CRI Training Big Bear California

So I just returned from helping to run training in Big Bear California for Crisis Response International. I helped to run the communications, so really I got to use really cool expensive Amateur Radio Equipment. It was such a joy to re-connect with old friends and meet many new friends.
One thing that I loved that was integrated into the training this time was morning exercises! Amazing!

Wait on the Lord!

Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, wait I say, on the Lord. Psalms 27:4

About a year ago a door closed. Since than I have learned that we must function and press in even while we are waiting. When the door closed I realized that I was very indecisive and I was having a hard time making decisions without feedback or confirmation.

The root of this indecisiveness in making decisions is fear of man and not knowing or believing who I am in Christ. Another root of this indecisiveness is lies that have been spoken over me by people in authority, sub-consciously these lies have kept me from moving into my destiny with freedom and confidence.

The Lord's desire is for me to free to follow my desires and pursue the dreams that he has given me; for me to have freedom to be who He created me. He is equipped me to make decisions and regardless of the outcome loves me and will support me all the same.
During this year while I have been waiting and going on with life and praying for breakthrough I am learning to bring my heart and emotions in line with Jesus heart and emotions. I am learning to take command of my emotions. We say often that we renew our minds by the reading of the word, I believe we renew our emotions by dialog with Jesus and meditating on the word.

The Lord told me to read Psalms 27. This used to be a very familiar passage to me. I had it memorized at one point, and the Lord told me this was my life passage.
I read the Psalm and verse 14 struck me like never before.
When my heart is dismayed and I feel weakened, Wait on the Lord. I love how NKJ says 'and He shall strengthen your heart.' Lord right now I ask you to come and strengthen my heart and help my heart to come into alignment with the Truth.

His strength in our weakness!

Paul in the book of Second Corinthians (12:7-9) stated that because of the revelations that he had received from the Lord, that he was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him from exalting in himself. When Paul prayed for the thorn to be removed, the Lord’s answered saying, ““My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Paul than states that he would ‘Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.’

It was interesting because about three or four months I started working with someone that rubbed me wrong, what I mean is that we did not see eye to eye. I will call this person Mr. R. I know now that I intimidated Mr. R., something I never intended to do. I was having a really hard time keeping my patience with Mr. R. At the same time I was reading a book that was talking about this passage in Second Corinthians. I came to the end of my strength and ability to do anything right in this situation and prayed for Jesus to be my strength in this situation. I had no strength in myself to respond lovingly to Mr. R. I was so excited Jesus met me when I cried out in my poverty of spirit. When prayed in Holy Spirit and meditated on the 2 Cor 12:9 I could feel Holy Spirit give me strength and a new perspective. It was about 90 percent better after this, when I relied on Jesus for His strength than I could respond to Mr. R. in love and I learned to stop trying to get things my way and mad a decision to serve him. Amazingly enough Mr. R. started to do things to bless me at work.

Well unfortunately Mr. R. does not work with us anymore because he quit. Please pray for him. I can honestly say that I miss Mr. R. and pray that he is doing well.

Power of Thanksgiving part 2

I just recently posted about being Thankful. I wanted to follow up with a more complete explanation of what Jesus has been doing in my heart.

I never know what to say when people ask "how are you?" I know that people are well meaning and some people really do want to know what is happening in my life. Yet it is a hard question for me to answer because I have a lot of different emotions attached with events and current circumstances in my life. I tend to gauge how I am doing by circumstances and what Jesus is doing in my life in a manifested way. It is hard for me to separate what Jesus is doing in my heart from the story of my life that is intertwined in my circumstances. I find myself telling people about all the things that are happening and my circumstances, thus only scratching the surface in how I am really doing.

So I talked to Holy Spirit about this and he reminded me that a mentor used to always tell me "Christina, as Christians we are not to judge our lives by our circumstances." I did not understand at the time what He was saying or the significant of that statement. Holy Spirit suddenly brought that back to my memory and gave me understanding. Holy Spirit also reminded me that Jesus lived homeless, had to barrow a deaneries and a mull ect... In other words Jesus lived life of victory doing the will of God despite what our society would call impossible circumstances.

I also remembered a hymn called “It is well” written by Spafford, the line says, "it is well with my soul, it is well with my soul!" and I thought yea it is well with my soul, Jesus loves me. So really no matter what my circumstances are, I love Jesus, He loves me therefore it is well with my soul, and I am well! This revelation came to me on a Friday on my drive home.

That following Sunday a friend of mine shared a dream/encounter he had. It was about being Thankful. It was such an amazing encounter and it complemented what Holy Spirit was telling me on Friday. I was reminded about the need to be thankful in any and every situation. Latter on that week the Lord convicted me that He is worthy of my praise regardless of my circumstances, suddenly through praise I could see the last couple years of my life with new eyes! I realized that Jesus has truly been faithful!

Below is the dream/encounter my friend had:

Thankfulness Dream

July 7^th 2011

In the beginning of the dream I was not in any particular place but I was totally aware that all of the humanity around me was physically, emotionally or spiritually distorted or stunted in their appearance. I could see their emotional and spiritual beings as well as I could see their bodies.

Then suddenly the heavens were open and everything came alive in every dimension and in some dimensions that I have never perceived before. For example there was not only height, depth, width and breadth but a perceivable dimension of spirit and the power of endless life from every direction. When I looked at the sky there was three hundred and sixty degrees of star filled sky with occasional places where no stars were instead of a black background with stars dispersed in it. In this atmosphere there was perfect physical, emotional and spiritual completeness and everything was emanating life that gave off a distinct sound as well as a voluminous light.

There was a depth of joy, rejoicing and fun saturated with a tangible sense of expectancy. For a long period of time an endless stream of gifts were being bestowed upon everyone. Something’s that each one had desired and some things that each one had never thought of before.

Suddenly everything went back to the same place and atmosphere that I was in at the beginning of the dream and I began to weep uncontrollably for the loss of this glorious place that was being experienced by all.

I heard a small voice behind me say “ Just give thanks” and I began to thank God for allowing me to experience a small taste of this glorious place and in an instant I was right back in the midst of this glorious party of wholeness, light, life, joy and endless bestowing of lavish gifts of love. The gates to this place were swung wide open and on the left one was THANKS and on the right one was GIVING.

I know that Psalms 100: 4-5 became not just something that I believed and knew but a living experience.

Psalms 100: 4. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. 5. for the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations.

The Power of Thanksgiving!

I have just recently noticed that I have been under a heavy burden because I have been looking at my circumstances and not Jesus. This last week I realized that God is worthy of my praise, regardless of what my circumstances are. As Christians we can not judge our lives or how we feel by our circumstances.

I have a rising belief and hope that being thankful to Jesus and worshiping Him in the midst of my circumstances will bring breakthrough, if only it is new eyes to see my circumstances.

Ps 102:4-5

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness in everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.

How than shall we live?

Know this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.' For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Therefor, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God...(2 Peter 2:1-12)

How than shall we live?

Is it true that every generation of Christians have believed that they are the generation that the Lord is returning?
That I am not sure about, but what if they have, when I read the New Testimony there is an emphasise on the coming of the Lord. (Matt 13, 24, Mark 13, Luke 17, 21, 1Cor 15, 2 Cor 5, 1 Thes 1, 2 Thes 2, 2 Tim 3-4, 2 Peter 3 and the Revelation of Jesus Christ) the early church lived as if Jesus was coming soon.

Is not the early church our example that we are to live by and imitate do we not have the same commission as they did. 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,' (Mark 16:15). And yet over 2,000 years latter and we are not done. It would be a good thing for the Church to wake up and believe that Jesus is coming soon, maybe then they will be motivated to GO! God is not slow but wants all to be saved.

We must be prepared for Jesus coming and preach the gospel to those who are perishing.

There are many movements and voice that are saying we need to be prepared for disaster or crisis, but what is their motivation.

Some are motivated by fear, but we know that has Christians we do not have a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Others are motivated from a survivalist mentality (this to is fear) wanting to collect supplies, weapons and bullets, wanting to save themselves. Yet I would like to know what they will do when there neighbor or a stranger is in need, For Jesus said we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Another group is motivated by denial, thinking that they need not do anything but just trust God, this view is not good.

Jesus exhorted us to be ready, for the coming of the Son of Man and that we are to be faithful and wise servants. We need to be wise and faithful with the talents the Lord has given us. We need to have a tension, as Christian's we must cultivate readiness that is rooted in victory and trust in the Lord. We need to cultivate intimacy and understanding of biblical prophesy so that we are ready practically and spiritually.

We need to live from a standpoint of Victory, the Church will be a Church with out spot of wrinkle when the Lord comes (Eph 5:27). We will be the Church in unity; (Eph 4:13). We will live as Jesus lived and the world will see His glory John 17:21-26, the Church will do greater works than Jesus did, John 14:12.

Crisis Response International Traning in Virginia

Recently Crisis Response International (CRI) conducted training in Triangle Virgina at Prince William State Forest Park. Six people landed in Virgina at the end of June in order to start planing for the training. I had the honor of being on of the six people that labored in preparation for the training. During the training I had the immense joy of helping to run the training's day to day operations and provide logistical support for the training. It was a lot of work but I would not trade it for anything. I really enjoyed working with the team that came to Virgina in June as well as the the team that came from Kansas City to help the week of the training. Following are some pictures from our training: