Contemplating the incarnation...

I had such good intentions of writing notes and writing and reflecting on all the wonderful things I am learning, but I didn't realize how exhausted my brain was going to be at the end of the day.

We had our second teaching today on the Harp and Bowl model of worship. Again, it's all really awesome, but I am not a singer, musician, or an intercessory prayer leader. But I did have to pray on the mic today at the Justice Prayer Room (it was mandatory). It wasn't so bad, but not sure that I would volunteer to do it again on my own. I LOVE worship, but I am not a worship leader...thank goodness. And I am not a huge fan of praying on a microphone. I'm just saying.

We had small group tonight, and it was really awesome. First Sarah and I were dancing around sock-footed on the hardwood floor. Then we both talked about our passion to dance, and she taught me a little about how to team up and do interpretive dance. It was fun, so we are going to dance in the prayer room one day. Preferably when there are not a lot of people there, ha, at least for my sake...she dances pretty. Well, we had popcorn and tea for a snack, and then were led into worship. It was really powerful, we ended up in a spirit of intercession, and we interceded on the behalf of righteousness over the elections on Tuesday.

Our Excellencies of Christ was a little bit on the pre-existence of Christ, and Christ the Mediator. Basically, there was NEVER a time when Jesus did not exist. And there are soooo many scriptures. I love it. And then as Christ the Mediator, basically, Jesus represents God to us. AND Jesus represents us to God. And Jesus is always going to agree with Jesus. So Jesus represents God to us and agrees with how good He is, and Jesus represents us to God, and agrees that His blood has atoned for us. We can't lose. That's AWESOME. He quoted Thomas Oden, and I think this is really powerful, "The mediator between God and humanity would have to be nothing less than God and nothing less than fully human, otherwise this mediatorship would have been impossible, for how can one mediate a conflict in which one has not capacity to empathize with one or the other side?"

This was in the notes, quoted by Von Balthasar, Hans Urs (yeah, I don't know), "Anyone contemplating the life of Jesus needs to be newly and more deeply aware every day that something scandalous has occurred: that God, in His absolute being, has resolved to manifest Himself in a human life. He must be scandalized by this, he must feel his mind reeling, the very ground giving way beneath his feet; he must at least experience that 'ecstasy' of non-comprehension which transported Jesus' contemporaries (Mark 2:12, 5:42, 6:51)." That's an intense statement.

Allen Hood said that, "The incarnation is mysterious. It's the subject matter of worship, not just apologetics. Because we cannot understand it, we must fall down and worship it. If God is going to give us something to meditate on...it's not going to be something easily grasped, not for this age or the age to come. We will forever meditate on the incarnation. Jesus makes contemplation possible. The only reason we know what God is like is because He has revealed Himself FULLY in Jesus. He not only shows us what God is like, He shows us what we're made to be like. This is our inheritance."

That's awesome.

My brain. Oh my brain, off to bed...here is another song that I love...this is the song that the EGS broke out in dance the other night...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw1aLy6O0J0

Some heavy thoughts...

Been a long day. We started the Harp and Bowl teacings today. It's neat so far, but I'm not that into it, I guess because I am not a worship leader, singer, musician, nor do I get on the microphone to pray. But it's interesting to hear their heart on why they lead intercession sets in the prayer room the way that they do, and I respect them for the order and consistency in it. Pretty awesome.

I was in the prayer room today, and had been soaking a lot of stuff in, reading through the Word. God spoke some things to me that I cannot yet share, but He started speaking to me about abortion in America. He didn't say much to me, but the weight of the what He spoke was on my heart and I was speachless. So I sat in my chair in the back of the room, in quiet intercession for voters in America. I haven't mastered quoting God word for word, if one can do that, but here is the gist of what I felt was on His heart

Leaders that have forced, or allowed the death of babies has brought great tragedy upon a generation and curse upon themselves. Blood on their hands. There is great unrest in the peoples, and great darkness in kingdoms/governments. Pharaoh died when God rescued His people from his grip of slavery. His slaves built a kingdom for Pharaoh, and so that the slaves wouldn't rise against him, the deaths of babies was enforced.

No kingdom that has lawful infant death has lasted, nor will it. Such a kingdom cannot have His favor. Justice for innocent death is to remove His presence. Because if it's death we want, God will deliver us over to it. God is Life. There is righteous judgment in opposing Life. In the death of Life. God loves Life, it CANNOT be okay to snuff life out because we don't feel like dealing with a 'mistake.' And how dare we call a life a mistake? Eve couldn't even conceive without the HELP of God (Gen. 4:1, God makes babies, not people). We have no idea how much Gods heart is greived over the loss of life because of carelessness. And there is forgiveness for this. God is good, and He forgives all sin, and He heals the heart that turned to sin because of brokenness.

But I am scared to think of our nation embracing abortion. Embracing abortion would be like Pharaoh enforcing the death of the firstborn male. Pharaoh didn't want his kingdom overthrown...nor does Satan. The kingdoms that Satan is trying to establish in our hearts through slavery to him, holds no value for human life, because it's the humans that are going to send him to the lake of fire. He is going to make it look good and convienent, and righteous and just. But he has to lie to us for us to commit to him. He knows his kingdom is at stake with babies, because (Ps. 8:1) out of the mouths of infants He has ordained praise. Satan wants to subtly tell us to free ourselves of guilt by killing our 'mistakes,' and then you won't have to worry about it. Part of your soul dies. And though I am not speaking firsthand, I am speaking because I know that just my own words can murder people and how much guilt I feel for that. But for actually being responsible for taking the life of a 100% innocent baby, I can't imagine the guilt. I cannot imagine the guilt for just one baby. But a whole generation of dead babies resting on the leader of my nation.

And so to tug at your heart strings, I included a picture of the most beautiful baby in the world. Madison Renee Kohrs.

Sabbath

I once again had my Sabbath. It was really low-key. Took a walk, and had to go to the Ihop staff meeting. That was interesting, but nothing too noteworthy. Then my friend Aaron, a YWAM friend, came and picked me up and took me out to eat. It was so funny when we walked into the Ihop parking lot he told me that he had 3 cars and I could pick which one. So I joked and pointed to a whole row of cars and said, I can just pick any of these, he laughed and said, 'sure.' Well, my eyes fell on this oooold clunky red Volkswagen truck. I smiled and said, 'that one!' thinking he would laugh and say, oh that's not my car. Well, it was his car! AND it was his favorite. That was funny. So, we went out and talked, caught up on life. He showed me a cool little coffee shop that I could go to...which was good, I was sort of looking for one today.


These pictures are just at the Tomahawk Park that I went for a walk at today. It was pretty. It was chilly, but it felt really good.

The Lord and I talked about some heart issues today, and now I am really excited about going to Pure Heart tomorrow. And seeing that it is going to be a long day tomorrow, I am off to bed...sorry no wonderful things to reflect on publicly today!

Ouch, fire hurts.

 
 
 
 

Today was a very welcomed change of pace. Other than our service projects with church, we were free until our Intro Social. We met at the clubhouse where the leaders live, and basically just hung out for a couple of hours.

My day started as usual, ushering at the 8:30 service. Then I stopped by the red bridge again, and went for a walk, sat with the Lord and talked about things. I have been here for a month, which seems wild. Wild because it feels like I have been here for a year, yet I can barely believe that I have been here for a month. So I am looking at the trek ahead of me. It's going to go sooo fast, but it's going to be a long time from now, as well. If that makes sense.

The social was fun, because we got to sit and actually talk and get to know one another. I went for 2 walks on the path around the complex. Each time talking to a different person, so it was nice to get to know people and hear fresh stories of life, salvation, rescue, glory, and awe. I'm such a one-on-one person, that's all I want to do for the next 2 months. Just get to know people. But seeing how busy we are, that probably won't happen.

I went to the prayer room this evening. I actually wanted to write poetry. Lately I have really been wanting to write poetry again, but when I sit down to do it, my creativity sort of stops flowing. Well, I decided to go the prayer room, first of all because it was the only place open other than Walmart and the BP station down the road. But God is so funny how He works. Walking in I could feel the energy of the place, and knew I wasn't going to get much contemplative thought in. Things did change, and the Lord started speaking to me. Which actually left me angry, because He was dealing with stuff in my heart. Things I didn't want to deal with, I just wanted to write poetry. But then He went on to teach me a bit about fire and pruning. Here is a little of what He shared with me...

He showed me a picture of the burning bush...that, of course, didn't burn up. He said that the fire shocks my agreements (offense) and burns them up (submission). But He told me I had the ability to keep things away from the fire, but that that would leave a chasm between us. So all the while, I am going along putting more wood on the fire...in a good way, more Truth, more of His Word, asking for more of His Spirit. This causes the fire to grow bigger and bigger, leaving those things I try to hide with nowhere to go. More Truth, bigger fire, reaches farther, burns up more. The singing of the fire hurts, it burns. But He says, "beauty from ashes."
He paralleled it with pruning from John 15:2, "every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear even more fruit." That's a good God. He sees fruit, so He prunes/burns away to leave room and growth for MORE fruit. He prunes only the LIVING BRANCHES, ones that produce fruit, so they do not die, but produce more. Bigger fire.

I want a much bigger fire.

Humble Holy Spirit

So, I learned yesterday about how humble the Holy Spirit is. The universe was created by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you know what? The Holy Spirit never seeks worship or acknowledgment. The Holy Spirit points to Jesus, who points to the Father. This is from Mike's notes, "The Holy Spirit functions as the support ministry within the Godhead. He is fully God yet chooses to work behind the scenes without desire to be recognized. He is happy in humility." He just waits for us. He is sooo patient. And of course He is, Love is Patient. The Holy Spirit is a Gentleman. He never changes! He is 100% inside of me because He WANTS to be in me, but won't force anything. He just waits for me! So good! I don't have much else to say today. I have been talking a lot to the Holy Spirit today, and it's been wonderful. I so often forget that He is as much God as the Father and the Son.
I will leave you with this song that I just LOVE! I don't know how to get it on my page, so here is the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKt3tIxv49U&feature=related

Not a cook, or an artist...but I have Jesus

I have a vague memory of being in math class as a little girl, and the teacher telling me that I went about getting the answer the really really long way, but at least I got there. I do that with cooking, too. In fact, I think I do that with most things, driving is another good example. So, I bought a spagetti squash at the grocery store (my old roommate, Hi Ann, used to get spaghetti squash and I really liked it). When I got home I realized that I didn't know how to cook it. Like any normal 26-year old who never learned how to cook, I googled it. Google is my new cookbook. It's so easy to just type in "how to cook spaghetti squash" and have the whole spaghetti squash lovers world at my fingertips. I love the internet. Anyway, I clicked on the first one, and then later learned out I could have boiled it, or microwaved it, but no, I waited 30 minutes for the toaster oven to finally heat up to 375 (some days it doesn't work at all), and then another hour to cook. But you know what? It was good, I really enjoyed it, and will probably purchase another one.

And this evening, after EGS (which was amazing, there was a mass exodus of people running to the front to dance...and I was in the middle of a row and missed out...but it was still wonderful), I finally decided to 'finish' my painting. Just hold on to the fact that I am not an artist. My imagination and creativity is flowing, it's just that I lack the skill.

Well, the past couple of days have been awesome. The Lord has been teaching me a lot about grace. Things that I haven't really meditated on before, which is unfortunate because I've missed a lot of who God is. But He opened a door for me to gaze into, and my soul is being comforted, and my heart is being changed. It's what Allen Hood calls 'beholding/becoming,' what you behold is what you become. What you look at, what you gaze at, what you meditate on, what you ponder on, what you devote yourself to, you become like it. Which of course, is why it is so important to guard our eyes and our hearts. We have to watch what we devote ourselves to. You are what you eat (I am not saying that I am squash). When working at Maryhurst (which some of you don't know...is a residentional treament center for girls) I saw so many things that are 'normal' for teens to invest their time in...and I have to say, it was stuff that made me blush, or gag. It was so powerful to see how these things affected their minds, and how they were tormented. From music, to movies, to pictures, to books, oh my, the books that they would read.

There is a war for our souls. It's up to our soul to decide if we are going to agree with God, or with the enemy. The enemy is trying to steal our souls, and he is a liar, he is the father of lies, he decieves, he tricks, he's 'crafty' in his lies, to get you to believe him over God. Think about that. You. The enemy wants to steal your soul. So, he is doing whatever he can to get you into compromise. To think that your decisions are not that important. Music, for example. We think, oh, it's just music. Well, I like how one of the Ihop worship-leaders put it in our small-group briefing the other day, "Worship leaders took Satan's place. He fell from heaven, so humans have filled his role as worship leaders. And Satan is mad because worship leaders are ushering in his prison sentence." Satan doesn't want us to be led by worship in music, he wants us to compromise in music so that we don't worship. Not that all secular music is wrong, but like Mike Bickle said, "There is a spirit behind music, you need to know which one."

The past couple of weeks have been so good. Actually, I have been here for a month now. Wild. I'm not going to lie, I'm ready to come home...as most of you know. God has me here, for this season, on purpose. I am happy to say that I don't feel called to stay here. The other day I realized that I felt like I was 'fasting' from home, because I was so empty inside of the presence of Louisville that I actually felt lovesick for Louisville. And when I come home, it's going to be so good. Though Kansas City has taken up some residence in my heart, it's just not 'home.'

So, here are some verses that God breathed on for me today. If they don't strike you as incredible, ask God to breathe on them. They came alive to me today, and I cried. I am so thankful for Jesus. For grace. I've been a Christian for 9 years this month, and I think I might finally be getting some of this 'grace' stuff.

Romans 5:16 The gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin (Adam): the judgment followed one sin AND brough condemnation, BUT the gift of God followed many tresspasses AND brought justification.
5:15 (my paraphrase) If mans sin caused judgment to many, how much MORE would an eternally glad God's grace overflow to many!

God's gift followed sin, it came after Jesus was murdered. But because He was the final sin offering, when we say yes to Him, we are counted blameless in His sight...because God only sees us through the finished work of the cross, through the blood of Jesus, through the rainbow of mercy around His throne. That's a good God. I am surprised that I used to not want Him. I'm surprised that there are still parts of my flesh that reject Him. But He's good, He deals with me lovingly and graciously. I was talking to God about this today. I asked Him how do I love Him with all of my heart and soul...and go figure, tonight's teaching at EGS was called "How to love God with all your soul." Mike talked a lot about humility, and how humility is like love, and that humility is expressed through our speech. Wow. I won't give you point by point notes, but it was intense for me. But here is one..."Love grows in us as we are moved by Jesus' humility as we see the story of how He treats us. To love God with all our soul speaks of loving with our personality in deep humility. This is expressed most dynamically by our speech. We set our heart to express ourselves and to communicate in a way taht enhances and not diminishes love. When the Spirit is grieved, we do not receive from Him in the same measure. What we say enhances or quenches our ability to lvoe Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. And nobody impact your Spirit more than your own words. Speech needs to be under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Speech is a windown into the soul."

We also went over Session 2 of the Omega Course today...wow. I really want to type a whole lot of notes here, but I am thinking it's really heavy and deep and serious...so I am going to stop here for the night. I will leave you with the chorus of this Rick Pino song I am listening to (Tyler or Adrienne, what is the name of this song?)...

Your love is like the ocean
I'm drowning in your presence
I'm getting lost in the gaze of your eyes
I'm getting lost in the warmth of your smile

Hmmm, yeah, He is so good.

More heart downloads to open later

This is Muraina and I in the Ihop library. Muraina is from Puerto Rico, and basically, she is hilarious. We share a row of seats together in class every day, go to bookstores together...as she bribes me with food and money to take her places. I oblige. She teaches me about the fire of God, and I counsel her in some English, and, I had to explain what, uh, long-johns are. She is really looking forward to seeing snow for the first time. And needless to say, fall weather, 50ish-degrees, is the coldest she's ever been. At least she didn't move to Minnesota, or North Dakota. As my beloved Anne (with an e) Shirley would say, "She is a kindred spirit."

I just want to say that though I have tried many times, I just don't like mushrooms. I think they are gross.

So. The past two days of class have been on worship. Just because I am not great at pulling out the big picture and summarizing it, I will highlight for you some of the notes that were awesome. Some of this stuff I had already been chewing on, and then it was taught on, so that was good, it cleared up some things I was wondering about. These notes are quoted from Corey Starks Revelation of Worship notes, and some of it is just stuff he said in class. Here goes.

~Worship is to bow down, kneeling or prostration to do homage or make obeisance. It is to humble yourself before what is worthy.
~The heart of worship is first and foremost an inward reality that flows from a revelation of who God is, His worth or worthiness, which is then expressed and reflected outwardly in the life. (Luke 7:44-47)
~Intimacy is like precious oil and the response of worship is like a sweet smelling fragrance that proceeds from it. Fragrance (outward expression of worship) only exists, because there is substance (intimacy). The fragrance isn't the oil, even as outward expression by itself isn't the worship, but rather the fragrance is the evidence that oil is present even as various outward expressions give evidence of or attest to the probability that a reality of worship may be present at the heart level. The fragrance lets you know that the oil is there. The oil holds the fragrance.
~God's desire is that we BECOME worship. And worship boiled down to it's essence, is summed up in our submission to God.
~We cannot worship without the Holy Spirit.
~True worship of the heart will always be evidenced by reflections and effortless expressions.
~There is an emergence of two worship movements.
~Satan is raising up a worldwide worship and prayer movement in which he and the Antichrist will be worshipped by several billion people. This will cause the people in the kingdom of darkness to have a deep heart connection with Satan himself. They will be deceived into attributing 'great worth' unto Satan himself (Rev. 13:4, 8, 19:20). Jesus warned that this time frame in human history will be the most supernaturally powerful, deceptive and dangerous season that the world has ever known.
~Satan will finally receive what he has always wanted, to receive the worship that is due to God. In other words, to be like God by deceiving the majority of the world that he is God. But, it's unrestrained height will only last 3 1/2 years.
~This war is for our hearts. Satan will use the Antichrist, false prophet, the mark of the beast, and the image of the beast (mentioned 7 times in Daniel) as his instruments to mobilize and finance this global worship movement, while penalizing the resistors with death.
~"Even know, we are warring against everything that seeks to usurp the holy flame of our hearts." Lou Engle

~The abomination of desolation (from Daniel) will most likely (not saying this is 100% accurate or certain) be a high tech hologram or 'idol' that looks and sounds like the Antichrist and will be set up in the 'Tribulation Temple" in Jerusalem. The abomination of desolation will combine both cutting edge technology and supernatural demonic element causing the image to breathe, speak, and pass legislation (Daniel 3:1-6; 7:25, 8:23-25; Revelation 13:15-17).

~There will be 'houses of prayer' that will be 'Antichrist worship sanctuaries.' These demonic local outposts will be the focal points of spiritual warfare and the antitheses of the true houses of prayer that even now, are filling the earth.

~The great conflict at the end of the age will absolutely be between two houses of prayer or two global worship movements.

~Understanding more about God will be the church's first line of defense to combat fear, confusion, and offense while remaining steady at the heart level and stand against Satan's worship movement, along with his demonic persecutions.

~It is very conceivable and Biblical that Jesus will destroy the final armies of the Beast, as well as, the Antichrist, the false prophet and Satan himself to the sound of His own song!

~The Millennial Kingdom- In the 1000 year Millennial reign of Christ (Rev. 20:1-6) Jesus builds the temple of the Lord Himself and leads the Kingdom from Jerusalem. Progressively moving from nation to nation, the Kingdom of God will expand until it consumes every other kingdom. Finally at the end of the 1000 years, He will offer up to His Father the Kingdom, with an earth that is fully restored; having made peace with every animal, restored plant life as in the Garden of Eden, and a Kingdom of Priests that is untied in love, fully possessed by the Holy Spirit and unconditionally submitted to the Father's will.

~Eternity Future-After the 1000 Millennium, God will renovate the earth with fire (2 Peter 3:10-13) in preparation to fully manifest Himself with His children. The New Jerusalem will descend upon earthly Jerusalem, joining Heaven and earth together as one, by a 'corridor of glory.' (Ephesians 1:10) There will be NO NEED FOR A PHYSICAL STRUCTURE, as God Himself will be our Temple, even as we are eternally His!

Well. That is just a FEW of the amazing things. I am sure that not everyone is reading through all of these notes, and that's okay. It's good for me for reflection.

Today in small group the Lord really encountered me, and several other people. We had a mini-ministry time, and the Lord really impacted my heart. I had a couple prophetic words spoken over me, and am now just chewing on those things, on top of everything else I am trying to take in. But me and my friend Sarah, picture below, really got blown on by the Holy Spirit.

In Excellencies today, we talked about the Pre-Existence of Christ...WOW. Really cool stuff. I don't know how much more I can type at this point, but these are a few things you should read:

~It's robbery to God to NOT let Him use you in your weakness.

~Just one little glimpse of Jesus has been saving souls for 2,000 years.

~St. Augustine said this: God is love. Love involves three aspects: a lover, a beloved, and the spirit of love between them.

~Allen quoted this huge thing from Jonathan Edwards, but I will just quote the part that was easiest to wrap my mind around: The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, un-originated and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence, the Son is the Deity generated by God's understanding (that's crazy!!) or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea (wow). The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the Divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God's Infinite love to and delight in Himself.

~How about this for theology? God let a donkey open it's mouth and speak. (Allen Hood is HILARIOUS by the way...) "Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it!"

"If you think Jesus is boring, then you haven't met Jesus!"

Hi

So, once again, I am tired and about to go to bed. But I just wanted to say that I never want to be apart from any these people again. You all bring sooooo much joy to my heart, and I love you! And baby Madison, if you are reading this, let me translate: "Goooboo ga, garbbaoogogb, hehe, pllhuhll, waaharb, bleg!"

We had teaching on worship and intercession today. Holy cow. I am too tired to transcribe those notes. Wow, wow, wow, wow. I don't know what else to say, but wow. Then prayer room, which I actually skipped out a little early because I have just been taking sooo much in, I had a sense of being overwhelmed, and didn't think I could handle the weight of another intercession meeting.

And then this evening was my first night of the Pure Heart program. God is so good to me. The lady who started the program with her husband is my small group leader, her name is Donna Cole. It's just gonna be good. I really have nothing to say today. Well, I do, but can't get it out at the moment. So, just wanted to post some pix of the people I am thinking about and missing! Love you all!

Norma

I'm not gonna lie, it's been kind of rough day. I didn't fall asleep until about 3am, for starters. Of course, Monday's are my Sabbath so it wasn't a huge deal. But I woke up pretty refreshed. My friend Kris changed the oil in my car, though my lack of knowledge about what is involved in an oil change caused a little bit of drama. You know, like forgetting to buy oil, after dragging the Walmart auto guys around trying to figure out which oil filter I needed (but at least I bought that!).

I did lots of little domestic things today, like laundry and dishes. But I really sensed the Lord's grace today. I just felt Him walking with me in all the little things of the day. When I wasn't sure if I was making the right decisions, I could still just sense Him walking with me in them, assuring me that He was taking care of me. It was special. There is much more involved, but it's a work He is doing within my heart.

The temperature was nice today, and I wanted to go for a walk. So I went back to the red bridge, took my camera and my Bible, and spent about an hour in a contemplative examination of the world around me. Jesus and I talked a lot. About a lot of things. He just kept reassuring me that even when I suck really bad as a person, or have a really bad attitude, or even blatantly make bad choices, He never thinks differently of me. He corrects me, but never withdrawals His love for any reason. It was almost too much to handle. It's true that the sinful heart has such a hard time to just accept His goodness and grace. But there was much breakthrough.

This is where Norma comes into the picture. I was walking under the red bridge, and found this old broken guitar embedded into the mud. You can see in the pictures, the name Norma on it. I became very fond of Norma. I understood her. Maybe that's weird to say, but I was moved when I saw her just sitting there. She just seemed to fit into the picture of everything that Jesus was talking to me about. Grace is dark, but lovely. Grace exists because there is an imperfect history, but Hope for the future. Grace sees beauty, in the midst of brokenness.

My evening was spent with Jesus. Discussing grace. Discussing love. Discussing how to be courageous and walk out of what is familiar when I am not even sure what my next steps are. But I trust Him. He chose me, so I am choosing Him.

This evening found me tired, and irritable. Just ask Elizabeth, she will tell you all about it. I am thankful for grace. God is good to me.

Oh Mary Lou, Shiloh, the beast, a papasan chair, and a lamp.

Well, it's been a fun day. Again, so much to process after 2 hours of intense teaching at church, 1 hour of listening to Ihop's prophetic history (OH MY GOODNESS), and 4 hours in the prayer room. At church this morning, the topic was on Social Justice, and how, as God spoke this to Stuart Greaves..."The present social justice movement is preparing the poor of the earth to receive the Anti-Christ." We can see it happening before our very eyes. There are so many humanitarian works out there that only see to physical needs. We need to feed the poor, yes, but without the name and glorifying of Jesus, it's not truly justice. Because justice starts in a right standing with the God-head IN Jesus. The humanism movements, though good to help people, do not save souls. We must be after hearts to be turned to Jesus, first. What good is it if we feed someone, but they don't meet Jesus? Not saying we shouldn't feed them. But the book of Revelation speaks of the deception that is going to overtake the world, claiming to be the right way in a unification of world systems, but are not for God, and will ultimately fail. Oh, but those who are Friends of God. Those who know Him, who hear His voice. We know His goodness. This all just impacted me. I so often do things in my heart in the name of Jesus, but when people don't know. Jesus is just so good, when we have met Him we can't help but to tell people how good He is!

I will shift gears. On Sundays I usher. Which, I'm not gonna lie, I don't like doing it. I always get in trouble for not paying attention. Twice today Mary Lou, the head usher, had to get on me because I was worshiping instead of finding seats for people. Mary Lou was very gracious with me, we joked how she was born to be an usher, and I was not. I also ran into my friend Chrissy (top picture), who has been living here for about 2 years. We met through a friend and she spent a Christmas with me and my family, and has actually been to Louisville several times. When I came to the Onething Conference this past year, it's kind of a crazy story, but I stayed in her apartment...by accident. You see, my YWAM friend Jess, who is getting married in Sopchoppy, told me I could stay with her during the conference. Awesome! Then a couple days before I head out to KC, I decided to text Chrissy because I knew she was living in KC. Chrissy said I could stay with her, but I told her I already had a place...anyway, I found out that Jess and Chrissy were roommates! I had NO IDEA. I met Jess in KC with YWAM, and I met Chrissy in Louisville because of our mutual friend Rebecca (Hi Rebecca!). Strange. If you didn't catch any of that, it's okay, it's just really cool to me.

My days seem kind of a blur, because I am taking so much in. After 1 hour of listening to the prophetic history, I was ready to call it a day...but, I had 4 hours in the prayer room (which were amazing, by the way). Chrissy and I met after that and went the Shiloh, which is property owned by Ihop. There is a lake, and some paths to walk on, a garden, and a retreat center. We ran into one of Chrissy's friend's out walking his dog. I forgot the dog's name already, because he called him a beast, and that just sort of stuck. Half mastif, half bull-dog. Cute and friendly. We talked for a while, which was great. Chrissy and I got to catch up on life, which was nice. And she shared her thinking with me about how country songs all seem to have a similar Job experience. Ha. But then we busted out in our rendition of the song sung by, well, I don't know actually, about what you get 'when you play a country song backwards.' Good fun.

On our way home, we were walking past some houses, and we discovered some furniture someone had sat out for garbage. I got so excited, because I saw a papasan chair. I had been wanting another one for the living room, but didn't exactly have the money to spring for one. Elizabeth and I decided that a dog must have lived on it, but it's cool, we have a vacuum and some Febreeze. And Chrissy scored an amazing lamp to add to her eclectic apartment life. Oh, God is funny in His provision, but we LOVE it! Well, I am overwhelmed with terminology, theology, eschatology, I'm just tired, and I'm going to bed!

Has it been 3 weeks, or 3 years?

I don't know that I have a place to begin, or end, as I am writing this. So, I will start with Snugglepoo (birth name, Erica Flippo, and just so no one steals my name, she is the only one with the right to call me Katiebear). SP and I met 3 years ago, here in Kansas City, on our YWAM DTS that partnered with IHOP (Youth With A Mission Discipleship Training School, and of course International House of Prayer, ha). We spent almost a full 6 months of our lives living in very close quarters. In the Amazon Jungle we would swing side by side in hammocks, and oh so many other wild stories. She is also the one that will be accompanying me to Sopchoppy, Florida for Jess' wedding. Anyway. She is living in Arkansas, but had to come here (her, sort of, hometown) to get fitted for the bridesmaid's dress. Well, she surprised me by coming to the EGS and asking for a place to sit. I was so excited! We hung out for a couple of hours after that. It was wonderful. SP had moved to New Zealand for a year and we always seemed to miss each other. I haven't seen or really heard from her much since last June. So, this was definitely a treat!

It's strange to think that I have only been here for just over 3 weeks. I feel about 10 years older. It's that bubble. I am in that bubble where time stands still, yet so much happens. Every lesson we get is from someones ten or twenty year journey on that one single subject. We've got something like 25 hours a week of teachings. I'm taking so much in, I can't even begin to summarize. And that's not counting my heart! Oh, wow! My heart...He is changing my heart every day. In the past couple of days, I have literally encountered something that I don't have words for. It's not that words escape me, I just don't know that there are words to express what is happening deep within me. I could type a bunch of the notes, which are WONDERFUL, but that's all I could do. The Omega Course is already phenomenal. Wow. For me to write some of those notes, would require me to enter back into student mode, and with such an intense topic, I just don't know that I can do that right now. All I know is that I am getting something so deep inside of me, like I never have before. And a lot of it is just personal stuff between me and Jesus. I am learning how to really say Yes to the Man Jesus Christ. And He is showing me how He has always said Yes to entering into Covenant with me. Communion. Fellowship. Partnership. Marriage.

The Lord laid it on my heart to be baptized again. It's actually something I had been thinking about for a while. I never really understood baptism stuff, and then we had a woman come in and talk to us about it. I won't go into the details, but I felt very strongly that I was supposed to be one that was baptized. Ihop does baptisms once a month, so I will probably do it next month. The lady said she wanted to talk to me about it, so that's good. I also have to go through some classes.

I will just end with 3 cool things from today.

I saw my friend Chris, that was also from the YWAM/IHOP DTS.

God totally said LOL to me today.

And I read this in the book "Deep Unto Deep" and I have felt it today. I am starting to understand a glimpse, though a very tiny glimpse, and it's really affecting me.

I was recalling something someone had just told me about a traditional Jewish wedding, just in the past couple of weeks. After the groom settled the engagement/wedding arrangements with the parents, he would call the bride out. He would pour a glass of wine and take a drink. If the bride accepted the terms, she would take a drink, and they would be 'betrothed.' The cup was the sign of the covenant. Well, I was meditating on that, and the Lord told me to pick up Deep Unto Deep and read. Amazingly enough, when I flipped the page, it was new paragraph describing in detail the very thing I was just meditating on. The groom coming to the parents, the glass of wine, the acceptance, and the betrothal.

This is what Dana Candler said describing Jesus in light of this Jewish engagement:
As He places the cup in front of us, He asks, "Will you receive all that I am?" It is no small question that He asks of us. To receive all of Him is an unfathomable venture. It is a yes not contingent on His fitting into our understanding or having a full comprehension of Him and His ways. We join ourselves to all that He is without understanding in our minds even a very tiny portion of who He is. And it is a dangerous consent that we give Him. By all earthly means, it is no safer than joining ourselves to an ocean or cleaving to a whirlwind. It is no more secure to our natural understandings than becoming on with fire. Even so, it is, in truth, the safest and most pleasurable of all unions. It is a fierce decision of love we make because of our fierce propensity to want to know exactly what He might do and where He might take us. Yet with all of our unfamiliarity with His ways, the 'yes' to all that He is is our wise choice on earth.

And this is what she says about the Bride:
To be His bride is to respond to His gaze of affection as one with all dignity and honor, for a bride knows who she is and does not question her position before His eyes. She knows that she stands before a God who is overcome with love. She is not afraid when the enemy comes and brings accusations and lies...she does not fear or question the love of her Beloved. Instead, she stands fearless in love...

Amazing. This is all personal, to every single person. Wow.

Katie's favorite day thus far...

This is a cassette tape.
I don't know how I am going to listen to this.
I think it's 2008, right?
Do they even make 'tape players,' anymore?
I just don't know how I am going to listen to this.
I thought my 3-year old Ipod Shuffle was old-school.
Hmmm.

So. Something changed, I feel totally different. It started the other day when God just started to reveal a bunch of lies I was believing from the enemy. But, God wasn't going to have that. So, we attacked them. I will try to compile a condensed version of the amazing things that have happened.

God is so intricate, I love it. He told me that I really needed to get on getting my oil changed. I didn't have a clue where to begin, so I just asked my small group if someone would help me. There is a man named Kris who just told me to get the oil, and oil filter, bring my car to his house, and he would do it for me! Amazing! So Monday I get my oil changed. But, there were even greater purposes for God telling me to get this done...

This morning in worship I felt the Lord close to my heart. I heard Him whisper to me, "Katie, what do you want? I love you and I will give you anything you ask for." I believed it, too. He is a good Dad. He loves to provide for me. So, I told Him I just needed a way, somehow, to get to Florida for one of my dear friends' weddings. Which I also happen to be in, I already have the dress, too! Just no plane ticket...or shoes, yet. The Intro leaders wife came over to me and laid her hands on me, and just prayed for me. She said she felt she wanted to pray for strength for me in this season of waiting on Him. She didn't pray for anyone else.

Anyway, we had another teaching on Biblical Intimacy. We talked about how Biblical prayer is enjoyable prayer. If you are bored when you pray, then you are not effective, either. Ha. It's true, too! We talked about how encounter with the Man Jesus is the only currency of the heart. We were ALL created to encounter Jesus. The Man. As humans, we are always looking for something to fill us, to find our 'reference point for life,' and if it's not Jesus, then it is idolatry. Ouch. But it's so undeniably true. Truly living is about where we invest our heart. In every little detail of life. Because false intimacy comes from the soul, where we are trying soooo hard to be filled. "We will NEVER find fulfillment outside of worshiping God. And it takes an eternal God to satisfy the longings of our hearts. We need a God that big, because it takes the restricting grace of God to satisfy us. Our desires are outrageously out of control, and need the Good Shepherd." It was a wonderful lesson. It really impacted me.

At lunch time, my friend Erica called me. Erica is also in the wedding in Florida. She lives in Arkansas, and had a plane ticket to fly to Florida. Well, she called me to tell me that she is no longer going to fly, she gave up her plane ticket (somehow she gets her money back) to drive with me! And I missed the details, but her grandpa is even going to provide some of the gas money! It's going to be a looooong drive, but it's okay! Not only is God providing a way for me to get there, I get to spend the time getting there with one of my greatest friends! This also being why I needed to get my oil changed!

The Lord was really speaking to me in the prayer room today. I was just soaking Him in. He led me to go to the healing rooms today. Which was amazing. One of the ladies told me that she felt the Lord saying that He pulled me out of a busy life to rest. That I was in a season of rest and needed to receive from Him, and rest in His presence. She gave me Isaiah 30:15, "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." I loved that. BUT THEN, God led me to go the prophecy rooms. There were three people prophesying. Well. Each of them had almost the exact same word for me. That God has brought me out of a life of busyness into a season of rest. That God made me perfect and was going to restore my body in this season. That in this season I am to feast with my King (Songs 2:4-5), and that God was abolishing the bow and the sword and battle in my heart, so that I could lay down in safety (Hosea 2:18). I loved so much that no one said anything about what I should be 'doing' or 'working towards.' Just resting in God. Then God reminded me of my birthday. He told me on my birthday that He was going to do a work in my heart this year, specifically this season. Well, it was my 26th birthday, and I'm just saying, this is really cool, but I was #26 for the prophecy room (it's even on the tape they recorded of the session), and not that this means anything, but today is 10/16. 10+16=26. I'm just saying.

God has just been sooo sweet to me today. A friend even paid me $20 to take her to a bookstore! It was so much fun, too. And I also received some financial support in the mail. It's just been a great day. Satan hated me today, and I have loved every second of it. :)

Tomorrow we start our Omega Course, the study of the end-times. Really excited about that!
Well, off to my winding-down time of the night. I can't wait to be back in Louisville!

We cannot be disappointed in God.

This picture is our 'briefing room.' Well, it's the hallway in the warehouse. This is a busy place, ya know? We are flexible. Someone in class wrote this on our white board: Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. Ha, it's true.

This morning was our teaching on Biblical Intimacy. It was phenomenal. It was sort of the introduction. We talked a lot about the Father. He created us to pour His love into us. How His love is ours to experience. That real Christianity is to experience a man. Jesus. I can't really put into words everything that happened during class. It was wonderful. The Lord started to hit my heart with a lot of stuff. He started to highlight how I was giving into the lies of the enemy. Very specific lies that I was agreeing with. The teacher suddenly went off on a tangent of 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. One the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." The teacher went into this huge bunny-trail about how we have to expose the accuser. The accuser is accusing us to God, and God to us. Making us coil back in self-condemnation, and fear that God isn't kind to us. He basically stopped class so we could soak in that, and destroy the arguments that our hearts have agreed with the enemy. I had some awesome victory. God revealed some things to me, and I saw how mad I was at myself for believing the enemy. So, I coiled in self-condemnation, and wouldn't go to God. Ha. Well, we fixed that in the prayer room today. I feel about 10 times lighter! And I have been reminded of my weapons in the Spirit.

We had small group tonight, where again, we were just downloaded with how much God is in love with us. Wow. I had someone tell me not too long ago that what I was getting involved with out here at Ihop was too 'emotional.' That God doesn't focus so much on emotions. But God has all emotion, and feels all emotion, and wants our emotion to be clean and pure. We can't love God if we don't first know that He loves us. Meaning, we MUST get through our hard hearts to receive His love. Which means getting rid of bad emotion and being filled with the knowledge of Christ. Which is a man who was so passionately in love with people that He chose to be forever contained in a human body so that He could spend eternity with me. One thing Allen Hood said in his teaching the other day was this: "I am saved because God refused to be without me." Wow. Of course that is going to strike some emotion! Basically, you cannot be disappointed in God! If you think you can be, you are in agreement with the accuser.

Spiritual warfare and refreshing of emotions ware on flesh. So, I am off to bed. But a couple of fun things. I found someone to change the oil in my car! Yeah! And, I was being silly and pretending to worship dance, and I was told that I looked like a natural and should join the dance team. Ha. I laughed, and then a girl in my class actually invited me to join the "hip-hop in Ihop" dance team. Ha. I am thinking about it. But just in the thinking stages!

Kentucky friends!!!

The past few days have been pretty awesome. Tyler and Ross have brought much laughter with them. On Sunday we spent a good portion of the day in the prayer room. I went to church in the morning, and thought it was simply amazing. Daniel Lim spoke, and he had such an incredible testimony. He and his wife had a daughter, and God told them to name her Emmanuel (meaning, God with us). Apparently she was kind of a sickly girl, I didn't catch all the details. Daniel and a bunch of Ihop leaders ended up traveling through Asia, again, I'm not good at the details...but God had set up a bunch of divine appointments with Asian leaders. Most of which got to meet Emma. Emma ended up getting sick, and she died, on her 1st birthday. Well, some of these Asian leaders were so moved that they ended up naming streets, and even whole villages after her. Emmanuel. God with us. In China. How cool is that? Daniel Lim was at peace with his daughters death, and you could see how humbled he was that the very name of Jesus was plastered in China because of his daughter. Amazing.

That afternoon I saw Tony, who was our leader in the Amazon 3 years ago, which was really cool. He gave me a big hug, and I am sure we will see each other around. Sunday night we had a barbecue dinner with the couple that is 'housing' Tyler and Ross. It was a wonderful night, which was spent watching wonderful youtube videos of Ark Linkletter probing the mind of 5-year old's. Much much laughter.

Today, I picked the kids up at noon, we stopped and got bubble tea (poor Ross couldn't drink his because the tapioca reminded him of fish eggs), and we had a picnic under the red bridge. You see, Ihop is on the street named Red Bridge Road. And it never once occurred to me, the many times I have been over this bridge on Red Bridge Road, that it was red. Red Bridge. I just laughed when Tyler called it the red bridge of Red Bridge Road. It didn't sink in until that moment. Ha. We explored a little bit. Ross found a little tunnel that we all climbed through. Tyler got scared of a chipmunk, and Ross was alarmed when I mentioned spider webs. Goodness. The girl had to go in first... but it was fun!


The boys spend most of the afternoon in the prayer room. I did some stuff around the house, cleaning and whatnot, and spent some time with Jesus. Which is always good. Ross and I hung out in Higher Grounds while Tyler enjoyed soaking in worship led by Ben. Then we had Subway and shared stories about God, life, and just had good fellowship. Classes start tomorrow, and my leader Corey said that my visitors could sit in on class, and that we will even pray for them as a body. This week is titled "Intimacy," I am really excited to hear these teachings. As the core thing that Ihop teaches is intimacy with Jesus. I am sad that we only get a week of it, though.

Tyler and Ross leave tomorrow after class, and my week gets launched into hardcore teachings again. We are starting the Omega Course this Friday, which is a study on the end-times. So...lots to come.

Yeah for Kentucky friends!

My day started with driving to the airport to pick up Ross and Tyler...very very fun! So good to see familiar smiling faces. I am once again thoroughly convinced that mapquest does not work for Kansas City. Yet again, I got lost coming back from the airport. But it all worked out. Hoorah. We came back to my place for a bit, where, as you can see below, Ross fell asleep on the couch, and Tyler played on the exercise equipment. :)

After a tiny lunch, and dropping the kids off at the prayer room, I went to the last sessions of the Children's Summit. I heard a lady speak who, at age 54, has birthed 4 children, and adopted 10. Yes, I said 10. I think she is my new hero. Everything she said burned deeply into my heart. I am sooo convicted that the church must adopt and take care of children. She talked about who do we think we are to pray against abortion, but not be willing to do something about the babies that we saved. I have so much passion in my heart over this issue, I am not going to write about it right now because I need to go to bed. But I know that I will adopt, and/or foster. She brought like 6 of her girls. Two of them sang in their native Ethiopian tongue, and then two other girls sang for us in English. It was amazing, these kids who have been rescued, and they are soooo in love with Jesus. It's probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Wow.

Then in the final session, all the kids came around the room and prayed for us. That was pretty amazing. Little hands holding my hands, asking for God to give me the gift of healing, to impart signs, wonders, and miracles into me. So neat. Then the kids did a dance to a Luke Wood song. That was really intense. I took a picture, but it was so beautiful I wasn't willing to try really hard to take a good picture. I wanted to worship with them! They sent a couple of kids up to prophecy over us, which was amazing!

Ross and Tyler seemed to enjoy their first time in the prayer room. And then we went to EGS where Mike Bickle spoke on the end times. Which of course was amazing. I drove the kids to their weekend-home, and now I am off to bed! Lot's to process, and I have to get up early to usher at church!

Spelunker, I go to the Deep

No, I did not draw the picture. But I am very attracted to the style. This is one of the pictures hanging up in our living room. I think it's beautiful.

Today was more of the Childrens Summit. Amazing, still. I got to hear a womans testimony about how the Lord led her to adopt, and to hear her heart on adoption. Adoption and fostering children is in my future, I KNOW this. But to hear someone's testimony just set me on fire. James 1:27 says this, "Religion taht God our Father accepts as PURE AND FAULTLESS is this: ------> To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." To identify a widow, Tracie Loux, the speaker, defined it as "a man or a woman without a spouse, including single parents." And orphans, "a child without a parent who is able to take care of them. Amen.

Tracie went on to pierce our hearts with the reality of this verse. This isn't just something we pray others will do. Religion that God accepts is to take care of widows and orphans. Practically. Adoption, fostering, supporting. Children in our own homes, in our spheres of influence, and reaching out to widows and orphans, is how we live out this verse. Jesus brought the children to Him, and we are to do this as well. Not overlooking one. We live in broken times, where most homes are fatherless, or just utterly broken. We will be held accountable for not speaking hope into the children in our lives and reaching out to speak hope into the widows and orphans. And not separating them in "church" but recognizing that they are part of the church, so, in Jesus' words, "Let them come."

We also talked about walking out the Spirit of Adoption in our own lives. Because until we know that we are adopted into God's family, we cannot share that to others. This struck a nerve in me, and God had me look inward. I was reminded of a prophecy I got three years ago here. And of course, it has to do with caves. I was told that I was a spelunker, one who searches caves. Goes deep, to find treasures. Treasures, even within me. As I looked inside my cavern, inside my depth, I felt empty, and I saw a lot of brokenness that I have yet to turn over to God. And I was whining a lot to God, wanting things to be another way. But He is good, and gently reminded me that I am not a loss. He will never leave me nor forsake me (Joshua 1:5). Walking the journey is what I am called to do.

I didn't have peace about that until EGS tonight. Mike Bickle spoke on the first and second commandment. Here are some highlights that touched me, and I hope you eat them up, because they are powerful statements:

Based on the scripture Matthew 22:37-40, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. " The second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

~The first commandment ALWAYS leads to the second. If the second is first, then it's empty, it makes ministry an idol in our heart.
~Loving people is LIKE loving God.
~4 stages of love
Receiving revelation of God's love for us, this is the foundation truth that equips us to love God.
Receiving God's love for Jesus.
Loving ourselves in the grace of God. We love our neighbor as we love ourselves in the grace of God by knowing who we are in Christ. Agreeing with God about our value is different from loving ourselves in selfish ways. As we get our eyes off of others (envy) and off our failures (condemnation) we value and even love who God made us to be. Self hatred charges God with bad leadership.
Loving others is the greatest work of the Spirit, and is the ultimate proof of His work in the human heart. As we love God and ourselves, we overflow in love for others. Love is magnified, displayed, most in our most familiar relationships. Our every day relationships.
~Love for others like loving God flows from regularly encountering God's love for us.
~It takes seeking to love Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
~To walk in love requires the Spirits power to energize us by regularly having our emotions stirred and strengthened by the subtle impressions of the Spirit. Christianity is an on-going encounter of love with a Person (Jesus). Rom. 5:5, "Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearths by the Holy Spirit." We cannot follow through with love without the power of the Holy Spirit. Mom's really want to love, no one is more devoted than a mother, but without Holy Spirit, it is impossible to love well. We must love ourselves to have power and energy to love others.
~We have to re-order how we think. We by nature are self-consumed so it takes the power of the Spirit to walk this out. Because all people are made in the image of God, they deserve to receive love from us, the love that receive from God.
~Love is the source behind all of God's eternal purposes.
~The call to walk in love is given in context of God releasing His supernatural provision to us by prayer. The foundation of this commandment is a revelation of the Father's love and a prayer life based on trusting His leadership. an important aspect in loving people is seen in embracing a lifestyle of fasting and prayer so that we are prepared to release more of the power of the Spirit to them.
~Since people are eternal spiritual beings they need more than just having their physical needs met (not just doing an outreach and going home).
~We must define love on God's terms not by the humanistic culture that "seeks love" without reference to obedience to God's Word. Compassion movements will cause us to be weaker in alignment with Jesus.
~The superiority of love is seen in its permanence in eternity.
~No investment of love is forgotten, wasted, or lost in God's sight. The ONLY thing that profits us is what God remembers
~Love is the greatest. Faith (agreement with God's Word) is the way to release the gifts of the Spirit. Love is the purpose for them. Faith is how the gifts function. Love is why they function. Hope stabilizes us. We must be strong in faith and anchored in hope to walk in love.

Good night friends! I am going to the airport in the morning to pick up Ross and Tyler!!! Luahvuhl meets the KC. Awesome!

Children who know God are my heroes

The past couple of days have been aaaaamazing. Tonight was the first night of the Children's Equipping Center Malachi 4:6 Summit. May I remind you once again that Malachi 4:5-6 is the verse that God gave me for my future ministry. So we just happened to be signed up for this whole conference, as Intro to Ihop interns. Of course. And I am so thrilled.

I overheard some tired grumblings of people who didn't want to go to this, but I was pretty stoked. And it MORE than met anything I thought it would be. Worship was led by a man, and 4 kids probably around 12 years old. I think this was the best spirit-led set I have been to since I've been here. It was wonderful. These kids were ON FIRE. Prophetic singers. Wow. And one girl even prophesied over the whole group, people were set free, lots of tears, it was amazing. Oh, and this was only the introduction to the weekend. There was one girl who kept talking about the visions the Lord had been giving her, and they were so right on. She talked about one where she saw a cup, and it was full. As the Lord poured more into the cup, it overflowed. Then she saw Jesus, and He told her that she doesn't have to give to others out of the cup, only out of the overflow so that she doesn't dry up. She prophesied that over us, and you could just see the anointing all over her! The bottom picture is everyone crowding around the children to pray the fire of God over them. It rocked. There were kids weeping before their Lord. They just want to know Him.

There will be breakout sessions tomorrow and Saturday, I am going the one about handing children the Spirit of Adoption, and not letting one go unnoticed. We will be talking about actual adoption, and the foster care system. My heartbeat.

We have been getting more teachings on the nature of God. This week has been titled, "Tending The Garden." There has been a lot of time for us to be ministered to regarding wounds in our hearts, and it has been a great time for everyone. Emotional, but healing. And God has been showing me a lot of deep things in my heart. He keeps showing me that I am a deep deep deep cavern, and that ONLY He will fill me. He WILL be my only Comfort, my only Refuge, it's my destiny be made whole in God, and to OVERFLOW!

In our small group this week, we studied part of the chapter of Allen Hoods, "Excellencies of Christ" called, Beholding Christ in the Beauty of Holiness. Once again, I will type some of his notes, or quotes that I wrote down that he said. It really really affected me this week. It's a lot, but it's worth the read, the contemplation.

~We know God because He CHOOSES to reveal Himself. He lets us in.
~"Holy" is far above everything else. There is God, and then there is last place.
~God is eternally happy.
~The radiance of all His attributes, working in perfect harmony, perfect purity, perfect potency, and perfect gladness, is His holiness.
~God loves to delight the senses of the ones formed in His image. He constructs reality around revelation.
~He is pleasure immeasurable and delight consummate. The highest honor and joy He could give us is to base our relationship around the subject matter of Himself.
~The reason we exist is for pleasure. You're the one creature made to mine the depths of the living God. Everything for you has been built around the revelation of God, Him letting you know something about Himself.
~Everything in reality is constructed around God revealing Himself.
~When we get to know someone, we reveal a little at a time. It's the nature of love to give in increments of unveiling, to get a response...to unveil more.
~God comes in ways to make our hearts respond.
~We mostly don't believe that God loves to reveal Himself. The accusation of the enemy is that God is stingy.
~We are chosen to be in His image, to interact with His depths, that no other creature gets to. FOREVER. "Our fallen peanut minds can only hold so much." He is waiting to give us a resurrected body to blow our minds!
~Beloved! Do you know what you were made for? You were made for God!
~Adam. When Adam opened His eyes for the first time...there was God. Can you imagine?
~The garden. Adams job was to tend the garden. Before there were weeds, when water came up out of the ground. So, what did tending the garden look like? It wasn't what we would consider work. Adam was to tend the place of encounter.
~(A, this is for you!) Gardens are a place of encounter and love. We were made for encounter and rulership flowing from intimate communion with the living God, the Ruler of all things...All of creation was in order when Adam communed with God.
~We were designed for intimacy, and we will not function properly until we have it. We are not creatures made just for knowledge.
~Knowledge of principles and rules can never sustain the life of humanity. Knowledge outside of communion with God always leads to independence and self-exertion, for man was made for God to reflect God.
~A companion. A bride. God used loneliness to cultivate something in the heart of Adam. Loneliness became the birthplace for longing and desire.
~Adam named the animals (acknowledging his authority to name and rule), God brought them to him in two's. "Can you imagine the pain of Adam as he named them, two of each kind, all the while recognizing his lack of a companion and discovering the power of a new emotion?" Cultivation of longing.
~The foreshadowing of the Cross: the Bride of both the first and the second Adam (Adam, and then Jesus) will come forth through the suffering love of the Groom. The wise God sets forth the story of His Son and His Bride from the very first. Adam longed for a companion (this was not an alternative plan). Adam longed for a companion. In his longing, the heavenly Father satisfied his heart. He put him to sleep (or, on a cross) and from Adams' (Jesus') broken side God fashioned a beautiful spouse (us) for His beautiful son, and brought her to Adam. It is the story of the ages. The Bible begins with a wedding, and ends with a wedding. "The two shall be one" is the first prophecy in the Bible.
~It's not good for this desire to go unfulfilled. It's not good that love is scorned.
~We are saved because God REFUSED to be without us.

God loves ME.

Fatherheart of God

Here is a teaching by Wes Martin called the fatherheart of God. Hope you enjoy...

http://www.ihop.org/Media/Player.aspx?media_id=1000006985&file_id=1000008262

Dryness counts

My night is winding down with tea, and watching the prayer room online. Mmm. It's going to be good sleeping tonight.

Our morning started with a teaching by Wes Martin, called 'The Father heart of God." He started out with this scientific teaching on how big the cosmos are (reminded me of the How Great is Our God sermon by Louie Giglio). That the cosmos, the created universe, is 13 billion light years wide. That is 76,254,048,000,000,000,000,000 miles in length ( I don't even know what you call that number). And just to give you perspective, the milky way galaxy, which is only 1 of around 1 million galaxies, is 100,000 light years wide, meaning it would take around 100,000 years to cross it. For 1 galaxy. And God spoke this into existence. In fact, in the Bible, it only gets 1/2 sentence credit. "In the beginning God created the heavens..." That's it. So that makes me wonder, who are we to question something that the Bible may say only once. We really have no idea how significant it is.

I will just preface this by saying that this paragraph is either my paraphrase, or quoting Wes' notes. He went on to talk about how that is our Dad who made the heavens. And He says we can approach Him. And the same way that we take on traits of our parents, we take on the traits of our Dad in heaven. Cool. The main point throughout this lesson, was that God is glad over us, that He likes us, that He enjoys us. For a variety of reasons, we can get a skewed vision of how God relates to us as Father, and we don't know that we can trust Him. The #1 accusation from the enemy is that God isn't good. So we put all sorts of walls up. But, we are made glad WITH His presence (Ps 21:6). God designed the human spirit in His image, with great capacity for gladness. As we become students of God's emotions, we grow in revelation of His tender mercy, then His gladness, then His affection. God is not quickly shaken from His gladness, so we don't need to be, either. It's settled, He is eternally glad. God has thoughts toward us that are as numberless as grains of sand, which means He takes time to think about us. We think of things we delight in.

The prayer room was pretty rough on me today. I felt super dry. Which is bound to hit. I was pretty discouraged, until the Lord reminded of the first chapter of a book I am reading called "Deep Unto Deep," by Dana Candler. I couldn't engage, then there was a weird situation with someone sitting next to me, and I got all distracted, and couldn't figure out why I was in such a funk. But everyone is so encouraging around here. They understand those dry days, seasons, years. Galatians 6:8, "The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." So the Lord led me to these excerpts from Dana's book:

~As Creator and Savior, He loves and enjoys the process of our finding our strength in Him and learning to lean into Him.
~He has set up His kingdom with the inclusion of our weakness.
~He calls it a victory when we willingly lift our voice to Him from the wilderness of our barrenness. This He calls noble. This he deems wise. In this place, our weak words overcome His great heart.
~He has angels without number, and He knows each star by name, yet by my small heart, He is conquered.
~Every movement of the heart toward Him in the midst of hardship will be trumpeted forever.

So, I had to sit back, and remember that dryness counts. It counts to my Dad in heaven. I am victorious. Ha, and on that note. Elizabeth and I went for a walk this evening and found a dead snake on the road. What is really cool about that, is that on Saturday night the teacher talked about how just this past week he found a dead snake on the road and God reminded him of the verse that says the offspring, Jesus, will crush the head of the serpent. Victory. And here, I had had a bad day, and there it was, a crushed snake on the side of the road. Victory. I won't be beaten, as I ABIDE with Jesus.

A nest for mother hen

Many times, people have commented on the nests I build wherever I go. From work, to coffee shops, my car, and of course, home. Not really sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I create them anyhow. In the prayer room I put my awesome pink water bottle in reaching distance at my feet. My journal, I prefer, to go on the chair to the right of me. Sometimes, I will put my bag under the chair in front of me, like on an airplane, or I will put it on whatever chair is empty around me. A nest. A nest for mother hen, I guess.

Today was my Sabbath. I started by going to the local Aldi's and falling in love with how cheap everything is. And then made my way to Ben and KC Woodwards house to check out their brand new Eliana (not that they ever had an 'old' one, ha). And bad me, I forgot to take pictures. But, she truly is beautiful. Of course, I think no baby is as beautiful as Madison Renee Kohrs. :)

The rest of my day was very domestic. I cleaned. I rested. I read. I listened to podcasts...thanks Tyler for teaching me how to do that. I went to the prayer room for a while, where I apparently was seen on GodTv by an avid GodTv watcher. Weird.

My evening was spent with Elizabeth, searching random things on youtube. Yeah. We watched the intro's to The Reading Rainbow, My Little Ponies, Gummi Bears, somehow ended up watching cats walking on treadmills, and a full assortment of things. We had a good, 'oh gosh I am really tired and need to go to bed' laugh. Ha. The top picture reminds me of when I was in middle school, I hated getting up early, and my first period teacher would always catch me yawning and would yell from her desk, "Kohrs! I can see all the way down your throat!" Oh, it wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't so awkward. Haha. Elizabeth was telling me a story, and it didn't strike me as funny until I really thought about it. She was telling me about how she had gone out to eat with some people to the pancake place. Well. Sure. I know what that means, we all know what that means. Ihop. Ha. But it struck me, that only in Kansas City do you have to refer to the International House of Pancakes as the pancake place. Not Ihop. Because people might think you are weird if you talk about eating pancakes at Ihop...because you are not allowed to have food in the prayer room. It's okay if you don't think it's funny. I do.

So, there is not much to be said for today, except this cool verse I ran across in the prayer room (not that one is cooler than the other).

Psalm 46:6 "Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts."

He lifts his voice, and the earth melts? That pretty much convicted me that I have way less fear of the Lord than is required. Wow. I cannot even imagine what the earth melting would look like, and how someones breath could do it. And I get to go into His presence? Me, Katie Kohrs, gets His voice inside of me? Who is this King? St. Augustine said: "Oh that I might find my rest and peace in you! Oh that you would come into my heart and so inebriate it that I would forget my own evils and embrace my one and only good, which is you! What are you to me? Have mercy on me that I may speak. What am I to you, that you should demand to be loved by me? That you should be angry with me if I fail to love you, and should threaten me with the utmost misery? And not to love you, is not this in itself misery enough?"

His breath will not melt the souls of those that know their King loves them, and willingly love Him in return. And we can only love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

A call to pray, a call to usher

So, today is my birthday. I am a whopping 26, BUT, I will not enter my late 20's until next year. Just so you know.

The Lord told me a few weeks ago that I would be in Kansas City, at Ihop, for my birthday, for a reason. And today just happened to be my first service day. My service assignment? Ushering at FCF (Forerunner Christian Fellowship). I didn't want to, I'm not going to lie. Some fear of man issues screaming at me, but I decided I just had to get over it, so I did all I could to embrace it. I ended up being partnered with a guy who used to be a bodyguard, a policeman, and even before that...a professional usher...no joke. I was also reminded of a word I got from a leader here three years ago. A man prophesied over me that I would usher people in the presence of the Lord, through my own intimacy with Him. Usher. Good ole Mr. Webster defines an usher as An officer or servant who has the care of the door of a court, hall, chamber, or the like; hence, an officer whose business it is to introduce strangers, or to walk before a person of rank. That's cool, to walk before a person of rank.

Anyway. The main point is the topic of the service: The Day Of Prayer For The Peace Of Jerusalem. It is held the first Sunday of every October, and just happened to be on my birthday. I received prayer for an impartation of God's heart for Jerusalem...which brought back to my memory some promises God showed me regarding Jerusalem. So that was a real treat for me. I thoroughly enjoyed that.

We had a 'briefing' today for the whole class, we had Matt Candler come and speak to us about our Sacred Trust Hours. These are the hours that we have committed to being in the prayer room, and a general guideline of how we use our time in the prayer room. It was really neat to hear his heart and things the Lord has taught Him.

Our Sacred Trust is a call and a challenge as intercessory missionaries to keep charge of the sanctuary, and to keep the fire burning on the altar. Restoring the Tabernacle of David. Night and day worship. Calling Jesus back to earth. Our hearts crying out to Him. "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the LORD, take no rest for yourselves." (Is. 62:6-7)

We were talking about how music and singing is such a major part of prayer. Matt gave this analogy about music. If there is a theater full of people from different nations, cultures, and languages, and you put them in a theater to watch the same movie, but in only one language, the music of the movie will be able to make them all feel the same thing at the same time. Nothing else in the world can do that. So, through music, we can all encounter what the Lord is doing corporately.

The watchmen are singers...gulp...including me. "Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion." (Isaiah 52:8) The watchmen pray/sing in the coming of the Lord. Prayer and singing are almost interchangeable. What you sing engages your spirit. Our incense, our prayers and intercessions, are mixed with Jesus incense, together, as one. Wow. Then he went on a little tangent talking about how not even angels get that privilege. Angels are never seen in scripture approaching the Throne, but oh how we get to. Angels probably gasp when we are bored praying, because we don't have any idea how lucky we are that we get to approach the Throne of Grace. Angels are constantly learning about the Kindness of God when He allows us, the people who fall asleep in church, to approach Him. The angels are just in awe, that God will still welcome us. Ha. That's very humbling.

I was informed that I was going to have to usher in the prayer room after briefing, so I had to sit through another lesson on the importance of people keeping their shoes on (hence the picture above), or not eating in the prayer room, or how to gently lead someone into a side room if they are crying or groaning in the spirit. Ha. Only in a place like this can you ask someone to try to lower their voice, or go into a travail room, when they are being hit by the Spirit. It's the norm.

I personally had a lot more healing in the prayer room today, all for a story at another time. He did remind me of another word I had gotten here three years ago, that I was a cavern, a deep cavern, full of gems. As I was aware of the emptiness inside of me, He showed me that He created the depth so deep so that ONLY He could fill it. He wants to fill me to overflowing. That, is a good God.

Day of Consecration

Today was our day of consecration. We spent five hours in the prayer room devoted to consecrating the next 12 weeks unto God. We had to pray about specific things, like what we were going to fast while we are here for the whole 12 weeks, and what we would fast on Tuesdays, which is the staff fasting day. We also had to do a word study on the word 'consecrate.'

There were many cool definitions of the word 'consecrate' or 'consecration.' Such as, to purify, devote. My favorite was this, a setting of gems, to crown. First, a gem has to be cut, formed, and then set. And then, to crown. Wow. This is what I got out of it:

-When consecrated, a king reigns from that moment on. Leaving behind un-kingly things. Choosing only that which serves the kingdom. The consecrated one sits on a throne. The consecrated wears a crown. The consecrated has legal right in kingdom. Legal right to call forth warriors defending kingdom. To make righteous decisions. To consecrate time, is a legal agreement with God. To focus wholly on the king, to be his servant.-

We had EGS tonight, focus on end-times. It was so powerful. Incredibly powerful, and convicted me in a lot of areas. The teaching was done by Wes Hall. We talked about the city of Babylon, the real city of Babylon, that is going to offer immediate satisfaction, and how we will chose, and justify, those satisfactions over God. Here are a few things that struck me in the notes:

~The book of Revelation is a call for the church to overcome in the midst of the darkest hour of human history as the rage of Satan, the wickedness of man and the temporal judgments of God are released on the earth in fullness during the final 3 1/2 years of human history before Jesus returns.
~Rightly understood, this prophecy is designed to fill us with great hope and confidence in the victory that the church will enjoy both in the midst of the Great Tribulation and for 1000 years afterwards as we rule and reign with Christ, and the age to come.
~Revelation does not picture the people of God escaping the tribulation, nor defeated by it. Revelation paints a picture of a glorious bride, VICTORIOUS in the midst of great trouble and worshipping her heavenly Bridegroom.
~The Lord will use this time of trouble to purify His Bride. At the end of the story, Jesus does NOT come to deliver a defeated, bedraggled bride, but a people, which has made itself ready to meet its King.
~To be forewarned, is to be forearmed.
~3 primary, these are just the primary, ways the enemy will try to defeat the church. It is important to not only know our weapons, but the nature of the assault.
*Seduction. The book of Revelation describes the culmination of lawlessness in the description of Babylon the Great-a wealthy city that will exercise GLOBAL INFLUENCE at the end of the age. Harlotry is attractive. It is deceptive. Seduction of wealth, power and pleasure (there was A LOT on this, it's worth listening to the teaching for all of it.) We have to deal with our 'secret' issues now, because in the end times, when we can so easily feed our secret desires, we will lose ourselves to what we are feeding. Even conceivable and legitimate pleasures will be offered in abundance...deception, again. But so will the things we consider horrific. Gross immorality and sexual perversion will be acceptable behavior. The enemy tries to offer us shortcuts to what God has already promised us (wealth, power, pleasure).
*Tribulation. God actually endorses the tribulation. We are told to endure it to the end, not escape it. (Matt 5:10-12; 24:9; Lk 21:12-19; 2 Tim 3:12) He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son (Rev. 21:7)
*Accusation. Read Zechariah 3:1-10. One of the enemies primary strategies against God's people has been to plant lies (accusations) in the hearts of believers concerning God's character and the value of redeemed humanity to God. The Devil wants us to believe the God is not a God of love. Accusations about His character, against His love and goodness, against His power and Sovereignty, and against His perfect leadership of human history. The Devil tries to convince us that God is not in control. And accusation about our value to God. He wants us to cause our hearts to despair and give up by telling us that God does not accept us and the blood of Jesus is insufficient to atone for our sin.
Our victory is in the blood of the Lamb. Read the picture above, too. The King of Glory WOULD shed His blood for me. That will cause us to flourish. Also in the Word of their testimony...agreement with what God says about His power, His plan, and His promises, demolish the lies of the enemy.
~The enemy's strategy CAN ONLY WORK IF our home is in this age. If it's in this world, and not in God's kingdom.

So, that's a lot. But it's what is the most powerful thing on my heart. Hope it makes you think about some things! It made me!

It's been a week!

It's pretty much been a 12 hour day of being in the presence of the Lord. I got home after the Encounter God Service (EGS) and decided I wanted to paint. That is what you see to your right. Once it dries, I am going to paint scripture over it. I have one of three passages to use. Haven't decided which one yet.

This mornings' teaching was on fundraising. The teacher was a YWAMer (as well as an IHOPer...which when I was both, got dubbed a YWHOPer), and actually kept mentioning all these people that led my school, or taught different sessions. So, that was neat. His teaching also shattered a lot of our skewed ideas about how important it is for us to be at Ihop, doing what we are doing. We are positioning our hearts before God, to be cleansed, and to share the redemptive and awesome power of God out of that. And on top of that, learning hard-core Truths about the Word. Things that are so plain, but in the world, we tend to miss. Ihop's message is of the intimacy with Jesus, and the end-times, so we are all having radical shifts in our thinking. It's great. I have learned over the past couple of years to really embrace, and enjoy, when God shows me that my thinking is wrong about something. Of course, I do grumble sometimes...a lot of times, but I 'get it' when I come out renewed on the other end.

We spent five hours in the prayer room after that. Which, of course, was really intense...again. This was something they were singing, and it was sooo beautiful. I have heard it several times in the past week, but it just affected me in a new way today:

Creator God, He is Yahweh
The Great I Am, He is Yahweh
The Lord of all, He is Yahweh
The Rose of Sharon, He is Yahweh
The Righteous Son, He is Yahweh
The Three-in-one, He is Yahweh

Yahweh

Another one that affected me in worship this morning was:

Let your glory shine
For all to see your light
You are the Lord God Gracious
This is who you are
The Bright and Morning Star
The Spirit and the Bride say come Lord Jesus, Come!

The EGS service tonight was on the first commandment...to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Mt 23:37)
There are 2 EGS services a week. Friday night, which the focus is on intimacy with Jesus, and on Saturdays, the focus being end-times. I was soooooo excited, because Dana Candler was speaking. I am reading one of her books right now called Deep Unto Deep. I have been reading it for about 6 weeks now, and am in chapter 3. It has radically transformed me, and it takes me DAYS to soak in one page. Sometimes, just one thought.

Her teaching was on "Living Wholehearted Starts Now," and I just want to say..."It rocked." :) She talked about how God asks us for everything. Wholehearted love is always fully, never in fractions. And how God has the right to define love, because He IS Love. We were created to abandon ourselves unto Him, and will never be satisfied if we don't. But we have to start now. Because we will use the same muscles tomorrow that we use today. So, if we don't just DO something now, we won't tomorrow. He wants to invade our space now, because He is after love in every season. And we abandon, and grow in love in the commonplace and everyday circumstances. Jesus, became lowly to be with us...and though He never 'considered equality with God something to be grasped,' He took time to do the ordinary. Dana said that "Jesus knew human experience. He knew monotony. In all ways He is our brother. Jesus didn't say every day tasks were unfitting or too insignificant." It's true.

I think that might be why I decided to paint today. Because I keep saying I will, but never do. I am glad I did.

Tomorrow is our day of consecration in the prayer room. Five hours we will devote to giving God the next 12 weeks to do what He has called us here to do. I am excited. And then starting Tuesday, our real classes will begin.

Get some awe. It's awesome.

I will start off today by explaining the picture. This is Elizabeth (my roomie) and me, and an Ihop water bottle. Well. A couple of days ago we were talking about water bottles, and I mentioned that I secretly hoped they would just give Intro interns a fabulously cool Ihop water bottle. You know, to fit in, wink wink. :) I kid you not, almost everyone who has anything to do with Ihop has one of these water bottles. Because you are only allowed to take water bottles into the prayer room, they sell a lot of them. Anyway, Elizabeth and I get back from a Walmart run, and on the table is a birthday package from my mom, which I totally got the coolest electric toothbrush (Thanks mom! I am happy that I get to brush my teeth while I am here! Dr. Bell will appreciate that, too!) Elizabeth was all excited, she asked me when my birthday was. So, when I told her Sunday, she smiled real big and asked me how important it was for me to have something to open on my birthday. She smiled even bigger when I told her it wasn't a big deal. She starts telling me this story of how she was in Higher Grounds (the coffee shop here), and decided to bless me by buying one for me. And, not just any one...a pink one (they didn't have purple). HOORAY! My birthstone just happens to be pink. And check it out. She is wearing pink, I am wearing pink, and so is the water bottle! Kiss from God! And now, phew, I won't stand out like a sore thumb because I don't have an Ihop water bottle. Ha. Oh, and this really was the best of the series of pictures we took. So, as you see, a quarter of my face is blocked by the water bottle.

Yesterday was a pretty low-key day for me. I got spoiled, too. My mentor knows a girl out here, Tarah, and having connections, we wanted to meet. So Tarah took me to Town Center to window shop. We talked a lot about the Justice Orphanage, adoption, and the foster care system. That was really neat. It was truly a blessing. We also discovered that we are both going to be going through a program out here called Pure Heart.

Today was just an incredible day. I honestly cannot put into words a lot of what happened today. Worship started at 9am, by 9:15 I had mascara all over my face from crying. The Lord just showed up, and was working on everyone's hearts. Tissue boxes were being thrown out and replaced with new ones all over the room. God's fatherheart was sweet in the air, and the leadership ministered to every single person. It's all very personal, but it was oh so good. That launched my day for a day of just sensing His presence, and a lot of inner-healing took place.

Classes over the past 2 days have still been a lot of introduction to Intro stuff. We met in small groups yesterday and started Allen Hood's "Excellencies of Christ." I'm already floored with these teachings of the raw character of Jesus. He is good. The Father is good. And the Holy Spirit is good. Good is such a powerful word, once you encounter it, you know that it is more than a surface-level way of expressing how we perceive something. It's a very dynamic word. Good. My favorite line in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, is when the kids are at the beavers house, talking about Aslan. Lucy said she would be scared to meet a lion, and asked if he was "quite safe?" Mr Beaver responds by saying, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'" That blew up my ideas of what the word, good, meant.

Even just in 4 days of classes, I am sensing such a reality shift, or to use Ihopese, a paradigm shift, of who this Jesus is. This King. My King. Wow. I'm in awe of how much I didn't know His thoughts toward me. I'm in awe. And more awe is to come. Deeper awe. I'm barely scratching the surface. I have, in a sense, walked into a wardrobe as a child, to learn my place in the Kingdom and to fight battles.

Our small group had what we call Briefing, today. Basically, we sit in a side room in the prayer room, and brief about what's been going on. We talked about the power of praising God. The leaders (Jess and Alice...and just to clarify, Jess is a guy, and Alice is his wife), gave us this declaration that someone had written out a while back. When they pastored a church, they would instruct individuals in need, like a doctor would give a prescription, that they proclaim this over themselves X amount of times a day. And like they said to us, it's not that the words are a formula that is extra special...it's just the matter of taking the time to posture our hearts before the Lord, and proclaim who He is. They had testimony upon testimony of physical and emotional healings. So, here it is if you want to try it!

Hallelujah 3X
Hallelujah praise Jesus
Hallelujah praise the Lord
I love you, O Lord, my Strength 2X
Christ is my Life 2X

The words Strength and Life are in itallics, because those words can be substituted with whatever your need is. Health. Peace. Because Jesus is those things. It's basic Truth. Foundational Truth. And foundational Truth, when proclaimed, shakes things until what is left cannot be shaken.

I see that I have written a lot. So I will leave with some things from Allen Hood's notes that really struck me:

~The Cross was not drudgery for Him. The Cross was necessary for Him to receive the greatest yearning of His heart-YOU.

~Jesus did the unthinkable. He asked the Father to give the redeemed of the human race the highest possible pleasure-to behold the unparalleled splendor of God in Jesus and to feel the same love that the Father has for His Son. God's intentions are not to simply give us the right set of Gospel facts in order for us to pass the test to get into Heaven. He has something far more magnificent. He wants to share the most glorious thing he has-Himself in the person of his Son, in all of his glory and all of His love.

Invitation to join Intro...

Soooo. Friends, here are the links to my classes. You are free to listen to them. The first 2 have worship on them, so it is illegal to download them (copyright stuff). I don't know how to just listen without downloading, so I guess just delete them once you listen. Or if a techy person wants to instruct me on this, I am all ears.

The first one has some jewels on it, but it is mostly stuff that you would be bored to hear. Most of it. There is a huge spot where we are meeting in small groups and there is no sound. And the mic kept going in and out. But there was a speaker who talked to us about the prep rooms, which I liked that. Anyway...I will try my best to find an organized way to keep these updated!

Week 1:

9/29 http://www.ihop.org/Media/PlayMedia.aspx?download=False&media_id=1000006810&file_id=1000008083

9/30 http://www.ihop.org/Media/PlayMedia.aspx?download=False&media_id=1000006811&file_id=1000008084