#CodeOrangeRevival Night#10 - The REMAINS of REVIVAL

Well, it is here, it has finally come, the close to Code Orange Revival.  What an incredible journey these past 10 days have taken us on!

Night 1 - Steven Furtick - THE RHYTHM OF REVIVAL
God is trying to get His people to move in Sync with His Rhythm.  Release praise - Receive His word - Respond to the word you're given - Repeat the process.  You can't have a beat if you don't repeat!

Night 2 - John Gray - THE SOUND OF REVIVAL
God never wastes words, so we should choose ours carefully.  The password to your miracle is the Sound of your Praise.  Would you praise if your breakthrough was on the other side of your sound?

Night 3 - Christine Caine - THE TIME OF REVIVAL
Yesterday you said tomorrow.  You have to make what God says about you, bigger than what happened to you.  Your destiny is greater than your history!  On a side note, I'm a huge supporter of Chris' A21 campaign, there's still 3wks left to donate to her birthday fundraiser for the walk for freedom, click here if you'd like to donate.

Night 4 - Joyce Meyer - THE TEST OF REVIVAL
It's more important to have revival in you than to just go to one.  Don't be in such a hurry to get to where you're going that you don't have what you need to stay there - There is value in experience.  What you are going through doesn't determine the outcome, but how you go through it will.

Night 5 - Craig Groeschel - THE LANGUAGE OF REVIVAL
Encourage others daily - if you think something nice, say it.  Encourage others spiritually.  Encourage yourself in the Lord

Night 6 - Levi Lusko - THE COST OF REVIVAL
Don't pray for what you won't pay for.  God can do the impossible but He often calls us to do the impractical - He's looking for faith and trust.  When we keep what we have, that's all we will ever have, but when we pour it out, God can multiply it.

Night 7 - Louie Giglio - THE PLACE OF REVIVAL
The place of revival is most likely in the middle of the battle we are currently in.  Don't give the enemy a seat at your table! 

Night 8 - Elevation Worship - EXPERIENCE THE WORSHIP OF REVIVAL
Worship music has the power to change, the power to heal, the power to restore, the power to comfort, it can bring hope to the hopeless and joy to the disheartened.  Worship music disengages the head and engages the heart, bringing us before the Lord with a thankful heart of love and praise.

Night 9 - Dharius Daniels - THE ROLE OF REVIVAL
A season and space  of reintroductions: 1st God to us; 2nd Us to ourselves.  Our greatest lessons come out of our most difficult seasons - And just because you don't hear God answer, it doesn't mean He isn't working on the problem.  Are you a grasshopper or a giant?

Day 10 - Carl Lentz - THE MOMENT OF REVIVAL
Fight the temptation to go through the motions, rather live to maximize the moments.  God glorifies the work in progress.  When it comes to reaching people, have the faith to take a moment, because God might just turn it into a movement.  God just wants to use you, flaws and all!

...and that brings us to Night 10, Pastor Steven Furtick back at the helm with a final charge if you will, THE REMAINS OF REVIVAL.

I want to try and keep this almost as short as the recaps.  I got so much out of Pastor Steven's sermon, but really what it boiled down to were these couple of things.

 

Don't let the revival in you end, when the revival at Elevation Church does.  Take it with you, back to your local church, back to your school, back to your work, back to your family and friends.  Don't let what happened during Code Orange Revival, die when you go home!

The time of attack doesn't come during the sowing season.  The enemy doesn't mind you learning new things, he doesn't even mind you 'working the seed' so to speak.  The time of attack usually comes when you apply what you've learned, (during harvest time).  Work the word, so you know what to do when the enemy attacks, and don't be surprised when it happens.  The enemy is kind of predictable that way, if you're on the verge of a breakthrough, he's usually lurking nearby.

Thank you so much to Elevation Church, Pastor Steven, the Furtick family, and all of the countless nameless volunteers that made #CODEORANGEREVIVAL so fantastic!  I am so grateful that even from my home in Indiana, I could still participate, I could still learn and worship, and our amazing God met me right where I was, in front of a computer screen.  I have had so much fun writing about the conference on here, but also sharing it with my family, friends and local church family.  I am excited to see what God can do through me in the coming months as the seasons begin to change.  The biggest thing that I have learned over these 10 days was that I didn't need to change, or achieve some higher level of faith for God to use me.  All God wanted was my, YES!

Thank you to everyone who has been reading these posts throughout the revival.  I hope that you have got as much out of each night as I have!! 

So until next time, God bless you guys,

P.S.

#CodeOrangeRevival Day #10 - The MOMENTS of REVIVAL

"I will make the most of this moment"

Can you believe that it is the last day of Code Orange?  It has been an amazing 10 days of worship, teaching and the presence of God showing up and changing lives.  Today was definitely no exception!  Pastor Carl Lentz from Hillsong Church, NYC was on fire, as always.  Tenacious, passionate, rebel with a cause, fun loving, these are but a few of the adjectives that jump to mind when I think about Pastor Carl.

So as you can see by the title and subtitle of today's blog, his sermon was all about MOMENTS.  Recognizing the moments, being in the moment, making the moment count.
We can be fruitful, faithful, passionate, effective Christians in every season of our lives because Jesus goes with us.  We cannot choose our season, but we can choose the spirit with which we go through it.  Sometimes it's going to rain, sometimes it's going to shine, our job is to have a spirit that says, "Lord no matter what's going on I choose to serve you and I will be faithful throughout."

We live in a culture that makes life all about the breakdown or the breakthrough.  But the majority of the Christian life is spent in the ordinary every day, in between.  So while we are waiting for breakdowns and the breakthroughs, we are missing the moments.  God wants to do stuff right in between the spectacular and the tragic, don't miss the moments.

When we see someone doing something great for God, we see the big picture, finished product stuff.  But what makes the local church truly special, is the in between.  It's the Monday through the Saturday stuff that nobody sees.  It's the youth pastor driving all over the city, picking up young people that won't pay them back.  It's the people who go into hospitals to pray for people that no one's ever going to know.  It's the people actually inviting and bringing their friends, stepping out in faith.  It's the moments.

We need to be a local church revival Christian, where every single day I believe that God is going to move.  I might be going to the grocery store, but the King of Kings is coming with me.  We need to know that God wants to use us right where we are at in our walk with Him.

Timothy loved Paul so much, he was starting to feel like, "I don't know if I can do this anymore, I don't know if I can do all that God's called me to do."  So Paul writes him this letter:

11 Command and teach these things.  12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speach, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.  13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and to teaching.  14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  - 1 Timothy 4:11-14 (NIV)

When it comes to maximizing the little time that we do have here on earth, we need to get on our own knees and pray and worship.  We can't neglect our own faith but expect the church, or our preacher, or a podcast to do it for us.  We need to press into our own faith and believe God.

"We have to fight the temptation to 'go through the motions' rather than live to MAXIMIZE the MOMENTS."  -  Ps. Carl Lentz

It is easy to get caught up in the 'rat race' of the day-to-day; another struggle, another church service, another day married, another sermon from the same pastor.  You go to a church that worships, but you don't worship.  You go to a church that reaches the community, but you don't.  And before you know it, you're present by you're not really present, and you start missing moments.

Have you ever lived rushed because you weren't ready?  It's called the snooze button. We wake up late, so we start out rushed and the rest of our day is out of rhythm.  We're living rushed because we weren't ready.  Sometimes we can go through the motions as a Christian where we're being a 'professional Christian', but we forgot the power of God.  I don't know about you, but I don't  want to get to the end of my life and see that revival was happening all around me, but I just didn't notice.  I don't want to sleepwalk through my faith in a world that is crying out for the gospel, but I wasn't alive enough, awake enough to see it.

What if we took this Spirit of Revival into our Mondays?  Because this #CodeOrangeRevival isn't about getting people into the church, it's about getting Christians out of the church and into the streets to where revival actually changes the world.  Will you just go through the motions tomorrow, or will you pray for opportunities in your own community?

You know you're maximizing the moments when the stuff you used to run from, you run to.

What are we waiting for?  There has never been a moment in human history where the love, grace, mercy and salvation of Jesus Christ is more necessary, where the light of Jesus Christ can shine brighter than it ever has before, never.  It's not just another moment in human history, it is our moment.  People are broken, people are hurting, people are frustrated.  No matter how much money you have, what position you hold, if you are a bible believing, holy spirit filled, holy spirit lead follower of Jesus, you have all that you need to walk into this world and say I have the answer.

2 Ways to protect supernatural faith through 

super-ordinary seasons:

1.Protect your view of the process.  
Whether we like it or not, we are a work in progress!  Even if we can't see it, God is doing more in our lives than we think He is, and He is going to do more than we could ever imagine.  But you have to protect your view.  When you become a Christian, you are sanctified.  What does that mean?  It means that God loves you so much He will take you as you are , but loves you way too much to leave you like that.  Everyday He's going to change you.  Little by little, lesson by lesson, moment by moment.

Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.  -  1 Timothy 4:15 (NIV)

Paul is telling Timothy, even though you don't have it all together, keep at it, keep working it out, oh and by the way, do it in public so that other people can see your progress.  We as Christians don't like to talk about or show the progress.  We like to show the finished product.  We don't want the world to see the mess before the beauty.  It is the culture of our world, but God's ways are not of this world.  God glorifies the progress because that is where you can see His love, that is where you can see His grace, that is where you can see just how good He is.  

Are we Christians waiting to get ourselves together someday?  Because while we are waiting for someday to arrive, the world is falling apart.  Who told you that you couldn't help a broken world while you were still in the middle of your own progress?  When we look at Christians who have been in the faith a lot longer than us, we think I'll wait until I'm more like them, they've got it all together.  But no matter where someone is in their walk with Jesus, they too are still a work in progress.  Until we reach that finish line - the pearly gates of heaven - we are a work in progress, always learning, always changing.  Which I think is amazing news, God's not done with me yet!

Some more good news: The most painful part of your process 

will also produce the most power in your life. 

Your pain will either be your prison or it will be your platform, it is your choice.  Paul has an issue, he's undergoing a process, and he's got something that he hasn't gotten a victory for yet.  He's prayed about it, he's asked people to help him out - That's the kind of stuff that paralyzes Christians, but listen to what Paul discovers in this one text:

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  -  2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (NIV)

In those few scriptures, Paul goes from complaining to rejoicing.  He accepts the fact that he's broken, but not only that, that God can still get glory through his brokenness.  The more scars we have, the more stories we have to tell, the more stuff we've been through, the more reason we have to stand there and shut the devil down in his tracks.  And when we are living our progress out in the open, and the people around us can see what God is doing in us, the greater the power behind telling someone, "Hey, the devil sent that same thing to try and destroy me, but by the grace of God I have lived through that and you can too, come with me, I can show you how."

"Sometimes what we see as a gifting in another, 

is merely a lesson that they learned in their own brokenness."

~oOo~

"When it comes to reaching people, have the faith to take a moment, 

because God just might turn it into a movement." 

Do you know which people are best at sharing the gospel?  It's moment making Christians saying I'm going to take a shot because I have no idea what God is doing on the other side of this opportunity.  What if we really believed that God's grace has gone before us, that He has been working in the lives of people, that there are people who are so open, and so ready to hear the gospel? It is a revival spirit that gets our eyes of the Christian stuff and into the broken world.  If we all do our part we can continue to see God shake our city.  This week, would you take a moment, find somebody?  It might just be an encouraging word, maybe you can mow somebody's lawn and they might not know it was you, maybe it will be inviting somebody to church, maybe it will be an encouraging text - you might be thinking it sounds small, where's the big stuff?  There is no big stuff, the Cross was the big stuff.

2. Protect your view of the mission.  

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.  -  1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV)

Paul again is reminding Timothy, "Hey it's not all about you, it's not about what you want, not about your feelings, and by the way, work hard, allow God to move in your life so that not only will you impact your life but you just might be able to help somebody else out."  This is the mission: To live like Jesus and lead people to Jesus.  You might do it from a high school classroom, your pastor might do it from a pulpit in a church, I might do it through a blog on the internet, but our mission remains the same.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!  -  Hebrews 12:1-3 (MSG)

It is amazing how when we remember the cross, what Jesus actually did for us, and we fix our focus on the mission, the salvation of all people, the offense can't touch you and bondage can't break you because your life is about the mission.

Pastor Carl ended with this, "My prayer is this, some of you do not need a position change, you need a perspective change.  Because when a Christian stops seeing the message and the mission right, you become that Christian that starts to resent what you used to rejoice about.  That's how I know a Christian has missed the mission, they become that Christian who is asking you to pray for them so that they can be delivered from their prayer request.  You start wanting deliverance from the very thing that the mission is about, you say spirit lead me, but then you need prayer because you're unsure.  Or You say pastor sign me up, use me God, and then 2 months later where are you at?  Oh, I left the church because I felt used.  Will you be somebody that is so in love with the mission that God can send you anywhere, ask you to go anywhere and you'll do it because it's the mission?"
          

Never forget for a moment, how God feels about you!  

God loves you fiercely!!  

All of your flaws, all of your stuff, He wants to use you!

There's just one sermon left before we close the doors on Code Orange.  It'll be sad to see it end, but exciting to see where we go from here.  See you soon for Night #10 with Pastor Steven Furtick.  God bless you guys,

#CodeOrangeRevival Night #9 - The ROLE of REVIVAL

Saturday night, night nine of #CodeOrangeRevival, another great night of worship and preaching.  Dharius Daniels from Kingdom Church in New Jersey was the awesome speaker tonight, digging into the old testament, looking at the ROLE of revival.

"Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise"  -  Psalm 48:1

My praise will be consistent with my revelation of God's greatness.  If I perceive Him to be an okay God, I will praise Him with okay enthusiasm.  If I perceive Him to be a good God, I will praise Him with good enthusiasm.  But if He's great, I will praise Him with great enthusiasm.

30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."  31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are."  32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.  They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it.  All the people we saw there are of great size.  33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).  We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."  -  Numbers 13:30-33

So what is the ROLE of revival?  Revival is not just a season and space of refreshing, renewal, and replenishing.  Revival is also a season and space of reintroductions.  It is a season and space where God reintroduces Himself to us. Moments where He pulls back the curtain to degrees and dimensions of His presence that we had not experienced before.  A lingering moment that awakens an appetite within us that passionately pursues the presence of God and once you have been exposed, you can't be unexposed.  Once you've had a unique encounter with His presence, your heart begins to beat for it, never to be the same again.

The second type of reintroduction God does is where He reintroduces us to ourselves.  There is a you that you haven't met yet; a stronger you, a wiser you, a more fortified you, a more resilient you, a peaceful you, one that stresses less and praises more, one that has untapped potential and capability.  God wants to grab the old you and pull you face to face with the new you.

Your perception of God impacts your perception of yourself.  He wants to reintroduce you to you, and this introduction isn't just to get you excited, it is for your assignment.  The course and the quality of our lives aren't determined only by how we see God, but also by how we see ourselves.  When you look in, what do you see?  Do you see a grasshopper or do you see a giant?  There are some battles that we will not fight, some opportunities that we will not pursue, some things that we will walk away from prematurely if we only see ourselves as grasshoppers.

God has great and amazing plans for our lives, but could it be that His plans are His preferences?  Could it be that His plans are His preferred future?  Could it be that His plans are what He wants to do, what He's willing to do, what He's willing to turn heaven upside down to make happen?  But could it also be that God will allow us to live on whatever level we settle for?  

Our God is the God of exits, that is literally what the word Exodus means.  Why should that matter?  Because if our God is the God of exits, it means that we are never trapped. I may feel trapped, it might look trapped, people may call me trapped, but because God is a God of exits, if He has to part the Red Sea to get me where I need to be, He will.  

The people of Israel were held in Egyptian captivity for over 400 years.  One day they cry out to God, God hears them but doesn't answer them, He does, however, provide the answer, through Moses.  Israel is sitting in a season feeling unheard, feeling abandoned, feeling rejected; having no idea that God is trying to convince the answer to accept the assignment.  

"Just because God isn't talking to me about the problem, doesn't mean He isn't working on the answer."  

- Dharius Daniels

Now Moses wasn't without his own set of issues.  Moses didn't feel qualified for the assignment, he seemed a little awkward, but his awkwardness wasn't awkwardness, it was uniqueness.  Sometimes we have to wait for our life to catch up to give us a revelation of why we felt awkward in a previous season.  Because maybe what made us feel awkward in one season, will make us relevant in the next.

So God is engaging in a conversation with Moses, telling him that He's got an assignment for him, and Moses responds with his inadequacy.  He thought his inadequacy should exempt him from the assignment, but what he saw as an exemption, God saw as insurance of Moses' reliability.  Moses basically turns around to God and says, "If you don't help me I can't do this" and God says "Exactly!  Because I know that you know that you can't do this without me and because you know that you can't do this without me, you'll never try to do this without me.  You'll always depend on me.  You'll consistently listen to me."  So Moses agrees and he attempts to lead Israel through the exodus.

Now the journey that they are on isn't exactly a walk in the park, but God is faithful, and He isn't just making them suffer for no reason.  God tells Moses that this season of suffering they have endured is going to add something to them.  Very often we celebrate what we have come out of, but the question we should ask is 

"What did I leave with?"  

Did I leave with wisdom, did I leave with strength that I didn't have before, did I leave with perspective that I didn't have before; because it's only when we leave with something that we can look back on it and say like David said, "It was good that I was afflicted that I might learn your statutes."  Some of our greatest lessons come in some of our most challenging seasons.  So if you are going to suffer, leave with something.  If you're going to play with the hand that life has dealt you, leave with something.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land.  -  Exodus 14:21

So now the Israelites and Moses are standing at the Red Sea, pharaoh and his armies are on their trail because he's trying to bring them back into captivity, and God has told Moses to raise his hand.  The Red Sea parted, but it didn't happen immediately,  God sent a strong east wind and Moses stood there all that night while the water receded.  Because some miracles are not immediate, some miracles are incremental.  And even when the Red Sea hasn't parted, we've still got to pause and praise Him and thank Him that the wind is blowing.

After the seas have parted, it has turned to dry land.  If we got rid of all the water (in the natural), the seabed would not be bone dry, it's supposed to be wet, it's supposed to be muddy.  Then Pastor Daniels throws out a "Holy Hypothesis", could it be possible that the land was dry because mud leaves tracks.  And I can tell where you've been in the present by the tracks in the past.  Could it be because Paul says the passage through the Red Sea, was a metaphor for baptism, and baptism is a metaphor for the cleansing work that God does on the inside of us?  Could it be that it would be an inappropriate analogy if there were tracks because when God washes us, there is no evidence of our past.

"Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow."                                                                                                                     -  Isaiah 1:18 (NLT)

Israel walks through on dry ground.  Pharaoh and his army observe their activity and they attempt to do the same thing.  But the bible says that the sea collapses and they drown.  Because you drown when you try to follow a word that God didn't give you.  He told the Israelites to walk through, He didn't tell Pharaoh to walk through.  Just because it worked for them, doesn't mean it'll work for me because I may not have their word

So now we come back to the passage from Numbers 13.  They're in the wilderness, they posture there for a season, now they have an opportunity to occupy what was always promised to them, Canaan, God's best for them.  Moses sends over 12 spies to assess the land that they're supposed to occupy and 10 come back, they see giants, the other 2 see God and they talk the whole congregation into staying in a season that was better than their past, but not as good as their future.  Present challenges have a way of infecting us with spiritual amnesia.  After they had seen all the miracles, the parting of the Red Sea, God's provision for them, how could they stay stuck?  Their problem as it related to their progress, wasn't God, it wasn't how they saw God, it was how they saw themselves.

"We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).  We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."  -  Numbers 13:33

The grasshopper in your mind is bigger than the giant out there.  They didn't reach their redemptive potential, not because of immorality but because of inadequacy.  Because some opportunities come wrapped in the wrapping paper of challenge.  They settled for less than God's best in their lives because they felt they were capable of leaving Egypt, they believed in themselves enough to leave Egypt, but not enough to enter Canaan.  

There is a reason that God talks to us frequently about who we are.  Because God knows that I am always going to behave in a way that is consistent with my revelation of myself.  So He tells me, I'm special, I'm chosen, I'm called, I am the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  If that is already true of me, why does He need to tell me?  It's not for Him, He already knows.  It's for me, I need to know.  

Do you believe you have enough?  Do you believe that greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world?  Do you believe that the God that's inside of you is bigger than the obstacles that are in front of you?  Do you believe that you are not a grasshopper, but in fact, you are a giant?

What a fantastic message!!  I can't believe it, only one more day of revival to go!  Hope to see you check back soon for the last 2 posts of this revival.  Carl Lentz and Steven Furtick.  What a way to go out with a bang.  See you tomorrow,

#CodeOrangeRevival Night 8 - A WORSHIP EXPERIENCE

Friday night was Worship night at Elevation Church.  But it wasn't just any old worship night, Elevation Worship was live recording a new album, set to release Spring 2017

- FYI - 

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I wasn't going to write a post about night 8 of #CodeOrangeRevival, but I felt the Lord say, 'I have a purpose for each one of these nights, and that includes tonight.'  So I promised to be obedient and play my role in His purpose for night 8.

Leading up to tonight and during the service, I had been thinking about music.  About the power and freedom that can come by singing a single song, a single verse, recalling a single lyric in a particular moment.  Songs and music evoke a change in atmosphere, a change in attitude.  But Worship music, Worship music has the power to change, the power to restore, the power to heal, the power to comfort, the ability to bring hope to the hopeless, and joy to the disheartened.

Sometimes we don't even know what we're feeling or what we want to say to, God.  But the power that lays in a Worship song is to draw out of us those things that we didn't even know were there or had the words to express.  And when we Worship together corporately, when we join with like-minded people at Church, at a conference, or at a bible study in someone's home; we are transported to the throne room of God, worshiping our Father amongst the heavenly hosts.

There is no substitute for reading your bible, but I can appreciate the impact that a song has.  When I first got saved, I didn't know a lot of scripture, but I had a knack for retaining songs.  So when I didn't know what God said about me, or I didn't know what to pray or how to pray to God, I would sing.  I would sing over my circumstances, I would close my eyes and worship Him in song, and be transported before my King.  "Worthy is the lamb",  "Shout to the Lord", "Jesus, lover of my soul", "I give you my heart", "Christ is enough", "You never fail", "What the Lord has done in me", "You said", "My hope is in you", "I can only imagine", "Word of God speak", "Awesome God", "No longer slaves", "Letting Go", "Forever", "Good good Father", "Holy Spirit", "Trust in you", "O come to the Altar", "Resurrecting", "Do it again".  Which if you want to listen to any of these songs you can click below.  

WORSHIP 1 PLAYLIST - CLICK HERE

Some of these are older, some are new, and they are but a small snippet of what I worship to, but they all achieve one thing;  They disengage my head and engage my heart, falling on my knees before the Lord with an attitude of love, praise, and thankfulness.  
Tonight as I sat in my bedroom in Indiana, behind a computer screen, I joined in worship with thousands of other people, from all around the world - All singing in one unified voice, with a unified focus - Our Father, who art in heaven.  I can imagine the smile on His face as the sound lifted high above the earth, and filled the halls of heaven.

Elevation Worship Team - #CodeOrangeRevival 2016

Well, there are only 2 more days of Code Orange left.  I hope you've been enjoying these posts as much as I have been enjoying writing them.  I can't wait to see what God's going to do on night #nine!!  So until then, God bless you guys,

Psalms 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

Psalms 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.

Psalms 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

Psalms 99:5 Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!

Exodus 15:20-21Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them:  “Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Psalms 59:16 But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.

Psalms 63:3-4 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Psalms 66:4  All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.” Selah

Psalms 150 Praise the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

#CodeOrangeRevival Night #7 - The PLACE of REVIVAL

First of all, just let me say that tonight was baptism night, so I spent a good chunk of time weeping like a baby.  Tears of joy streaming and warm gooey feelings; memories of my own baptism flooding my heart and mind.

People are always saying revival is coming, revival is coming, but revival isn't coming, revival is already here.  Whatever stage of life you are in, whatever season you are in the middle of, the PLACE of revival is right where you are at. 

Pastor Louie Giglio from Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, delivered perhaps the best sermon on Psalm 23 that I have ever heard.  It was one of those messages that I just wanted to sit and soak in, slowly processing each revelation, line by line, verse by verse, as Pastor Louie introduced me to a new way of seeing the words of the Psalmist. 

I am going to give you some notes about his message, but I am also going to link to the video archive of it (from Elevation church's YouTube page) below, because I really want everyone who sees and reads this, to experience their own revelation.  Because quite frankly, I was so encouraged and had so many lightbulb moments throughout the entire message, I was half tempted to just write verbatim what he preached, but I won't.  I will try and keep this short.

So if you watch it (and I hope you do), here are a few of the things you can look forward to:

• The zenith of revival happened in a garbage dump in Jerusalem (where crucifixions took place) and in the pit of hell.  And that means revival can and should break out in the most difficult and most desperate places in our lives.  The place of revival is probably in the most difficult place we have ever been.
• He makes me, He leads me, He restores me, He guides me.  He protects me.  He provides for me.  He anoints me. He follows me all the days of my life.  Then I get to move into the house of the Lord, forever.
• The 7th day was the day of rest - the day of rest was the 1st full day on earth for people.  They had an assignment to do, a job to do, they were ready to get busy, but God said no, today we rest.  Sabbath isn't about taking a nap, sabbath is about getting God in view, focusing on Him who created us.  It's about an invitation to worship the creator and all He has done.
• God is a deliverer, but He mostly delivers us in stuff before He delivers us out of stuff.

• In the presence of my enemies, Jesus has prepared a table before me.  Why is this is good news?  Because we are living in the midst of a battle, it can be a physical battle, or financial battle or a relational battle, but we are also living in the midst of a spiritual battle.   "... The devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour."  -  1 Peter 5:8 (NIV).  The devil is looking for any crack or crevice to exploit; before you know it he has taken up a seat at our table.
• It's not really about us, the devil hurts us to hurt the Father.  Nothing hurts the Father's heart more than to see His children in distress, in turmoil, in pain.

How do I know if the devil is at my table?  
Primarily you'll hear him speak by 3 different groups of things.  If you hear:

1. You're never gonna make it through this. Look around, you've got no chance.  It's not going to change. You won't have freedom.  Don't buy into it again. You're not going to survive it; Then you have given him a seat at your table.
2. You aren't good enough. You've never been good enough.  You're not strong enough.  You don't deserve this.  You're not worthy of this.  You're an insignificant person and you don't matter in life;  Then you know you've given him a seat at your table.
3. Everybody is against you.  No one at work likes you.  Everyone tolerates you but no one really likes you.  Everybody's out to get you; Then you've given him a seat at your table.

SO WHAT DO YOU DO?  You sit down and lock eyes with your shepherd and you say thank you for providing for me everything I need mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically in the middle of the fight, whatever the fight is, thank you, you have provided for me everything I need.  And you say to the enemy, YOU DON'T HAVE A SEAT AT MY TABLE!  The only way you can loose your peace is if you let the enemy eat your food, talk to you and take a seat at your table.  You get to decide who gets to sit at your table.

#CodeOrangeRevival Night #6 - The COST of REVIVAL

It feels a little redundant now saying, I've never heard of, or heard this preacher speak, but it's the truth.  Tonight Pastor Levi Lusko took to the pulpit with perhaps one of the best messages I've heard in a long time.  You know when people say, "It was a very timely, inspired word from, God"?  I believe that wholeheartedly this evening.  It was prophetic and practical, inspiring but challenging, and as Pastor Steven said - It was also church building.

From the very outset, I was uplifted and encouraged to not worry if I wasn't having the same breakthroughs or triumphs that perhaps others had been experiencing over the past 5 nights.  But rather to pay attention, delight in the message, store it up, because we have no idea what God is going to be depositing in us, to be pulled out of us in the coming days.

So we have had Rhythm, Sound, Time, Test, and Language.  Tonight was all about the COST of revival.  That we better know the cost of something before we ask God for it!

His message tonight was formed around the passage of scripture from 1 Kings 18:21-41.  It's about Elijah's victory at Mount Carmel.  King Ahab was married to Jezebel and she had had altars built to Baal, and she had been successfully encouraging Ahab and the people of Israel to worship Baal and turn away from God and she had been killing all of the prophets of the Lord.  So Elijah goes to Ahab and prophesied,  

“As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.” - 1 Kings 17:1 (NKJV)

and they think he's kidding or nuts or both and tell him to go away.  But for the next 3 years, just as Elijah had said, no rain had fallen on their land, and they were in severe drought and famine.  God tells Elijah to go to Ahab and He will send the rain.  So Elijah does what God commands.  He goes to Ahab and tells him to gather everyone, all the people of Israel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, and meet him up on Mount Carmel.  Which brings us to verse 21:

21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 23 Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 24 Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”  So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”25 Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”  26 So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.  27 And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. 29 And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. 31 And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” 32 Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33 And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four waterpots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” 34 Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. 35 So the water ran all around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water.36 And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. 37 Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there.41 Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.” 

Okay, so what just happened?  Basically, Elijah is saying "Choose a side" whether you're going to keep worshiping Baal or come back to God and worship him once more, you need to choose, you can't have it both ways.  So to decide which God is the true God, the prophets and Elijah are both going to prepare an offering, but not light the fire.  And whichever God sends fire, that's the one true God.  All day they wait but the god of the prophets doesn't do a thing, so now it's Elijah's turn, but instead of just praying to the Lord, he first tells the people to fill up the 4 water pots and pour it out on the wood.  But he doesn't just do it once or twice, he asks them to fill up the pots and pour them out three times.  By now the wood is saturated - Have you ever tried to light wet wood?  Anyway, so the people of Israel have poured out their water on the wood, Elijah prays to God and God answers Elijah's prayer.  Then God does as He has promised and sends the rain. 

Sometimes God will ask us to do something impractical, something that doesn't make any sense to us whatsoever.  He is looking for our obedience.  He is looking for our faith.  He is looking for us to Trust Him, wholly and completely.  So when he does the impossible, our faith is grown, and the world will know, and He will get all the glory.  

For the people of Israel, water was their most precious commodity.  Remember they are in a drought, they couldn't just go into town and grab a pot of water.  The water they poured out was most probably their own personal drinking water.  Their decision to do as Elijah had said was one with real-life, life and death consequences.  But God was looking for the impractical from the Israelites so that He could bless them with the impossible.  If God wants the wood to go up in flames, being soaked with water isn't going to stop Him from being able to do that.  But what God was looking for from the people of Israel was faith.  An expression of faith, so that He could release a blessing upon them, far beyond what they could have imagined.

God wants nothing more in this world than for you and me to live an abundant, fulfilled life, blessed beyond measure.  But are we willing to pay the cost for what we are praying for?  The Israelites gave up their water for the promise of rain.  What would we do or give up?  We pray for more money, but we aren't willing to sow our tithe and offering into His kingdom. We want to lose weight, but we don't want to give up eating fast food.  We want to God to use us, but we complain when we are being used.  We pray for our anxious thoughts to go away, but then fill our minds with negativity. 

I would rather have only 90% of my resource and God's power and blessing on my life, than have 100% of it and be all on my own, with the rain clouds withheld, holding onto one canteen, when I could be having a whole cistern. - Levi Lusko

I hope I did the message justice - I was trying my hardest to keep this one short because I know that all the other posts have been quite long - don't think I succeeded though, lol.  But at any rate, I hope that you have been blessed by it, encouraged by it, challenged by it.  I encourage you to go to the Elevation Church website or their YouTube channel and watch the archive of Levi's message.  It was a fantastically powerful word from God.