The best thing you can do for your growth is to be open for the Holy Spirit to move in your life. The Holy Spirit is an integral part of the trinity. While he is not the Father who created us, or the Son who came to die for us, he still is God. The Holy Spirit comes upon us and speaks into our lives. When we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, he regenerates us. He lives inside of us, and becomes a part of who we are, making us holy in the sight of God the Father.

It is God’s will for the world that none should perish. His will is not being done on this earth; people perish every day. If we do not get with his plan, then people will continue to perish. Position yourself for the plan of God. Jesus promised us that we would do bigger and better things than he did. The Holy Spirit helps us do that.

This woman’s situation was possibly the worst. In accordance to Jewish Law, she was completely shut off from society. She had no one in her life save for the doctors who were causing her grief. They would get her hopes up for healing, but she would only get worse and her hope would fall. Despair and solitude are a bad combination. This combination makes room for bitterness, anger, and thoughts that lead to a twisted, darker view of the world. She was completely alone.

Then, she heard that Jesus was coming. Jesus was on His way through town in order help someone else. Usually, Jesus would show up without any one knowing; this time, word came ahead of Him. And she had heard about Him. Now, she has a choice. She can either adhere to the Jewish Law and stay at home, away from society and from the people who were constantly letting her down. Or, she could muster up her faith one more time and break the rules by seeking out Jesus. To venture out was a danger, for she could not hide her disease; she could not hide that she was unclean; but that fact did not stop her. Her faith was stirred when she heard He was coming. Faith comes when the Word is spoken.

The woman came to an interesting conclusion in verse 28. She thinks that if she can “just touch His robe,” she’ll be healed. Why? There is no Biblical mandate stating that the robes of a Rabbi are holy and have healing powers. She could have come to this conclusion because of the rules influencing her world. An unclean woman is forbidden from touching a Holy Man. So, in following the rules, perhaps she thinks just touching His robe will do the trick.

OR…she remembers the Word of God and has received a revelation. Isaiah 6 describes God as sitting high and lifted up with the train of His robe filling the Temple. There are several Biblical references to God’s robe and His glory. Maybe, she knew this. Maybe, she believed Jesus was the Messiah and how He is different from any other. She believes what she hears and decides to take a chance and break the rules. She fights through the crowd–the doubts, the fears, the opinions of the world–and reaches out to Him and grabs His robe…

And Jesus feels it. He immediately stops what He is doing and asks, “Who touched me?” Everyone around Him is like “We all are touching you!” But Jesus knows. This was different. The woman approaches Him, falls at His feet, and tells Him her story. And He listens intently. That is the nature of Jesus. When someone reaches out to Him, He stops everything and focuses on the person, wanting to know their story. Nothing else matters save this one person.

This woman had lived her life in rejection and pain, yet, in hearing the Word, she stirred her faith. She worked her miracle; fighting all doubts and fears to reach Him. And Jesus listened to her. Then, He completed the miracle. In front of everyone, He says, “Daughter, your faith has healled you.” He elevates her back into the Family of God by calling her “Daughter” and seals the deal started by her faith.

Faith is the key. It stirs a person to go the bold. Position yourself, work the miracle, and GO THE BOLD!

Vision is what drives us. If we don’t have vision, we go nowhere. As a man thinks, so he becomes.

You can only go so far without Divine power. Man’s wisdom only goes so far. When we reach our limits, and don’t want to accept defeat, we need to go to prayer. The only thing that can do anything is God, and we have his power inside of us when we give our live to Christ. There is nothing more powerful spiritually than when you give your heart to God.

The doorway into the power of God is the understanding of the promises of God- the Bible. If you don’t understand the words of God, then you will not understand the power of God. It is our job to get into the Bible, and get to know what God says about our lives. Stuff is going to happen in our lives; we are going to get challenged. We need to put the promises from the Bible into practice in our lives. When we step over into the supernatural, we are unstoppable.

John 20:1-18 (NIV): “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (Which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

Let’s take a trip into the tomb for a minute. The tomb is place where you die with Christ. When you die with Christ, your eyes are opened to the spiritual atmosphere around you. There are things going on around our lives that we have no idea about. As Mary Magdalene ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus was gone, her eyes were opened to the things inside of the tomb that the disciples had overlooked.

There were three things inside of the tomb, in addition to the Angels sitting in reverence and praise at the head and foot of where Jesus had lain. The first of these things were the strips of linen that Jesus’ body had been clothed in. This means that as Jesus rose from the grave, he donned new garments. For those of us dying with Christ, this means that we become new people. We have the same person inside of us, but we are now clothed with the King of all Kings, with the best of the best. Our attitudes in life are radically changed, and people notice that.

The second thing that is found in the tomb is the burial cloth, the face cloth that covered Jesus’ face as his body lay in the tomb. For us, this means that we will be washed clean of our past, not forgotten, but washed clean. It is a brand new day; the freshness of God is on our lives. We have the brightest of futures to look forward to.

The third thing we find in the tomb is Mary’s humanity. She falls down on her knees and weeps, begging for her savior to be given back to her, to know where his body lay. She died to herself, wanting nothing more than her savior. As she realized who was standing before her, she wept with joy, not sorrow. As we ourselves die with Christ in the tomb, our humanities are also stripped away. As we die to ourselves, we turn around and find our lives in the hands of our savior. Joy floods into our lives, replacing the sorrow.

It is hard to believe what Jesus says sometimes, but his promises are true. Visit the tomb- so that you can die with Christ and come alive with a new life. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is also alive within us. Take a hold of that, and don’t you ever let go.

Nicodemus came to Jesus soon after Jesus had cleared the Temple. He was a member of the Pharisees–a group who ran the Temple and profited from the not-so-holy business dealing that were going on within until Jesus came and drove everyone out. It seemed to be his hope to win Jesus over before this new stranger could cause any more trouble. He tries to butter him up by calling him “Rabbi” and talking about his miracles. It is then that Jesus hits him with this: “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Huh? That came from way left field! It is a statement that has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. Now, we modern day Christians understand the importance of this statement. Salvation or “being born again” is a fundamental basis for Christianity. But for Nicodemus, the statement was a bit absurd. He was trying to win Jesus over, and yet Jesus was changing the subject. Why would he do that?

It is because Nicodemus came to him with an agenda, and Jesus was going to have none of it. We often come to God with an agenda–deliberately or not, hoping He will accept it and do things the way we want them done. However, we must be prepared for the consequences. If we come to God with an agenda, He will answer us with something that will blow our minds! This story is a perfect example; it poses the questions, “What will you do when God has another agenda?”

As this new year begins, we all make plans and resolutions. It is common. We also seek vision for what we should do. This time presents a unique opportunity where our agenda and God’s plans meet, and we have a choice to either hold to our plans or submit to His will. It is like walking a dog. A dog gets excited at first over the walk, willingly accepts the leash, and lets the human lead. Then, after some time, the dog tries to take control of the walk by going this way or that, forcing the human to tug on the leash to correct the dog’s path. Then, inevitably, the dog takes a stance of refusal, digging paws into the ground so as not to move any further.

We as humans act in much the same way. We lay aside our agenda to follow God’s vision for the year. At first, we are excited. We follow God’s lead. We let Him take control. Then, after a few months, we begin to try to take back to the control. We want to go another way. God brings someone into our world to speak to us (a “tug on the leash”) and set us back on the right path. Then, more time passes, and we reach a point of stubbornness. We don’t want to go this way any more, so we drag our heals. At this point, God does two things. First, He tugs on the leash once. He gives us a chance to submit. Fiances get tights, so we stop tithing. He sends a “tug.” We get into a relationship that may not be best for the time being. He sends a “tug.” Any number of situations come up where our pride gets mixed in and we stop following God’s lead; He sends one tug. And if we do not submit, He let’s go of the “leash.” He frees us to do what we want–regardless of the consequences He knows will happen as a result– because He cannot and will not control us.

Inevitably, disaster strikes. Can we look at God and ask why He lead us here? Sure, but it was not Him who lead. He let go. We went our own way. But God is merciful. We come back and submit to His lead again, and He will lead us. He promises in His Word to lead us through the good times (“by the still waters”) and the bad (“through the valley of the shadow of death”). He leads us no matter what. He is always there beside us if we lower our agenda and let Him take the lead.

Praying in the spirit has nothing to do with our mind or our thoughts. Our minds can get in the way of a vision God is trying to show us, distract us from taking hold of what God has for us, and sabotage our faith. When you first start praying in the spirit, your mind is in conflict. But as you become stronger in the spirit, your mind submits. The spirit is not the mind’s realm. Our minds cannot comprehend God and try to box him in. But God cannot be constrained. He gives us the ability to touch Him spirit to spirit in prayer, and break away from our natural understanding.

Paul says, “Well then, what should I do? Should I pray in the spirit or in my mind? I will do both. I will pray and sing both in the spirit and in words that I understand.” Don’t be confined. Sometimes your spirit just wants to start singing. Sing to me a new song, God says. When you pray and sing in the spirit, God gives you a new song. When you wait on God, He gives you something new. He is a God of the fresh – fresh prayer, revelation, vision – just like the manna each morning straight from heaven. God doesn’t want us to live on the old. We need to keep moving forward and live in the new. God will not be contained in the boundaries of our past experience. He longs for us to break out with Him into places we have never been before.

Anything that God touches is growing, changing, developing and increasing. God cannot touch anything without it multiplying. That is His nature. God challenges us. He challenges us to grow and change in certain areas of our lives. When God is doing the challenging, oftentimes challenge equals pain. When you feel that challenge, you have a couple choices. You either go with and let the process do its work, or you resist it, miss the opportunity and miss where God wanted to take you. But sometimes it isn’t easy. Because challenge equals change, and change equals pain.

Some people just aren’t ready for it. But resisting change isn’t God-glorifying, and we want to glorify God in everything we do. We want to get to the end of our race and know that we went full force and were fruitful for God. The reason that some people never become fruitful in the kingdom is that they don’t accept God’s challenges and move past the obstacles that are preventing you from moving forward. God is asking if he can’t take us to new places, grow us and grow our lives and capacity. If you yield to it, it gets easier and you get to the point that you yearn for that movement and interaction with God. You just have to step out in faith and yield to God. God is in the “yes” and the willing heart, not the “what ifs” and what you see. Once you climb the mountain, your whole vision changes.

We need to be like Joshua and Caleb. 12 went in, 12 came out, 10 doubted, but 2 saw beyond the circumstances to God’s promise. The 10 that didn’t see it never got to experience the fulfillment of God’s promise. How can two people see the same thing so differently? They heard the same promise, saw the same vision, had the same leader – yet they go in and react completely differently and make completely different choices. It is amazing how powerful our attitude is, how powerful our faith is. Joshua never had any doubt because He believed in the promise of God. David didn’t even look at Goliath, the giant – he looked at God. He didn’t need armor, he just needed God. Sometimes in your heart, you go to fear of the unknown instead of faith and let yourself be ruled by what you see in the natural instead of looking to the bigness of God.

II Chronicles 7 – When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices, and the glorious presence of God filled the Temple. Every so often, people start to have problems with giving. They say that tithing is not of the New Testament or of the New Covenant. I know that God doesn’t change. The Bible says he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Let’s observe God and how he moves, functions, operates and interacts with His people.

God loves offerings. He loves when we bring a sacrifice. The result of God receiving our sacrifice is that He fills the place in which the sacrifice was given. Because under the New Covenant, everything that has to do with giving and offerings has to do with our hearts, this is very powerful to us. If God fills the place where the sacrifice was given with His presence, what that’s saying is when we give God fills the environment from where the gift was – it is our heart. Giving under the New Covenant is from the heart. When you give from the heart, God’s presence fills your life. Our hearts are like an altar. It is the channel by which we relate to God spiritually. It is where we bear our thoughts, desires and troubles – we lay them on the altar. God has always wanted that personal, heart to heart relationship with us, and He knows what is in our heart. It is futile to try to hide our hearts from God because He knows us. He can always see our hearts.

The altar was the barest, most open part of the temple, and it revealed the heart of the nation – their attitude towards God. Out of our heart, we give and sacrifice and bear the truth to God about where our hearts are. When we give and sacrifice from our hearts, that is a trigger for God’s presence to enter our lives. When God’s presence dwells in this kind of way in our hearts and in our lives, everything is different. There is also our individual walks with God – our individual hearts – and then collectively our heart joined together in the body of Christ. We have individual altars and then our collective altar, which is represented by us coming together, putting God first and worshiping Him together.

The most important thing that can happen in this church is for people to find God, for God to become real to them and for them to start on their journey towards God’s calling for them. We are in a fight and a competition to win people for God – we are competing with everything else around them to get their attention and bring them into a place where they can experience God. We want to bring them to a place where they understand that God loves them as they are and wants them as they are. That is the most important thing we are involved in. All of the things we do in this house are moving us towards creating an incredibly environment for those who are unconnected to God.

Paul says I will do extraordinary things so that I might win one. I will be all things to all men so that I can win just one to Christ. Everything we do – all of the effort and prayer and time and sacrifice we put in to things is all to win people to Christ. This church is about connecting people to God – in everything we do, we will never forget that the most important things is connecting people to God. I know that what we do is minor in the process compared to what God does, so we want to do things to create an atmosphere for God to show up. We want to bring people into the environment and create a meeting point for the lost to come in to the presence of God. There is nothing more powerful to change someone’s life than the presence of God. We can’t rely on our own efforts or ideas – it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that changes people and delivers the realities of God into people’s lives.

We not only need to have the presence of God here every time we meet, but we also need to carry it with us all the time. We have to keep our hearts right and our attitudes right so that we are always prepared to connect people with God. It’s easy to have a good attitude in church, but it is harder in the world to keep our hearts in the right place and stay in a place of servitude. The more you serve, the farther you will go with God and the higher level of ministry you reach the greater your level of servant hood becomes. We get strength from church and fellowship so that we can go out and reach others outside of church. You find God in fellowship.

This church is a church of the presence of God, and we want it in the midst of everything we do. We want the presence of God in the temple always – our heart temple and the church temple – because the presence of God changes lives and transforms hearts. God always shows up. Sometimes we have to wait for Him, but He never fails to show up.

Start talking about what’s possible. The New Year is a great opportunity for fresh vision. In this chapter, Paul has just left Athens. Despite all of his efforts there, he hadn’t had much success – no big miracles, no large churches established, no real breakthroughs. Athens was focused on philosophy and not open to God. Athens was as close to a failure as Paul could get. So Paul left for Corinth. Corinth was a port city – very wealthy and lustful. Paul met Priscilla and Aquilla while preaching in the synagogue, who had been kicked out of their homes in Rome for being Jewish. They all came together in Corinth. They were all in a place that felt a bit like failure, asking “God what’s next? What are you doing?”

Paul began preaching in the synagogues each week, but the Jews in Corinth opposed him. At this point, Paul had been facing opposition for a long time. Imagine living a life where day in and day out people opposed you, threatened you and harmed you – opposing what you thought was a vision from God. You really had a sense of what you thought God wanted you to do – a calling…You started with hope and vision only to be consistently opposed.

v9 – One night, God spoke to Paul in a vision. God is always speaking. There is prayer, and there is prayer without ceasing. It is like the difference between dial up and high speed Internet. When you establish a relationship with God and make the connection through the redemptive cross of Christ, you don’t “dial up” God anymore – you have a direct, constant connection with God. You don’t “go to God” because He is always here. You are ALWAYS connected to God. God’s always watching. He sees everything. We invited Him in and in He came. That was Paul’s revelation. God is always there, but sometimes He will appear to us and speak to us about specific things.

God told Him, “Don’t be afraid. Speak out and don’t be silent. For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people here in this city belong to me.” This is the Apostle Paul – one of the greatest Christians ever. God’s first words to this hero of faith are Don’t Be Afraid. He would do anything for God. He had traveled the world for God, had been beaten nearly to death, betrayed, shipwrecked, starving, living in poverty – and God says don’t be afraid! Despite what you are facing, despite the failures you had last year or in the past, God doesn’t want you to be afraid of what is coming – what is about to happen. We can’t receive what God has for us if there is fear in our hearts. We need to deal with the fear of something not happening right now. If God has to tell Paul not to fear – a champion of faith – then of course he will tell us not to fear. Corinth ends up being a key strategic city in the early church. Paul’s letters from Corinth form many of the foundational doctrines on which the church was built. Corinth wasn’t ordered and nice like Athens, but yet God chose to use Corinth.

Fear is almost the counterbalance of faith. It is the precursor to unbelief which leads to the disarmament of God. Fear causes us to not believe and restricts God’s movement in our lives. Fear of the vision God wants to speak to us about automatically ties the hands of God to move in our world. Fear manifests itself in many different ways – sometimes it’s rebellion, disobedience, bad choices. When we decide not to do what is right, or not to do what God is speaking to us about because of fear in our hearts, we start to dismantle the work of God in our lives. Fear will manifest itself in losing confidence – confidence in who we are in Christ and what God wants us to do. What that says is “God you aren’t big enough or faithful enough to bring me into what you want me to do.” That leads us into disbelief.

Speak Out. Paul has devoted his life to preaching about Jesus yet God says “Speak out and don’t be silent.” Sometimes it is the simple thing – the obvious thing – that we have been called to that we forget to do. We forget who we are, what we do, the gifts and talents that God gave us. We forget the visions God has given us and we don’t even know who we are or what we have. Speak out and do the things I have called you to do. Act on and live from the revelations I have given you. Once you get a revelation from God, it is a revelation forever. They are foundational. We are the sum total of our revelations. Don’t stop living from your revelations! Don’t go silent – don’t forget – don’t stop doing what I have called you to do, no matter what your circumstances try to tell you. Success and fruitfulness can be just as decapitating as failure because we have a short memory. We struggle for years and God gives a revelation and brings us out. Once we make it, we can forget where we came from. That is why it is also important to stay humble. Don’t forget what God has given you and don’t forget how you got to where you are. Speak and don’t be silent. I am with you and no one will harm you.

God’s redemptive plan for earth was to come to earth Himself- as a child – and become relatable. God wanted to connect to the world. “A Son will be given…” The child was the entry point. Come into the kingdom like a child. Re-learn and re-think everything. By coming as a child, God introduced Himself to us in such a way that we could identify with Him. He became real, tangible and touchable. He came and did things people needed Him to do – provide healing, comfort, compassion, encouragement and hope. He did everything He could to ensure that people understood Him.

Once you understand who God is you begin to see the big picture. Isaiah says that the government of this world will rest upon His shoulders. His name shall be called wonderful, counselor, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, Mighty God. These are His royal titles. He can understand everyone’s problems and feelings. He loves our prayers. He loves for us to talk to Him and will listen patiently. There is only one way to God – the everlasting Father – through Jesus. God wants to be the Everlasting Father to a world that is increasingly fatherless. He is a strong, masculine father. He is able to bring love and discipline as well as compassion and protection. The Prince of Peace – God has entrusted the Kingdom to His Son. Everything is made by Him and for Him. In Him, everything exists. Amidst turmoil, He is the one that brings liberty and peace. He brings understanding and freedom from worries and hurts. We don’t have to carry the burdens of life alone.

“My peace I leave to you.” The only way to peace is through Christ. Peace comes from individual peace – peace in the heart. While there is anger and hatred in the heart there is no peace. Jesus says “Carry my Spirit, carry my peace.” Infect the world with the nature and Spirit of Jesus, infect the world with peace.

The Kingdom of God is something we can bring to the here and now. We can demonstrate it in this world by knowing God’s character and acting out our desire to be like Christ.

The Christmas story gives a clear demonstration of the nature and character of God. Joseph in this story was in a dilemma – the dilemma was between the law and his heart. He was struggling with himself between his compassion for Mary and the dictates of the law he had grown up following. The law commanded commanded strict punishment for women who cheated on their husbands or were pregnant out of wedlock. However, the angel Gabriel had told Joseph to go ahead with his wedding and to name his son Jesus. (Emanuel – God with us).

This command went totally against how he was raised (in the Jewish tradition). Even being righteous as a man, he struggled with the promise of God. God so often does things that are so contrary to the way we would do them. When you look at this story in the context of the nature of God, it makes sense. The generations that led up to Mary and Joseph – the lineage of God – the royal bloodline of Christ – was filled with people who the law would consider unworthy. Four women in particular give excellent examples: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba.

God sees more than our issues. He looks beyond our problems and our humanity. There is a constant conflict between our humanity and our desire to be like Christ. That is why God looks at our hearts to see where out true love lies. God overlooks so much to bring His will to earth. He looks past our actions and see the real us – the person he has destined us to become. He sees in us His overall plan. When we get a glimpse of the potential God has put in us we start to move past the things that have held us back and start moving towards God. God looks at our hearts. As we struggle, he intervenes. We can’t box God into the context of our human knowledge or try to interpret what we think is or isn’t God. We have to trust that God is bigger than our perceptions and circumstances.

Emanuel – God with us. Jesus said, I didn’t come into the world to condemn the world. I am in you, and you will represent me. Everything I have done, you will do. Jesus hasn’t left because Jesus is in us. The world is confused about who Jesus is. They know of an about God, but they don’t know Him. They don’t know who He is. When you have an encounter with the real God, with Jesus, you are instantly changed. It doesn’t matter what influences are in your life – what law, what selfish lifestyle – you are going to honor and obey God.

Our prayers at Christmas and throughout the year should ask for God to be in us, not just with us. We should pray that we can become reflections of the true God who overlooks problems and sins and sees the potential within.