Unrefined ponderings on a tired midweek morning…

Holy Spirit, reside in me, in us.

In Jesus, I am in heaven. Because Jesus is in me, heaven is on earth.
It is a “right here, right now” thing. The living, breathing, moving union of heaven and earth is overflowing with the glory of God.

Somehow to live every moment in the faith that in Christ, heaven and earth have been joined.

Transformation happens at the pace of a plant growing. And it grows up out of the mess and chaos of our lives.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Thank you, Jesus, for your faithful, undying, life infusing presence in us and with us especially when we think we are at our worst.

Teach us to see in every moment at least a hint of your kingdom flowing on earth as it is in heaven.

Amen

Live worthy of the Lord

I’ve been doing some intense personal work lately. Over the past few years, I have been introduced to the Enneagram. It has been a great discovery. I am a Type 9 with a Self-preservation instinct. Basically, an Adaptive Peacemaker whose instinct is survival, physical safety, material security, wellbeing, and comfort.

God knew what he was doing when he created me. He was intentional and I first existed in God’s mind before I was even conceived. (Psalm 139)
I’ve been working on paying attention to my feelings of anger, dissatisfaction, and frustration. My go-to behavior in life has been to numb out to those feelings as quickly as possible. But, with the Holy Spirit’s help, I am learning more about what I actually believe in my heart and allowing the word of Christ to reform me.

There is a calling in the Bible that has for a long time pursued me. It is to “…live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God…” (Colossians 1:10)
This morning I was pressing in on the challenge of stoking my desire to live a life worthy of Jesus’ name. The jarring and fearsome truth is that because I have entrusted my life by faith in him, the Spirit of God now lives in me as spiritual fire. I don’t actually provide the fire.

My job is to fan it into flame. So, for me, my daily work has to include going to the desire that dwells in me because of Jesus. Honestly, if I hadn’t started this habit a few decades ago, I would still be numb and asleep to the furnace room of God’s desire deep in me. I realize now more than ever my need to shoulder my responsibility to do whatever it takes to craft a life worthy of the Lord.

Don’t hear me wrong, it is totally in submission and profound partnership with Christ who lives in me. But, there is no other human that is going to do my personal work for me. You and I are here, alive in this era, to go today to our plot of land in our Father’s vineyard and work it on earth for the glory of heaven. And, it begins in our hearts.

God sees you as worth every effort because of the One in you.

In Christ, you are a blessing!

Praying with your spirit…

Here is a little personal history. Thirty years ago this weekend, my dad, John Lamos passed away at sixty years of age. Since 1962 (the year I was born), that man showed me how to live in friendship with Jesus. By the time I was eighteen, I had surrendered my life to Jesus as my father did.

In friendship with Jesus, I have learned that I am a living soul. That is a complex but foundational reality. As a living soul, I need to pray. Prayer is like breathing. It keeps me alive. I have to breathe. I also have to pray to stay connected to the life God intended for me… eternal life. (John 3:16)

I feel like I will always be in training when it comes to prayer. I am always learning to pray more effectively. Through prayer, we engage with God’s agenda… to see his kingdom come and his will done on earth as it is in heaven. I want to grow as a prayer warrior in every season of my life.
A half-century of friendship with Jesus has shown me much about prayer. I have discovered that as a living soul, I have a spirit and a mind. Both are active in prayer. But, not just randomly. It matters whether I lead in prayer with my mind or my spirit.

The Apostle Paul taught us, “…pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” and “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also” (Ephesians 6:18, 1 Corinthians 14:15) Through his teachings, I am convinced that no one knows my mind like my spirit.

It is the same with God. No one knows the mind of God except the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2:10-11) So, I am continually learning to pray in the Spirit. To do that, I intentionally engage with the Lord with an expectation that the Holy Spirit will help me. My objective is always to pray with my spirit and with my mind. But, it is crucial that I train my spirit to lead the way. My mind has to stay submitted to my spirit for prayer to be effective.

With my mind submitted to my spirit, I can trust the Holy Spirit to protect and guide me to pray with the heart and agenda of God. Can you learn to do that in a day or a week? No. This will be a life mission for anyone who wants to fully explore their potential in prayer.

The more I pray in the Spirit, the more I perceive the prophetic. With my spirit, I discern access points where heavenly doors or windows or wells are open making God’s provisions available to me for earthly issues. Praying in the Spirit empowers me to receive and declare the living word of the Lord.

Without a commitment to grow more and more in prayer, I would never have taken my journey in the prophetic. It has been a desire to pray that has fueled the prophetic.

If the idea of praying with your spirit is new to you, I encourage you to make a habit of asking God in the name of Jesus, to help you activate your spirit in prayer. Don’t pressure yourself to copy someone else in this. The Father can be trusted to lead you based on the way he designed you.

One gateway into this sort of activation is to watch or listen for impossible things to come before you in prayer. Your spirit is designed to agree with the Holy Spirit for impossible things to be accomplished for the glory of Jesus Christ. As impossible things come before you in prayer, don’t back off. Instead, lean into them and say something like, “Yes, I believe in the name of Jesus that it will happen on earth as it is in heaven”. Allow yourself to worship and to become more aware of who you are in the spiritual dimension. The Lord will help you gain awareness and fluency as you practice and persevere. Be patient with yourself and ask a father or mother in the Lord to help you.

My prayer for you is that you will not settle for a default prayer position with your mind constantly leading the way. We need you, the church needs you, the world needs you to pray in the Spirit on all occasions. Don’t lose heart and keep going after it.

You are a blessing!

Video: Be Great Soil for God’s truth to grow!

Loved teaching this message to our church family at Kings Valley Church.

If you are a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, It is “Normal” for you to be productive… for your heart to be good soil for God’s life to grow.

The Parable of the Sower.

Many great & small in importance chose to harden their hearts. Therefore they could not see or hear what these simple ordinary disciples saw heard & understood.

It is God’s design that the “normal” heart for us is good soil.  Just the basic…

How can we partner with God so that our hearts become good soil?

Remember the gardener is actually our Father.

1. Surrender Our Hearts

2. Engage With God’s Word

3. Trust the Gardener

Our currency with God is our humble surrender.  

Thanks for dropping in! I would love it if you leave a reply with your thoughts. If this has been helpful to you, please share it with a friend.

Live THIS day!

My KV Church Video Pick of the Week

Provoking/Empowering teaching from Executive Pastor Del Heiney It is the first session in the #Parables series from KV Church.

Stoked about how helpful this sermon has been to our church family. I know you will love it and I believe you will be activated in some new ways today!

HOME #12 (My Story)

In the past several days I have been revisiting a conversation with God that I haven’t had for while. It involves asking Him to come and make His Presence known in and around my life. It has taken me back to read Exodus 32 & 33. I love the sense about Moses that success or failure weren’t the most important issues to him… He loved God’s Presence and would not budge until God promised to go with him and the tribes of Israel.

In the midst of this conversation I came across a video and a poem that I want to share with you. I shared a link below to the vid; “Lost Generation” and “The Vision” by Wendell Berry. Hope they stir you up!

There is a hunger rising in many hearts to cry out to God with the same heart… “More than anything, God show us your glory and don’t send us any where unless your Presence goes with us.” If there is a fire in you for God’s presence, fan it into a blaze! You are needed in this time!! There is hope!

Lost Generation by Jonathan Reed http://youtu.be/42E2fAWM6rA

“A Vision”

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
there, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility

New Eyes

I have a friend that told me that the best thing she brought back from a compassion/ministry trip to China was “new eyes”. When she told me that, I grinned and nodded my head like I knew what she meant. But… I really didn’t.  I figured she had a great time and her hipster way of expressing it was that she came home with “new eyes”.

But, I listened to a guy named Skye Jethani talk this morning about the way Jesus saw the world completely different than everyone else. You can view his message if you click here  His theory is that the way we see the world comes before the way we act in our world. If we see it as scary and threatening than we will want to attack. But if see it as a place where we don’t need to be afraid, than all of Jesus’ teachings make sense. His teachings only make sense if we can see the world that He saw.  I hope you take 15 or 20 minutes to check out Skye’s message!!

I think I get what “new eyes” means now!

Maybe I found mine.. 🙂

I don’t believe you!

I just finished watching this video called  You Are Gifted  I laughed and I almost cried a few times.  But mostly I just longed to accept the challenge presented. As I listened I honestly felt an ache in my gut for my friends to live into their giftings so they can say something believable with their lives. Please take time to watch the video! You rock!

Reality for a Kingdom Laborer Part 2

I heard someone say a few days ago that God is shaking all of the systems in our world! I believe it!

Jesus said that storms are gonna come! But, if we will listen to his words and DO what He says our house will stand. Our hearts are being called to be “Passion-Driven”. I shared my heart on this video blog… Check it out (Reality for a Kingdom Laborer Part 2).

Kingdom Laborers love God so much they will obey Him, sacrifice for Him, suffer because of Him all for the ultimate purpose of glorifying His Name. Someone who is passion-driven will pursue love even into and through suffering, just like Jesus did.