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THE GREAT EXCHANGE - by Dennis Lafayette

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The great exchange begins and ends at the cross when Jesus gave his life for ours. He opened the way for mankind’s surrender as He invites us to give up our lives in order to live forever as, He intended before the very foundation of the earth. And so, it is with Paul’s revelation of love in 1 Cor: 13. This love which cannot be lived in fullness until we exchange our love for His. Our compassion will carry us only so far, until we realize in the face of the great human suffering throughout the world, it’s not enough. We must see the world through His eyes of compassion in order to fulfill His servant’s calling on us and we are asked to exchange our compassion for His. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray when they realized their prayers were not enough. He taught them the principles of prayer, which was still not enough until they exchanged their prayer language for the Holy Spirits on the day of Pentecost. Once again, He has a deeper place to call us into when He invite...
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THE MERCY-WOMB OF GOD - by Brent Lokker

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  There’s a deep comfort around the phrase so many of us have relied upon in the Scriptures,  “The Lord’s mercies are new every morning.”  (Lamentations 3:23) Especially when we’re feeling discouraged or entertaining lies that God is disappointed in us, there’s something about the ongoing reality of God’s mercy that brings relief and gives us courage to face and even enjoy another day. If you will embrace what I’m about to share with you, the dots will start to connect why God’s mercy is so comforting. The Hebrew word for mercy and the Hebrew word for womb share the exact same three root letters! God’s mercy is directly connected with his womb-love, surrounding us and providing a secure space to rest in the motherly nurture and protection of God—think of a mama bear protecting her cubs! This mercy-womb of God’s unchanging nature towards us reveals: God’s mercy is as instinctive as a healthy mother’s love. Divine compassion is protective and nurturing. Mercy flows from the...
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SONG OF SONGS - by Todd Benjamin Lout

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This past Saturday night we had worship and prayer based on Song of Solomon. It was quite a sweet, yet powerful time as we contemplated the overwhelming love of the King (Jesus) toward the Shulamite (Us). This morning I woke up with this one passage on my spirit. I mean just look at this poetic, dramatic and powerful instruction from a King to His Bride. When the Bible talks about seals put on something….it means for it to be seriously sealed, not broken! He wants us to have HIM and HIS FIRELY LOVE as a seal on our hearts. WOW! Meditating on Song of Solomon (also called “Song of Songs”) from the POV that He is the King so longing for the gaze of His Bride really changes our hearts. His desire is for us to really know the love of Christ which passes everything else we know! Our true identity as the Beloved realized brings about a shift in how we receive from Him. It causes us to be more confident, more in love, more stabilized in this solid ground that is His passionate love for us. Let...
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ENCOUNTERING GOD'S PRESENCE - By Brent Lokker

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  “Jesus, you’re all I want! You’re everything to me! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your sweet presence! Your presence satisfies the deepest longings of my soul!” These were a few of the sentiments gushing forth from my heart in tears and laughter while being saturated and wonderfully overwhelmed by the Spirit in worship throughout last week in a leaders conference at Bethel Church. It was a “Jehovah Sneaky” God set up for Suzanne and myself as we arrived thinking we were there mostly to lean into our dear friends in Redding, but He overwhelmed both of us in the best way imaginable by His Spirit, assuring us of His enduring and endearing love. How do you fully explain this Presence…it’s within you and everything you ever wanted, yet something we don’t yet know how to continually tap into. His sweet presence was intoxicating and it saturated us with His peace, with His joy, with His pleasure and with His passion. It was something we hadn’t experienced like this in a...
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GOD'S RIGHT WAY OF DOING THINGS - by Todd Benjamin Lout

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This last Saturday night we began our exploration of Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” In the next few weeks our team will “unpack” this Beatitude from various angles and depths. Some basics I wanted to cover is what these words actually mean.  To hunger and to thirst for righteousness. Then to be filled.  Jesus was telling us that when we allow ourselves to see our own great need for His righteousness, He will see to it that we will have it to the fullest.  In that state of being full, we are still in a place of hungering and thirsting for righteousness because there is always more. Righteousness, in it’s simplest interpretation, is God’s right way of doing things. We have plenty of instruction in the Bible on how He operates (which always boils down to love, because He IS love). However, doing things His right way also requires communion with Him. Including God in reactions, decisions, and and even our moti...
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MEEKNESS IS A SUPERPOWER - by Susan Fochler

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  I grew up in an environment where I constantly thought I must be in trouble…for something.  I usually didn’t know why.  So when I had an encounter with a neighbor who showed me gentleness and patience when I was in the middle of a temper tantrum, I was shocked; it was so unexpected to receive kindness in response to my behavior.  That moment is engraved in my memory; an imprint of what it feels like to be loved and accepted, even when I was at my worst.  There was something in that experience that gave me hope that gentleness and kindness did exist in this world, and that if I kept looking, I would find it.  A seed was planted in my heart to continue to seek out and cultivate this love, this grace that continues to surprise me-in such a good way.  I was given a tangible touch of God ’ s perfect love, and it helped me recognize the real Jesus when I met Him later on in life.  So why would I call meekness a superpower?  Because I think it can...
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THE MEEK LAMB AND THE ROARING LION - by Brent Lokker

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  Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5) who has triumphantly purchased us and included us in his heavenly realm! The meekness of Jesus as the Lamb who was slain on the cross  isn’t the same thing as weakness. Christ’s meekness is his power and authority restrained for a far greater good that impacted all of humanity. The Lamb was slain willingly—by his strong choice. Jesus was never a victim! Yes, horrendous things were done to him that could have made him out to be a victim, but Jesus can’t be a victim when he willingly subdued his power to allow the depravity of humans to play out our power grab against him. I n case you missed the implication of the last sentence, God the Father didn’t kill Jesus. We did. This is such a critical perspective to grab hold of to maintain the integrity of the Father’s character. God didn’t punish Jesus for our sins. Rather, we punished Jesus as a result of ...
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