Lordship

This week we had the topic of Lordship with Mark Parker.  Mark is a guy who is very passionate about God and what it means to give Him Lordship of our lives.  Mark could be seen throughout the week shouting and losing his voice about one time each lectures session, it is this passion for God that allows his message to carry a lot of weight in your memory.  Mark is from New Zealand and comes from a background that wasn’t the best, he rebelled as a teenager as his older brother tried to bring him into the kingdom of God.  He had refused several times and then when he saw himself at the end of the road and not knowing what to do as he was in misery, God showed him His grace and mercy.  Mark claims this was the closest thing to an audible voice of God he has ever heard and it brought him to realizing how his life was taking a turn and it was a choice of life or death.  At this point Mark was about 20 and most of our world decides what we will follow between the ages of 18-24 and it drastically changed his life in being able to talk to us about how Lordship is a part of his daily life now at the age of 55.

During the first lecture we had Mark told us about a word that he had gotten for our DTS group, the word was overcome.  Overcome is so much bigger in this season, season of change, when we apply it to the year of 2011.  The number 11 is a number of incompleteness, destruction, shuffling, and uncertainty.  So then if we look forward to 2012 we know that is a solid number it is a solid foundation as there were 12 disciples.  Most of us are aware of the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan and the possibility of more and that is no coincidence, as the body of Christ we need to reach out and overcome these circumstances.  When we think about the earth and how it is being shaken we need to realize it is our time to bring the people into the Kingdom of God.  We don’t need to take God to these places because God is already there what we need to do is to go there and find God that lives in each and every one of them.  The enemy, Satan, is out there trying to kill and destroy everything and what are we doing?  Are we going to let the enemy overtake these people, our neighbors, or will be overcome and persevere in the midst of all the catastrophes. 

Matthew 7: 20-21 basically tells us that we need to know God to declare Him Lord.  It isn’t that we are asking God into our lives He is already there as He has invited us into His life.  Where we fix our eyes will tell us what kingdom we will glorify.  When we come to Christ and repent for our sins and are forgiven we are cleansed of all our transgressions.  Yet, so many of us try to live a Christian life where we try not to sin and if we have our eyes on sin then we will always fall to sin, however if we have our eyes on God we won’t sin.  What we have our eyes on will control us and of course we may fall and sin, but we will know right away as our conscience will be convicted.  So the Kingdom of God is filled with day by day choices and to give God that Lordship is the decision we make and can align with these three questions.  Who is your Master?  What is your Mission?  Who will be your Mate?  These all are some of the greatest questions people have in their faith and they need to align those with what God is speaking into their life and what He has given them.  We need to obey, love, produce fruit, be disciples, carry the cross, give up all possessions that rule your life, and be reliable when God moves.  If we are doing all of these things, which are fruits of the spirit, then we will honor God and His kingdom because He has created us as image bearers of Christ as we were born to rule Gods creation.  What we fix our eyes on will control us.

In the Old Testament the Tent of Meeting was a place in which the people sacrificed animals on the alter before God.  Today in the New Testament we don’t have a place that we come to and sacrifice such things.  Today we the body of Christ are the Tent of meeting and we give a living sacrifice, which is ourselves to God so we may die to our flesh and let Him work through us.  So our body becomes a temple and it contains a body, soul, and spirit.   To get do the perfect will of God we have to have Him fill us in all of these areas and the biggest way the enemy will try to deceive us is by doubting the character of God.  God said, “I AM” so when we think about that we get a glimpse of the glory of God as He is the beginning and the end and the holiest of holies.  So we need to live for the I am rather than for the I am not and we will see great things happen through God.   This means that we are to sacrifice ourselves before the Lord each and every day and ask Him what He has for us in what we do rather than us trying to make what we do fit into Him.

So how do we go about putting ourselves on the alter each and every day before we start our day?  We have to start by giving Jesus thanksgiving as He was the one who paid the ultimate price for us so we may live.  Then we have to praise God and thank Him for the great things He has done in regards to His character that the enemy wants to make us doubt.  We need to come before the cross that Jesus died on for us and confess any sins that we may have so we can be cleansed to hearing the voice of God.  With hearing Gods voice we need to surrender things before the cross so our flesh doesn’t get in the way of God’s plan.  This means giving up any material possessions that hinder you from doing God’s will and giving up anything from school, mission, and/or relationships that He hasn’t yet spoken into.  God has greater goals and plans for us than we could ever imagine so when we give ourselves over to Him, He will give us greater things than we could ever imagine in the right timing.  If we humble ourselves and resubmit each and every day to God we are going to see amazing things and He is going to work miracles through us and supply us with more than we need.  If we do this we will have a greater foothold on the enemy as we will always see the good no matter the circumstances because God is good.  So this is the message we need to take to these nations in the midst of catastrophes as we can love our neighbors from half way across the world into the kingdom of God and fill that emptiness they are all suffering from.

So I experienced the abundance of God’s love this week as I was given more than I can imagine possible. I came to Australia with an 8GB iPod that I used to listen to music and hear God, as it was a way for me to feel his love through worship.  Well in about the second or third week I heard God tell me that I was to surrender my iPod to someone here on base.  It wasn’t that the music on there was bad or that I made it an idol it was just something I valued and limited me from hearing God’s voice.  So I gave it up and it was very difficult as it was expensive and something that I valued as it was the only worship music I could listen to as I can’t play any instruments.  Before the cross I surrendered my education, my relationship with Rachel, and my passport as I had no other things to surrender as I already surrendered my iPod earlier in DTS. During the time of surrendering things at the cross that hinder us from hearing God I was given and 32GB iPod, which is four times the size of my old one and I was in awe of how God was giving me an abundance of His love.  I was thinking that it was amazing how He had given me an iPod that is greater than the one that I had from me being obedient.  Then I received and overflowing abundance as I was given another 8GB iPod and now I have two iPods due to surrendering things to God.  I learned a very valuable lesson about surrendering things to God this week and through that also I realized that by being obedient He is going to bless us and not always take away everything we surrender to Him, thank goodness.  So each and every day when wee surrender ourselves to God as a living sacrifice we will be able to be used in a way that glorifies Him and maybe even see amazing miracles or changes in people.

Evangelism

This week we had the topic of Evangelism and our speaker was David Pierce.  David has a ministry called Steiger Ministries and they go into the cities and clubs that are dark and demonized.  They have a band called No Longer Music and with that band they are able to get into these places in Amsterdam, Brazil, and several other places that are possessed by evil spirits.  David uses the music and atmosphere to bring the gospel to these people in very up front and convicting ways.  He uses the Cross and crucifixions of Jesus as well as the resurrection to show them how amazing and powerful God is and then he speaks about it through singing and then has ministry time at the end of his sessions that see hundreds come to the Lord each performance.

To start off the week he set our foundation and convicted us right away of being stagnant in the Lord and His plans for us.  He explained how God’s power is amazing and as it says in Eph 1:18 the power is available to all who believe.  In the book of Acts we see the account of the numerous miracles that Jesus performed when He was here on Earth and that is the Jesus that is alive today.  God wants to use each and every one of us and it isn’t about our abilities or gifts, we need to realize that through God anything is possible.  In the Bible we learn of the power of God after the Disciples feed the 3,000 and then are going across the lake and are met by a storm and Peter walks on water because he called for God to show His power.

We know that God is all powerful and trustworthy and all that stuff, but are we willing to go into battle for Jesus.  This is where we are unsure because weather it is being a missionary, sharing the gospel, or met with challenges in everyday life we seem to limit ourselves because stepping out of our comfort zone is too risky.  Faith is a choice and not a feeling and we choice to be obedient or not.  Faith without risk isn’t true faith because it allows you to rely on your own ability rather than God’s.  Yes, risks are a part of faith and in John 16:33 God promises us adventures, but he also promises trouble.  Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players of all times said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  So we need to take our shots to share the gospel when we have a chance or else we may fail to do God’s perfect will and bring that person to the Lord.  We need to be warriors in our faith because when we are in Spiritual Warfare praying and sharing the gospel with people we are in war.  The enemy, Satan, wants to kill and destroy us and our purpose.  So what I am saying is that we need to put on our Shield of Faith and we need to have supernatural and unreasonable faith that God will give us radical dreams and His boldness and power through the Holy Spirit.  That is what is honoring to God and allows Him to work through us.

So we have to have faith to be warriors for God and that is what He calls us to do.  However, God wants us to be equipped to go into battle so before we share His word we have to know Him and have a personal intimate relationship with Him.  In the Bible we know that God can and will destroy the antichrist with His breath.  So when we know God we can have Gods power working through us and that is the only way people will listen, when they see God’s Power.  Many of us try to do works for God and change the world, but we fail because we are casual about it and don’t do it through God but on our own.  That isn’t God’s will; He wants us to do all works through Him and out of our relationship with Him.  So get desperate for God to move in your life and be honest in your prayers and you will see breakthroughs because you came to Him with an earnest heart.

God has a heart for the lost, Luke 15: 1-7 talks about the parable of the lost sheep.  God has a heart for those who are lost and in darkness and wants to bring them to light, God’s love is unconditional and He wants all people to come to Him and receive His kingdom.  This is what God calls each and every one of us as believers to do, make disciples of all nations.  So how do we do that?  The Cross is powerful and if we take the cross out of our message then we have failed to give people an accurate picture of Jesus.  The Cross needs to be portrayed as more than a piece of jewelry; it is the passion of Jesus and shows how Jesus isn’t happy or passive about injustice.  It shows how God cares for us and wants us to be clean and is the basis of all God’s purpose.  The only way we come to Jesus is on our face at the foot of the cross.  How great is that to humble ourselves and give over all our transgressions, infirmities, and inequities to Jesus and be healed and pure again.  So we need to get a real revelation of the cross and let it pierce our hearts so we can answers the calls of Jesus and find the lost and bring them to the kingdom.

As a Christian and in missions at this moment I was really convicted this week as I realized I wasn’t living in fear of God rather I was living in fear of man.  I made the step in obedience in coming here to go into all the world and make disciples yet I had failed to let God move freely in my life as I worried about finances, reputation, and embarrassment.  This was fear of man as I didn’t want to take risks in being up front with people because our culture tells us to accept people.  Well, God also tells us to do that but He also tells us to bring the truth to those who live in sin and do it in a loving way.  Our culture today is making exceptions to all kinds of sins and we are asked to accept that culture, but Jesus offended culture He went against it by helping the Samaritan and tax collectors.  The cultural values were to hate these people yet Jesus didn’t do that He offended the status quo, yet did in a loving way.  So we need to go into these places and be humble in our attitudes and find all our pride in God, we need not to condemn other but to convict them and bring them to the kingdom through love.  Be challenged everyday as I am with being obedient to God and stepping out of the boat.  The most important thing we can do outside of the boat is doing the next thing God asks you to do.

Relationships

This week we had the topic of Relationships and our speaker was Jesse Mesa, the Captain of the Mercy Ship Ministry within YWAM.  Jesse, whom is originally from the Philippines and comes from a background that wouldn’t be wished upon the greatest of enemies.  Jesse was a person who has made a huge turn around in his life from the ways he used to live and now is living a life that is making a difference around the world.

Our verse for the week was Ephesians 4, which talks about how God has called us not to be His slaves but to relate to Him and bring unity to the body of Christ.  When we break down the word “relationships” we find that relation means to carry back or have a reference point as ship is to carry something or to embark on.  When we take the word as a whole we find the definition is the reference point to embark from.  When we take this with Ephesians 4 we can understand that God want us to relate, as that is what He has created us for.  If some of you are doubting this go back to when God created man, it is the only time in the Bible when God created something and didn’t say it was good.  So then God created woman to be a help meet to man as an equal partner.  In our relationships our reference point is God and if we carry everything back to Him then we will be successful in the adventures we embark upon.

So how has God created us to relate to others and how do we go about doing so?  Matthew 22: 37-40 tells us to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and then to love our neighbor as ourselves.  God didn’t just give us these commands and expect us to know how we are to love, so He gave us the 10 commandments.  The first four commandments tell us how to relate to God, the fifth tells us how to relate to authority, and then the final five tell us how we are to relate to others.  Through understanding these commandments we can do our job to expanding the kingdom of God.  In expanding the kingdom we have to know that first someone Belongs to the kingdom, as we are called to love our neighbor.   Then by loving our neighbor they will become Believers in God.  By believing in God they then become aware of how they are to Behave as a follower of Christ.  This is something that many of us struggle with as Christians as we fail to make people feel accepted before they actually believe as they act in ways that we see unfit.

Loving our neighbor is something that can become very difficult at times as we see people as unfit to enter the kingdom or they might happen to be our enemies and how can we love them?  This is the question that many of us tend to ask and if we are in a true loving relationship with God then we know we can trust Him.  In trusting God we no longer let circumstances rule over Him and make us a Victim, we now let God rule over circumstances and become the Victor.  Our way to have a successful relationship is by strengthening our relationship with God and our knowledge of Him.  By doing this we can let God guide us as He is our true north.   Unsuccessful relationships are usually caused by pride and as Christians we are called to live in humility.  Through living in humility we can be united as the body of Christ and as Psalm 133 states, “in unity I command a blessing.”

Of course with relationships we also talked about male and female relationships and how we seem to think that feeling of romance can be a sin.  Well, they can be however we have the ability to control them by not entertaining them and continuing to have the right motives toward the opposite sex rather than making them an object.  Love also is a choice that we have and we can choose to fall in love and out of love.  By doing this we allow our mind to be entertained by sexual immorality and then by letting our mind entertain them more often it makes our conscience week and we choose to fall in and out of love for the wrong reasons and fall into the categories of lust, rather than love.  So in dating we need to get the right motives, we need to be honest and real about whom we are, we need to give our rights in dating to marriage, we need to develop non-romantic relationships, and then we need to get ourselves free from sin.  By doing these five principles we can be successful and have these amazing relationships among opposite sexes.  God’s goal is for us to have attractions and romance among the two sexes as He created both in the beginning and gives us the formula on how to do that within His will.

Relationships are great and there are times when we find it hard to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves, yet usually that is because we are carrying some type of pride in boosting or bitterness.  However, when we do His will we will receive heaps of blessings.  I have seen these blessing personally as I was a person who tended to judge people and rule them out of the kingdom before I even knew what  they were going through because I saw them unfit compared to me.  In this respect I was very arrogant thought I was better because I was further along in my journey than they were and I pushed them down rather than building them up as God calls us to do.  Over the past year I have found myself now building others up within schools I have volunteered at and have seen many blessing in the relationships with other.

My relationship with my girlfriend Rachel is one of the greatest ways that I have seen God bless me and through that today I am still living in that blessing.  So last year I was at a point where I was in idle with my relationship with God and I was treading water just staying in one place.  God then called me do missions work and I put it off and then out of nowhere God brings this amazing friend into my life to help me get over the fear of man.  Rachel had just come back from a DTS and had all these amazing testimonies about what happened while on DTS and then you could just see her fire for God as it was blazing.  It was her blazing fire that ignited mine and got me over the fear of man to actually commit to doing a DTS and growing in my relationship with Christ.  As I continued to make these commitments to God and letting Him guide me I started to grow closer to Rachel in our friendship. 

We continued to progress in our relationship as we realized it was something more than just friendship, we then had to discuss boundaries in our relationship.  Boundaries are the foundation for our motives and help hold us accountable in not giving into sin.  As we set these boundaries we had to open up to each other and be real about what things will make us stumble so each of us could hold the other accountable.  In our progression of friendship to dating we failed to hold each other accountable to the boundaries of friendship over dating and with that we had to be checked by others.  By others realigning us we were able to live in humility and be convicted and correct our motives.  Today I am in love with this blessing, Rachel, and thank God for guiding me, as only true successful relationships can come through Him.  This week I began to totally see how putting God at the center of this relationship is the only way it has and will continue to succeed because He is our true north.  If we can’t understand His love then how can we begin to understand how to love another?   Every day I thank God for His love and grace because it is only by Him I have been blessed with such a wonderful relationship.

                                                     

Outreach Finally Decided

So this week we figured out our outreach locations and the choices that we had to pray about.  While today our choices that we all had prayed about were due and I found out my outreach location was approved and also whom will be on my outreach team.  So I will be going to Coffs Harbour for two weeks helping out at a rehab center and getting involved with a church that has connections to our other location, Borneo.  Borneo is part of Indonesia and that is the part of that island we will be doing our outreach in.  So I have limited information at this time as the details of the trip aren't really finalized yet.  When we get to Borneo we will be going into the Jungle which is about a two day drive in a truck that we will be taking.  In the Jungle we will be going into villages and helping out at schools and just joining in the community of these people and reaching out to them showing Christ's love.

Holy Spirit

This week we had our Holy Spirit week and it was a topic that was totally new to me and we covered a bit of it the previous week, yet our speaker hit us with a revelation of how to look at the spiritual gifts that God can work in us through the Holy Spirit.  Our speaker was Raf Shaw from Adelaide, Australia and there he has a ministry that works primarily in healings each and every week.  The healing rooms he has are similar to ones in Spokane, Washington and actually are run very similarly to that if any of you are interested in looking up some of that information.  So Raf comes from a background that is not very admirable, yet he is one of those guys whom had an encounter with God and now is totally sold out for the Lord and letting Him work in his life.  Raf had many stories of healing and miracles he has seen as he has truly been blessed by the Lord through spiritual gifts and is a guy truly led by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit and how He works is something that we don’t learn much about in our society today and it was stuff that was very interesting.  Romans 12: 1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in views of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  There are nine spiritual gifts given to us by God through the Holy Spirit which can be found in 1 Cor 12: 8-10.  So we have these gifts and we have given our lives to Christ and died to ourselves for Christ love and want to change the world, but how do we do it? If we don’t use these spiritual gifts we are unable to do God’s perfect will, we are able to do good and pleasing works but not the perfect will of our Father.   

These Spiritual Gifts are a choice for us to accept and use in God’s perfect will, they are freely given to us by God through the Holy Spirit just as Father determines.  We have made a choice to follow Christ with our lives and that is where we then take it to the next step to know God with our hearts.  To do this we have to know the truth and it isn’t dependent upon time and place the absolute trust is God’s word.  God wants His will to become our will and we do that by giving up our spirit to have the Holy Spirit fill us and giving all our control over to God because its Him not us.  With this we are the body of Christ and we all are a part of the body, which is our job/plan/purpose, and if we don’t fulfill our purpose then we are unable to do God’s perfect will.  Through not giving in we live a life that is in fear and God can’t bless our fear, He can only bless our Faith.

So when we move in an act we need to wait on God to do His perfect will as He will guide us, teach us, comfort us, and equip us to share His word and glory.  This is where the Holy Spirit comes in, God sent the Holy Spirit.  John 14: 15-16 tells us how Jesus promises the Holy Spirit and although we can’t see Him we as believers know Him because He lives in us as we also live in Him.  When we truly make it to this point where we believe this is our minds and hearts then we can go out into the world and do God’s perfect will.  So what is God’s perfect will?  1 Cor 12: 25-28 explains how there are 8 functions in the spirit that allows us to edify the kingdom.  The functions of the spirit that gives us authority are; Apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, workers of healings, helping others, administrator, and tongues.  These jobs help to build up the kingdom and through these we can expand the glory of God, yet we also have to fulfill these jobs through God’s perfect will we will fail to bring the proper glory to God.  So we need to be in prayer and pray through the Holy Spirit because if we aren’t led by the Holy Spirit then we fail to be led by God because God sent the Holy Spirit to be the perfect Counselor for us here on earth.

This is my sermon I just developed based upon the information we got this week, didn’t mean for it to be that way but I guess that is being led in the Holy Spirit.  So this is the life that Raf, our speaker, has lived since he had an encounter with God and totally surrendered his life to him.  Raf has lived through these values and understanding that is totally guided by the Holy Spirit.  So Raf is traveling the world healing people as God leads him from place to place.  He has seen healing happen by the Holy Spirit working in him as he has become totally obedient to the voice of God that He hears during prayer.  He has the gift of healing and prophecy and with that He can know stuff about nonbelievers and bring them into the kingdom as God reveals something to him that he can use to get their attention and let them know God loves them.

One story that was the greatest testimony he gave of God being all powerful and miraculous was of a guy whom would come to his construction site about 30 years ago that had several deformities and issues that made his body hunched and twisted.  This guy would walk by the construction site each and every day for three years and would ask for money so he could go down to the shop and buy cigarettes each day.  Raf heard God tell him to give the guy $2 if he could say, “God thank you for healing me.”  So each day for the next 2 years this guy would come by and he wasn’t stupid so he would say, “God thank you for healing me,” and would get $2 everyday.  Then one day when Raf was in prayer before work God told him to give the crippled guy the real thing today, to reveal Gods power and glory to him.  Well, that day the guy came to the site and said, “God thank you for healing me,” then asked for his money and Raf said that today you get the real thing.  At this point the Holy Spirit began praying through him and this guy started to straighten out and stand up straight and he was healed by God’s amazing power.  Wow, how amazing it that right? 

Many of you are probably thinking that is crazy and that it just a story and how can you believe something life that if a guy has been crippled his whole life and then be healed in an instant?  I thought the same thing at first then I thought about it and why would I think the God who created us and the magnificent and intricate creation we are then why couldn’t He heal someone to the great creation that He created them in.  So this is the ultimate level of doing God’s perfect will and it is all based upon patience and timing, but we need to know that God has a plan and purpose for each and every one of us and if we believe that in our hearts He will reveal Himself to us.  So, today I am totally committing my spirit to God and asking Him to work in me and through me to reveal a glimpse of His glory to me and others so that I may make disciples of all nations.

God can’t bless our Fear; He can only bless our Faith.

Okay so this week was very challenging for me as it was new information and I am sure it is to most of you, so feel free to comment and ask me questions as I am still trying to fully comprehend the magnitude of God and all that He is.

A little taste of the past couple weeks

Professional Rugby League Game, this is what you call a scrum

This is the local team, The Knights, against the country of Fiji. (it was the game that never was really a game)

This is a wallaby, which is a small kangaroo, that was seen at Tahlee. (I also saw kangaroos just didn't take a picture)

This is the sunset when I was at Tahlee from the boat shed, wow beautiful huh?

 

This is the sunrise from the top of Prayer Mountain at Tahlee, woke up at 5 a.m to hike up to see this and it was well worth it

This is Tyler, in case you forgot what I looked like, by the ocean at a place called Tahlee

Update Information

We still don't know where we are going to go for our outreach phase, it is in the works and has to be approved by different levels within then YWAM orgazation.  I think we should know by the end of this week and as soon as I know anything I will let all of you know via my blog.  I also don't quite have enough funds to pay for the entire phase as I am still about anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 short along with about everyone else here.  I do not know what the cost will be as I am unsure where we are going, but if any of you feel led to donate or to send me a letter or anything of that sort my address is listed below.  You can write a check out to YWAM and they will send you back a tax  reciept, if you have any questions don't hestitate to ask or to send me an email at: tylerlucas2@gmail.com.

Tyler Lucas
Box 162
The Junction, NSW 2291
AUSTRALIA