone back in your prayer life if your spiritual spine has deteriorated. With reverence for His holiness and with the boldness He said we could bring to the Throne of Grace, read to God from His Word where He promised His people victory as they looked to Him alone…
…and where He promised to clothe us in power
…and where He said He’d make Himself conspicuous through our spiritual gifts and through supernatural works in His Name.
If you don’t know where those places are, go hunt them down. (But you could start in Romans 8, Luke 24, Acts 1, Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12 and Hebrews 4.)
Tell Him you’re going to ask for it and ask for it and ask for it in His great Name and for His glory until He gives it to you and frees you from whatever this present powerlessness is. And then DO IT. Ask and ask and ask and tell Him you will do whatever it takes to cooperate and mean it! Throw your hands out to receive. And, then, when He gives it – and He will – don’t take credit for it. Appreciate it. Thank Him and thank Him for it. Know that it’s grace. Use it audaciously to bring Him attention.
Sister, you cannot fulfill your foreordained purpose without power. Go back after it but, whatever you do, don’t try to get it without Jesus coming with it. Power for power’s sake will blow you up. God-given unction isn’t meant to just come and go with periodic personal revival. We were meant to live powerful lives. Let’s get to them. If you’ve got an area of carnality that is quenching it, I promise you it’s not worth it. Believe me, I’ve been there. Repent, turn from it and get on with it. You’ve got a calling. And it takes divine power.
You mean so much to me. Hold tight to Jesus.
Tags: Scripture Memory 2013
Jane, Milton, GA Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts toward God. Colossians 3:16 NIV
Colleen, Glen Ellyn, IL
You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?
Matthew 7:16 ESV
Delores O.
Lake Stevens, WA
Behold, God is my salvation, i will trust and not be afraid;
For the LORD God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.
Isaiah 12:2 NASB
Connie, Pickerington, OH “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” I Corinthians 6:19,20
The Lord is good,a stronghold in a day of distress; He cares for those who take refuge in Him.
Nahum 1:7 (HCSB)
Tracy from Kentucky
who also do no wrong,but walk in his ways!
Psalm 119:3 ESV
I had already selected a verse, but yours is too powerful, and I need it too desperately to not use it this time!
Patti from Tampa: For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20
1 Corinthians 4:20 (NIV)
Leigh, Montgomery, AL: ” Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10 NIV
Joan, Carter Lake IA
When I am afraid, I will trust in You. (Psalms 56:3 HCSB)
Gretchen, Thousand Oaks, CA
Romans 8:1-3a NET
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh.
Betty Clark, Ann Arbor, MI “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7 NIV
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2a NAS
Tracey Knight ~ Arkadelphia AR
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says…But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:22, 25 NIV)
Nicole Turnquist – Selden, NY
Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far??
2 Samuel 7:18 (NASB)
Margie by the Sea
Hilton Head Island, SC
Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)
The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
Tammy,
Lusby, MD
Psalm 62:8
Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge.
HCSB
April Jones, Springfield, IL
Psalm 90:17
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands. (NIV)
Phyllis
Gilmer, TX
Acts 20:24 NLT
But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned to me by the LORD Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.
Diana, North Attleboro, MA
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Stephanie V. Tulsa Ok,
*Fear not, for I am with you: Be not dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. (Is 41:10, nkj)
Elaine, New Orleans, LA
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Lori Oil City, PA
“Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.”
Philippians 2:3 (NLT)
Megan from San Diego
“Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4:8 NIV
Colette, Mesa, AZ.
“But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead;
He will surely take me to himself.”
Psalm 49:15 NIV
Elaine, Littleton,CO
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of me; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Heb 12:3) NIV
Ginger ~Mansfield, Tx
Stephanie Colucci Dallas Texas
Psalm 73:26
(NIV)
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, (Ephesians 3:20 ESV)
Mindy from Austin, TX, “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:1-2, NIV.
“like a gold ring in a pigs snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion”
Proverbs 11:22 niv
Proverbs 14:23
Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.
On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:20
Melissa, Augusta, GA
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Romans 11:33, NIV
Annette- Reno, NV
But he said to me “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. Therefore I boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
ESV
Sarah B.
Portales, NM
Psalm 127:3 ESV
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.”
Sharon, St. Louis. Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8 NIV)
Judy
Panama City, Fl
Ephesians 3:14 – 15 (NLT)
When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.
Cindy, St. Louis, MO: Psalm 37:7 “Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for Him to act.: NLT
Hannah, Miramar Beach. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Selena – Cordele, GA
Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Philippians 2:3, HCSB
Tanis, Terrace
When I am afraid, I will trust in You. Psalm 56:3 HCSB
Ruth, Oran, MO Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV
Kim K., Columbus, OH area
“May my meditation be pleasing to Him,
as I rejoice in the Lord.”
Ps. 104:34
Kerry, Nederland, TX
Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
NLT
Elizabeth, Broomfield, CO
I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken–Psalm 16:8 (NASB)
Jana, San Angelo, TX
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2, NIV
Rachel Owasso, OK
Psalm 119:10 NIV-
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
Tina, Zalma, Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble towards one another, always considering others better than yourselves. Phippians 2:3 (GNB)
WendyC – Cheyenne, WY.
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Ecclesiastes 4:10 NIV
Chris M, Seattle, WA
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14 NIV