Now is the Time to Worship

Editor's note:
I'd heard about the worship ministry that Nella was doing with the college students and asked if she would be willing to share her heart with us and also provide a bit of background on this ministry

My name is Nella Schnase and I am very excited about this new service started mainly for college students and anyone going through a new journey in their lives. The idea of “Now Is the Time to Worship” came to me when I was sitting in church listening to my father speak on reaching people on your own level. I felt a strong calling to get other people my age together and praise to the One who gave us the freedom to do so.

In this calling I was very nervous about actually making it all happen. I have never been in charge of such a thing, but what I am sure of is that I knew this ministry was meant to start through me. I love music and I love God. He wanted me to put them together and make sure my eyes are on Him first and foremost.

Getting out of high school I have realized how fast life is passing me by. I was getting so wrapped up in my busy schedule that I wasn’t taking time to take a look at the big picture. Who was I leading to the Lord? Who was seeing God in my eyes when my eyes were aimed at my feet in front of me? More importantly, who isn’t seeing God in me? Although I am a weak human, somehow I found the strength through Christ alone to go in front of the board of the church and make things happen. Nothing is impossible with God.

This has been such a life changing experience for me and many of the people that are getting involved. I called a friend of mine named Doug Hamblin and he made a decision to get involved in this as well. He said, “God has been so good to me that I would feel like I am letting Him down if I were to say no to you.” I put together a praise team and it has turned out wonderful. The music we are capable of making is astounding with the talents God has given each and everyone of us. The service consists of a reading of scripture in the beginning and a lot of worship. The speakers vary each Thursday we hold a service. This allows an unbiased and fresh message each time. The message is always short and sweet and it leaves plenty of time to worship. A person chosen in advance gives their testimony. I wanted the students and service members to be able to have someone our own age relate to things going on in most of our lives. We end the service with an altar call and music.

This is a very moving service and so far we have had many people come forward and say they have been seriously moved by the service. What I truly love about what is happening in our church is the way I see our generation changing ways to worship our God. We like more contemporary music, but still have a passion for the classics. We like to spice up what we hear to our own sound. Each year we all notice more and more individual people and personalities and in this service everyone is free to express their way of worship. I love what I do and I love what God made me to do. I was made to worship Him and nothing pleases me more than using the gift of music to give Him praise.

Whether we sing to one or many, whether we touch one or many…in the end the ones that show are the ones meant to listen. God is good and almighty and this service event is in His hands. I pray His will be done.
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Well?

You know how it is. Sometimes, when you’re reading along in the bible, a verse will suddenly develop more significance? I recently came across one of those.
“Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not {your countenance} be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Genesis 4:6&7.

After reading that verse, I got to wondering what exactly the word, “Well” meant.
When I looked it up and began reading its meaning, I was amazed. Even though it’s such a tiny little word, it is packed full of attributes.
Well is translated from the Hebrew word Yatab, (yaw.tab`). It means to be: Good, Well, Beautiful, Pleasant, Lovely, Glad, Cheerful.
On the surface, these are just a collection of nice words. But when I got to thinking about them, I realized that these words hold the key to our countenance being lifted up.
How? Let’s take a closer look into each one of these words.

1. Good. In Acts 10:38, we learn “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” How did Jesus do good? He brought the Kingdom of Light into the kingdom of darkness. We have been mandated to do this as well. When we pray for someone, when we give, when we go the second mile we are giving the Kingdom of Light legal access to the world we walk in that is ruled by the kingdom of darkness. When we bring light to others, we will shine as well.

2. Well. Remember the song, “It is Well with my Soul”? The man who wrote it, Ho¬ra¬tio G. Spaf¬ford, was crossing the ocean and had just passed near the place where all four of his daughters had died in a ship wreak on an earlier voyage. It was during this time that wrote the words to this song. Contentment is good for our countenance. Paul says in Philippians 4:11 that we must learn to be content.
Contentment is being satisfied with God’s will, even if it’s not our will.

3. Beautiful. According to Psalm 149:4 the best beauty treatment we can give ourselves is ‘salvation’ “For the LORD takes pleasure in His people ; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.” Telling others about Jesus is apparently also good. “How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news,” Isaiah 52:7

4. Pleasant. Maintaining unity among believers is crucial in keeping up our countenances—as we learn in Psalm 133:1,
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” Paul says in Phil 1:27 to “stand firm in one spirit and in one mind.” A bit later he admonishes some of his friends to get along, “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.” Phil. 4:2.

5. Lovely. In order to keep our ‘chins’ up, we must maintain our forgiveness. The bride in Song of Solomon understood this when she declared, “I am dark, but lovely. O daughters of Jerusalem.” She understood what we all need to know, that even when we are dark from sin that we can still run to Jesus and He will accept us—He thinks we’re lovely.

6. Glad. Gladness comes from hanging out with the Lord as it says in Psalm 122:1, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Also, Psalm 68:3 states, “But let the righteous be glad; let them exult before God; Yes, let them rejoice with gladness.”

7. Cheerful. “A cheerful heart is good medicine,” Proverbs 17:22. Do you think that God just put this in the bible for so that we could have a cute saying for pillows and plaques? No, I think what He meant was, a cheerful heart is good medicine. Our heart and countenance is directly connected, as we read in Proverbs 15:13, “A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance.”
How do you get a cheerful heart? The Lord gives us two witnesses in Philippans 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”
Now, this doesn’t mean that we have to like or be happy about everything that happens—our rejoicing is in Him. We “count this all joy”, (James 1:2).

Remember back in Genesis 4 when God was talking to Cain? How did God say that He knew Cain was angry? He was looking at his countenance, or face. What did he say? "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?” Our only hope is go before the Lord, and ask for His help to do well.

This is our ‘Road Map’ to peace. It will keep us on the right path until we arrive at the place where we hear, ‘Well done…”

Senia Owensby
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Guarding Our Gates

Our homes are important. They should be sanctuaries and havens from the rest of the world. It doesn’t matter what size they are or what kind of decor they have, it is the atmosphere which identifies it as a sanctuary or a sanatorium. Both are places that protect from the outside world, the difference being is that life dwells in the sanctuary while death inhabits the sanatorium.

What are the steps that we can take to ensure that the atmosphere of our homes brings life to those who enter? It is the presence of God that brings life, Ezekiel 47:9, and we know that God inhabits the praise of His people, Psalm 22:3, but what inhibits His inhabiting?

In Psalm 101, God tells us that He will come to us when we ‘give heed to the blameless way’. What is the blameless way? He tells us that it is walking within our homes in the integrity of our hearts, (verse 2).

So what does that mean in a practical sense? (Or, how do we know we are?) The next several verses give us some clues to know that we are walking in integrity.

(Verse 3) “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes.” That should be a given, but sometimes we get all caught up in day to day survival and we forget that our eyes are one of the door ways to our hearts. Job understood how important it was to guard what we see that he even made a covenant with his eyes not to look at what he knew he shouldn’t look at. Job 31:1.

It in not only the blatantly wicked things we must keep out, it is also the useless and time stealing sources of impute. For example, have you ever leafed through a magazine, (maybe in a doctor’s office) just to ‘kill time’? When we do that, we open ourselves to pictures and words that may not be profitable while disobeying God’s command to redeem the time because the days are evil. Am I suggesting that all magazines are evil? No, but anytime we do something specifically to ‘pass’ or ‘kill’ time, we are in disobedience to God’s word.

Another doorway to our heart is our ears. Verse 5 of Psalm 101 states: Who ever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will silence. This is an interesting verse. Written, I believe specifically to give instruction to the church. Unlike the world, which openly badmouths and gossips about one another, Christians tend to do it ‘secretly’. We frame our gossip in prayer requests veiled in the utmost concern. How do I know that? Never mind.

It’s hard sometimes to stop someone when they are sharing, but if we say, “Wait. I will pray for so & so, but I don’t need the details because I can’t change them. God is the One who can change them and He already knows the details.” Job 12:11 says “Does not the ear test words?” We need to test the value of any words wanting to make they’re way through the door of our ears.

Jesus said that the things that defile us are within our hearts. Matthew 15:18. How does that stuff get in there? Not by what we eat, but by what we see and hear.

So, let’s say that we have some of that ‘junk’ in there? Then what? Cry out to the Lord with David in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Then claim His promise in Jeremiah 32:38, which says that He will give us singleness of heart and action so that we will fear Him for our own good. It is the fear of God that will enable us to guard our gates.

We do not have the luxury of being passive. It is imperative that we ‘give heed to the blameless way' and guard what comes through our gates so that the presence of God will come to our house while we are walking in the integrity of our heart.
Senia Owensby
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Of Blessings and Birthrights

The blessings of the Lord are inextricably tied to right relationship with the Lord. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers—born as twins, but very different. Esau, the firstborn, was a strong, outdoors type. He loved to hunt and fish. Apparently, Esau was also very social. He not only mingled among, but even married into the neighboring Canaanite families. Jacob, on the other hand was a homebody. We're told that he was a peaceful man who stayed among the tents.

Isaac, who had a taste for game loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob. God also had His favorite. In Malachi we’re told that God loved Jacob and He hated Esau. Why would a loving God make such a statement? What was so bad about Esau and so good about Jacob? They were both sons of Isaac the son of Abraham. What was the difference?

Birthright. Esau was unable to obtain the blessing of God’s love because he did not value his birthright. So, what is a birthright? It contains all the rights, privileges and possessions that he was entitled to the first born the son. This was not just an ordinary, birthright; this one held the promise that God had given to Abraham and Isaac. God promised them that He was going to “…greatly multiply their descendants as the stars of the heavens.” Genesis 22:17.

Esau, as the first of the twins to be born was entitled to the birthright. There was a problem. He didn’t care about the promises of God. Jacob on the other hand valued the birthright. In fact, Jacob desired the birthright so much that he figured out a way to get it from Esau. Unfortunately, Esau didn’t understand, that when he gave up the birthright of his father, he also gave up the blessing of his father.

Back in Genesis 15, Abraham received a promise from God that he would become a special nation. Abraham passed this promise along to his firstborn, Isaac, who, in turn would be passing it along to his firstborn son. Esau was fully aware of this when he chose to mingle with the wicked Canaanites. His marriage to a couple of them displayed a form of contempt for the promises that God had given, (Genesis 36:2).

Jacob was also aware of the promise from God. He watched Esau get further and further mixed up with their evil neighbors while showing little regard for the family values and culture. I’m sure that Jacob wished over and over that he had been the first one born. He probably lamented that because of Esau, the great nation that God had promised they would become was going to be a Canaanite nation. The day came when Jacob got the chance to change history, (so to speak).

He was fixing dinner one day when Esau showed back up from a hunting trip in a particularly hungry mood. When Esau asked for some food, Jacob seized this opportunity to get the birthright he had been wanting. Giving up his birthright was not the result of a momentary weakness from hunger. In Hebrews 12:16, we learn that Esau lived an immoral and godless life. This decision was the culmination of all his previous choices. At that point, God surveys Esau’s life and speaks, “…thus Esau despised his birthright.” Genesis 25:34.

Lets see how birthrights and blessings are tied together:
Since Esau did not realize that birthrights and blessings went hand in hand, he thought he was only giving up the birthright. But in Hebrews 12:16&17, we learn, “…Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected…” A birthright indicates family relationship. Blessing flow from relationship. When we give up the birthright and we give up the opportunity for blessing.

Blessing from God flows from a relationship with God. To be eligible for the birthright & blessing from our Heavenly Father, we must have right relationship with Him and His family. Letting our appetites control our choices, puts us in danger of trading our birthright for a pot of lentils. Jacob’s name means ‘deceiver’ and we too have a deceiver that is just biding his time until we are hungry enough to buy what he’s selling.

Esau committed another mistake that we can learn from:
When Esau saw that his parents were displeased with the daughters of Canaan, (of whom he had married two), he tried to make it better by marring a daughter of Ishmael. He still didn’t get it. She was technically related to the family, but Ishmael was the child of the natural not the child of promise, Galatians 4:22 & 23. When we become aware that we have done a practice that is displeasing to our Father, we cannot simply add an Ishmael, (church service, bible reading, prayer meeting, eating fish on Friday), to our lives. Our change must be total. Jacob had to leave the land of Canaan in order to get a wife that was properly related to his family. We cannot continue to have intimate relationships with Canaanites (the world) and still receive the benefits and blessings.

There’s an interesting statement in Hebrews 12:17, “…he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.” Note that the tears that Esau shed came when he was denied the blessing—not when he sold the birthright.
We have another example of substituting an object for relationship in 1 Samuel 4. Israel was in apostasy. Their leaders were in sin. The army was at war. They lost 4,000 men in one day by hands of the Philistines. They decided to take the Ark of the Lord with them into battle. Since they had no relationship with the Lord, so they were just being superstitious. It turned out to be a disaster, they were totally defeated. Even worse, the Philistines captured the Ark.

The cycle goes like this:
1.We live a life that indicates that we despise, or consider of little value, our birthright that we received from God through His firstborn, Jesus.
2.We suffer a defeat;
a.Esau—blessing.
b.Israel—losing 4,000 in battle.
3.Instead of repenting from our unrighteousness, we add something that has the appearance of righteousness to our lives;
a.Esau—daughter of Ishmael.
b.Israel—Ark of God.

What causes this cycle? Improper repentance. We need to repent of the attitudes and actions that brought us to the place of defeat, not try a quick fix for our problem. If we do not repent for our unrighteousness when we suffer a defeat, we enter into presumption. The root of presumption means ‘to seethe’. It is a form of pride. Esau seethed over loosing the blessing to Jacob, Genesis 27:41.

David understood this trap, but he knew that seeking God was the only way out. This is our only way out also. If we are willing to surrender, we can pray with David: “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I shall be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression.

By Senia Owensby

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Keep On Striking!!

There is an interesting story in 2 Kings 13 . It’s about Jehoash, king of Israel. He hears that Elisha is sick, and goes to visit him. Before he leaves, Elisha gives the king a couple of strange commands. One of them is to strike the ground with his arrows. So the king grabs his arrows and strikes the ground three times. The prophet then gets mad and tells him that he will only have 3 victories against the Arameans and will not be able to completely defeat them, (which is fulfilled in verse 25). Too bad! Thoses Arameans were horrible people, if King Jehoash had only known, he would have struck with those arrows ‘till he dug a hole to China, (or whatever country is on the other side of the world from Israel).

Wait, let’s give that poor king some slack.
First of all, he did strike the ground instead of arguing with Elisha about the pros and cons of ground-striking and whether left-handed or right-handed striking was more effective.

Secondly, this was the only time (recorded for us) that he was instructed to do this ground-striking thing, so he was kinda new at it.

Thirdly, on top of everything else, he didn’t even know why he was doing it.

Do you see any parallels here?
What happens if we substitute the term “pray about an issue” for “strike the ground”?

How do we compare?

James says“we all stumble in many ways. Could lack of prayer be an area of stumbling? I know that I’m guilty at times, but I’m not alone. Remember the Children of Israel’s defeat at Ai in Joshua 7? If Joshua would of prayed first.......And then threre’s that Gibeonite fiasco in Joshua 9.
Every issue, thing, event, etc... is a prayable issue, thing, event etc....

Secondly, king Jehoash was only told once. How many times has the subject of prayer been addressed in the Bible? Suffice it to say: more that once, (check out concordance if your curious).

The third point is the area where most of us ‘miss the mark,’<~(get it?) This is when it comes to praying long enough. Hebrews tells us ‘we have need of endurance’. Jehoash didn’t know when he was done, and unfortunately, most of us don’t know when we’re done. How many times do you suppose we’ve ‘prayed’ about something and moved on, thinking we’ve been obedient, but really God is saying, “Hey! You’re not done! If you quit now, you will only have partial victory over your enemy! Keep on striking!!”

Until Jesus comes back, we will have to be content with only ‘knowing in part’ and we may not understand all that God tells us to do, but instead of blaming every defeat on ‘God’s will’, maybe a good policy could be: ‘When in doubt, keep on striking.’

By Senia Owensby
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Puzzle Pieces

Have you ever bought a jigsaw puzzle at a garage sale? It’s kinda risky. With used puzzles, you can never be sure if all the pieces will be there. But…if you really like puzzles, it may be fun to give it a try.

Lets say that the puzzle pieces were simply in a plastic bag with no picture attached. Would you buy it then? Unless you are quite the adventurous type and you really, really liked puzzles, that sack of puzzle bits will stay right where it is.
Have you ever noticed that our lives tend to resemble a sack of puzzle bits? We have lots of parts and have to work frantically at times trying to piece it all together with out the benefit of a picture to go by.

Here’s the Good News: Jesus really, really likes puzzles. He is constantly checking out the ‘yard sales’ in hopes of finding another puzzle to put together. He even buys us with the full knowledge that some of our pieces are tweaked, tattered and torn. Some are missing. That’s okay, because if we are willing to be bought by the Lord it becomes His responsibility to fit all the pieces together.

Now, when I begin to work on a puzzle, I like to start with the outside parts. It seems to me that if I can get the outside finished, the inside of the puzzle comes together more easily. Jesus has a different strategy. He seems to know that the outside will take shape as the insides are worked on. And, since God has the finished picture for each one of us, He is able to work systematically in our lives putting all the right pieces in all the right places.

So, what does that look like from our point of view?
There is only one place in the Bible that God talks about making us like a finished puzzle. That is found in James 1. The word He uses is the Greek word, Holokleros. It means: Whole, having all its parts, sound, perfect. From holos, all the whole, and kleros, a part.

It is God’s intention to complete us. He knows what pieces are missing and which ones are damaged. It is our job to submit to His process. So lets take a look at James 1:2-4 and discover just what the method is that Jesus uses to ‘put us together’, or complete us. ‘Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.’ It is the testing of our faith that produces endurance and endurance is the instrument that God uses to make us complete.

Now, this is not to say that every time a trial comes into your life that you lie down and die in defeat. On the contrary. Trials come in order to expose just how complete we are, (or aren’t). It is when we endure through the fight with the joy of knowing that these trials didn’t come to defeat us, they came to complete us. That is why in Romans 8:28 we’re told that ‘God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.’ Making us complete is His purpose.

If we respond to our trials with the understanding that the Lord is putting us together, piece by piece we will not only receive a more focused picture of our own lives, but we will also catch a clearer picture of Jesus. In the end, we will discover that they are the same. The Father only has One picture hanging on His wall…..a picture of Jesus.

Senia Owensby
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Your Move

Chess is an interesting game. I enjoy playing it with my daughter. Unfortunately, 3,000 miles and busy lives tend to interfere with frequent games. One day we hit upon a solution. By using a Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet, my daughter made a chess board and set it up using colored text for the pieces. She is blue and I am orange. A move is made by cutting/pasting. The Excel® document is then attached to an e-mail.

As an extra bonus, we have fun getting creative with the subject line of the e-mails. For example, when I took one of her pawns, I wrote in the subject line, “A-pawn departure”. When she took one of my knights, she wrote, “Do I hear the sound of a horse galloping away?” (I know, all you ‘chess purists’ out there shudder when the knight is referred to as a horse). Capturing a rook prompted, “I hope you don’t feel too ‘rooked’.” The taking of a rook with a knight (which moves in an ‘L’ shape) was announced by “A c-rook-ed move”. “The ‘check’ is in the e-mail”, accompanied a very bad move which cost me one of my rooks. One of my favorites was a warning that read, “If you take my queen, I’ll take yours.” I believed her.

Chess games, like wars are won by developing and following good strategy. When we move a chess piece, we need to be aware of the consequence of each move, including the effect that (we hope) it will have on our opponent. If we can somehow get them to respond in a particular way that fits in with our strategy, we will win the game.

God is very strategic. Everything He does has a purpose and He actually does know all the ramifications of each move. His strategy is designed to make us winners. Unfortunately, the devil also has a strategy. The bible calls them schemes and according to 2 Corinthians 2:11 we do not have to be unaware of them, “so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.”

We can know and cooperate with God’s strategy as we see in Romans 2:18 “and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law,”. Also, when Jesus came, He explained to us some of God’s strategic moves like, ‘forgive’, ‘love your enemies’ and ‘give’, to name a few. The devil’s plan is, of course, just the opposite, ‘get revenge’, ‘hate your enemies’ and ‘keep’. The results of each one of these actions is incalculable.

In the game of chess there are no ‘neutral’ moves. That means that every move we make helps either us or our opponent. The same thing is true in real life. When we resist God’s nudge to move in a certain way, we are actually helping the enemy.

There is of course a big difference between a game of chess and life. I can move my little chess pieces around the board any where I want to without resistance from them. The same is not true for God. Because we were given a free will, we can resist the Lord. Sometimes we defy His way of moving because it doesn’t make sense, or maybe we don’t feel like doing what ever it is He is telling us to do. No matter what reason we have for not obeying God; we have to understand that our decisions are not neutral. Jesus said, "He who is not with Me is against Me…” Matthew 12:30

God knows that we really do want to please Him, and He understands that sometimes it is hard. Encouragement is found in Hebrews that says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15. We are also told in Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Our only hope is to look to the Lord, “for in Him we live and move and exist…” Acts 17:28. It is a willingness issue, not ability. It’s time to choose what side we’re on.
Your move.

Senia Owensby
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Get Real!

“I want to be real!” Lamented a friend of mine as we were visiting one evening. “I want to have a purpose.”
I nodded in agreement. That statement echoed my own heart’s cry. To have a purpose. To know with certainty at the end of a day that I had not expended all of my energy reinforcing my wooden house with hay and stubble. To fall asleep knowing time had been spent on eternal things.


What is real?

But what does it mean to be ‘Be real’? And, how do we find our purpose? Real is risky. When the Velveteen Rabbit asked the Skin Horse what real was in the book, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, his reply was very insightful:

“It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
“I suppose you are Real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are real you can‘t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

What about us?

Now, what the Skin Horse couldn’t have known, (because its just a story), is that Jesus is the One who makes us Real. It happens the moment we are born-again, 2 Corinthians 5:17. However, becoming transformed into that reality does take time. There is a process that must be embraced in order for our purpose to be revealed. That process is called ‘growing in the Lord.’ Colossians 1:9-12. How do we do that? Growth comes as we develop habits of daily disciplines such as getting into the Word, fellowship with other believers & prayer, (see Acts2:42). These activities position us to realize what our purpose is and at the same time, equip us to express it in the most effective ways.

What is our purpose?

Every born-again believer has been given ‘The ministry of Reconciliation’, in which we are to reconcile people to God, 2Corinthians 5:18-20. How that ministry is expressed uniquely by each one of us is what we call our purpose. What does that look like? It will be something a bit different for each person. We find a clue as to what each one of our individual purposes is in Psalm 37:4; “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”. As we spend quality time with the Lord and grow in our relationship with Him, we will find ourselves delighting more and more in Him. Desires begin to grow in our hearts that were planted by the Lord. David assures us that the Lord will give us those very desires.


We need passion!

Our purpose must be driven by a passion for the Lord. Any other motivation will render us useless in the end. We learn in 1Corinthians 13:3 that if we do things without love, it will profit us nothing. A passion for the Lord is what will keep us going when there is no other earthly reason to continue. If there is no passion, it is easy to quit. Passion for the Lord is what drove David through all those years of running from Saul and others. He was called ‘A man after God’s own heart’. The process works in a wonderful cycle: time spent with the Lord brings knowledge of God’s love, which produces passion which inspires hunger for more of Jesus which drives us to spend more time with Him, which brings more revelation of His love….

Passion prayer:

But what if the fires of passion are beginning to dim, or are smoldering? Confess a lack of passion as a sin and ask for forgiveness. Ask Him to relight the fire. Pray for a fire so big that everyone will come and watch you burn. Pray for a fire of love for Jesus that is so strong that the world cannot dim it, nor can death put it out. Pray for an eternal fire of love for Jesus to burn in you and consume all that has no eternal value so that you will come forth as gold. Refined.
Get real.

Senia Owensby
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Releasing for Freedom

Jeremiah 34 is an interesting chapter. We learn that the kingdom of Judah is in trouble. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and all the kingdoms of the earth were fighting against Jerusalem and all of Judah to destroy it, (verse 1).

God sends Jeremiah to Zedekiah, King of Judah. He tells him that that even though judgment is coming He will show compassion on him in the midst of the judgment. This kindness of God leads Zedekiah to repentance. He knew that he and the people of Judah had been sinning by keeping their brothers and sisters in bondage, so they all agreed to make a covenant with God to release their brothers and sisters, (verse 5). When the Lord saw what they did, He put a stop to the army that was coming to destroy them.

Even though they did agree to release their brothers and sisters, we can tell that they still didn’t get it. Unfortunately, their willingness to free their brothers and sisters was simply a token effort to ‘appease’ God. As soon as it looked like the problem was taken care of, (the army left), they quickly placed their brothers and sisters back into bondage of slavery again.

So, what are the dynamics of the events that are taking place here? Why were the kingdoms of the earth able to make such headway against the people of God? Why didn’t God rise up and protect them?

He couldn’t. What they didn’t realize was that by keeping their brothers and sisters in bondage they were inadvertently locking up God’s ability to work in their behalf. They were in direct violation of God’s word, (verses' 13&14). The final result was devastating. God told them since they were unwilling to proclaim freedom to their brothers and sisters, then He would proclaim freedom to them…freedom from His protection from the sword, pestilence, and famine.

So, how does that apply to us today? Even though literal slavery is not legal in this country, we put our brothers and sisters in bondage whenever we refuse to forgive, let go of offenses or hold on to grudges against others. And, according to Jeremiah 34, when we keep our brothers and sisters in bondage, we are in bondage ourselves.

Jesus tells us that the amount of forgiveness we experience in our lives is directly related to the amount of forgiveness we extend to others. (Matt. 6:14 & Luke 6:36). I heard it said once that every time I forgive, I set a prisoner free…that prisoner is me.

When we are willing to forgive, something happens in the spiritual realm that we cannot see. What we can see, however, are the effects of that action. The same thing is true when we flip on a light switch. We don’t actually see current race over to the lamp to make the connection, but we do see the lamp light up. In Jeremiah 34:21, we learn that the army of Babylon left due to their willingness to release their brothers and sisters. But since they reneged on their part of the deal, they could expect the army to be returning.

The problem that most people have with forgiveness is that we don’t understand what forgiveness is and what it is not. Forgiveness is not a feeling, it’s a choice. If we wait till we feel like forgiving before we forgive, we may as well move to Babylon - it’s never going to happen. We must choose to forgive.

What if the hurt is too deep? In that case, we can at least choose to be made willing to choose to forgive. That is the long way around, but God is able to help us no matter where we are.

God is for us, His word gives us the clues to victory, lets not make the same mistake the Children of Israel did, lets learn from them!

Senia Owensby

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