Let's go Crazy

A few Sundays ago the visiting pastor preached the sermon "It's time for a crazy church".  He also said since he is from Minnesota he had an alternate sermon title.  "Let's go Crazy"

Dearly beloved, since I'm a HUGE Prince fan I'm gonna roll with that title!!!!

Dry Bones and New life 

I'm reading through the entire Bible this year and this past week I was in the book of Ezekiel and we got to Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones. The most I had ever really known about Ezekiel and the story of the dry bones was that was where that song came from.  The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone...ezekiel and dem dry bones.

However as I read through the story this past week I actually got the point of that story.  Once the Lord breathes into you, you begin to experience new life.  What was dead becomes full of life.

When I first gave my life to Christ 5 years ago, I felt alive for the first time.  I knew that God had saved me for a purpose.  As believers we go through seasons and prior to June 30, I was in a season of wanting to go to the next level, but not totally committed.  Then of course everything changed and I knew I was all in.

After June 30, I can honestly say that the spirit of the Living God has breathed into my life.  I am alive, I am encouraged through daily study in God's word, My private and public worship is alive and for real. I can hardly wait for my own Quiet Time with God , and I can't for Sunday to come to see what God is going to say next.

Apparently others have been experiencing similar because during last week's sermon one of the Pastors said, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling a whole lot better about things.  I really feel God has been speaking to us these past few weeks and I'm very encouraged.

Let's go Crazy (Let it Go)

In my current line of work I am a fitness professional.  I teach fitness classes.  Sometimes in those classes we would go crazy.  We would just brace ourselves, let it go, and see where the workouts would take us.  The result we would take our workouts to another level.  We put no limits on ourselves.  We would just push ourselves to the next level.

I am realizing that in order to go crazy in our spiritual lives, we must do the same thing.  We've got to go close our eyes, take the limits off and push ourselves to the next level.

Reading through Ezekiel I thought "Boy my faith sure is pathetic compared to Ezekiel.  He was silenced unless God wanted him to talk, He had to lay on his side for over a year, his wife died and he couldn't publicly mourn for her."  

Here I am complaining about how I'm tired of being single and why does this man at church have the most beautiful eyes?  Why does God do such things to me? 

ANYWAY 

As I mentioned, one of my biggest problems in life is trying to rationalize and reason every single thing.  All this does is discourage me and get me down.  I'm working on just letting it go.

Taking God off of mute

The "Let's Go Crazy" Preacher said that If you're tired of going around the same mountain, getting lost, and tired of being single (he got a lot of audience support on that one) then we need to take God's voice off of mute.

I think he's right.  Whenever God spoke to people in the Bible, he always told them to do crazy things, but these crazy tasks always had tremendous pay off.  

• OK Noah I got this thing called rain that I'm gonna use to destroy the earth. I want you to bring a big ole boat and put all the animals into it...even cockroaches. 
• Abraham and Sarah: I know you're old timers and it's past quitting time, but you're gonna have a baby
• Saul you've been persecuting the believers of Jesus, but total change of plans: I'm gonna use you as a major honcho.
• Gideon you're gonna lead an army into battle
• Moses, you killed somebody and you're not the most articulate guy who ever lived but you are going to lead the people out of Egypt.

Maybe our lives will only get the  tremendous payoff when we listen to God telling us to do what seems crazy, pointless, and ridiculous.

Sharing the task that God placed on my heart

I've been talking about a task that God laid on my heart earlier this year, but I never said what it was. So I'm going to share it now.

 I was sitting in worship and this brother in the choir was giving his testimony. I look up at the person directly in front of me and God said, "Pray for this person him".  

I was initially resistant to God's voice  because I thought "Oh I know I made this up. Here we go again, I'm not falling for this again...forget it.  God didn't say this.  I'm NOT doing this. Not me not today."  But it just wouldn't go away.

The only other person I told about this is my sister and another sister in Christ. 

Yes it is related to the June 30 revival.  

 Transparency Break

I feel ridiculous even admitting this on this blog because I don't know what this has to do with the price of tea in China and I run the risk of looking stupid and delusional, but I think it all fits.

One of the things I don't like about many of the faith based blogs I read is that people always wait to testify until AFTER they've connected the dots.  Folks rarely blog as they are putting the dots on the paper because nobody wants to look like a fool with egg on their face.

Well I am running the risk of looking like I have egg on my face, but I suppose I will learn from that as well!

Parting Words

Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today
To get through this thing called life
Electric word life it means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you there's something else
The afterworld, a world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night

So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
You know the one Dr. Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left?
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld
This life you're on your own

And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy punch a higher floor

WELL I AIN'T GONNA LET THE ELEVATOR BRING ME DOWN!!!! LET'S GO CRAZY!!! LET'S GET NUTS!!!!