I believe we’re in a season where God is restoring the Spirit of the fear of the Lord back to the church. You can either fear God or you can fear whatever the world is fearing. God is saying, “Choose this day whom you will fear. Whoever you fear, you give preference to. Will the people of God tremble before Me once again?” When you fear God, darkness is confronted and the name of the Lord Jesus is magnified.

Lately, I’ve been seeing some posts about the phrase “Holy Spirit, come” and how it is wrong theology to pray that because God is omnipresent. If He’s everywhere at all times, then why ask Him to come? The reality is, God is always omnipresent but He’s not always manifest present. In fact, He’s not always welcome everywhere. But when He is manifest and He is welcome, amazing things take place. Not that He doesn’t move in places of resistance - because He does. But as seen demonstrated in the life of Jesus, a place that welcomes Him receives much more than those who don't.

There is a current in our culture that is working to pull us contrary to the ways of God. It’s working overtime to get us to go with the flow of its tide. Just a few moments spent in the media, news outlets, or advertisements and you can feel the sales pitch vying for your attention and submission to its narrative. But there is the higher reality of God’s narrative and a victory that overcomes the sway: it’s called faith.

God’s heart has always been for the nations. From the beginning to the end, we see it - He wants every nation, tribe, tongue, and peoples in His kingdom. Somewhere along the way, we’ve gotten comfortable in our own “tribes” and we’ve forgotten the pattern of heaven’s worship! If we really want our worship to be “on earth as it is in heaven” then we’ve got to worship with every nation!

According to Jesus, heaven sets the pattern for what God wants to happen on earth. In part 1 of this blog series, we looked at what worship looks like in the throne room - prophetic, God-centered, and beholding Him who sits on the throne. This week we move into Revelation 5 where a new song erupts in heaven - the song of the Lamb that was slain to redeem mankind. The message of the cross is the theme of heaven’s new song!

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said to pray that earth would look like heaven - that what’s happening there would happen here! One of the things that is directly impacted by that prayer is our worship. The issue is, many times the church is impacted more by earth’s culture than by heaven’s glory. We’ve cared more about being relevant than reverent. God wants to reset our hearts to heaven’s standard of worship where it’s all about giving honor to the King!

This week I’m sharing a guest post from my good friend Taylor Jensen. He’s always full of fresh revelation and amazing testimonies of what God has done in and through his life. I was blown away at what God did as Taylor walked out the love of Jesus to a North Korean guard. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to demonstrate love to a supposed enemy, or just how God’s love looks in a practical and impactful way - this blog is for you.

Do you remember those times when you’re learning a new board game with friends? Someone tries to teach everyone how to play and after a few minutes you kind of get it (but not really) and then you all end up saying, “Let’s just play and you’ll get it as you go.” This is how it is with healing ministry...and in fact, all ministry. There’s only so much you can get from books and writings. You’re just gonna have to start doing it and you’ll get it as you go.

If supernatural healing really is God’s will (as it is), then why is healing ministry not a normal part of every church? Bringing it even closer to home, is it a normal part of your walk as a believer? God wants to raise up an army of healers, who walk in confidence of God’s healing power and release it as they go through life. This is our inheritance as followers of Jesus!

All throughout Scripture and all throughout history God has released healing in various ways. From the prayer of faith to an anointed handkerchief to a text message - there’s no limit to how God can release healing. All things are possible to those who believe! In part 2 of this series on healing, I want to talk about some of the various ways God releases healing.

Healing was an essential part of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Everywhere He went He released the healing touch of God. Not just emotional, medical, or inner healing - although that’s great and something God does - I’m talking about healing miracles that remove the pains, sickness, and diseases in people’s physical bodies. If you’re in need of healing or want to step into healing ministry, the first thing you need to know is that it is God’s will to heal.

In the world we live in, there are all kinds of voices that try to tell you what you should think and what you should do. But you weren’t made to be tossed here and there like a tumbleweed blowing in the wind of everyone’s opinions! You were meant to stand upon the truth of God and influence others for the sake of Jesus. You are called to be a thermostat, not a thermometer.

It’s important to identify who is telling your story. Whoever holds the narrative in your life holds your perception of reality. And out of that - your functionality, and ultimately your destiny. Many times, mainstream media and news outlets have an agenda - showing you only what they want you to see because they know that what you see determines what you perceive as reality. In other words, they want to tell your story! So the question then becomes, what voice is telling your story?

Stress and anxiety are overrated. And sometimes it feels like peace is undervalued. Or maybe just taken for granted…? Or maybe it’s just that we haven’t deeply experienced the peace of God so we just don’t know how powerful it is. Jesus believed that peace was important enough for us to have that He gave His life for it. And just being real...it’s a way better option than anxiety or stress.

We’ve all faced challenges in the unexpected year of 2020. But the good news is that faith works in every type of circumstance. Faith isn’t dependent on what’s happening around us because it’s rooted in our unshakeable God who is seated far above it all. As we come to a close of this crazy year where fear has tried to dominate the airwaves, let’s take some time to invest in our faith.

We’ve all had times where our passion needed re-fueling. Apathy is defined as the absence or suppression of passion. Trials - when improperly responded to - work to steal our passion and leave us apathetic towards God and towards life. You may have just let busyness distract you and apathy is now knocking at your door. Or...maybe you’re just not “feeling it” ...lol. The good news is that it doesn’t have to stay that way. Regardless of how you feel, there’s a way to fuel your passion every single day.

I’ve heard it said many times that we need to get back to the Book of Acts and the impact of the early church with signs, wonders, and miracles. As I’ve been reading through Acts in recent days, it stood out to me how much action was documented - hence, the name - Book of Acts, or the Acts of the Apostles. I believe the amount of power the disciples walked in was directly connected to the amount of action they took for the gospel. After all, you only need as much power as you’re going to use.

We’ve been good at championing heaven coming to earth, and rightly so. But one thing we haven’t talked about nearly as much is the returning of Jesus Christ, our home in heaven, and living with an eternal perspective. I’m a big believer that hope for the future brings strength for today. I don’t understand end times, nor do I want to argue about it - but one thing I know, Jesus is coming back and it should massively impact the way I live my life now.

It’s obvious there’s a war over our praise - especially if you live in California. We know our war is ultimately not with flesh and blood, it’s with the enemy of our souls. He knows the power that’s within our praise to God! God has given us a powerful supernatural weapon of praise. Let’s be careful to not invert our praise into complaining and use the sword the wrong way. It’s not a time to be silent, it’s a time to raise your voice - in praise to God!

We all know what it’s like to face the battlefield of the mind. Whether it’s fear, anxiety, bitterness, guilt, shame, or other draining types of thoughts - we’re familiar with the battle that takes place in our minds. Especially in 2020 - we’ve got way too many reasons to be stressed out! But God has plenty of reasons for us to be full of peace and has keys for us to win the battlefield of the mind. We can live above the craziness going on in the world today!