June 22, 2009 – A Promise is a Promise

Jenni did such a great job on Sunday. On her behalf, thank you for all of the positive feedback. The things Jenni had on her heart about what it means to be a dad and how that relates to our heavenly Father seem to have struck a chord. I know in our discussions leading up to the weekend and even in our men’s connect group we have been “chewing” on those thoughts. What it really means to be a dad and what we have in our relationship with our heavenly Dad.

As fathers there is so much we can learn from our heavenly Father, the acceptance we see in the parable of the prodigal son, the love He showed by giving us His Son, the sacrifice of Jesus laying down his life, that He is all powerful yet invites us to call Him daddy, the promise that He would never leave us. He is not an absentee Father and a promise is a promise.

My prayer for our church community is that we would have the courage to be the dads and husbands that we are supposed to be. But also for all of us that we would experience our heavenly Father for who He really is.

Happy Father’s Day,

Jonathan

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June 15, 2009 – Watch Your Mouth, Part 2

If you haven’t gotten it yet in my blogs or the series going on at Elevate – you better “Watch Your Mouth!”  The Bible is so clear, with many great verses, that your words do matter.  There IS power in the tongue.  One amazing facet to this revelation is using your tongue to release the faith that you have.

Think of it this way – the Bible says to be saved all you need to do is believe in your heart AND confess with your mouth.  That shows a lot of power in the tongue right there, but also that in order to release the faith of believing you have to say it.  Confession, or speaking your faith, is a huge piece of living this Christian life.  An abundant, victorious Christian life.

If you don’t know where to begin in releasing your faith, pray the Word of God out loud.  Pray scripture – what better thing to do than to  pray God’s Word.  If you are struggling with fear or don’t know how to pray, this is the place to start.

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  What a strong way to build your faith – by hearing your own voice professing God’s Word.

Let’s all continue to pray as our friend Martha continues to make progress as she walks through her miracle.  See you next week.  If you live in Orlando, I hope to see you Saturday at Gotha Park 4 PM.  Check the Calendar tab for more info.

Love ya,

Jonathan

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June 8, 2009 – Watch Your Mouth, Part 1

A couple days late here but better late than never.

It was so exciting to hear this weekend what God is doing through our “little project” of being the church. Keep the posts coming!

This week we started a new series about our words. Our words have power – James says the power to direct our lives. And if we get control of our tongues it shows our maturity and when we mature we can direct our lives.

Our vernacular is filled with words of death, doubt and unbelief. The ultimate challenge for us this week is to know and speak what God says about situations rather than those types of words. “I will never see that miracle…I can’t see an answer in this situation…” to “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” or “my steps are ordered of the Lord.”

It is a hard habit to watch your mouth but make sure we are saying what God says about situations. He came to give us life and life abundant. Let’s have our words line up with His and begin living a life of victory, a life more abundant.

See You Sunday,

Jonathan

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June 1, 2009 – Follow

Summer is here! School is out this week, its hot and the summer calendar for Elevate is set (check out the new calendar on our website). This is the first blog for me ever – crazy. I will try to post something at the beginning of each week but please don’t hold me to it…we will just see how all this goes.

We just completed a great series called “Follow.” If you missed any you can order a CD of the message you missed. In the series we discovered what Jesus really meant when He called disciples. He wasn’t interested in the label of Christian. He didn’t come to make Christians – He came to make disciples, followers. What a concept – we are called to follow our rabbi!

His final charge to His disciples and a charge to us today in 2009 – GO, get out of here and make disciples! We are the church and this week we are purposefully going out and being the church. How exciting!

Put your stories of how you used your “seed” this week while being the church. We want to hear about it. Place it in the comments to this blog. We are expecting some great stories. We are expecting a harvest for our personal lives and for our church because of this week and the seed we are planting. I can’t wait to see it and hear about it.

This week we start a new series entitled “Watch Your Mouth!” I almost made the title “Watch Your Mouth, Sucka” but I wanted to keep it concise …see you on Sunday. Hope you are having an amazing week BEING the church!

Jonathan

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