Shaking The Tree
I believe that a new move is about to take place with this generation. The time is nearing where there will be great awakening throughout the nation, and many, many people will repent from their sins and turn back to the heart of God. Before every harvest there must be a shaking of the tree. I believe that God has to remove the fruit that has gone bad from the church before revival will come. This shaking, I believe has begun.
The heartbeat of any revival is repentance. Repentance is the point where a person sees that their sin has come between them and God and has separated them from Jesus Christ. Revival is not a planned event where a bunch of Christians gather together under a big tent and listen to cool bands and preachers. It is not something that has to be advertised. You can’t print out fliers and hand them out to promote revival. In fact, you shouldn’t have to! Revival is not about promoting any man’s ministry. It is about harvesting souls for the kingdom of God. It is about seeing the lost saved and delivered from sin. It is about reuniting people with Jesus Christ. When we begin to forget about our own lives and focus on the lives of others and the souls of the people who are lost, destined for hell without Christ, we begin to develop a spirit of revival!
Back to the purpose of this blog: Shaking the Tree. No doubt, if you follow the news around the world regarding christian ministers who have fallen recently, then you can see that there is a shaking going on. God will not allow people to continue in sin while leading people in the church. Many people have been discouraged by the actions of men of God who have been leading double lives. The purpose of this blog is not to condemn these men, we are called to pray for them and their restoration. However, I believe that God is bringing these things to light for a purpose, and that it is in preparation for a move of His Spirit. It is also a wake-up call for other people in ministry who are living double lives. How can we live with ourselves when we are entrusted with the lives of people around us if we are living in sin?! The time has come to repent and to truly serve God. God is going to continue to shake the tree until all the bad fruit has fallen and all that is left is pure fruit.
It is so exciting to see these things happening because I believe that we are at the brink of a huge revival. Let’s all continue to prepare our hearts, and our lives for the harvest! We must examine our lives and ask ourselves, “can God trust me with peoples lives?” If not, what do we have to change to make ourselves ready to lead people to Jesus? It is time to either get on board completely and take the nation for Jesus, or get out of the way for those of us who want to see revival!!!
Worship
One of my desires since I turned my life over to Christ has always been to worship. I sometimes lay in bed until 3 am listening to worship songs and just spending time alone with God. I believe that the most intimate times that you will ever spend with God are during times of worship. That is why lately I have been so wrecked. I feel like I have gotten so caught up with things around me that I have forgotten what worship is really all about. I love playing rock music in the band. It is a lot of fun writing songs and recording music. Performing at concerts and outreaches is a blast. But none of this is really worship. True worship is a lifestyle of course; but from a worship leader, worship is about leading people to the most intimate place a person can go. The throne room of God is such a holy place that in the old testament, if a person entered the holy of holies and they were unclean, they would drop dead on the spot. They priests used to put bells on the high priest and tie a rope to his foot when he would enter the holy of holies. If the bells stopped ringing, they knew the man had died, and they would drag the body out using the rope. So as worship leaders, we are essentially like that priest in that we LEAD God’s people into the presence of God. How can we do this if our hearts are not right? How can we take on this responsibility with sin in our own lives? I fear that we take God’s grace for granted. It is no wonder that people are not standing strong in our churches! We set the example for them. Isaiah said “this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men”. How many times have we been guilty of this? How many times do we praise God with our mouths when in reality our hearts are so far from God? I heard it said once, “christians don’t tell lies, they go to church and sing them.” If our hearts are not right with God we worship in vain. What are our motives, (as worship leaders) for worshipping God? Why do we sing and play our instuments? Do we do it for our own glorification? Do we do it so people can see how talented we are and how ‘hard we can rock’? Or do we do it so that God’s people may really enter into that intimate place of worship that really touches the heart of God? Our motives are reflected in our lives. I once heard someone talking about worship leaders. This person went up to a worship leader that I played guitar with and told him that the sin in his life was being reproduced and ‘washed’ over the people through his music. I believe that all music is spirit-driven. Therefore, whatever spirit has control of our lives is what is driving our music. If we are struggling sins we have the potential to reproduce that in people through music. A man wrote an incredible song while struggling with cancer recently. Many people have already heard about this story. This man wrote a song about God’s healing power. The problem with this-the man was never sick. He was decieving people to cover up hidden sin in his life. Of course, we pray that the man will be restored and for God to work in his life. But on a larger scale, now we have thousands and thousands of people who have been hurt because of this. Many young believers, and many non-believers may turn from God because of the example set. A worship leader is in an incredible position of leadership. Even in the smallest of congregations, the worship leader is in the same position. We must be careful to guard our testimony because we will be held accountable as LEADERS. I am saying all of this to say that I want to return to the heart of worship. I feel like the true call of a worship leader is to bring people so close to God that they can hear His heartbeat. The only way we can do this is to sanctify every part of our lives. If anything is hindering us, we have to get rid of it. If our hearts desire is for anything but more of Christ then we are not right. If we are not right we need to be strong enough to admit it and to take whatever steps it may take to get right. If we know our hearts are not right and we continue to lead worship we are playing with fire. God will not be mocked. I believe that a time is coming when God will raise up a revival like the world has never seen. I also believe that revival begins when the men and women in the church begin to get desperate for more of God. Worship has to be the motive behind our every action, thought, or word.
Frustrated
I have been feeling like God has been putting something on my heart lately. We have to be in pursuit of holiness. I feel like there are little things that are slowing us down. Things that we are allowing in our lives that are hindering us from really seeing the move of God that we all came here for. This may not apply to you and if it doesn’t, disregard it. However, if it does, take heed. “Sin is always intentional, it is never accidental.” I am speaking to myself as well. I am examining my own life and whatever i find that is not pleasing to God, I am cutting it out. Let’s get rid of anything that is stopping us from being really used by God, and begin to hold each other to a much higher level of accountablity. If we are struggling with anything, we need to confess it and put it behind us. I can tell you right now, that if you see something in me, tell me. I am sick of watching the people around me that I care about compromise. If I see something, you can bet that I am going to say something to you. If you keep on doing it, I will get someone else involved-(Pastor Randy)-I will not tolerate any kind of sin around me anymore because I care. It makes me angry because i know that God is never going to use us if we are compromising in the little things. I don’t care if what i am saying makes people angry at me or not like me. If striving for Holiness in our church makes someone angry, then maybe we should check our walk? I am asking that we begin to actually do what the word of God says so that we can really see revival in NYC. Revival cannot be something we sit around and talk about, it has to be something in our hearts that we live out every day. ***Holiness is key to revival***
Pastor Joe preached on tuesday and said something that stuck with me. “If we are continuing to struggle with the same sin, that means we love that sin more than God.”
The heart of God
The more I think I know about the heart of God, the more He shows me how little I really know. I lay in bed each night listening to music and praying and my heart was broken tonight as I thought about the heart of God. I couldn’t imagine the feeling of rejection by so many people. I am imagining if everyone I knew turned their backs on me and began to reject me, even as I try to reach out to them. The thought breaks my heart and I realize how this happens to God’s heart every day as His children turn from Him to chase the things of this world like money, sex, drugs, and relationships. I remember times that I have turned my back on God to pursue other things and I can’t help but think about the nails that pierced Jesus’ hands and feet, freeing me from the power that those things had on me. When will we stop crucifying Jesus? My heart is torn because I know that people are dying without giving their hearts to God. How many of my family members or friends are in that group? Ask yourself, “who do I know that would go to hell tonight if they were to die?” I know so many people that need Jesus who think that they are ok because they are ‘Good People’ but the truth is that they don’t know the truth. The word of God says that the only way to salvation is through Christ. Jesus wasn’t just a good man. He wasn’t just a prophet. He is the son of the living God who came to give us freedom and to pay the price for our sin. The thought of Jesus going to the cross for me makes my heart break and my soul long for more of Him. I long to see the church rise up and start chasing after the people who don’t know Him. Too many churches are content with where they are today and God is asking, “what about the others? What about the people around us?” Why do we sit in church and praise God but we don’t reach out to anyone? My prayer is that God would utterly take my world apart and continue to reveal the cross to me. I want to be able to see my family accept Jesus and begin to serve Him and I want my friends who don’t know him to get saved and begin to win souls. Revival begins when men and women of God allow their hearts to feel compassion for the souls of the people who are dying and going to hell around them…
Judgement
It has been a while since the last time I was able to sit and write on this blog. I have been completely overwhelmed with work, ministry and music. I have been so completely consumed by the desire to know God more lately because I believe that the day is coming in which people will no longer have the freedom to worship God the way we do now. The more I see in America, the stronger this feeling becomes for me. Our country grows further and further away from the strong christian principles and morals that we were birthed into, and it grieves my heart because I truely believe that this is the cause of so many problems that we face today. Every step that we as a nation take away from God brings us closer and closer to a terrible judgement. When I look at all the evil that takes place these days I can’t help but ask myself, how can God NOT judge us?? I was in Manhattan on Sunday all day and I got stuck in traffic. Huge crowds were marching the streets and many streets were closed by the police department as countless people marched in honor of HOMOSEXUALITY. I couldn’t believe my eyes and my heart broke as I saw people openly flaunting a sin that is such an abomination to God that it once caused him to destroy an entire city because of itm (sodom and gomorrah.) I began to pray silently to God as men dressed as women marched past waving their rainbow flags, thinking, “God, please withhold judgement and allow us to see these people repent and turn their hearts back to you.” My stomach hurt all day because I knew how much the heart of God was crying out for the souls of these people who were marching straight to hell. I kept thinking to myself, how can people be so open about sin and yet the churches in america are so afraid to go out and do something about it. We are the ones to blame because we sit in our comfortable cushined chairs and listen to preachers tell us about our best life now while people everyday are dying and going to hell!!! I am so angry right now because I know that I can do more!!! I don’t know why God has placed such a burden on my heart for New York City, but I do know that there are not enough CHRISTIANS standing up for holiness!!! Instead we pray for God to bless us, make our lives comfortable, make us happy, give us finances, feed us, give us nice cars and houses. I am disgusted by these kinds of prayers. I believe that if our hearts are truely filled with the holy spirit we should be facedown crying because of the sin that is bringing Gods judgement upon us!!! We should be praying for God to turn the hearts of America back to Him!!! I pray that God will allow us to reach as many people before america falls, because I believe she will…no where in end time prophecy does it speak of america, except perhaps babylon the great-and if that is the case then judgement is SURELY coming. Let us begin to chase God like never before and pray that there will be a great harvest before it is too late….
A vision unfolds
Hey everyone, haven’t had much time to write lately cause i have been extremely busy. Here’s what God has been putting on my heart lately
Revival. I have felt so strongly lately that God desires to bring forth a new move of His Spirit to this country. For the past few weeks I have felt that there has been a strong resistance to our work here, and I truly believe that it is because God is about to bring forth a fresh fire. Pastor Randy has been absolutely radical with his messages about revival lately and it has helped fuel the fire inside of me. I had a dream a few nights ago, and in that dream we were holding a youth convention at Central Park in Manhattan. In this dream there were a great number of youth gathered together and they were all worshiping God with their whole hearts. The number of youth gathered was so large that I could not count it. I love these kinds of dreams because they give me fresh vision and fresh fuel. This ministry has been tough at first because it seems like the people in New York don’t feel like they have a need for a savior. Pastor Randy said something last week that really stuck with me. He said, “I am drawing a circle here, standing in that circle, and saying ‘God, bring revival here.’ I am not leaving until there is a move of God here.” I have made a commitment to spend at least one hour in prayer each day for the youth of New York including Long Island. This is separate from my own devotion time. I am not going to be satisfied with anything less than a supernatural move of God for New York. I know now that it is going to take a supernatural move because it is painfully obvious that we cannot do it on our own. Every great revival in history began with a small handful of men and women of God gathering together and praying fervently for a move of God. God has brought a core group of us from different parts of the world together and we are all chasing after the souls of the people in New York who are dying daily and going straight to hell. Leonard Ravenhill asked, “when was the last time we couldn’t sleep because people were dying and going to hell?” We need to be burdened with the souls of the people around us!!! Our lives need to be centered around snatching people from the flames of Hell, and if we could stop praying for our own selfish desires and start crying out for the lost, maybe we would see souls won for Christ!!
Running From The Call
How many of us were called by God earlier in life and yet we ran from the call that God had for us? I know I can speak from experience and say that God had a call early in my life and I ran hard and fast. Many of us run because we want to live life the way we want, and we are afraid that the call of God on our lives will make us “un-popular” or that we will have to give up the things that we enjoy doing. I was reading about Jonah in the Bible this morning and God was speaking to me about how Jonah represents many people today. Many people are called by God and refuse to listen to the word that God has for us.
Face down
God has been pressing on my heart lately about our prayer lives. We want to see God move in our lives and in our ministry. How many of us are really willing to pray for revival and for the lost. I am not talking about the little prayers we pray when we are in church and the pastor tells us to bow our heads and close our eyes. I am talking about the prayer that comes from a true desire to see the lost saved. Read the rest of this entry »
Pleasing God…
Somebody told me a couple of days ago that because we are living in human bodies, it is impossible to overcome sin. I went ahead and began to study Romans chapter 8 again because I believe that God has given us the power to overcome sin and to walk in holiness. Many of us can quote Romans 8:1 from memory.
Circumstances
I have been thinking a lot about circumstances lately. Have you ever noticed that our circumstances around us seem to dictate our mood? Why is that? I was reading about different men of God who had some seemingly impossible circumstances in their lives, and they still relentlessly followed God. Many of them were beaten, mocked, and killed and they still served God. Read the rest of this entry »
