OVERCOMING.
The last few nights, one of my sons has come in with nightmares, yucky evil things trying to scare or discourage them. As a mom, I hate it. Why would my kids have those yucky thoughts come into their sweet minds? There are many layers here, although the word OVERCOME came to me as I was praying for him.
How do we overcome our thoughts? Overcoming what we let come into our minds is one of our great life lessons, and we all must commit to growing in it for the rest of our lives.
Revelation 12:11
"And they have overcame (conquered him) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."
By the blood of the Lamb. Do we truly walk and abide by the power and authority that we have because of the blood of Jesus? His blood cleanses us and authorizes us to walk in the freedom and liberty that we have access to in him. That means we rule and reign with Jesus because of his blood and his blood alone.
Secondly, we overcome by our testimony—the testimony of the blood, the freedom, the simple fact that we get to abide in him, operate in strength and power and not our own abilities—the testimony of our story of us in him.
Thirdly, we do not love our lives. (This one is hard.) When our lives are not about us but about him—when they are about the king and the kingdom—are we obsessed with the kingdom things and not "our kingdom things"?
This means we must constantly go back to dying to ourselves as we surrender this life following Jesus. The beautiful thing is that as we surrender, we find ourselves abiding in him, who gives us life and life more abundantly; we get to taste and see his glory, power, and strength.
Because a life of overcoming can only be a life in Jesus Christ the victorious.
Is this the journey of learning to abide? Perhaps.
And now I can grow in this and teach my boys to frame their thoughts through this lens, as we all can what freedom we can find in him. We have strength when hard, unexpected thoughts, emotions, and situations come our way.
Dear Friends,
For the last several years. We have opened up our home on Wednesday nights, for one purpose alone and that was to meet with King Jesus and worship him. These spaces have become the most coveted moments of our lives. We have seen God move in the lives of so many people. Miracles, upon miracles, and lives being transformed as we have gathered together. Through out the years now we have seen hundreds of people walk through our doors, encountering their Jesus. Hosting his presence has been and will be the greatest mission of our lives.
Many wonderful people have asked the question "what is this, or what will this be". We have learned to be slow to answer that question, to move with exactly is on the heart of the father.
The phrase that Jesus has and continued to lead us to is out of Mathew 4:19 "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men"
So we have have established "the follow," a group of people who have decided to follow Jesus.
Very little will change. We will meet on Wednesday nights three times a month to gather, pursue, pray, and teach the scriptures. We will build community and grow. Our greatest prayer is that we will watch the Kingdom of Heaven invade the earth in a mighty way.
We love you all,
Jason + Rachael