Walking with the Lord is SO EASY! Bring on the revival, God!

(This post was started on Sunday night so pardon all the confusing "yesterday"s and other time words that are now out of sync :) )

Hey Everyone!

I cannot say enough about how GOOD our God is! He just pours and pours and pours out His grace, and pours and pours and pours out His power, and then pours and pours some more! And after all that, I just look at Him and cannot help but say, "Worthy, worthy, worthy". Ah, He's so amazing...

Anyway, so I'd better give some explanation to all of this awe ;). God has been doing a TON in my own life lately but more so than that, He has been BUSTING OUT in my church. I mean, we are on the verge of revival here, people, and God just keeps increasing the momentum a little bit more, and letting the water-level rise, taking us deeper and deeper, ever closer to our next point of breakthrough with Him! The coolest thing that has happened lately is on Saturday, the outreach team I'm heading up had our second round of Treasure Hunt, and it was AWESOME. The first time we met together was more a time of getting to know each other and grabbing hold of the vision God has been pouring out for our community but when we met yesterday, we really got to go for it and had a phenomenal time taking it to the streets. Every time we meet, we start things off by reading through a particular passage from Jesus' life and ministry, and then we discuss what WE are enabled and empowered to do with HIM as our example. So yesterday we read over Matthew 8:1-3 (about the leper who came to Jesus saying "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.") and talked about how Jesus' willingness of heart to reach out and touch those in need is a HUGE key to us walking as He walked. It's so important for us to realize that we've been given EVERYTHING we need, and all that's left for us to do is to step out and release what we're carrying! It's having a willing heart, a heart that is moved with compassion, a heart that chooses to love in the face of intimidation. THAT is what brings the power of the Kingdom and sets people free.

So after letting those truths stir in our hearts, we got our clues from the Holy Spirit, and headed to our first location, a mini market in a pretty sketchy part of town, which was the PERFECT place for us to start. Our church is quite strategically located in the midst of some of the roughest areas of Ventura, and to be honest, there definitely some places that intimidate me, even as I just drive by them. This market was certainly one of them. However, I'll place the emphasis on was . God is so faithful to remind me, and to teach our whole outreach team, that a place that may look dark at a distance is changed when we draw near because we carry the light and power of His Kingdom. We change the atmosphere everywhere we go because of that which God has deposited inside of us as His children and ambassadors in this world. From a distance there may be death but when we come close, life is ushered in. From far off there may be pain and suffering but when we draw near so does the Kingdom, and the wholeness and healing that it contains. So when we walked down the the corner market, a place that was once intimidating became an open heaven of God's peace and love and power, and He brought about the most awesome encounter for us there :). We were just hanging out in the parking lot when these two guys pulled up in a pickup truck, one of which had a black hat with a white logo, one of the clues on my Treasure Map. So I pointed him out to my team, and they looked at me like "Woah, ok... So now what are you going to do?" with a wondering sort of hesitation in their eyes because I've been dubbed their "fearless leader". (Well, I'm not always fearless but every time fear comes up, I want to yank it out by the roots so it will have NO MORE influence in my life) I told them I was just gonna go for it and see what God wanted to do so after the guys came out, I approached the guy in the hat, and the rest is history! His fiancee had JUST broken up with him the weekend prior and he said he would LOVE for us to pray for him because he really needed peace of mind and direction as to what to do next. So we prayed with him, and then his friend got out of the truck and totally opened up to us and asked us to pray for him about a bunch of other things! We talked and prayed there with them for around 20 minutes, and God opened WIDE such awesome opportunities to encourage them and bless them. That was our first major Treasure Hunt encounter, and my team was so thrilled and stunned by EASY it was! All we had to do was just walk into a situation that the Lord had already prepared for us, and be willing to release His Kingdom there. He is SO good to us...

The rest of the afternoon was just as amazing. We had a really good encounter with a homeless man (James) in our park who my pastor and some men from the church have been ministering to for about four years. The Lord had given one of the team members (Bill) a specific word of encouragement for him, and it was really awesome to see Bill step out of his comfort zone and just boldly share this word with James, and pray blessing over him. Then we had an encounter with a homeless woman on the main downtown boulevard that is wrecking my heart as I think about it again. Her name was Virginia, and she was so sweet and beautiful... She was sitting on the sidewalk with her dog, and had the most sad and hopeless look on her face when we approached her, as if she had just been crying and crying. We sat right down with her, told her that God sees her and loves her so much, and asked her how we could pray for her. Ah, she had the most beautiful eyes, and just nodded "yes" that she would love if we prayed. So as I did, I made sure to pour out the Father's heart of love over her, for her to know that she's His precious daughter and that it is His desire to abundantly bless her. We also got to bless her financially (she mentioned earlier on that she needed $16 to keep her room at a motel) so that was good to be able to bring the Kingdom to her in spirit and in a practical way. Our last encounter was brief but very good for the team to experience. I had crutches on my list of clues, so as we were walking back to the church, I saw a pair of crutches leaning up against a wall next to a group of three guys. I looked to see who they belonged to, and then realized that the older man among them was missing his left leg from the knee down. When I pointed that out to my team, they winced with an "Oh wow, that's not just a sprain or a broken leg, that's a big deal." but I told them we'd just go for it and see how it turned out. So even though he ended up being a bit turned off toward us and not wanting prayer, I shared with them that even though we didn't get to pray, we still opened a door for the Lord to invade his life because we honored him. Plus, it was really good for them to experience someone saying "no", and seeing that it's not so bad :).

So all in all, it was AMAZING, God is GOOD, and revival is on the way! Remember that you bring the Kingdom wherever you walk so if fear starts coming in, that means it time to CHARGE! God had given us everything we need. He's a good Daddy and always sets us up to succeed! So be blessed and take that into your day!

I love you all!

Melissa