Category: Jesus

People Are Watching

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2 Corinthians 6:1. Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.
2. God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help.
3. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing.
4. Our work as God’s servants gets validated – or not – in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times;
5. when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating;
6. with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love;
7. when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right;
8. when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted;
9. ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die;
10. immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.
11. Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.
12. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.
13. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
14. Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark?
15. Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
16. Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: “I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
17. So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God. “Don’t link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself.
18. I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”

Noah’s Ark

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Pastor Dave Morse is the most amazing Sunday School teacher on the planet. Last week our Kingdom Kidz began learning about Noah building the ark. This week they were they were learning about being secure in the flood.

Pastor Dave brought them a modern day Noah’s ark. A Land Yacht. They loaded up on the ark to be secure from the flood. Ana Valencia came along during the lesson and began to knock, “Please, please let me in!” “No”, was the answer as she had missed her opportunity. I believe this was a lesson our children will never forget.

The kingdom moves forward when teachers like Pastor Dave take such a love for the children and their spiritual foundation. When I spoke to the children they told stories about how Noah was safe and secure in the ark when the flood came because he listened to God! Praise God for Pastor Dave!

Special thanks to Toscano RV for the use of the Airstream Land Yacht! We appreciate you!

Baby Food Giveaway!

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Today, March 13, 2010, over 19,000 pounds of baby food will be given away by our church. Thanks to the help of donors across the United States and abroad, Moms Against Hunger and Role Models Of America, organizations that we are proud to be involved with, we have received a truckload of baby and toddler food.

With the increasing unemployment and recession that has hit California’s Central Valley so hard, we want to be a little light that comes and eases the burden of families with infants. The response has been tremendous so far and we look forward to being a blessing! This is what ministry is. I’ll post some pictures of the results tomorrow! In the meantime, pray for us that we are able to touch the lives of many.

Fruit

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Gal 5:22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23. gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. NIV

Gal 5:22. But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,23. not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. “The Message”

Gal 5:22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23. gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. NKJ

Gal 5:22. But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23. gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. NLT

I looked up this passage in various versions to see if I had it right. In all the versions there is no reference to “fruits of the spirit”. Yet, time after time we as followers of Christ are taught to think that the Holy Spirit brings fruits (plural) and he doesn’t, he brings FRUIT-ONE FRUIT.

You see, it would be strange if God compares us to trees which bear multiple fruit since other living trees He created don’t bear a variety of things. An apple tree bears apples. To go even further with this thought process an apple tree doesn’t even bear a variety of apples. A Gala apple comes from a specific tree.

So we are to bear a fruit. When you bite into this fruit, or when a person sees our life it should have aspects of all the flavors, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. To be missing an ingredient throws the flavor off. We’ve all met and have been that follower that is just not right. It neither taste complete or looks complete. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be well-rounded in the flavors. If I’m impatient then it throws off my gentleness and possibly my faithfulness. If my love of something is excessive then it throws off my peace and self-control and what happens to my joy?

Better yet, let’s examine ourselves to make sure we are bearing Holy Spirit fruit. If kindness is lacking then it means that in that area of my life I have not allowed the Holy Spirit to really do his job in that area of my life. It means that in that department I have released my life to God. If I can’t be faithful then it means I still think I know best. So no matter how many of the other flavors I have going on, my fruit is still not mature, ripe for the picking or tasting as it should.

I live in orange country. If an orange is ripe and ready, farmers pick it and send it to market to be bought by consumers who love the taste of a sweet citrus fruit. If an orange on that same tree mind you, is a little smallish, greener or never quite got to where it was supposed to be, it is picked and sent to a factory to be made into orange juice. Each fruit on that tree got the same shot at growth. Some matured and some didn’t. So what fruit are you bearing? Are there any ingredients that aren’t being added in the correct measure?

Two Encounters

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On Saturday I attended a birthday party of a great woman in the Lord. While I was there people were mingling about both family and friends. Some were saved and some not. It was a great mix of people. They all made me feel welcome into their family.

After being there about an hour and meeting a really great couple who had just come back from a trip to Vegas to get tattoos, which were fabulously done by the way, by Hart and Huntington (a very cool shop in the tattoo world) another family member came up to the table I was sitting at to say hello to the people she knew there. I was introduced as, “This is my Pastor, Susan Young.” The woman said hello and was talking when all of a sudden in mid-sentence she said,

“Did you say Pastor?” The other woman said, “Yeah.” She exclaimed, “Oh Sh**! and I’m here with a beer.”

She begins to try to hide her beer behind her back as she apologizes to me and I see her discomfort. I smiled and quietly said, “It’s okay and you’re fine. The bible says nothing about drinking a beer; it’s being drunk which is the issue. I am not here to stone you.” She smiled and instantly seemed to relax, she still left quickly, but later came back and sat down to talk. It makes me think though, why the reaction? Pastor Doug says it’s because we have the Holy Spirit and therefore conviction follows. That is a part of it, but also it’s because

we judge.

It makes me very uncomfortable when people feel weird around me. Did they have that reaction with Jesus? When he talked to sinners did they squirm and run and hide, or was he so captivating and loving that they accepted his invitation to talk, and to learn about his beliefs, and why he believed them. I am not talking about the demon possessed either, just normal people. Did the conversation and the man’s presence change them? I believe it did.

This woman’s language didn’t burn my ears. I am a word person, cussing doesn’t offend me when adults say it. The word CONVERSATE offends me more because it’s a non word! Her beer didn’t offend me. Personally, I think beer taste horribly and I don’t know why people drink it, the taste makes me shudder, but simply because it’s not my thing.

How many times have I walked into a room and the room hushed since I’ve been in ministry? It’s been too many times. Why? Because whatever it was they were doing they felt they couldn’t do in front of me. How many times has someone said a cuss word and then looked at me red-faced and said, “Sorry.” In those instances when they KNOW that I am a pastor and they are SAVED it’s a whole different ballgame. Then I believe it’s conviction but when it’s an unsaved person I wonder if they don’t know any better. The only thing they know is that Christians are judgmental. Why is it that people freak out when a person in ministry is near? Should they not be drawn to us by our love?

At the end of this encounter, I pray I showed Jesus to the woman with the beer, and as I left she asked where our church was located. Maybe I’ll see her someday. I pray I do. In the meantime, I was there to celebrate a birthday and be light in the dark, not by my judgment but rather by my love. Not by my tolerance of sin but my acceptance of those who don’t yet know Christ but will by my example.

I left the birthday party and went to the grocery store. As I was wandering the aisles two teens were in front of me. I have to admit, I notice where bodies are in relation to me but I don’t notice who those bodies are. In other words, I know people are in front of me but I don’t look to see who they are. This gets me in trouble a lot of the times. So the only reason why I know it was a boy and a girl was that the girl was cussing stupidly as only teens do. Every other word is a cuss word because they can. I noted that one of them used to come to church. I tried to make eye contact but he was having none of it. When the one who used to come to church finally said, “Hey, don’t cuss, that lady is a pastor”, now the talk got ugly as the words began to spew from this other teen’s mouth. She didn’t give a F*** who I was she was going to F-ing cuss if she wanted to– and well, you get the gist. Okay, in that instance it was a total different response from me. I didn’t even try to speak to them. Instead I began to pray for them. Wow, how incredibly sad that she despised authority and had not ever been taught respect for adults. I felt bad that their parents had been too busy to instill the moral character that it’s going to take to make it in society. They have a big wake up call coming. I did notice however that she wasn’t yet woman enough to face me. She said all of this as she walked away from me making sure she was yelling in the store and making sure all the people in the vicinity knew that she had been raised by wolves!

Two encounters, two different reactions to my presence, and I had two different reactions, all in the course of one day.

Freedom in a 180 Gallon Tank

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Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.

Do you ever feel trapped? Sometimes, I look at our saltwater tank in our family room and I think of the vast ocean where these fish were made to be, deserve to be and there is part of me that  feels bad that the fish are trapped in 180 gallons of water. It seems like a lot of water and they seem happy to be fed everyday but I wonder what they would do in the ocean? Would they swim around in 180 gallons of sea or would they venture out past the boundaries and check things out? Just like those fish we find ourselves trapped in a limited space.

Only unlike those fish we can choose to swim beyond what we’ve always known and test the waters of the vast ocean of opportunity set before us. Freedom of a multitude of choices is the benefit of being human. Maybe we just want to explore the possibilities that are set out before us, only what keeps us from moving out into the great unknown? Fear. Fear and freedom are two opposing words.Fear keeps us from exploring what the Lord has for us.

My mom is a play it safe kinda gal. She’s been a great mom, in her, I know there is security and love and warmth and a safe place to fall if I need to. I know she isn’t going skydiving anytime soon and her big adventures consists of an occasional cruise or an occasional nickel or quarter slot machine in Vegas. She sees danger around the corner and as her daughter, she is always saying to me things like, “You are crazy! You need to remember you have kids!” Mostly it’s when I say things like, I went snorkeling in the Carribbean, (she sees sharks), or parasailing, (she sees a me crashing into the ocean), or a preaching trip to Africa, (she sees me being eaten by a lion) and when I told her that there were signs saying “Beware of Baboons” in Africa, she said, “Well, you BETTER be careful!”, in her mom voice which means business! When my daughter Casey went off to Midwest for college, my mom said, “Are you nuts? That’s too far!” And yet, she is proud of her girls on some levels. There is a streak of adventure in her as she sees an airplane up in the sky and says, “I’d sure like to be on that plane going wherever it’s going.” In those moments her sarcastic daughter (me) wants to say, “What if it’s going to AFRICA?!”

I think she found happiness in her life. She has been bold in her career as moved up the corporate ladder. She loved her career in banking and as promotions and new offers came in she never hesitated to take them. She showed me that my potential was only limited by my fear to go for it!

So where are you today? Are you swimming around in that 180 gallon tank of your life looking past the glass wishing, thinking about, but never taking the chance to swim past? Ask yourself, what the worst that could happen could be? You may fail and have to go back to the tank, but you might make it, and swim past things you never even knew existed. Are you living your life to its full potential or are you allowing fear to trap you? Resolve to live your life without regrets of things you should have done.

Take a chance to travel, take a chance to change careers, if your heart really wants to, take a chance in your life! You may find the freedom you were called to. Listen to that still small voice in your heart that leads the way to big adventures. Listen to it carefully as it guides you. No one ever promised you a safe life but you were promised a life worth living to its fullest!

Wine Christians

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Mark 2: 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

The metaphor here is the new wine which is the Holy Spirit, the moving of the spirit, the fire and power of Pentecost, the new church. Old Wineskin is religion, tradition, man-made, dry. Old wineskins once they aged became cracked and dry. New wine needs to be in new wine skins that are pliable and stretch and will move with the Holy Ghost.

To be a wine Christian you have to stop and resist the feeling of being pushed and pressured. We feel like we have to go here and there and we get caught up in the urgent and we miss the blessing of the important things God has set before us. A lot of things in our lives are like little fires, they seem urgent but will extinguish themselves if you leave them alone. To be a wine Christian ask yourself these questions;

1. Do you have a plan for you life? Do you have a dream that you want to see come through before the end of your life?
2. Do you have a goal and a plan or is your dream just a dream? Do you know how it will come to pass? What is your strategy?

Isaiah 32:8 But the noble man devises noble plans; And by noble plans he stands.

3. Who in your life is assisting you in your plan? Who speaks into your life? Who mentors you? Who is helping you? It is very dangerous to listen to no one. You hear people say, “I’m not going to church. I only need Jesus. I’m a good Christian.” Jesus is not even in this mix. He’s not hanging around this person because this person is rebellious and prideful and doesn’t think they need anyone. Then you have the flip side, the person who listens to everyone. Oh that sounds good let’s do that, that is a great idea let’s do that. Be careful what you eat in the form of books that you are reading and who you are listening to. Our Pastor warns us often, “Don’t eat from the garbage. Measure everything by what the word of God says.

4. How involved is God in the plan? Don’t forget to bring God into your meetings. And don’t move forward ignoring all the warnings. Learn to hear his voice.

That’s how you tell the difference between whether you are growing in your walk with Christ or standing still. Milk Christians are waiting to be fed the next word. Wine Christians can cook up a great meal and even feed others!

Milk Christians

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My Pastor preached on this and I want to share it.

1 Corinthians 3: 1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

Milk Christians are considered babes in Christ. That’s what we’d like to think.

Unfortunately though we’ve seen some milk Christians with full facial hair or breast of their own!

How can you tell if you are a milk Christian?

Milk Christians go to this church one week, this church the next week and midweek they are at a third.

They are always looking for something new; they are easily bored with everything. Their attention span is like that of a toddler, 3-5 minutes tops.

They believe everything and people easily deceive them.

Milk Christians run out of inspiration quickly.

They start lots of new things but never see it through to completion. I’ve had four jobs in 28 years, milk Christians brag about how many jobs they’ve had like it’s a badge.

Milk Christians get negative quickly.

They have very shallow relationships.

Milk Christians are not into long-term relationships.

Covenants to them are boring. That’s why you can have a long term Christian who still cheats on his wife.

They are listening to everyone and no one so they hear confirmations from sources outside of their covering.

There is no balance.

You see, milk has a time and a purpose but nursing when you are supposed to be weaned is retarded development.

Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Are you a milk Christian? If so, and you’ve been a Christian longer than 5 years it’s time to grow up!

It’s Never Good Enough

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I’m learning so much! We are taking The Love Dare at church. The lessons have been excellent. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the kind of wife I am. On some things I’d grade myself an “A”. On other things I fail miserably. Yet, my husband, week after week loves me anyway.

One phrase that seems to be the resounding cadence of the men in the class is, “It’s Never Good Enough”. Wow! I can certainly see how the snake in the garden of Eden got to Eve and caused her to sin so simply. In her eyes, it simply wasn’t good enough and there was room for improvement. Since in our inner design, we as women are multipliers. I suppose that at our base level we view everything as able to be improved. However, in our saved condition we must learn to be at peace and content.

It has really been a learning experience to hear good men say they feel that they can’t do things right at home, when really the issue is they don’t do the task as their wife does it. It can be something simple like sweeping the floor or something a little more complicated like giving the kids a bath. We women have this idea that we can do it better.

So my resolve is set, my eyes are fixed on the prize and that is to have a husband who feels more than adequate and who really is my partner in life. He’s not perfect, but neither am I so we’ll have to be works in progress together.