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
Brianna from Huntsville, AL
For with God nothing shall be impossible. Luke 1:37 (KJV)
Connie, Tyler
For the kingdom of Gid is not a matter if talk, but of power.
1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Tammy, Lawrenceville, GA 2 Corinthians 8:11-12 NIV Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
Carmen, Summersville, WV “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” – John 15:11 NIV
Kay, Sheridan
For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
1 Cor. 4:20 NIV
From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another. John 1:16 (NIV)
Canyon L, VA
Psalm 103:13 &14
As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
Amy from North Plainfield, NJ
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. ~ Hebrews 6:19-20 (ESV)
Andrea, Pottstown
He has showed you, O man, 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
Suzanne Morton, Decatur, Texas
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” I Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Shannon Thies from Pekin, IL:
“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.” Hebrews 10:24 (NLT)
Matthew 5:5-6 NIV
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Danita Tippet, Lake in the Hills, IL
Isaiah 60:18 ESV
Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.
Christine port saint lucie Florida
1 Samuel 1:27 NIV
I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.
Beth, YOU mean so much to me. You have no idea. 🙂
Betty M
Ro 8:14 NKJV “For as many as are lead by the Spirit of God these are the Sons of God.”
Psalms 51:10 NKJV
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Houston, Tx.
NIV
Lamentations 3:25
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
Kristin Cho; Northville, Michigan
Isaiah 65:17 NIV
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”
Amen
Sarah – Appleton, WI
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7, MSG
Keaton Lovell mccurtain ok
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (1 John 4:16 NLT)
Let us press on to know Him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.
Hosea 6:3 NLT
Kristin, Searcy. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. Psalm 37:5 (HCSB)
Heather G.
Fredericksburg, VA
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.
—Psalm 37:23–24-NIV
Jamie, Brentwood, Tn
“For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves”.
Proverbs 11:28 MSG
CHRISTIE – GRAHAM, WA
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom. 8:35 NASB
Beth Schwartz, Lititz PA
Heb 10:13 Amplified
And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities, (Hebrews 10:24 AMP)
Rachael Clark. Jersey shore pa
“And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,”
Phil 1:9 (NIV)
Kelly, Glenwood, MD
” But me– I’m filled with God’s power, filled with God’s spirit of justice and strength …(ready to confront Jacob’s crime and Israel’s sin) i.e confronting a challenge
Micah 3:8- MSG
Stephanie King – Richardson, TX
Praise the Lord! Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever.
Psalm 106:1 NIV
Kelly, West Richland,
Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! (Psalm 105:3 ESV)
Kathi Johnson Spartanburg SC
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26 NLT
Teresa, Chadron, NE
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29 NIV
Melanie Toups
Bridge City, TX
The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him. — 1 John 2:3-4 NASB
Eileen
Lompoc, CA
Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
Colossians 3:16 NLT
Carrie Gill, Tyler, TX, “The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1 NIV
Joelle, Agawam.
Revelation 21:4 (NLT) He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that whenever the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, after you have done everything to stand. Ephesians 6:13NIV
Johannah, Alexandria, LA
“To slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.” Titus 3:2 NIV
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Colossians 3:12 NIV
Samantha from Texarkana, AR
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10 NIV)
Beth, a friend and I travelled from Midland, Texas to Providence to Liviing Proof and it was truly a God thing we were there! Your lesson was an inspiration to us both, and 19 wow 19 new ladies to accept Christ! (And we were pretty excited we ran into Travis at Starbucks at the Providence Airport) but seriously, I want you to know that your bible studies, I have done 8 now, are my own personal “therapy’ for PTSS, (I lost my daddy, mother, and brother all unexpectedly over a very short period of Tim) I owe you so much, you have given me my faith, my family AND my life back thru your studies! Thank you ! Love you Siesta!
Shelley, Birmingham, AL ” Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” NIV
Lynda, Monterey,CA
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
Jill, Fort ashby, WV
You came near when I called you. And you said “Do not fear”. Lamentations 3:57 NIV
Karen, Clarksville, “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Philippians 4:5 NIV
Midge, Florence/Atlanta:
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
(Post brought me to tears! WOW!)
Kristi Riverside,ca
“If you make the Most High your dwelling-even the Lord, who is my refuge- then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.”
Psalm 91:9-13 NIV
Sabrina
Morristown, Tennessee
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 NIV