Resurrection Life Church

To be a mother is one of the greatest callings a woman could ever receive.  Why?  Because she is impacting the world.  As a godly mom, her influence is even greater because she is impacting generations to come through her children with the hope that comes from and through Jesus Christ. 

 

However, life has its way of bringing disappointment and hurt.  Many moms find it hard to be the godly mom they are to be because of that hurt and disappointment.  Disappointment brings an onslaught of emotions that are not always easy to deal with by yourself.   That is why Jesus told His disciples in John 14:19-27 that He would give them peace, in the midst of the storm.

 

Many times, we ask God to take away the storm when He wants to take us through the storm.  We don’t always understand why God does what He does but we can rest assured that His love is always there and will guide us through any storm we may encounter.

 

This week RLM women’s pastor Amy Hickman shares about how God will give moms and others peace in the midst of the storm of life and how she has learned to trust in God while raising 11 boys in today’s topsy turvy world.

Part of Resurrection Life’s DNA is that we believe in the next generation.  We not only believe in them but are willing to allow them to step out in faith and be the generation God wants them to be not the one that we want them to be.  Because of that belief we have opened up our Sunday morning service and allowed them to take over and share the gifts and testimonies that God has given them.

Samantha Burkett shares through an original spoken word she wrote and Joseph Murphy share how God saved him and healed him of deep depression since the time he was 10 years old.  Cole Arthur share how he was simply living his life with no purpose and how He came in a gave him purpose.  Amy Tebow share how God was able to give her a home where people loved and valued her and was able to come to a deeper relationship with God.  Jordan Meyers shared how her family losing their home lead to them living in a hotel for a long time and the close quarter reveal several things about her family that were not healthy but God was able to bring her out of those circumstances and bring her to faith in Him.

Kate Spiers, with her bubbly personality and optimism, reveals the anger and bitterness in her heart towards her father that no one really knew about and how God was able to give her the strength to forgive him and heal their relationship.

You will be blessed and encouraged by these young people’s testimony.  You will see a little of yourself in them.  You will come face to face with the same hope that they have.  You will see that we have a reason to believe in generation next.

God still speaks to His people today. God didn’t suddenly stop speaking to the church because He just got tired of speaking or of us not listening. Just as God hasn’t stopped healing people and performing miracles He hasn’t stopped speaking to us. He loves us and wants desperately to have an intimate relationship with us, that is why Jesus came, lived, suffered, bled, died and was raised again.

Each year the prophetic conference proves to be an amazing time with God and an awesome time of Him speaking to and thru His people and this year was no exception. The Church of Jesus Christ is desperate to hear from God and He is more than willing to speak but we must position ourselves to hear His voice by ridding ourselves of all the obstacles that inhibit us from listening and hearing.

Pastors, Mark Jobe, Marc Owings, Richard Hinojosa and Mallory Bassham team up to allow God to use them to speak words of encouragement, declaration and hope to His people in this year’s Worship and Prophetic Conference; One Kingdom Come.

God still speaks to His people today. God didn’t suddenly stop speaking to the church because He just got tired of speaking or of us not listening. Just as God hasn’t stopped healing people and performing miracles He hasn’t stopped speaking to us. He loves us and wants desperately to have an intimate relationship with us, that is why Jesus came, lived, suffered, bled, died and was raised again.

Each year the prophetic conference proves to be an amazing time with God and an awesome time of Him speaking to and thru His people and this year was no exception. The Church of Jesus Christ is desperate to hear from God and He is more than willing to speak but we must position ourselves to hear His voice by ridding ourselves of all the obstacles that inhibit us from listening and hearing.

Pastors, Mark Jobe, Marc Owings, Richard Hinojosa and Mallory Bassham team up to allow God to use them to speak words of encouragement, declaration and hope to His people in this year’s Worship and Prophetic Conference; One Kingdom Come.

Our thoughts are important to how we live our life.  Our attitudes, reactions, how we treat people, how we view the world, all come from our thought life.  The Bible tells us “as a man thinks in his heart (mind) so is he.”  That is powerful statement that underlines the importance of our thought life.

Paul told the Corinthians to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ in First Corinthians 10:3-5.  If we don’t our thoughts can run away with us and derail our walk with God and devastate our relationships in the here and now.  Most people don’t really think about what they think about.  They just let thinking happen and that is where our enemy, Satan steps in and begins his work.  We start thinking thought that are not in line with the word of God and those thought start affecting us and our relationship in a negative manner.  Our thinking starts to stink and reek of selfishness, conceit and pride.  That’s exactly what our enemy wants.

How do you change your thinking?  Good friend and Pastor Mark Jobe from Gateway Church shares several steps we need to take in order to position ourselves to hear from God and think His thought thus enabling us to be the sons and daughters of God He has destined us to be.

God still speaks to His people today. God didn’t suddenly stop speaking to the church because He just got tired of speaking or of us not listening. Just as God hasn’t stopped healing people and performing miracles He hasn’t stopped speaking to us. He loves us and wants desperately to have an intimate relationship with us, that is why Jesus came, lived, suffered, bled, died and was raised again.

Each year the prophetic conference proves to be an amazing time with God and an awesome time of Him speaking to and thru His people and this year was no exception. The Church of Jesus Christ is desperate to hear from God and He is more than willing to speak but we must position ourselves to hear His voice by ridding ourselves of all the obstacles that inhibit us from listening and hearing.

Pastors, Mark Jobe, Marc Owings, Richard Hinojosa and Mallory Bassham team up to allow God to use them to speak words of encouragement, declaration and hope to His people in this year’s Worship and Prophetic Conference; One Kingdom Come.

Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, The Spirit, whatever name you use most people are a little apprehensive about Him.  Yes, we said Him.  Why?  Because according to the scripture He is part of the Trinity.  He is the “power” part of the Trinity.  All “power” instances in the Bible are used in reference to the Holy Spirit.  “The Spirit came upon them,” or “The Spirit lead him,” and many other instances.  Usually it was some form of “power act” done by the Holy Spirit. 

 

These instances happened during the old testament times.  When Jesus came on the scene things started changing and there was a major uptick in the “power acts” of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life and through His disciples.  But Jesus wasn’t to stay here on this earth.  He had a specific job to come and do and He would return to the Father.  Enter the Holy Spirit.  Jesus told His disciples He was going away and leaving the Holy Spirit.  The disciples didn’t understand or like the fact Jesus was leaving.  Jesus told them, “it is to your advantage,” that I go and leave the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus was not only leaving the disciples He was also leaving them with a task to do.  Jesus has never asked us to do anything that He was not going to give us the power, resources, or ability to do.  This is where the infilling of the Holy Spirit comes in.  We as the Church of Jesus have been redeemed and ransomed by the blood of Jesus giving us the “right” to come into the presence of God and making us a “holy” vessel enabling the Holy Spirit to now “live” inside us and not just come “upon” us.  Our lives should now be lived naturally supernatural.

When someone is kidnapped and the perpetrator demands a ransom the people who are trying to save the kidnapped always demand “proof of life”.  “Show me they are alive.”  

We as followers and disciples of Jesus Christ are the living among the dead.  We are the proof of Jesus life.  We are the proof.  Through-out history there have been thousands of people who have given their physical life to attest to the life of God in them.  

Justin Martyr 100 A.D. was the first apologist and gave his life reaching out to leaders of the time with the message of Jesus’ sacrifice and love.  Cyprian 200 AD was a wealthy, pagan who was lead to faith in Jesus and became a prominent priest in early Christianity and die a martyr under the Roman Emperor Valerian.  Moving forward to the 1800’s a lawyer by the name of Lew Wallace a devout atheist and set out to destroy and put an end to Christianity and in the process made Jesus Lord of his life.  He later went on to write the classic novel Ben-Hur.  Richard Wurmbrand born in 1909 was a Romanian Christian minister who during the infancy of Communism in Russia and Europe dared to publicly proclaim that Christianity and Communism where incompatible and suffered imprisonment and torture by the Communist regime of Romania.  He eventually fled Europe and came to America where he founded Voice of the Martyrs.  Joon Gon Kim was a Korean Christian Evangelist. The story goes that during the springtime, as Kim's family was enjoying the day, an angry band of communist guerrillas invaded the village where Kim lived, killing everyone, including Kim's family. The guerrillas killed Kim's wife and father. Kim was beaten and left for dead. Late, he awoke and fled to the safety of the mountains with his young daughter, Unhi Kim.  He eventually returned to his village and sought out the communist that murdered his family and lead them to Jesus.  Kim also founded Korea Crusade for Christ.

All these followers of Jesus lived their life in such a way that they became the proof of Life that the world needed to know Jesus is alive and real.  What about our life?  Are we the proof of Life that the world around us needs to know Jesus is alive and real?  

Jesus was and is more than just a historical religious figure.  More than a moral and philosophical teacher as many in His day thought He was.  He was more than an icon in what some hoped would result in a political revolution against the Roman Empire.  He was more than just a carpenter’s son or worker of miracles. 

He was the Sacrifice.  He was the Ransom.  He was the Payment.  For what?  Who needed a sacrifice or a ransom paid?  I did.  You did.  We all did.  Since the beginning of time and from the time Adam and Eve fell mankind was in a state of offense with God.  Was God angry and mad at mankind?  Absolutely, not.  He was brokenhearted and yearned to be with His creation but His holy nature and character would not allow sin to partake of the Holy.  So, what did God do?  He made a Way.

That Way was outlined and was a foreshadowing of what Jesus was and would do.  There was a trespass and it had a ransom attached to it and mankind didn’t have anything that was worth enough to pay it.  So, God did what He does He loved us.  He loved us by allowing the only one worthy enough to pay the ransom that was required to buy us back.  That was Jesus, His son.  The one, the only Son of God. 

Jesus was the “trespass offering” need and required in order the enact a new covenant with man that would set us free from having to offering sacrifices year after year to only “cover” our sins for a short period of time.

Pastor Allen finishes up the discussion of the five offerings under the old covenant that were a foreshadowing of things to come in part three of Born To Die.

In the Old Testament there were many sacrifices that the Israelites where responsible every year to fulfill in order that have God’s approval and mercy on them.  There were all a symbol of what Jesus would fulfill in His life, death, burial and ultimately His resurrection.

The Peace offering also known as the fellowship offering was symbolic of buying back or restoring to an original state.  Jesus’ fulfill this for us and restored our fellowship with God that had been broken in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell.  This offering was a “freewill” offering that was given at the discretion of the worshiper.  The only time this offering was commanded was during the “feast of Pentecost”.  There were 3 types of peace offerings.  The Praise and Thanksgiving offering, the Vow offering and the Freewill offering which could use imperfect animals.  Think of how imperfect we as humans are and how God made a way for the imperfect to come before the perfect without fear or shame through His son Jesus.

The Sin offering was also known as the guilt or purification offering.  In Leviticus 4 it begins to mention willful sin and unintentional sin.  Sin was sin not matter the motive and it had to be dealt with.  Why?  Because sin will always lead to the defilement and breach of our relationship with God.  This was the first offering where atonement and forgiveness are mentioned.  There were also different requirements for different people.

Ultimately all sacrifices and offerings in the Old Testament were a symbol of what Jesus would do.  Under the Old Covenant (testament) the sacrifices would only “cover” the sin for a year and sacrifices had to be made again and again year after year.  But when Jesus came and sacrificed Himself who was perfect and flawless He being the “perfect sacrifice” “wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us and nailed it to the cross.” Thus, giving us the opportunity to be free from guilt and shame forever and to become the sons and daughters of God.