Jeff Davis' Blog

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday and witnessing the Holy Spirit poured out to multitudes of thirsty people was truly awesome, and the day I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was a day that I will never forget.  When Jesus ascended up to Heaven, He sent in His place, a comforter and helper; so why would I need a degree and not just the Holy Spirit to direct my understanding of the Bible?  God gave us the Holy Spirit to help, to strengthen, and to nurture us.  The Holy Spirit inspired all scripture and that means that all scripture is “God-breathed.”     (II Peter 1:20-21)  “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”  (II Timothy 3:16-17) “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” It is God who works in us, on us, and through us by way of the Holy Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit came upon me and filled me until my river overflowed, I had a new power and that power began to move me and bring to light a new plan and destiny for my life.  Living a life where I had a lasting regard for God’s word became my core desire.  I had to make God the standard in my life to which all other things would be balanced and measured.

I believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding and leading me in obtaining a Christian education.  To me, it is not just about getting another degree; I’ve been down the other road and went to a secular college and received a business degree.  This education would be fine if I only wanted to become an administrator in the church, but I want to become a pastor; I want to become more like Jesus and I want to feed, protect and rescue His sheep with the word of God.  Learning from men and women of God, I believe is at the center of what the Lord envisioned for our lives.  Presenting transparency and in-your-face life applications are needed in preparing us to heal and save a broken and lost world.   If one were not to use all the tools and resources available to them, the argument could be made that they were foolish.  The day we think that we have everything worked out and that we know everything we need to know will undoubtedly be the day that leads to our fall from grace.   When we believe we are above falling short in any area of sin, we are opening up ourselves to do exactly what we think we are above.   (Proverbs 16:18) “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling.”

 Just as God has given us doctors and medication for physical needs, I also believe He has given us teachers and pastors to help us in our need for God’s word and in our understanding of it.  (Ephesians 4:11) “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.”  I love what Bob Deffinbaugh said, “It is the Holy Spirit Who in His sovereignty bestows gifts on men; it is the Lord Who directs men to their ministry; and it is God Who determines the success of a ministry.”  I believe that I am being called to ministry; while I am not certain what area the Lord is going to use me in to better His kingdom, I have faith that the Holy Spirit is going to continue to guide me as long as I submit myself to God and His will for my life.   To truly find out what we are good at, we must get in the game and be willing to work wherever we are needed.  The Holy Spirit is not limited to only working one way or another and may use a combination of the Word, teachers, and pastors to accomplish His will for our lives.  Donald Gee knew what he was talking about when he said, “An educated preacher is good; an inspired preacher is better; an inspired, educated preacher is best.”    To be an effective shepherd we must not only have knowledge of the Trinity, we must have a relationship with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. It’s a horrible thing to say, but the people that I can relate to most used to be the last kind of people I wanted to be associated with.  God does not allow the pain we experience to go unused.   I could have read and learned about restoration and being made whole, but until I experienced it personally in my own life, I would not have known what I was talking about.  I would always be too concerned about the end result, while God was more concerned about the change occurring during the process.  To truly reach people, they need to be able to relate to us and to what we are saying.  Three verses and a poem are not enough; people need real-life application on what God can do in their life right now and the Holy Spirit enables us to do that.

  Parents don’t want their children to make the same mistakes they made because they know personally the pain it causes.  Our Lord also sees and feels the pain we feel.  The gospel is all about turning tragedy into triumph, but in order to do that we must dedicate ourselves to the Lord.  (Romans 12:2) “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  Life’s lessons teach us many things, but more than anything I think that they teach us to comfort others and to not rely on ourselves. 

Even with the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life, my understanding of spiritual things is partial and imperfect.  The Holy Spirit reveals truth and in my own life it is the spiritual compass which keeps me on the path which brings the most glory to God.   It has the ability to convict as well as to lead.  While the Holy Spirit has many different roles, its biggest role is to prepare and to equip us in what God is calling us to do.  Though this is the role of the Spirit, there is still a choice that needs to be consciously made on our part.  In our calling, we must be sensitive, bold and courageous, but at the same time we must rely on the Holy Spirit to train us and be our interpreter of truth.  I had to overcome myself in order to do what God had destined me to do.  Many days in my early walk, I felt as though I was one mistake away from God giving up on me. I praise God that this thought never even entered His mind! 

The Holy Spirit teaches and guides us. (John 14:26) “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. “ The Holy Spirit also intercedes on our behalf. (Romans 8:26) “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”  The Holy Spirit knows all things and can reveal things that we otherwise could not comprehend, (I Corinthians 2:10-11) “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man, which is in him?  Even the thoughts of God, no one knows except the Spirit of God.”  The Holy Spirit, as a comforter, pleads our case and expresses our pain.  The Holy Spirit can also quicken our spirit and convict us.  (John 16:8) “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.”  When we welcome the Spirit into our lives, He brings peace and comfort. 

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to witness and was instrumental even in Jesus’ ministry.  (Acts 10:38) “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.”   The Holy Spirit transforms us as it did when Saul became Paul.  The Holy Spirit knows all things and reveals God’s glory to us.  When we truly love the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, we witness first-hand things in which the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and things which have not entered to the heart of man.

After the Holy Spirit resides in us, He is the comforter who brings thought and language into our life.   The Holy Spirit continually teaches us things and will bring things to our memory even when we don’t know what to say or what to pray; the Spirit will speak through us.  I believe everything we will need to be effective in ministry, the Holy Spirit can provide.  He gave us His word that if there is anything special we ever need, He will bring those things to our memory as well.  (I John 2:27) “And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”  The same anointing that is on me will teach me all things.  A scripture that I read last year will most likely have an entirely different meaning today.  That same scripture would probably have a different meaning to other people because of their life experiences, trials and obstacles.   I remember one of my instructors would always say, “Every revolution is a new revelation” and I firmly believe that.  Anything that I accomplish in my life is because of the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit operating through me.  To say that one can only learn by way of the Holy Spirit would limit God to only working in that way.  God has an infinite number of ways to facilitate our understanding of not only His word, but also how much we mean to Him.  We serve an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God and He alone knows the best way for us to learn and experience His grace.  His divine strategy in our lives can unfold on the highest mountaintop and it can happen in the most barren wilderness we can imagine.  For me, it has unfolded during my journey between the two.  My faith and trust in the Lord has given me a much deeper understanding of His Word.  If I have learned anything in my walk with Christ, it is in times when we feel completely stranded; He is working on us the most.

5-25-09

I have been a Christian for most of my life.  I asked Jesus into my heart when I seven years old.  As a child, I was very blessed to have the opportunity to attend a Christian school and learn about my Lord and Savior at a very young age.  The seeds that were planted during these years of my life would be essential in my development as a follower of Christ.  Looking back, my life is a testament that the Lord’s word does not return void and it does not return to Him without succeeding in the matter for which it was sent.

            During my high school years, I felt a sincere calling into the mission field and traveled to Kenya for my first trip with Youth for Christ.  This was an amazing experience in my life and it was after this trip that I truly began to believe that God had a plan for my life.  Foreign missions still remain very close to my heart and I travel at least once a year with teams from my church to Europe and South and Central America.  These trips give us incredible opportunities to share God’s word either personally, or by our acts in building churches, housing, and orphanages for the local people.  Every trip I go on gives me a deeper appreciation of all the things I have and all the wonderful things the Lord has blessed me with.

My college years are not a time of my life that I am very proud of.   I learned some lessons the hard way and while I would not change anything in my past, I sometimes wish there was another way for me to get to the point where I am at now in my walk with Christ.  It’s sad to me that it took Jesus being all I had to realize He was all I needed.  As each semester passed, my faith played a smaller and smaller role in my life until it wasn’t even on my radar.  I began to become very prideful, thinking that I could do anything and everything on my own.  I should have remembered that pride comes before the fall.  This path I chose began a dangerous downward spiral in my life and when my world of things I placed before God came crashing down around me, I became bitter and it took some time for me to stop blaming God and everyone but myself.  I praise God that I can now face my future trials with the testimony of God’s faithfulness in my past.  Once I realized that everything I had gone through was permitted and even intended by God; restoration began to take place in my life.  I had to make a decision if I was going to allow my situation to make me a bitter person or a better person.  God did not allow me to experience the pain I felt without serving a higher purpose.  When I began to get my priorities straight again, God began to start causing all the events and things in my life to work together for good because I once again loved my Lord and was being called according to His purpose.

I have grown closer to the Lord in the last three years of my life than in the rest of my entire walk as a Christian.  I can now look back on past experiences through a different lens and from a deeper and more humble perspective.  My master had been preparing me for something so great that words can’t even begin to describe it; each new day was just another step in God’s wonderful plan for my life.  While certain events stand out more than others, receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was a very special day in my walk with Christ and this personal revival began a new and important chapter in my life.  Praising the Lord is one of the most powerful things we can do and now I had a direct channel of communication with God. 

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending “Walk to Emmaus” which is a three day pilgrimage to draw closer to the Lord.  During this time, I heard from the Lord that He was calling me to ministry.  He told me that, “I needed to take the first step in faith” and I believe that is what I am doing in applying to receive the education I will need in order to become ordained.  God is not a god of mystery and there is no doubt in my mind of what He is calling me to do.  I have prayed about it and have sought Godly counsel from my pastors; not to discern the voice of God, but to make sure what I did next lined up with what God wanted for my life.

I am not sure where God is going to use me to better His kingdom, but I submit to whatever He is calling me to do.  I have never been more certain of anything in my life and I look forward to the plans He has for me and my family.  I am very involved in my church and teach kid’s church on Wednesday nights and Bible study on Sunday mornings.  Nothing feels more right than when I share with others what God has done in my life and what God can do in theirs if they will just let Him in.  The closer I draw to the Lord, the closer He draws to me.  I realize that my life is God’s gift to me and what I do with it is my gift to Him.  Jesus is calling me to follow Him and to feed His sheep.  Because of my Lord’s grace, the strength and passion I now have was refined and made perfect in and through my time of weakness.

“Where to Go From Here”

5-5-09

            While this weekend at Emmaus was life changing and a time in which I felt so close to the Lord, it was a time in my life that I had to make a decision which road I was going to travel.  When the Lord was speaking into my life through His Holy Spirit I felt so uplifted, but after the closing ceremony the gravity of what the Lord was calling me to do started to set in.  I felt nauseated to my core while the thoughts in my mind raced in so many different directions.  Then I caught myself; I needed to let the Holy Spirit remain my guiding compass.  The morning following the retreat, I had the opportunity to spend the day with my mother who was one of my sponsors.  She is such a blessing to me and she has been my lifelong prayer intercessor.  I can remember as a child her praying over me and my life.  Every day, she would plead the blood of Jesus over my life and pray that a hedge of protection be place around me.  She prayed prayers of blessings and anointing to be place over my life.  She prayed that the Lord’s word would not return void and she trained me up in the way that I should go so that when I was old I would not depart from it.  She waged war in the spiritual realm against any plans the devil might have against my life.  As I began to share with her what the Lord had laid on my heart during my pilgrimage, seeing her face was a beautiful thing; she already knew.  The Lord had already shown her and my father what He was calling me to do.  He had even given someone close to her a vision of me preaching.  In her vision, she somehow was made aware that ministering to people was not something I had done my whole life, but that a change had occurred in me and that the Lord was using me to pour out His Spirit on multitudes of people.  To reach the lost and broken, sometimes those who are need to hear from those who were in need.  They need to see and hear that change is possible and that by God’s grace we can be made whole again. 

God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (II Corinthians 1:3-4)

De Colores

Jeff Davis, Table of Peter

“To Answer the Call”

Blue Lake Walk to Emmaus #201

It has only been a short time since my previous personal revival in which I was in-filled with the Holy Spirit.  That was an awesome day, but the pilgrimage I was embarking on was going to form the person I was to be the rest of my life.  After putting to death any fear I harbored about my future at the altar, any feelings of uncertainties were cast away.  After taking part in this Holy time, I began to pray to the Lord silently about the plans He had for me.  I no longer wanted to try something as a trial to see if the Lord approved.  Instead, I asked the Lord to show me what I was to do.  While I was praying this at the altar, a member of the Lay team came up to me to tell me that the Lord had placed a word on his heart the Lord wanted to use me in ministry.  I tried to downplay that thought in my own mind.  I also began to picture myself in certain roles and professions in what He was calling me to do.  The thought came to mind that spiritual leaders usually have resumes full of their gifts and many areas of service.  On my resume the small amount of good I do and the limited use of my spirituals gifts would surely put me at the bottom of any pile of consideration.  That is until I reread II Corinthians 5:17.  When Christ is in us, we are a new creation, the new has come and the old has gone.  I then also remembered the vision and the theme of our walk.  God causes all things to work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.  This scripture alone should put my resume very close to the top of any pile needing experience in God’s grace.  He does not let the pain we suffer in life go to waste.  It was such a blessing to me to know that part of my previous testimony had touched so many people during the walk.  I truly give God all the glory and I praise Him for using the Holy Spirit through me to speak into people’s lives.

The next time we were in the prayer chapel, we were given another opportunity to draw close to the Lord.  This time I figured I better be a little more specific in what I prayed for.  I silently began asking the Lord what His desire for my life was and what to do.  Shortly after praying, a member of the clergy came up to me to let me know that the Lord told him that my Lord and God wanted to use me in ministry and that the Holy Spirit would guide me and that He had been calling me for some time and to once again believe in His plan for my life.  I kept myself in an attitude of reverence asking Jesus what I was to do and He told me, “First you must take another step of faith.”  I felt like I needed to realize that when it’s God’s will, the way will be made clear and the obstacles in our way will be removed.  I now know that beyond a shadow of doubt that God has placed a calling on my life and I recognize and submit to that calling.  I realize that my life is God’s gift to me and what I do with it is my gift to Him.  Even though our 72 hour spiritual journey is completed as pilgrims, I now take up the cross in my fourth day journey which is the rest of my life.  We must continually evaluate our priorities in life.  I learned that this can be easily done by looking at your checkbook to see where you spend your time and money.  We are totally undeserving of God’s grace yet He does everything He can to pour His mercy out over us.  The only thing to describe why He does it is His Love for each and every one of us.  God’s calling was placed on me to attend this walk; it was no accident, it was no coincidence, it was God’s prevenient grace that setup the events to make my latest divine encounter a reality.  We are incapable of restoring the image of Christ in us; only God can restore us.  All we have to do is ask for God’s grace and we will feel His agape (unconditional love) on our lives.  We have all fallen short of His glory and I praise God I am past the point in my life when my past haunted me and when I was afraid of what tidbit of information might surface.  God purifies our lives and fills that void in our hearts.  Talking from past experiences, please make sure that you fill that void in your heart with God, whether it’s spending more time with Him reading, worshiping, or just meditating.  The last thing you want is for just another stronghold to take the place of the one you just got rid of.

Above all else, we must make God our first priority in our lives.  In my own life, I am amazed how many times asking God used to be the last thing I did when I needed something.  As I am growing in the word of God and listening to His voice I had to first become informed of the truth and then allow that truth to transform me.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, and the new has come.  What this means is, when Christ changes us on the inside, people should see that change on the outside.  One of the many great things that happens when Christ is in us, is that we have a transformation of our heart and mind.  It is a beautiful time in which after no man can separate us from the grace of our Father in Heaven.  One thing that everyone in the world has in common is our need for Jesus.  To fulfill the great commission and make this a reality, God’s love must motivate us in all we do.  We are all different in the body of Christ, but we serve the same purpose. 

In my own life, one area I continually struggled with was wanting to be in control and always wanting to be a part of the solution.  A lot of our early Patriarchs made this same mistake like when God promised Abraham a son through Sarah, but instead of trusting in God’s plan, Abraham thought he would just help God a little.  We have an uncanny way of becoming our worst enemy and sometimes we just plain out sabotage God’s grace.  Pride and guilt are some things that I had to deal with in the past as well.  Pride won’t let us admit we are the problem and guilt posts an unusable stamp on our forehead.  In both these cases God can’t redeem us until we release ourselves.  Committing many good acts will not make any difference either, only God’s grace will make you whole again.

Jesus is telling me to follow Him and to feed His sheep.  This was something in my own mind that I knew I must want to do for the right reasons.  I was told a story that if I could do something else and be happy in it, that I should do that, but if I couldn’t be happy in it then ministry was what I was most likely being called to do.  Everyone has the choice to either plant crops, water crops, or to harvest crops; whatever we decide to do, we must do it with joy in our heart.  “For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.  In this passage of Matthew 25 Jesus is telling us that what we do for one of His children, even the least, we do it as if it were Jesus.  I am taking a huge leap of faith believing the Lord is going to open up the next door for me to walk through.  I am doing my very best to be obedient to the Holy Spirit.  Daily, I am trying to make the fruits of the spirit as evident in my own life as I can.  These traits represent the evidence of Christ in our lives.

I had to hit rock bottom for me to want to change.  I pray that no one would have to make the same mistakes that I made.  I pray that they will turn back to the Lord before the world scars them and that the Lord will restore them to wholeness by His holiness.  I truly have faith in the plans God has for my life as I put to death any uncertainty or fear.  I am putting my faith into action because faith with no works is dead. (James 2:17)  God is continually working on us and through us; sometimes we simply just need to get out of His way.  The last thing we want to do is wrestle with God like Jacob.  I realize I can either bow before my Almighty God, or He can break my knees.

We all have spiritual gifts and abilities in which we can better the kingdom of God.  For me personally, I have several core gifts, but I also have a few others that fade in and out depending on what season of my life I am walking in.  The best thing you can do is have a servant’s heart and work wherever you are needed.  Church work and the work of the church is not the same thing.  The work of the church is equipping the body of Christ to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.  We can’t do it alone, we need the church, the church needs us, and the lost needs both of us.

I sincerely praise the Lord for the new work He is doing in my life.  I thank Him that His light is more powerful than darkness, that His truth is stronger that the enemy’s lies, and that there is more grace in God’s heart than sin in men’s.  It only took one shed drop of blood to guarantee that Satan is nothing but a fallen angel doomed to eternal destruction.  Recently my faith was seriously tested when I was going through some really hard times.  The only thing that can make these hard times even harder is when the enemy adds to the onslaught.  It is especially during these time that that we must command the forces of darkness to cease their assault in the name of the Lord Jesus.  We must wield the sword of the spirit with power and authority because it is the word of God.  We must plead the shed blood of the Lamb over ourselves and share our testimonies of God’s faithfulness with others.  If God is for us then who can be against us?  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  These aren’t just words, they are God breathed weapons and inspirations, so when we pray we must pray in the name of the Lord God Almighty and in the power of the Holy Spirit.  God not only fights for us, He actually fights in our place while we rest in the safety that only He can provide.  Whatever the enemy meant for harm in my life the Lord is going to use for good.  The Lord is my rock and the next time the enemy attacks, he will approach from one direction and flee in seven different directions because I am a child of God and He has given me dominion and authority over the devil.

Blue Lake walk to Emmaus has truly changed my life.  The Holy Spirit did such a wonderful thing in me and through me as my spiritual maturity has strengthened and my call to servant hood has been allowed to surface.  Thinking back over many of my past experiences both good and bad, He has allowed me to see His hand truly working all things together for good.  There was a time when I walked with the Lord very closely.  Then there was a time when I ran from the Lord in every direction but His, but even during that time of my life when I turned my back on Jesus, He stayed right beside me.  Although, I experienced much pain and deep spiritual scars, I truly believe that God was protecting me from so much more.  You see, God will never let us bear more than what we can handle.  The decisions I was making in my life caused my family tremendous pain and suffering, but I can’t even imagine the sadness it brought to my Heavenly Father who sacrificed His only Son for me.  I can however see the over abundant joy brought to my Heavenly Father that manifested by my decision to have a Christ-centered life.  By allowing the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross to cleanse my life, I bring glory to God the Father.  It humbles me to think that God would have sent His only son to die just for me.

Keep me in your prayers as I do the same for you. De Colores…   

By: Jeff Davis, Table of Peter

Yet those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired and they will walk and not become weary. (Isaiah 40:31)

Testimony 1-11-09

It happened to me in an instance and I will never be the same…

The last year of my life has been one of the hardest I have had to walk, but I have grown closer to the Lord in it than during the rest of my walk with Christ.  Despite all the challenges I was having to face with losing my job and trying to provide for all of my family’s needs, not once have I felt alone.  That is not to say I wasn’t ever afraid, but I clung to God’s word knowing that because I love the Lord and am called according to His purpose that He is going to work all things out for good.  Paul tells us to bear one another’s burdens and that it was for freedom that Christ set us free.  There is nothing that feels better than knowing you are walking with and yielding to the Holy Spirit in your life.  It sounded crazy in my own mind a year ago when we gave our problems to the Lord until I truly realized how faithful and true my God is.

The second message was a confirmation of the first message that God was preparing to do something major in my life as I was praising Him saying, “Here I am, send me.”  God doesn’t give us gifts to keep to ourselves; He gives them to us so we can share them with others.

 I truly serve an awesome God!

My journey as a Christian had been all over the map, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind how awesome my God is.  The closer I move to Him, the closer He moves to me and the more He occupies my heart and my mind.  For a long time, I was fixated on removing all sin from my life and yes I did have some major things God dealt with, but I soon realized we weren’t created to be sinless.  God doesn’t keep a tally sheet tracking all the good and bad things that we do.  He does however want the very best for us and He knows the desires of our hearts and He wants to give us a hope and a future.

If I could see a snapshot of my past life from heaven, I wouldn’t pick to see any of the rough spells because I already can picture the angelic multitudes interceding on my behalf.  Instead, I would want to see the celebration that took place when I cast away all the ways and things of my old life and became sold out to the Lord.  The devil used to have at his disposal so many things in my life that became very effective weapons in hindering and sometimes derailing my walk with Jesus.  It is amazing how the Holy Spirit can quicken your spirit and point things out in your life that don’t align with His will for us.  It truly humbles me to see God’s closeness in my life.  I praise the Lord daily for the mighty work He has done in my life and for the supernatural things He is continuing to do.  The last thing I want to do is what the children of Israel continually did.  They would be amazed and awestruck when God did something great, but how soon they would forget and turn back to their wicked ways.  I know that we are a slave to anything that controls us, so if we have sin in our life, we are a slave to it.  In my own life, I thank the Lord for His two outstretched arms, one to comfort me when I need it and the other to rule justly and swiftly over my life when I stray.

Forgiveness is a strange thing.  Once you have dealt with the giants in your life and have been cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb that does not mean those same giants won’t try to make their way back into your life or that the enemy won’t try to bring those memories back into your mind.  Instead of asking for forgiveness over and over and doubting that God could still use me to better His kingdom, I began to praise Him in all things especially when those memories of my past crept back into my thoughts.  Nothing makes the devil more upset than when we praise the Lord and the longer I denied my flesh the closer I drew to the Lord.  I needed to realize that every sinner has a past, but that every saint has a future.  I wish I could have learned some other way that Jesus was all I needed without feeling as though He was all I had.  But, because I love the Lord and I am called according to His purpose, I knew that He is causing all things to work together for good in His perfect timing.

Being saved and having salvation in my life was a wonderful thing, but when I was in filled with the Holy Spirit something wonderful happened.  It was a divine encounter that still amazes me as I think about the events that led up to it.  My personal revival was a day that I will never forget.  I now truly know that God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will and when we seek the Lord, He will find us.

When our old priorities don’t go with our new life, we either return to our old ways, or we adopt new priorities.  My old ways were road blocks in my walk with the Lord.  I knew a part of me had to die and my failure to decide might has well been my decision to fail.  When the world is pressing you so hard from one side and the Lord is pressing from the other, the only way I can describe it was giving into the Lord and falling into His grace and mercy.  You can’t amputate your history from your destiny.  My destiny is tied to my history and that is what redemption is.   I will never forget what the Lord dragged me out of.  The Lord declares to us that He knows the plans; plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans for a hope and a future.  Our past and our future share the same root and that root is Christ.  Once we are in Christ, Satan has no authority to destroy us, so he settles for the next best thing, threatening to destroy us or trying to convince us we are already destroyed.  Sometimes God’s invisible hand is so close in our lives that it covers our eyes.  Christ’s purpose in calling us to deny ourselves is that we would deny our selfishness, ambition, pasts, or any damaged emotions the right to cheat us of His far higher plans for our lives.

God through His Holy Spirit has transformed me.  He brought me to a place where I was willing to do anything to get out of the pit and everything to stay out.  To be out of the mud and mire and have my feet upon a rock.  He has put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to my God.  I pray many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord and I thank God for using the hammer of His word and the anvil of His unfailing love to transform and reshape me forever.  He spared no expense for us including His own son.  So, is anything too big for our God?  Is anything too wonderful for our God?  Even when we don’t see a way doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a way.  We need to let go and let God.  When we remove ourselves from the equation we allow God to do something supernatural in our lives.  He knows what we need and when we need it.  God not only wants to meet our needs, He wants to give us the desires of our heart.