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  • TENACIOUS HUNGER FOR GOD

    A thought from Ps Randy Clark

    I want to share with you a powerful story that impacted me when I first heard it. It is about tenacious hunger for God. 

    In the early days of my time within the Vineyard, I remember an afternoon when John Wimber called for me to meet with him in his office. I remember walking in, only to see John leaning back in his chair with a giant smile on his face. I sat across from him, as he looked at me and said, “Randy, who is the most anointed person in all of the Vineyard when it comes to words of knowledge and healing?” I thought for a moment, and responded “Well John, besides yourself, it would be Blaine Cook.” John looked at me and said “Randy, let me tell you something about Blaine.”

    He then began to recall to me a dream that the Lord had given him several years earlier. In summary, the dream was about a powerful outbreak of the Spirit that would sweep the Vineyard as a whole, as the church went to the streets and began ministering to the sick. John continued from there to tell me about inviting Blaine into his office and sharing the dream with him. I should also mention, at the time of this dream occurring, Blaine Cook was not someone with a reputation for being used in healing.

    However, once John shared this dream, Blaine became ecstatic. Overwhelmed with a desire to see this move of God, he stood up from the desk, and began asking when they would start going out to minister to people in this way. “Whoah! Slow down! It’s not time for that just yet. The people aren’t quite ready,” John said to him. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do!” But Blaine disagreed. The attitude that Blaine held was one of tenacity. Even though he was not seeing a lot of healing yet, he began to ask John to pray for him, so that God would release an anointing for him to go and see people set free according to the dream. (more…)

     
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  • 40 Day Negativity Fast – Positivity Feast

  • Don’t Withdraw Your Heart

    Blog by Steve Backlund

    “I will not withdraw my heart from people who disappoint me or that I hear negative information about.” This is a powerful belief and declaration for those who want healthy relationships and increased influence. It does not mean we don’t have boundaries in our interactions with people, but the tendency to withdraw our hearts from people will not benefit us or others if we persist in it.

    As we mature, we begin to understand our own tendencies. We are able to recognize and admit things like this:

    • I tend to dwell on unresolved relational situations in my life.
    • I tend to not feel worthy to be blessed or to be happy
    • I tend to fixate on what is not perfect yet.
    • I tend to judge others by their actions and justify myself by my motives.
    • I tend to be defensive if anyone questions my actions or attitudes.
    • I tend to avoid conflict.
    • I tend to feel overlooked and under-appreciated.

    We can certainly add “I have the tendency to withdraw my heart from people who disappoint me or that I hear negative information about” to this list. We often do this unconsciously, and it is a habit that will not serve our life goals well.

    Why Withdrawing Our Heart From People is a Problem
    It is part of the elder brother mindset – The default of the elder-brother mindset is to first see what is wrong with a person or place. The default of the father-mindset is to first see what is right with a person or place. (See Luke 15:11-32.)
    It will limit our influence – It is difficult to positively influence those we are offended at.
    It contributes to dysfunctional relational environments – Unresolved heart issues concerning people in our key environments (home, work, church, etc.) will work against having healthy teams or healthy families.
    It blinds us to really see people – As we fixate on what people are doing wrong, we will be unable to see who they really are. “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16).
    We give our power away and become the victim – When someone’s behavior controls our emotions, then we have given our power away to that person.
    We become part of the problem and not the solution – We live in a society that is increasingly canceling people and disconnecting from people. There is a spirit of division that wants us to join in this corrupting behavior.

    As we navigate our heart posture toward people in our lives, it is helpful to understand the pattern of most relationships.
    Excitement –>
    Disappointment  –>
    Then the choice of disconnection or connection

    How we process disappointment in people will be a key factor in how much positive influence we will have. I talk about this in my blog, “I Choose You Again”.

    How to Overcome the Tendency of Withdrawing Our Hearts From People

    1. When tempted to be inwardly critical about someone, immediately pray for them – This investment in their lives will help you keep your love on for the person.
    2. Seek first to understand before you seek to be understood – Asking great questions will help you know the true facts and help you understand the heart of the person.
    3. Keep leaning into relationships – Connections with people can certainly be challenging, but 1 Corinthians 13 (the ‘love’ chapter) gives us powerful motivation to do relationships well.
    4. Learn simple ways to stay connected and to send the message, “You are important to me” – Some of these include thankfulness, remembering things, supporting them in dreams, etc.
    5. Develop skills to resolve conflict and to work with challenging people – Our book, Culture of Empowerment, is a good one for this. Danny Silk has many powerful resources for this as well.

    Again, we recognize that there may be people in our lives who we need to keep at a distance because of abusive or reckless behavior, but even with those people, we can keep our heart in a place of seeing them as God sees them.

    2024 is a year of relational healing. As we refuse to withdraw our hearts from people who disappoint us, we will truly become part of the solution for the healing of our families and nations.

     

     

     

  • God’s Home Among Humans

    2 Samuel 7:11-16

    This passage about God’s establishment and protection of the Davidic kingdom was picked up for various purposes in the first-century world, perhaps most strikingly by the early Christians who applied it to Jesus. David’s impulse that God should have a grand house was right, but God had bigger plans than David had imagined. By coming in the person of Jesus, God made clear that the grand house of his dwelling is creation itself. God makes human beings in such a way that it will be appropriate for him to come himself in the person of his son and be a human among humans. This is the hope revealed at Advent.   N.T. Wright  watch more here

  • People of Advent Hope

    Isaiah 61:1-2

    Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 during what many people see as the very start of his ministry, the Nazareth Manifesto. What can his choice tell us about Jesus’s mission, and our mission as Jesus’s followers? For one, it reminds us that the Advent hope is a trinitarian hope. God sends Jesus as the servant figure, equipped with God’s spirit, to bring about the promised restoration and healing. Jesus extends this vocation to the church, as we ourselves are equipped with God’s spirit and enabled to be people of Advent hope.

    How can you bring a hopeful light to dark places this Advent season?