It is funny to think of those two…but in a day where here in the US we are seeming to work more and more as we try to keep up…We need to step back and think about what it is we are keeping up with?

I work from home and the work I do is internet based and quite frankly I could work 24/7 and never get it all done…it is the nature of my work and it seems the deeper I press into my online work, the more I can find myself on work overload.

Is that what God wants for us?

I think he would rather see us in WORD OVERLOAD…

Which do you pick?

I know that when I start my day first with God, and give him time and talk and reading of his word, my day just naturally goes better. It is hard to explain, but I am more at peace. When I remember to invite God into my day and throughout the day. My day goes SO MUCH better.

Just yesterday, I started my day by opening up my laptop with the intention of putting on some praise music. Instead I opened up my email and ..BANG….Problems slammed me in the face as there were a number of emails that "required" (Ha) my immediate attention.

I never got my head in the word and spent time with God yesterday morning and quite frankly I was under the sense of stress creeping in all day long right up until 6;30 pm est…At that time, I went out to dinner with my small group church family and BOY did I need it and was I glad to be out of the umbrella of my work day and in the presence of members of my church and wonderful loving Godly people.

Instantly all the cares and stress melted away and I had a really nice time…Thank you Lord…

Help me lord to be a person who is looking to be WORD Overloaded with your wonderful words of wisdom. Help me to daily pick up the word of god and make it my starting point to include you into my day. And help me to see what you have in store for me. Put me into your river where you want me to be. Bless my work and my hands and help me to walk in love. And father, help those that may be reading this to see the goodness you have in store for them if they will just give you their first and best part of the day.

Amen 

Do you know the heart of God?

Have you experienced him up close and personal?

Do you think God has personal relationships with people today?

Or does he seem like some distant star way off in some long lost galaxy?

In the last 2 months I have experienced God in some many ways that I wish I had been journalizes my walk since the middle of December. God has been so faithful to me and has answered 3 mighty prayers that I stood before him and claimed to feel that they were very difficult situations. 

Go is my provider  

Who is God to Me? It would take many post to fully describe him. He is my creator, he comes before me and guides my path with his light. He lives in me and longs to be with me. This revelation is sometimes to great to imagine. But he does Love me, and loves me just as I am…a sinner, a father, a husband, and one who is learning to long for the Lord.

Thank you for putting in me the fire and desire to know you in a much more intimate way. I love your closeness O Lord. 

And in less than 2.5 months GOD has mightily broken through over and over. I will spell out a few details in later posts, but they concern my family. Family pain in my eyes is the toughest pain of all. I can not imagine when Jesus was rejected by his own brother and his home town how he felt. I am sure there were tears in that moment flowing inside Our Lords heart.

I know my own pain that I have had over the raising of my children and my dealings with my ex-wife has been some of the toughest, gut retching pain that I have ever experienced.

But lately our MIGHTY GOD has been pouring out his love in ways that is hard to fully comprehend and understand. His love and desire to please is so strong and all he has asked is that I believe. And that I turn to him as my savior, guide and invite him into my daily walk.

I have learned alot about faith in the past 2 months. It is NOT something you can stick up on a shelf and pull down on Sunday morning and then stuff it back up on the shelf Sunday night. God wants to be with me every waking moment and I know he covers me when I sleep as well. I can not say that I have been inviting him in for every minute. I am still growing and learning and working out my faith. And as Paul mentioned, there is no faith of perfection here while we walk on this earth and in this time. So, as a confessed sinner, alls I can do is work my way more into God's word and press in closer to him.

It has been so wonderful the past 2 months. I have seen God work in my life many times in one day. He seems to be everywhere and lifting alot of people right now. Or maybe it is that he has opened my eyes to the goodness he has…

Lord, thank you for blessing me so richly. I have never been so filled as I have been lately. I enjoy walking and talking with you and I long to praise you as well for you are so mighty and amazing. Thank you for March 2nd…2008…That may go down as one of the most beautiful days I have ever spent in your presence, and I was so blessed to be apart of your workings.

Thank you Lord, you are beautiful!

Everywhere you look, no matter where you live you can find people whose lives are broken. Sometimes it is right in your face and you have to choose to engage with the brokenness of this world.

Last night I ran into a young single mom who, lets put it mildly, has serious behavioral issues and is choosing to live in the brokenness of her life. She was in dire straits and it a big argument with a couple of men, one of the men was raging, yelling and had fire in his eyes and venom coming from his lips.

The woman, crying moved away from them and I was thrown into the middle of this as when I was walking by, she ended up beside me and I guided her into a local sports pub and sat her down. She was hysterical, crying and claiming this guy hit her and was going to kill her if she said anything. So I told her to stay put and I went to notify the owner of the establishment to call the police because there was trouble.

The woman did not want us to call the police in fear of the man who hit her would definitely kill her if he think she ratted him out. While waiting for the police I asked her what she was doing with someone like that? She said he was an old boyfriend and was harrassing her. I also found out that she had been at a very nasty local drinking establishment and I asked her why would she go to a place like that and if she was a single mom, what was she doing in a place like that. Well, she justified that it had been 3 months since she had been out and away from her child.

The police came, and she refused to tell them that she had been hit, and I had not seen her get hit. It appears, from talking with the officer that all 2 of the 3 people involve have suspended liceines from drinking and driving and the woman has been in jail and has probation and restraining orders on her…go figure.

In this tiny area of the world I am in, this is one incident of most likely hundreds of thousands right here in the United States, where alcohol and drug abuse is causing massive brokenness in peoples lives…So Sad….

Lord, I ask for your Grace and Mercy in these people's lives and deliverance from their addictions. These young people are all so lost and distorted. Come Jesus Come and break the power of addiction off their lives.

I invite you right now to just stop and say the name "JESUS" over and over for 60 seconds….do it now!

What images came to your mind when saying his name? I had beautiful images of the face of God and his name is Jesus!

Other words immediately sprung forth when I began saying his name, …creator, friend , Lord, Master, Savior are a few that came out of my mouth as unctioned  by the Holy Spirit that lives in me.

The name of Jesus is one filled with beauty and power. Call upon his name to sooth your soul, to claim healing over sickness, to drive out demons…

Ephesians 2:4 says, But God is so rich in mercy; he loved us so much that even though we were spiritually dead and doomed by our sins, he gave us back our lives again when he raised Christ from the dead–only by his undeserved favour have we ever been saved–and lifted us up from the grave into glory along with Christ, where we sit with him in the heavenly realms–all because of what Christ Jesus did………

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…Thank you Lord Jesus for your sacrifice on the cross…

Acts 4:12 There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved

Through the power of the name of Jesus we now have access to God…To worship God, to love God, to fellowship with God, to be intimate with God..

Please share what you felt and what images came to your mind when you say the Beautiful Name of Jesus over and over for 60 Seconds… 

Stephen in Acts Chapter 6 starting in verse 8…Was called and full of faith. God pour downs blessings upon Stephens life. And due to Stephens wisdom and Stephens call by God, Stephen is persecuted but the Cyrenians, Alexandreians and those from Cilicia and Asia.

But they were NOT able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke (VS 10)

So they basically made up lies and and brought Stephen before the council and they saw his face and the face of an angel (Vs 15)

Then in Chapter 7 Stephen brings up the Story of Abraham and Abraham's obedience to leave his family and to GO…and Abraham listened to God and Abraham moved him to a new land.

As you continue to read…you see that as we are called to Christ, and we come…typically we are then blessed by God…Then comes persecution…

Many Preach today about the blessings, but do not talk about the Persecution. There is Persecution everyday against Christians and when you commit your life to God and you are obedient to God…You must understand that Persecution will also come.

I have experienced this in my life and it can be Gut wrenching and VERY difficult when the persecution comes. Most of us struggle with the persecution and fall away for become Carnal Christians. This is the route of many. I have had incredible persecution come against me from my own son…who did NOT like me when I turned to Jesus and became a Christian. At that Time I had a transformation and I changed in that moment. My own son, was sick and tired of my ways of walking with the Lord and the revelation that God brought into my life. 

This persecution became too much for me at a certain time and I allowed sin to come back in and old habits to re-surface as I moved away from God due to the persecution.

How many Christians are ready for the persecution that will come?

Are you ready?

It will come…When you are obedient to God and you will get blessed, the enemy will come against you and persecution will come into your life…But, If you persevere and face this persecution and STAY obedient to God, there will be greater blessings that will come into your life. YOU may not even see them in your life time. They may not come right away..them may come through your descendants lives.

Are you willing to walk through the persecution and trust GOD?

I hope you are…Ask God for strength doing those times and press in closer to God and do NOT turn away. Trust me, it is NOT the way to go…I know it is a hard road and it will come with many trials and difficulties…But what is happening here NOW is temporary and will not last…What will last is our relationship with Jesus and the eternal blessings of living forever in his Kingdom.

For more on this topic see the audio recordings done by walk in the word  

2008 is now 14 days old….2 weeks….

Most people have given up on there new years eve revolutions….Now it is time for your new year revelations….

More on this in a few hours…stay tuned 

In my readings today Jan 12th 2008 I came across the definition of faith in the bible.

This faith thing can be so hard some times and I wonder why God doesn't move in my life at times and I find that the answer lies in my faith, Not God. 

Are you ready for the biblical definition of Faith?

You will find the definition of faith in Hebrews 11. Pick up your bible and have a look at what it says.

I will use 2 different versions and write them out here. Hebrews 11:1 Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things now seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By Faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Another version reads…What is Faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. Men of God in days of old were famous for their faith. By Faith—By believing God—we know that the world and the stars—in fact, all things—were made at God's command; and that they were all made from things that can't be seen.

You can continue to read on in Hebrews 11 and read tremendous stories of great faith from Men of God.

Mark Twain paraphrase says…It is the conviction that God will always do what he promises to do, regardless of the circumstances.

So what is having Faith so hard for Most?

Because people are blind to what they can not see. We want things that are tangible and that what we can explain and reason.

Also more often than not, God has a plan that he is fulfilling and we with our great wisdom and knowledge are moving down a path that is not the path that God has destined for you and I. What happens then is, what we are hoping for and planning for does not come to be as this may not be what God wants for us. But we don't "See" it and we loose our waving faith so easy.

So when we do not get what we planned we are quick to blame God for what he hasn't done. Our feelings erupt and our emotional state moves in and takes over our "faith" and shoves it deeper into a corner of our soul and is ousted not as the dominating force in our life, but some fantasy, intangible that we just can not wrap our minds around fully.

We are becoming more and more a society of instant gratification and "Expect" God to show and shower us on our schedules. Waiting on the Lord and doing his will only comes through the assurance that it will come to be even though we do not see it.

So how can you keep the faith when there is no evidence that God appears to be working in your life?

Press into God's Word…Faith requires belief…I believe our faith is tested often, in little things and God is just waiting for us to fully trust in him and turn our lives over to him fully and trust that All things are possible for us in God. Each time we move deeper into the word of God and pass the tests that is set before us, we get to break down any barrier that may be holding us back from strengthening our faith.

In acts chapter 6 God raises up a average man, Stephen, to do extraordinary things. When God gets ahold of you and fills you with the Holy spirit, you become a new creation. When you believe in that power, God can move in you and do amazing wonders that the earthly non-believing man can not understand.

So what do they do when they cannot handle the truth?

The same thing that has been done to Christians for  a long time now….They persecute.

In Acts 6; 8-15  we see in verse 10 "But none of them were able to stand against Stephen's wisdom and spirit."

So the only thing for those that opose Christ will do at this point is to falsely accuse and lie, and that is what they did to Stephen in Chapter 6 and in Chapter 7 he again is arrested and stoned to his death. Even while Stephen was being stoned and just before he died, he says.."Lord, don't charge them with this sin!" 

As we come closer to the end times, God has already told us that persecution will increase for all believers of Jesus Christ. So take the time now to deepen your faith with God and prepare your hearts for what is to come!