The greatest depth of my most heartfelt worship doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of communicating how good He really is. Lets just say He is better than advertised… or at least my ability to advertise.

My most passionate worship and applause is still a rather large, embarassing, understatement.

The gap between who I worship Him as and who He really is can be called “lack of knowledge”. Hmmm… if I only knew what would my worship look like? Sound like?

If I worshipped Him for who He is and not my watered down, bleak, pale image of Him how would I change and who would I become. Yet again, an understatement. I may be on to something… to be continued.

Spare tires don’t get used very often… if at all. They take up space and exist for safety purposes only. Nobody drives along willingly with what is known as the “dougnut ” (aka spare tire).

I don’t want my spiritual life to be lived like a spare tire. I want to be used by God everyday. Everywhere. All the time. I don’t want to live safe either. When people begin to talk about balance and wisdom I usually cringe because that really means unbelief and compromise. Neither of which I want associated with me.

No one wants to be the back up or the bench warmer. We were all created to live in the heat of battle not to watch from the sidelines. I’d rather be the tire that pops while driving then the spare that never sees the light of day.

So I woke up this morning with a song. Love when that happens. It was an oldie too. We sang it back in the day at church and my Mom would sing it all the time to us when we were kids which meant we were strongly encouraged (forced) to sing it too. I forgot how powerful the truth in those lyrics are.

“I’ve got the life of God in me.

I’ve got he life of God in me.

I’ve got His Life, His Love and His Ability.

I’ve got the life of God in me.”

Sing that ten times out loud and you won’t be able to keep a smile off your face. In fact I’ve been singing it all morning and I am hungry to go find some symptoms of death so that I can LIFE them. God’s life is stronger than satan’s death. Everytime. All the time. Even on Sundays.

Death symptoms include: Fear, Hate, Anger, Sickness, Disappointment, Loneliness, Unforgiveness, Fornication, Greed, Timidity… basically any sin you can think of is a symptom of death. Oh, but when the LIFE of God shows up death and its symptoms have to hit the road.

The spirit of the law of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). No death symptoms for me when I am aware of my LIFE solution. The Life of Christ.

The 411 on Fasting from my message this past Sunday…

1) We fast to “GET” God not something God can give us

2) We DO NOT fast to be noticed by others

3) People should NOT know we are fasting

4) The greatest results of the fast usually happen after the fast is over

5) If your breath stinks, your stomach hurts, and your mouth is dry THE FAST IS WORKING

6) Fasting will NOT kill you or hurt you if you do it right

7) Lengths of Fasts

a. Half Fast (Till 3pm prayer)

b. 24 Hour Fast (Jeremiah 36:6, 2 Samuel 1:12)

c. 3 Day Fast (Esther 4:16, Matthew 15:32)

d. 7 Day Fast (1 Samuel 31:13)

e. 14 Days (Acts 27:33)

f. 21 Day Fast (Daniel 10:3)

g. 40 Day Fast- (Exodus 24:18, 1 Kings 19:7-8, Matthew 4:1-2)

Types of Fasts

a. No Food, No Water

b. No Food

c. Fruits and Vegetables only

d. Media, TV, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, Email

e. Whatever serves as a distraction and consumes your time

2 CHRONICLES 7:14

LEADERSHIP STAFF- ALL NIGHT PRAYER MEETINGS FOR 7 DAYS

PRAYER PLAN- 30 Mins of Prayer/30 Mins of Bible Study

- Prayer for People

- Father Draws Them- John 6:44

- Christ be Revealed- John 15:26

- Send Laborers (Us)- Matthew 9:37

- Convict Sinners of Unbelief- John 16:8-9

PRAY for Easter Worship Experience

- Overflowing with Love from God’s Presence

- Multitudes of People (200 in Attendance)

- Salvation, Forgiveness, Acceptance (50 Salvations)

- People would be Planted at Remnant (30 New People)

PRAY

- Psalm 23, 27, 34, 91, 103

- Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:8-13)

- Ephesians 1:17-19, 3:16-21

- Colossians 1:9-14

My son Max is a wild man. Lately, he has been sick as he has some new chompers arriving. When he’s sick he is definitely not himself. When Max is being Max he is:

Loud

Active

Demanding to go Outside

Eats alot and is always asking for more food

Laughs and smiles continuously

Listens and obeys well

Its amazing how different of a person he is when not feeling well. When well he is 100% wild man. It makes me wonder how indifferent we are as people to only blame it on “that’s just how I am” although that’s not really how we are at all…. people are just witnessing a sick, under the weather, version of us.

It’s unreal to see how people really are when healthy. Case in point: Wild Man Max.

After a promising week of God Change we stripped everything down at our Sunday Worship Experience yesterday and collectively as a church “WENT FOR GOD.” After a breakthrough staff meeting where our leadership all came into agreement that our full identity has not yet been fully released within our environments as a church, we decided to shake things up, strip things down, and make the vision crystal clear. That we did.

Yesterday morning felt right. We didn’t feel self conscious as a church. More importantly, God felt right. The Spirit of God moved, people were touched, and momentum was built.

Yesterday, felt like our 1st Sunday as a church. Where we embraced our complete DNA and celebrated God. Our theme and a “win” for Sundays is to simply “Go for God”, in everything we do from worship, to volunteering, to prayer, to inviting, to follow up, to announcements, to videos, to and through the message etc. We want to GO FOR GOD every moment of every Sunday. As we taught through the scripture, when we GO FOR GOD other people GET GOD. I am pumped to see what happens next Sunday as we passionately pursue.

We all need to unlearn, learn, and relearn. Recently, I RElearned THE KEY to everything. Not a key. THE KEY. Its so easy to slightly shift our focus and ultimately become way off course. Ask a pilot they will definitely know what I am talking about.

God is THE KEY. Not numbers, people, or even life change. Those are all the results OF HIM. When my sole purpose is pursuit of GOD everything seems to fall in line. You don’t have to manufacture energy, force advancement, or fake momentum. GOD is IT. He is THE KEY.

Every problem we face has something to do with that shift off of Him and onto something else. Keep Jesus the center of your pursuit and everything else will materialize around Him.

Psalm 50:17- For you refuse my discipline (instruction/teaching) and treat my laws like trash (cast my words behind you).

Is the word of God important and your highest priority or does it your bible collect dust or better yet have a mysterious location (lost). Maybe you are an avid studier of scripture but what do you do with the word you know?

I’ve challenged myself and Remnant this year to read the bible through in this year. It is by far one of the best personal and leadership decisions I have made in a long time. I can honestly say there were times in the not too distant past where I did treat the word like trash. I would hurry through the scripture just to say that I read it although wasn’t changing me. I would read it and not even consider what the scripture was really saying, inspired by the Spirit, to me. As a result, I was definitely not applying the word either and because I wasn’t I didn’t see any results which gave me more reason to back off.

I’ve learned the way you treat the word will determine what you receive from the word. If you are convinced that the word is full of life and wisdom, ripe with potential for incredible life change, and even a daily invitation to encounter God himself, you will not be disappointed. The word will come alive and build you up making the foolishness of treating it like trash even more frustrating and embarassing. One of satan’s greatest ploys is to blind us to the word’s power and nurture a “meh” attitude about God’s word.

Won’t happen. Not here. Not to me. I’m sold. I’m still thanking God for that great decision He led me and empowered me to make: Getting in His Word everyday.

I don’t think enough people leave church in the middle of the message because they are so mad and offended at the truth.

I am definitely over cool sets, metro worship leaders, and killer graphics. No power or presence and it sucks anyway and no slick series title can change that.

I’m sick of watching people come into church nonchalant, laid back, and TOO comfortable. If I’m getting ready to meet with God I think my demeanor would be slightly different.

I’m tired of nice church people. Part of the problem they aren’t mean enough. No aggression. No swagger. No killer instinct. Are we really in a battle with eternal rewards and consequences? They seem to be nice but not kind. Fake kindness I guess.

Stiff church people make me nervous. They seem to want to watch through thick plexiglass where they can have a front row seat but they can’t be touched. So sterile.

I want to run to the nearest garbage can when I witness a Christian trying to convince someone that thinks they are lame to like them and think they are cool. Won’t work. Hasn’t worked. Will never work.

I can’t wait to preach this week. Bombs will be dropped. Encounters will happen. Religion will lose. Jesus will reign. The enemy barked up the wrong tree… now he has to pay for it.