When you pray........say this.....

It was one of those days just like any other day, Jesus went to a "certain" place to pray. When he was done praying, one of His disciples came to him intrigued, wondering. He had seen Jesus do this several times and now he finally ventured out to ask Jesus the question "Teach us to pray"!

Jesus's response was always so clear, direct and uncomplicated. I love that about Jesus, straight to the point and yet full of grace and truth. 

When you pray say this:

"Father, the One who is in heaven, Holy is Your name". Jesus was making sure they understood "who" they were praying to. It really changes things when you know WHO your prayer is directed to. I don't know about you, but so often it is easy to forget who you are praying to. Many times we just kind of talk into the air and because of the things we are walking through in life, we kind of "forget" perhaps a little that we are praying to "Our Heavenly Father", the One who's name is Holy". 

Then He teaches us to enter into agreement with the purpose of our Father, he says:

"They Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". As we understand who it is we are praying to, we should then agree with the plan He has, for His Kingdom to come, for His will to be done, in ME, on earth as it is in heaven, for ALL PEOPLE!!! As I ponder on these words I am struck with emotion yet again as the Spirit reveals himself to my heart. Do you see what Jesus was teaching us. His Kingdom, our dream!! His Kingdom, His will FOR YOU, right here on earth as it is in heaven!! That is so powerful. It changes my prayer and the impact that this has to my heart and way of seeing things. Father, what You want, all that is from Your Kingdom, what YOU want for me, may it be done!!

Give me today my daily bread. The daily portion of what I need to keep moving into the things You ask from me. I think of this phrase coming from Jesus. Having established that God is our Father, therefore He cares about our needs, He has the numbers of the hair on our head counted. It is in the light of knowing this Father that we are asking Him to give us this day our daily portion of what we need according to His standards. We are asking the Father who provides our needs for every day. Many times we look to the days ahead and not to "today" and ask the Father for our needs "today". Tomorrow will worry for its own.

After we have asked for the daily provision, Jesus teaches us to ask for forgiveness. We will have understood the forgiveness of God to us when we forgive others with the same measure. If we hold on to resentment and do not forgive we have not understood His forgiveness to us. Jesus knew that letting go was so important so that we could walk in freedom in our lives, to fully walk in His forgiveness. 

Having read only this far, doesn't it make you stop and wondering, think, ponder, process. I can't move forward yet, I have to stop and let the Spirit reveal more. The Father, the Holiness of His name, His Kingdom, His will on earth as it is where He is, daily provision, forgivenes.... how can one keep reading without properly processing all of these.

I will do just that, stop, let the Truth of the Word settle into my heart and spirit yet again. The Word of God is always full of life, full of renewal, so much to soak in, so much to learn yet so refreshing.

Jesus teach me how to pray again. Your word teaches us to keep asking and knocking on the door....because our Father knows what we need and give to those who ask Him!

Read His word for yourself, Luke 1:1-13 and let the Spirit reveal Himself to you, today!!

Remember Him....

Remember Him who came into this world by a miracle
Remember Him who lived like a son, he knows how you feel
Remember Him who didn't follow his parents home and stayed in Jerusalem because of His Father's business
Remember Him who went through a process of growth in is life (luke 2:52 "⁵² And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and ^[a]stature, and in favor with God and men)
Remember Him who didn't count equality with God something to be grasped (phil. 2)
Remember Him, He also needed time alone with the Father away from the crowd
Remember Him, the one who voluntarily gave up life so that you can live
Remember Him the One they call the Savior, the Messiah
Remember Him who came to show us the way to freedom in every way
Remember Him is now sitting at the right hand of His Father, asking the Father to be with you

Remember Him, the one they call Emmanuel, the Shepherd, the Light, the Redeemer, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Rock, the Way, the Truth, the Life, our Friend, our Lord

Remember Him today, ask Him what He thinks, feels and wants to say to YOU!! I am sure it is going to be life changing!!! Those who have ears to hear let them hear!!!!

Remember Him..........................

The School of Christ

I recently was sent this book in the mail that really wasn't supposed to be sent to me, but it was needed to send something a bit smaller that came inside its pages. Something of much lesser value than this book.

I looked at the title of the book and was immediately taken back to 1996 when I walked into the newest adventure of my life. I walked into a discipleship training school with Youth With A Mission called The School of Christ DTS.

Something about this title had drawn me from the beginning....what did this mean "the school of Christ"? All I knew was that the Spirit of the living God drew me to this place of learning, to this place of finding who Jesus was for me. I found Him, not in a country, not in a school, but in my heart, in my spirit, in my understanding. I found myself starting a time of learning from Him, just like Matthew 11:29 says "Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me".

What did learning from Jesus mean for me? Little did I know that this time in my life would set the tone for all the years to come. This year I am looking back 16 years to that time and sometimes I wish that pure, 100% focused time would return, but I realize that I have grown in the learning and I am at a different place, I can only but look back and be glad I stepped into that school with Him. I can't go back there and don't have to go back there, it doesn't have to repeat itself, but sometimes those times of beginnings are so special that you want to repeat them, but I look back and I see a trail behind me with footsteps in which I so often see His and mine together and sometimes His alone because I know He carried me through those moments and still sometimes just my footsteps, because it was necessarily for me to walk through some things alone, but never without His strength.

This school of Christ that I started 16 years ago continues, it is never ending, it gets more intense, more deep, more revealing. The longer you study, the more you see, the more you understand, the further you get. Just like the twelve disciples first were in the school of Christ, they were discipled and disciplined and than they were the sent ones and became apostles (The School of Christ by T. Austin Sparks).

Do you remember that day where you stepped into the School of Christ and became a disciple, where you didn't just look at Christ and learned about Him, but that school where you stepped in to submerge yourself into the studies of who He is, where you learned of Him, not about Him. Where Jesus Himself through His Spirit became your teacher, giving you revelation for life.

Walking with Jesus was never meant to be a school about Jesus and filling our minds with information, it was meant to be a school, a learning that we go through and last for as long as needed until we come out on the other side with greater understanding, revelation and will walk according to what He taught us. Where we don't take a paper exam and try to get straight A's, but where every day in school is an exam and we can pass or fail at any given moment. But with our hearts set correctly, with our eyes in the right direction we will pass and not just pass, we will live past the exam, the exam will disappear and what will remain is our hearts, not the right answer in our minds, but the right attitude of our hearts.

I don't want to leave this school.....don't want to stop learning, receiving. Jesus, your school is the best there is, your teachings are life changing, live giving. Give me fresh revelation today, show me something new that I haven't seen yesterday so I can share You in the way that is worthy of who You are, nothing less. If I have to stop and linger on one thing longer than I stop, I study, I sit, I read, I learn from You....

Are you in the school of Christ? Are you a disciple? Followers of Jesus are disciples if they continue to hunger to learn more each day from Him whom they follow. If following Jesus has become something you just do and it has become a routine and you feel you are studying, learning, but doing it just to pass the test, than stop for one moment. Lay down your books, set aside your pencil, stop reading for one moment and ask the Spirit of God to awaken you to His voice, so that the words on the pages, the writings of your pen will come alive in your heart and mind. That is where the revelation comes when as you read and write you see new things about Him, the one you follow....