God Exceedingly Expects Us to want more from him! blogpost by Tammy Konneker

It's so hard for me to wrap my hands around the fact that while Jesus was here he told us in John 14: 12 "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these." WOW, how could we frail humans, flawed by sin, marred by worldly scars do GREATER things than Jesus.....the perfect lamb of God. I think we fail to see our own potential, the potential that all of us have been given to change lives of those around us.

For the past few years I've felt really pressed to lean more into the book of Acts. Luke had written his second book of the bible....as one of the twelve chosen to set off a movement of the Holy Spirit...in Acts Luke sets out to teach what the church should look like, act like and be like. In the first chapter he briefly describes the time that Jesus spent with them after his resurrection. Luke opens with the fact that Jesus came back to them and spent the next forty days speaking to them about the kingdom. Jesus first instruction to them was to WAIT....he was testing their obedience and patience. Jesus tells them that soon he would be gone but the Holy Spirit would come to replace him....and this Holy Spirit would guide us...if we listened and expected to hear.

I have to laugh as I read Acts 1:9-11 "After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking INTENTLY up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." Now......I'm sorry....but wouldn't most of us be freaked out, first by just seeing Jesus ascend into heaven and then as your just standing there in shock, two dudes dressed in white suddenly are standing on either side of you saying.....WHATCHA LOOKIN AT? Luke didn't go any further into detail of their reaction but I can only imagine their dumbfounded look.....and suddenly being speechless as to what had just happened.

After this they began the process of building the church.....Luke says the first thing they did was joined in constant prayer. Most people think that prayer should be a time of just sitting down and praying. I find that when I just sit down and try to pray.....I'm usually at a loss for words. A relationship with Christ is like a good marriage, you spend all day talking and interacting with one another.....I know my husband......I know my Lord. My line of communication is ongoing, there is never a time that I feel that I can't call upon his comfort and know that its there. God has called us to far more than what we are currently giving him. He called us to be more than he was......and so much of the world has crept into our lives that we have forgotten that we were called for Exceedingly more than this.

Snapshot of Your Life--a life application devotional by Kay Cameron from Zech 13:9

When we choose to follow the Jesus Way, we realize that God pervades our life every moment. Everything that happens in our lives has a purpose, a lesson to be learned, an application to our spiritual life.

Think about a snapshot of something that happened to you today. Write it down in a few short sentences. Then think about its application to your spiritual growth. Your inspiration can come from anything: driving to work, using your cell phone, blowing bubbles with your children, dancing, a magazine article, a load of laundry, cleaning the refrigerator, a migraine headache, a disease.....good or bad......what does God want you to learn from these situations that will help you to grow spiritually? How is He refining you today?

Zech 13:9

9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

KJV

Going through fire takes the impurities out of us, and makes us more like Jesus. Count it gain if, in your joys or in your sufferings, you learn to walk closer to Him.

Press In and Press On.....blogpost by Tammy Konneker

It so hard to stay focused in a world today that is so filled with distractions. It becomes harder and harder for a Christ follower to keep focused let alone someone that has not yet come to know the Lord to find strength in a world that seems to have turned upside down. Being a Christ-follower does not make you exempt from struggles....on the contrary it makes you even more susceptible to them as Satan wars once again for your very soul. "In this world, YOU WILL have trouble but have hope for I have overcome the world." I can't imagine Jesus' time here on earth, I can't imagine his days of seemingly defeat...how he would go off from the crowds to pray. The one thing Jesus knew was to Press On he had to Press In.

I wish I could explain why the woman dying of cancer herself would walk out into her living room to find her 28 year old son dead in the recliner. I wish I could tell you why a mother loses a beloved child way too soon. I wish I could tell you why our life of health can be turned upside down by one illness. I don't understand, but I'm not made to understand. I'm created to lean in, to listen close and to pay attention to what God is teaching through these moments. Whether it be compassion, passion, endurance or perseverance.....God has a plan through it all. Our job is to not define God but allow God to define us through our struggles. In the end...my desire is if for people to not remember what took my life but what defined my life. I want to know that by my perseverance that God somehow received glory through my struggles.

My thoughts are of Joseph and how he was appointed by God to be a king yet found himself stripped of his garments and thrown into a well by his brothers to be left for dead. I stand there in the bottom of that well with Joseph and I wander where his thoughts were at that time. I'm sure he was in fact questioning the king part. Wouldn't you? But yet God had already said it would be so, so who was Joseph to question God's ways....by the way God had a plan even at the bottom of Joseph's well. Along came some men and his brothers panicked and decided to sell him to them....not knowing that they were sealing his fate to become king. Joseph turned a very wrong situation into something good. He served as if he was serving the Lord and in his faithfulness God fulfilled his prophecy of Joseph.....but it wasn't until Joseph pressed in to God that the glory of God was revealed to him. Joseph's story and our story all can have similar endings.....the choice is ours....will we press in....or will we surrender our God given position because of seemingly bad circumstances? (read the story for yourself starting in Genesis 37 and I could give you so many more similar stories throughout the bible and throughout the lives of people I have known in my life that rose above their circumstances)

Jeremiah 29:11-14 This well known scripture is quoted over and over again but many times the most important part is left off when its quoted. vs 13 "you will seek me and find me WHEN you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you 'declares the Lord and will bring you back from captivity'

Jeremiah 29:11-14 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you declares the Lord and will bring you back from captivity.

Though this struggle may seem long...and though we may not understand how this could possibly be a part of God's plan. We must remember that his plans are for good and his will is to prosper us. Press in and Press on.....