Your life is not a test. In Christ, it is a masterpiece that God is creating. Your calling is to surrender and discover that God is good regardless of your circumstances. If we will trust in the resilience that only Jesus can bring, the potential of what can happen through us in His name is mind-blowing. We would not need His perseverance if living for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven was easy. God wants you to know that he is crafting an incomparable work of art with your life. That is not the same as creating a life of ease for you. This is not easy to accept. But, it is the truth. You and I were created for more than a life of ease. Left to ourselves, we would never fulfill our calling as God’s image-bearers. But, in Christ, we have joy in any circumstance because we know we are a part of his story, his workmanship. (inspired by Ephesians 2:10)
Tag: God’s relentless display of beauty
God’s relentless display of beauty… You (part two)
The word of the Lord is alive and active. (Hebrews 4:12) God intentionally brought us into being. We are designed for life-union with Jesus and his word is designed to change us into who God says we are. The prophetic will always be about Jesus. He is the Living Word of God.
Receiving the living word of the Lord is where the prophetic always starts. David saw himself as something God had already written before he was born. (Psalm 139) The prophet Jeremiah also was told that he was set apart to be a prophet to the nations before birth. (Jeremiah 1) God’s word is full of life and it is designed to keep on filling us so that it flows out of us in everything we do.
The Lord has taught me to trust what he says more than any other word regardless of how powerful it may seem to be. Sometimes I have even had to disagree with my own opinions and mindset because of God’s living word. What God says and reveals about my life is more powerful than even my own opinions.
In order to grow in the prophetic, that’s where you begin. When you surrender yourself to Jesus, you become a child of God. The Holy Spirit wakes you up to the fact that you are a growing tree that he has planted. (Isaiah 60:21) But, he didn’t just plant you and leave you to grow on your own.
We are his sons and daughters. We have been appointed as prophets to the nations. The word we have been given radically changes things. Because we bear the name of Jesus, we possess the power and authority to “…uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jer 1:10) Jesus promised that the church he is building will unlock and open the way for heaven to be known in all the earth.
Today you can say to the Lord, “I believe that your word is alive and active in me because I am your child. I exist because of your word. I surrender my heart, mind and body to you. Jesus, drive my roots deep into what you say so that it spills out of me everywhere I go today.” Amen
You are a blessing!
God’s relentless display of beauty… You (part one)
I mentioned a week ago that I would write about my experience with trusting God. The prophet Isaiah wrote prophetically that God’s people were planted by God for the display of God’s splendor. (Isaiah 60-61) Over time they would become “oaks of righteousness”.
We need to pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. Under the title, “God’s relentless display of beauty… You” I want to share my experience in trusting Jesus with my life. So, you will be seeing a series of posts under that heading. From my earliest memories, I have heard that I am indeed “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10) Knowing that and then trusting the process has become a lifelong project for me.
I was blessed to be raised in a pastor’s home. I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression about what I was “blessed” with. The gift of being the fourth of five children in a pastor’s household was not a life of ease. The term “pastor” is taken from a
My parents were shepherds to the families in our innercity church. So, in a sense, I was raised as a hired hand of a couple of shepherds. That meant that I lived and breathed the good, bad, and ugly about how people can behave. It wasn’t always pretty. But, it provided me with a front row seat to the human experience of trusting that God would cause his will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven”.
Thanks for your patience as I search through my memories for the keys of the kingdom God left for me to find. Yes, he does that. The Lord hides things from us. But, it’s not because he wants you to lack any good thing. It is because he wants to bless you in your searching. When you put your faith in Jesus as a living presence with you and you allow his words to infiltrate your mind, keys of heaven get stored away for you to discover along your journey.
You and I have been entrusted with life. Congrats! That is a big deal. Don’t miss the truth that you weren’t given the gift of life because you deserve it. God has taught me that his gift of existence to me makes me worthy of showing up each day for his glory. I get to do this!
To live with Jesus means that we possess eternal life in him. That amazing, transcendent, life of God was made available to me through living as a pastor’s son. By loving and bearing with humans that were under our care, I was driven deep in the ground so that like a seed, I could die and then begin to grow into something amazing.
I resisted that process most of the time as a kid and then as a teenager. But, God was relentless in his pursuit of my heart. Take courage today in knowing that in every moment of every day there is a spiritual dimension to your life. The Spirit of God will meet you there. Holy Spirit brings the living presence of Jesus to you. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life in every moment and the door is always unlocked to you by faith. Young or old, rich or poor, success or failure, the One who designed you for his splendor is available.
You are a blessing!
Alone…
I was moved pretty deeply by John’s article posted on his blogsite . The article is called “To whom can we go?” Click here to read his article. As storms are battering our world and it’s systems, the Lord is raising up people, young and old who listen to his teachings and Do what He says. I pray that I will be one of them! I pray that you will be there too!! Let’s be alone… together in Him!
Guest posting from John Lamos “NYC Love”
John has been in NYC on a mission with a group of students from the Bible College he attends. God has been capturing his heart in the past few years. So grateful for the vision that has been growing and invading John’s life! Click here to read his NYC Love post 
Joining with My Young Adult Son in a Life Changing Experience
There are hearts, young and old, that are longing for something more, longing for something different. I want to be a part of building God’s Kingdom to reach and welcome these people into God’s reality for this world…
The following is a letter from my son John asking for partnership and support as he joins “The Experience” this summer. He is responding to God’s call on his life to see a kingdom laborer movement rise up in Canada. Hope you are challenged and encouraged as you read…
“Over the last two years of my life, God has been opening my eyes to a calling that I believe He is putting on my heart for this world. There are hearts, young and old, that are longing for something more, longing for something different. I want to be a part of building God’s Kingdom to reach and welcome these people into God’s reality for this world. Our mission as followers of Christ is to build God’s Kingdom with Christ. We are Kingdom Builders. That is our call. This is my call.
This coming summer, there is an opportunity for me to start on a one year journey with a ministry organization called “Kingdom Building Ministries”. I will travel to Denver, Colorado and join in with 15 to 20 young adults across the United States, to take part in an intense discipleship program, called “The Experience”. I will be working with a trainer, one-on-one, who will be discipling, encouraging, and praying with me.
Stage two involves going to Haiti and the Dominican Republic to take part in multi-cultural ministry and I will be continuing to grow with my discipleship trainer as well as the group of young adults. Following this, we join in on a teen camp called “Deep Camp” where we become councilors and work with teens – starting our own discipleship relationships.
We then enter the “Wandering” stage. During this time we will be traveling through the United States encountering different ministry opportunities that are meant to stretch us and open our eyes to the world that is in front of us and to see it through God’s eyes.
We then return to Denver where we take time and just reflect on everything we have just experienced and let ourselves dream with God. What is it that He’s calling us into? How are we to change this world? How are we to be Kingdom Builders? This is a dreaming stage.
Lastly, we prepare to head home. The discipleship trainer and I set goals and plans for the next year at home. My trainer will be checking on me weekly and working through everything I experienced during the summer. We will be regularly praying together and seeing what God is doing through everything that happened during “The Experience.”
I feel, more than I have anything else, that THIS is where God wants me this summer. I believe that this is the next step in my journey.
God has been opening my eyes and my heart to a new world, but to take this next step into my call, I believe “The Experience” needs to happen. This is what I am asking you to pray about.
“The Experience” does require a cost. For me to take part in the entire program it will cost me $5,000. This total needs to be in by May 21st and I am far from that $5,000 goal. I will need at least $800 of that by May 6th to book my plane ticket to Haiti and Dominican Republic. I’m asking for pledges- either a set amount or even a certain amount of financial support over a period of four months, May through August. I am asking that you search God’s heart on this and if He is putting it on your heart to support me on this, please follow that call. This is going to be a time of discovery and direction that I feel like I have been searching for a long time.
More importantly, I need prayer.
I have been on a journey for the last two years of asking and pleading for God to show me His heart for this world and where He has me in His plan. I believe I have found where He wants me, but I need to continue seeking His heart and discovering what it means for me to be a Kingdom Builder.
I cannot wait to share with you what God has done in my heart this summer when I return in August. I believe God can do miracles and I believe God will provide. Thank you for entering this journey with me and discovering what it means for all of us to be Kingdom Builders and show this world the love and hope God has called us to share.
If God is putting it on your heart to give financially or to be praying with me for this, please connect with me at john.lamos@hotmail.com or by cell at 1-506-608-8927. Tax deductible receipts will be provided for all financial gifts.”
John Lamos
403 Hampton Road
Quispamsis, New Brunswick
E2E 4V5
john.lamos@hotmail.com
1-506-608-8927