BLOW my mind - Day 3

Once again I am going to copy down my notes from class word-for-word. Some of the stuff is very raw and super blunt.. but so good at the same time. Please don't get offended. =)

Getting born again is not about getting heaven when we die and forgiveness when you sin. It's about making all things new. When you are born again, you are not just a normal person anymore. You are to be living with a chronic sense of God's pleasure over your life.

We have been taught that the promises of God are dependent on us and what we do. But its not! In Luke 11:1 the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. This was after Jesus had sent them out to cast out demons and heal the sick. So why do we keep thinking we aren't ready or not equipped enough? Shoot! The disciples hadn't even been taught how to pray! When you truly realize that you are a new creation you will start trying to act like one.

Luke 1:74 - We can serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life! Not serve got FOR holiness and righteousness, but IN them. Because Christ has made us holy and righteous in Him. Some may think that saying that is arrogant, but it's not. How can you be arrogant if what you have was given to you? It's a gift! You can rejoice in that the Lord has made you righteous and holy and you can serve Him all the days of your life.

We were so much time trying to lessen ourselves, misquoting scripture to say that we ahve to be weak so that God can be strong. News flash! God is strong all the time! And he doesn't want there to be less of you, He created you!

Christianity has been systematized self-hatred produced by religious language.

Genesis 3
It is said that the serpent, Satan, is crafty/subtle. So you have to be looking for the subtleties of Satan's deception. Satan says, if you eat of this God knows that you will become like Him. What a subtle deception! Because that was implying that they weren't already like God, when it says that they were made like God in the beginning! The second deception was that God was trying to hide something from them (the knowledge of good and evil), so God must not really be that good. Satan uses subtle deception to trick us.

- God does not have love, a temporary emotion. God IS love. Everything about Him is love! We are going to be discovering for eternity the goodness and kindness of God. When you experience God's love, it is the most transforming thing you will ever encounter. So powerful is His love! We have to get rooted and grounded in His love.

We have been taught that "your sin separates you from God!".. the deception in that is that God leaves you. That the holy spirit removes his presence from you. Which is so not true! In Genesis 3 when God's children sin, He comes searching for them, to walk with them. Mankind ran away, not God. Because mankind felt guilty, he ran.

Before deception, we only knew what God told us about ourself. We instantly believed and manifested what He spoke. God said "you have authority!" and we simply walked in it. He said "you are like me!" and we agreed and knew it to be true. Self-evaluation was a result of the fall. We have never really seen a generation who is living how the Lord intended. We're so consumed with all sin and how messed up we are that we aren't living how He had in mind.

God has made us NEW! So why are we always trying to fix ourselves? We are called to live by faith. How much faith does it take to believe that you have sin? We have to live by faith in that we are made new, we are righteous and holy.

Thats pretty jumbled, but everything that he said was ust blowing my mind. I hope some of you dear friends find some of this interesting and challenging!

The Spirit and the Bride say "Come!"

Once again, I am going to word vomit all of my notes from class. Because I really want to be able to share this week with everyone. Basically it is amazing, so try to bear with how scattered it is!

So.. this may offend some people, or really rock your paradigm. But please don’t get offended.

- God is not in control of things on the earth. –

Gen:1:28 – God gives mankind authority in the earth. God has authority in the earth also, but He gave control to us. If God was in control would there be sickness, crime, poverty, abortion, sex trafficking, or abuse? No. If we believe that God is in control of our planet, then why would we have any passion to change the earth? Yes, all power belongs to God, but He gave us control over the earth. Why do you think the battle is over mankind? Whoever is influencing mankind is controlling the earth because mankind decides which direction the earth goes.

We were made to control the earth supernaturally. But not out of anger or forcefulness, but out of love. And by our supernatural compassion people will be drawn in to worship the living God.

We are called to replenish the earth and subdue the enemy. Bu the recent western church has been so angry with the world for living in sin that we have been trying to subdue the people of the earth and by doing that we were replenishing the enemy.

Hebrews 10:10-13 --- Christ sanctified us ONCE for all time, and since then He has been sitting on the right hand of God, waiting in expectance for His enemies to be made a footstool under His feet! We have to realize that we are so important! But you also have to understand how much He loves you or you will become too overwhelmed with the pressure. You have to understand that God wants to use you regardless of your flaws. He sees your tripping, stumbling obedience and He loves it!

We have been teaching people how to act like Christians instead of being Christ-like. We are teaching people how to live in a culture of concealment, how to act instead of exposing the problems so that someone can help. Because we’ve been taught that having sin issues is bad, no one will admit it. But by keeping it inside, in the dark, you are permitting it to cultivate.

We are supernatural by divine birth. We may say “well, I don’t feel supernatural” because we feel that we have to do enough good in the natural, be religious enough before we become supernatural. But that is false! We were born supernatural! “The Spirit and the Bride say Come!” but “creation is longing for the sons and daughters of man”. The greatest thing you can do for the planet is to walk in your supernatural anointing because it is GROANING for us! We need to no longer be simply doers of good, but be containers of God.

Don’t pray and worship to get somewhere with God. Pray and worship recognizing that you ARE with God. He is in you and you have been placed in His Heavenly Throne room.

That was alot... sorry.. but please pray over some of this stuff. It's changing my life. God is so good.

Say that again backwards!

It is Monday at 12 noon. And this week has already been radical. Our speaker this week is Steve Thompson, who is unbelievably incredible. I believe my jaw was at the floor the ENTIRE class period. I can hardly contain it all, so I just had to copy down a bunch of my notes onto my blog so that more people can be blown away! It will probably be pretty scatter-brained, but I'm literally just going to copy down the notes from class, so just keep truckin, cause it's so cool!

- God is raising up a generation to demonstrate the supernatural, but not out of stress or striving but out of a place of peace and rest. He wants us to be able to be supernatural without being bizarre. Sometimes we may feel weird by saying "yes, I am supernatural" because we remember all of the times we've tried to pray for healing or be prophetic, etc and nothing happened. But when we do that we're basing it off of what we've done instead of who God says we are. And when you try and maybe fail, it's okay. God is perfect, but He's not a perfectionist. He's a dad.

- People are so concerned about being "left behind" .. well, news flash! You already have been left behind. You've been left behind to make His Kingdom come on earth. We've had our thinking backwards. We, the church, have been trying to make ourselves holy to please God, and hope that in return God would change the world. But we can't make ourselves holy.. God makes us holy. And our mandate is to change the world. We've also been trying to transfer people from the world and into the church. We think if we have a bigger pile of people in the church than the world has, then we win! But last time it was checked, God left His disciples in the world. So why are we trying to come out of it?

- Gods Original Intention-

Genesis 1:26 God made man (1) in His image, (2) after His likeness, (3) and let us have dominion over the earth. So we were created with this intention that has 3 components:

(1) We were made in His images so that we would be His friend

(2) We were made like Him to show his likeness to the earth

(3) We were given dominion over the earth so that we may rule the earth WITH God

We were not created to maintain the status quo. Maintaining is boring! We were created to replenish and subdue (Genesis 1:28).

*God did not put Satan in the garden! He put the garden in Satan's fallen territory, put man in the garden, and said to expand the garden until God's kingdom fills the earth and kicks the enemy off the planet! We were given authority over the earth!*

Don't for one second think you are not valued by God

Genesis 2:7 - God breathed into mans nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. God created EVERYTHING we see by simply speaking, by simply permitting it to be. He "let there be light". But He couldn't handle staying that far away for us. He had to reach down and hand make us with the soil of the earth. And then even that wasn't enough, He wanted to come face to face with us and breathe into us. Personally.

We were made from the earth's soil and then breathed into us was the breath of God. We were made by the natural, and then the breath of God made us supernatural. That is now our calling on the earth, to be a supernatural expression of God.

So you may feel unqualified for what God has called you to, but being unqualified God can still use you to succeed at the highest level. Jesus didn't come to back bad people good. He came to make natural people supernatural. So get going.

Chew on that for a bit! =)

The Sound

Wow

So this past week we had the Tacoma Team here speaking on freedom/deliverance. It was really amazing. The teams prayed with each one of us individually, asking God what our original design was and different things in the past that are strongholds which are keeping us from fully living in how the Lord designed us. So we all got to work through a bunch of crap, which was awesome.

Thursday in class Brian was going to be talking about Passivity and Fear, or something like that. I'm not really sure, because about 30-45 minutes into class he got off on a rabbit trail... or so we thought. He started talking about how there's something different with us. Not only our generation, but our class specifically. He was saying how he's seen classes filled with the Holy Spirit, he's been to radical worship sets with the presence of God in the room, etc. But there's something different about us. He was saying there is a sound coming out of us that people are talking about all over the world. At this point he threw down the class manuel and set the microphone down as he began to pour out his heart. I honestly don't know how to explain the rest of the day, but I'll do my best. Here's the gist:

We are the generation that the prophets have been praying for. The people who are going to do signs and miracles greater than those done by Jesus when He was on earth. Perform miraculous healings and see endless salvations. Somewhere in there the presence of God came in the room, and everyone was wrecked. People were bawling (myself included, of course) with the spirit of revelation heavy in the room. Our leader Amy said when she was a little girl God gave her a vision of an Army, an army emitting a sound that would shake the Nations and beckon the return of the King. She's had the vision many times, and she said we are that sound. Our class didn't move from that room for 6 hours. No break, no lunch, no nothing. Just soaking in the presence of God, praying, singing, worshipping, and journalling. UNBELIEVABLE.

It was in that room, somewhere in those 6 hours, that I knew my life was over. There is too much the Lord wants to use me for for me to have my own life and my own ambitions. My spirit was stirring inside of me because it remembered the sound and knew that this is why I was created. I was created for my Jesus and His glory. For bringing others into His Kingdom. Since that day something inside of me has changed, and will never be the same. I know too much now.

Jesus I'm Yours

Lovesick

So.. this past week has been incredible. One of the co-founders and original worship leaders of IHOP KC (International House of Prayer in Kansas City) was our speaker. His name is Chris Dupre and he is incredible!

He started the week with his unbelievable testimony that blew my mind. It really brought to my attention how much the Lord cares about every little detail in our life. I would love to go in to detail, but 1. I feel like it's kind of personal for me to re-tell and 2. it's really long. But basically God showed Chris in a VERY specific and personal way just how much He truly loved him. All of the girls were crying, and some of the guys too lol

One of my favorite things he said was "ministry isn't what you do, it's who you are. If you yourself are not ministry, then when you stop doing ministry you are back to being the Lord of your own life." --- chew on that for a while...

So, we've been seeing some crazy incredible stuff happening lately. Last Monday we had ministry night with Ivan Roman. Crazy on fire for God. Anyways, so we're all just worshipping and praying and then Ivan started feeling Gods heart for healing. So he started calling people out based on words of knowledge. This lady had sciatic nerve problem in her hip area, and one of her legs was WAY shorter than the other one, which was inflicting a lot of the pain. So we all gathered around her and were praying for healing and literally right in front of our eyes her leg grew out to the length of the other one! It was insane! And then this lady who was 50% deaf in her right ear and constantly heard ringing out of it was completely healed too! and the most emotional one for me was this girl Sarah. She has cerebral palsy and is in a motorized wheelchair. She rolled up to the front and was right by me, so we all started laying hands on her and praying for her. While we were praying, God just downloaded in me His heart for her and I instantly started bawling. Like, uncontrollable. It was nuts. But we're all hardcore praying over her and this guy Sammie was like, "Sarah, it's time to stand up." - So she unbuckled her belt fro the chair, and reached for my hand for support. Sarah stood up, on her own. She usually can't stand for more than a few seconds on her own, and she stood for 10. Then she told us to let go, and she wanted to walk to me. So I stood there with my arms out watching her walk to me! She would take a few shaky steps and reach my arms to rest. and then do it again. She walked around without her chair for over 20 minutes! It was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. God's work at hand. and we are fully confident that God is going to complete her healing! (Phil 1:6 - "and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion"). It's going to happen. But yeah, it was pretty much beyond amazing. Praise Jesus!

Also, a super common theme the past 3 weeks in general has been how much the Lord loves you. It sounds like such a simple, basic concept.. but there is SO much depth to it. It's really hard to fully comprehend, but until you understand His love for you, you cannot truly love. He is SO madly enthralled with me, and He wants me to know that! It's insane. I was beating myself up this week because I felt like everyone else was "hearing God's voice" or having radical experiences with Him and I wasn't. And then just yesterday when I was at lunch with a dear friend God intensely downloaded His reasoning for not just so easily "appearing" when I wanted Him to. We were talking about everything and bleh and bam. God spoke. He said to me, "Madison.. you are so used to being able to go after something and obtain it relatively easy" (which makes sense because I'm a very determined person) "and you're trying to do that with Me. Stop and simply rest. Let me pursue your heart and I'll show you true romance." AHHH Jesus is so FREAKING cool! How amazing is that? The Lord and Savior of the Universe told me He wants to pursue MY heart and show me true romance! Love.

Sooooooo yes, sorry I haven't updated in a long time. I'll try to get better at that but I'm always really busy. =/ Love you all dearly

Link to my facebook album of my glory weekend at Kua Bay!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034717&id=1447920125

(Put that in the address bar!)

Madison

Outreach!

I wanted to explain how I came to the point of going on outreach in the country that I'm going to. So, here it is:

The options:

1 team to Northern China near the border of North Korea

1 team to Guam/New Zealand

1 team to East Coast America

2 teams to northern Afghanistan

2 teams to Europe

1 team to Haiti (added after the earthquake)

When I first got here I instantly connected with one of the leaders, Lizzy. It was totally a spiritual connection. After hanging out with her for less than a week, I just knew that I would be going on outreach with her. I couldn't figure out why God would give me such a connection with someone if I wasn't going to be walking with them for a long time. Lizzy is also from London, which was perfect because I have always had such a desire to go to Europe. and lo and behold, there are two teams going to Europe! I then found out that she was leading with Levi, this guy that I also had a weird spiritual connection with. So I was pumped and totally convinced that they were leading a Europe team. God was SO good!

The day that they introduced which leaders were leading which teams, I was so excited! Until I realized that Lizzy and Levi were standing up for the team going to the East Coast of America. My heart literally plummeted through the floor. So I prayed and prayed about it... the leaders for Europe teams were ABSOLUTELY incredible as well, so I just figured it was my flesh just wanting to go somewhere with Lizzy. God wants to give us the desires of our heart, and I have desired to go to Europe for atleast 4 years. So when we wrote down our options I put the two Europe teams as 1 and 2 and put America as 3 just so I wasn't "shutting doors" on God. pff.. I'm retarded.

So later that afternoon, right after our 2 hour prayer and worship set this super prophetic guy was like, "Hey Madison, God gave me a word for you during worship.. It could be really wrong, but I just felt like God was saying that when you wrote down your outreach options you put your first choices down because that was what your flesh desired, but you felt like you heard a whisper from God but just put that as your last option." and I was like .... ughhhh.. So I talked to my leader about it and she said I should take another night to pray about it. When I went back to my room and started praying, I just knew it was God. There is no way I could go to Europe after God gave me a second chance to listen to His voice. It was so hard to let go of my dream of going to Europe. Specially since I was replacing it with the last place in the world I wanted to go. But I had such peace that God IS going to take me to Europe, just not right now. So I changed it, and put America as 1.

Today we were all revealed our outreach groups, and boy is God good. My team is incredible. INCREDIBLE. Not only are my leaders Lizzy, Levi, and Sam, but one of my roommates Lauren is in my team. Two other girls that I absolutely adore as well! and the guys are all so solid. It's going to be AMAZING!! I'm so so so excited. We'll be on the east coast, New York, Pennsylvania, Jersey area. All the details are yet to be sorted out. But we know God is going to be moving so thick through this country as we pray and intercede for revival and revelation of His love. It's going to be so good. I know this is completely God calling me to this nation and I can't wait to see everything He is going to do. God has a heart for the revival of America just as much as he does Africa, Europe, and China!

So yes, East Coast America here I come! =)

Week 1: Check!

Wow.. week 1 was amazing, and I can only imagine what this next week is going to bring. Luckily we had a recap on Friday, so now I atleast have some sort of idea on how to summarize last week!

Monday was a day of destroying our old foundation so that we can start over on the foundation of Christ. Kind of breaking our old patterns of religion that have kept us trapped. It was really good. Tuesday was what I had written about previously, the day of surrender. It was just realizing our need for surrender, because intimacy without surrender is not intimacy at all. Also we talked about how we need to be completely leaning in to our Lord so that when he turns left, we turn left. In the light of what we are inheriting, we are not really surrendering anything! Wednesday was really talking about how we are the sheep who need to rest in our dependency of the Lord, the shepherd. And resting in the season we are in and also just resting in the arms of Jesus. Thursday was talking about having a disciplined intimacy. Really learning how to posture our lives to where we will walk with Him every day. Learning how to get out of the "microwave mindset". Intimacy with God is a long term thing, and it takes time. Just like building an earthly relationship.

So yeah.. that's kind of a recap of our first week. This week we have an INCREDIBLE speaker. His name is Ivan Roman and he is awesome! I'm so excited, it's going to be so so good.

This weekend my friends and I all hitch hiked to an awesome beach! It is SOOO beautiful. Here's a picture.

Beautiful, right? We could see whales out in the water spouting and breeching and flipping their tails up! It was so awesome!

We find out outreach locations tomorrow or Wednesday. God is so good and I can't wait to meet my small group! I'll let you know.

Madison