Overcomers Prevailing On The Way To Victory

We prevailed at work today with the help of Icee!! How awesome is that when the neighbor of the place you are working at just happens to own an Icee truck and calls you over for free drinks!

Speaking of overcomers...it is an interesting  discovery to find out that the Greek word most often translated “overcomer” stems  from the word ‘nike’ that means to carry out the victory!  We see the word overcomer often used in Revelation as a message to the church to endure, to fight the good fight so to speak, to not give in to weakness and temptation.  Paul also referenced being an overcomer in Romans 8 and the power we have through the indwelling Holy Spirit to experience the victory personally!

At Church at the Manor, we have been pressing on through the themes of each book of the Bible and we just completed Nehemiah.  When I look at the life of Nehemiah and how he led the remnant from exile to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days, that deserves a nike swoosh for overcoming!!

Here are three things that I see from his life that are so worth emulating.

Overcomers start with a battle cry!  Nehemiah 1:1-11

It is a battle cry of desperation for change, a battle cry of confession.  For Nehemiah it included a time of weeping and fasting.  The situation that he faced was dire.  There was no concern for the welfare of the city, no focus on the bigger picture of rebuilding the nation, no awe of the LORD.

He readied himself and absolutely came out of this time knowing who his God was!

“O, LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keep his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands.” Nehemiah 1:5

I know there are defining moments in my life personally that I have come through and are a result of intense time of prayer and getting on my knees with the LORD.  I look back on my journal and recognize the powerful hand of God over the whole situation and how my resilience and awareness was solidified in those moments.  Often when we get into difficult times and situations, it is so easy to bail.  However, when we have gone through a time when our calling was clarified and crystallized,  we have the impetus to press on!

Overcomers aren’t sidelined by negativity.  Nehemiah 4:2-7

You don’t have to look far to find realists in your life.  These are the people who like to bring you “back to reality”  They often mean well, but it is not well for you.  They are quick to remind you of your past failures and mistakes.  The like to say things like ‘past performance determines future behavior’ and the like.  They are often condemning voices from others and those voices are also planted by the enemy in your own thought process. 

Here is what those voices shouted to Nehemiah and the children of Israel.

Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!” Nehemiah 4:3

As Neil Anderson says every time you are faced with temptation to give up or give in you are on the threshold of a decision.  There is that moment when the negative thought enters your mind, that you have a choice to either dwell on it or refuse it and throw it into the trash can so to speak.  Romans 12:2  “be transformed by the renewing of your mind!”  When the enemy tries to derail you, you are in the moment to overcome, to follow through, to persevere on your God-given focus, dream or plan.

 Overcomers know how to celebrate victories!

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.  Nehemiah 6:15,16

There was a huge victory celebration following the improbable success of the Israelites under the leadership of Nehemiah.  Ezra read the law, they confessed their sins and a time of praise and blessing to God followed.

Where are the places that you are seeing growth in your life?  What are the changes that you are encountering?  Take time to celebrate, to give thanks to God and celebrate what He is doing NOW!!

Last week we had a FLASH hot dog BBQ in the Willow and Dawson area of Guelph inspired by Sharon.  We know that there is a lot of subsidized apartments as well as new immigrants that live here.  One of the things that I celebrated was how our Manor peeps were involved in giving and being part of the volunteer team doing the BBQ and handing out over 200 hot dogs, playing with children, making conversations and  face-painting.  The event was a success, but what struck me was the joy I saw on the faces of those who served!  It was also a great time to also join arms with other churches and ministries including Move In Ministry and Kingdom Life Church.  It was a fantastic evening of love, joy and serving!!

What have you had a rant about??

So Sharon wrote a post the other day about Value Village and it has gone #viral on Facebook.  She simply made the point that VV ‘s prices are often higher than retail stores.  Well apparently a lot of people agree as the post has over 25000 shares!

Dear Value Village...do you realize that you are not a retail store? And do you know what I can buy at Homesense for $12.99??

SHARE this if you agree that VV's prices are tooooo high. End of rant.

Value Village

What have you had a rant about? 

There was a man in the Bible who had a rant with God.  However, in his case, he had just gone viral with an amazing victory and display of God’s power at Mount Carmel proving the existence of God and that He is worthy of worship.

Ok, now enter the scene with me in 1 Kings 19.  We have Ahab, who was a wicked king in Israel and his wife Jezebel who was even more wicked and the story is being relayed to her about what Elijah has done.She is swearing by the same gods who failed miserably against the God of Elijah in the previous chapter and then we read... 

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. 

I don’t get it….You just saw God demonstrate Himself powerfully on the mountaintop,

He answered your prayers and now he is going to let one woman scare him to the point where he runs away from his next assignment

Elijah was running for his life.

V4 He wants to die and now the #rant

“I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

Elijah is afraid.

You can’t have a great faith, great God and great fear or can you?

You can wake up in the morning after a great day of serving God in some form or fashion, helping people out, serving others, blessing people, singing His praises and wake up feeling defeated.

We were never meant to leave God’s presence

So, how do you live through it…It’s not that the fear is gone, but they found a faith in God

I’m so grateful that the Bible shows me a man of great faith in 1 Kings 18… and then in 1 Kings 19, a man so low he is ready to die …he’s real, we can relate to him!

My question today is, “Are you running away from the direction that God is calling you?”

We easily can get caught up in what everyone else is thinking and forget about listening to the most important voice in our life, the voice of our Father God through His Holy Spirit.

Here are three keys right out of the TEXT to really living from the life of Elijah:

Get up and eat v6

Elijah runs far away, he wants God to take his life… and what does God do…He tells him to eat. This is just not a picture of physical food,  it is a picture of how God’s Word meets our spiritual needs

 John 6:35  Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

God cooked the food for Elijah, meal service was coming through; He has given you his promises, but you got to get up and eat it.  So start listening to His Word, listen to His voice and take it to heart!

Go out and stand v9-11

It is one thing that God speaks to you on the mountain when we are in a good place, but He also speaks to us in the cave, when we are going through darker times.  You feel more distant from God sort of like when your “wifi signal” is not as strong in the cave.  Here’s the truth, in isolation there can be more despondency.  But why do we do that.  We make a mistake, we crash spiritually or something devastating happens in our life and the first thing we do is go into hiding.  It happened in the beginning with Adam and Eve and it still happens now. I was just talking with someone whose husband left her and the first thing I asked is do you have a good support system of people around you and she replied by saying that she was too embarrassed to go to church.

Whatever you are going through, you are not the only one left.

You are not the only one left.  God says I’m with you when you pull the covers over your head, when you don’t want to face the day.

The enemy wants to keep you in the cave.  He wants you to keep replaying the film of how you went down and how you lost your perspective

He speaks into our depression, dysfunction, addiction.  Elijah is still running but the LORD keeps pursuing him.  There are lies that bounce around in the walls of your cave and God wants to get you out of the cave.  You may be stuck and He wants to get you unstuck.

When you get on the mountain, it’s a picture of worship, we hear God more clearly, in the presence of the LORD.

How do we stay calm?  We do it by listening to our Father’s voice through His Spirit

Look how God passes by!

The wind tears apart the mountains…He is not there.

A fire consumes, a flashback scene for Elijah… He is not there.

There are so many more dramatic ways that God could have shown Himself that He is in control but then…a gentle whisper…  Elijah, what are you doing here?

Why did he whisper to Elijah?  He whispers because He is close.The enemy can yell, the voices inside your head can yell, but God chooses to whisper in this moment. He doesn’t need to shout because He is right, He is in control, he holds you in the palm of His hand.

What about you?  What are you doing here, how long are you going to stay in that cave, how long are you going to refuse to forgive that person and hold them and yourself hostage?

How long are you going to stay awake at night trying to fight a battle He already has won for you?

Remember how I was with you, how I provided for you

Remember He knows everything about you...The hairs on your head are numbered. Luke 12:7

His Spirit is inside of you and I believe there are things He wants to tell you.

The 3rd Thing God tells Elijah -

Go back the way you came v15

It’s time to move on.

Elijah was told, “Go to the desert of Damascus….anoint  Nimshi…hand the torch over to Elisha, get back to the work I called you.”

How many more nights will you spend in the cave? Are you ready to get back to the place I called you to be?

REMEMBER…you didn’t get into a relationship with God by your own achievements, performance or effort….It was all by grace.

One of our friends at Church at the Manor, Greg, is literally moving on.  He was baptized on Sunday and it’s his heart’s desire to get a fresh start.  We prayed for the infilling of the Holy Spirit too.  He is actually moving out of the Manor after living there for 12 years.  He shares how everywhere that he has lived, he has seen a cross from his window… a reminder that God is always there, chasing him.  I have had many conversations with Greg and shared some real God moments as well as we broke bread , prayed, laughed and shared life together. 

EAT, STAND, GO…it’s a message for all of us!

The Most Amazing Wine At A Wedding!

Well, wedding season is heating up and with that I have had to take a closer look at passages on marriage and life.  I want to share some insights from John 2 about a wedding that Jesus attended and some great truths I discovered here

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee.  Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.  When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

Jesus’ response was unpredictable at best… “Dear woman, why do you involve me?.  My time has not yet come.

Here’s the point.

1.       There is something larger than life itself going on here.

 This is not a simple task of running to the LCBO.   The truth is that this very wine is a picture of Jesus’ sacrificial love for the world.

It is the very foundation that we all need to rest our lives and relationships on.  The only way that real love has an opportunity to grow is when it is based on the love of Jesus.

She was living in the moment and Jesus was looking ahead to the cross. There is something larger happening here, more than just a social faux pas at a wedding.

We are looking ahead to a covenant with Christ at the center.

Let’s keep looking at the events that unfold at this wedding…

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

2.       Jesus Is The Ultimate Purifier

So, here we see Jesus taking water jars  that were appointed for purification and turned them into most amazing wine.  Jesus again was pointing to His death on the cross as the place where we would be purified from our sins.  He would pay the ultimate price.

Do the math… 6 ceremonial jars x 25 gallons each.

That is a lot of wine!  Here’s the realization.  The love God has for us that Jesus would pour out His life for us is an extravagant and overflowing love.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  1 John 3:1

1 John 1:7  The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.

He paid the price for your forgiveness. 

Knowing that you are forgiven and experiencing real forgiveness from Jesus is the ultimate glass of wine that we continue to drink everyday.

I wonder if John had the wedding celebration in mind when he continued to write about the extravagant love of God.  I’m sure it inspired him to write about purity as well as he continued to write…

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2,3

3.       Jesus is The Ultimate Bridegroom

We as Jesus’ followers are His bride the Bible teaches us.  So, back to the wedding. ..

Recognize that Jesus performed a miracle here and did what the groom at the wedding couldn’t do. 

The groom at the wedding wasn’t going to be able to “COMPLETE” his bride like we see in the movies.  We can’t even meet all the needs of our spouse, but here’s the AHA moment.  We need to point each other to the ultimate source, the one who will meet all our needs.  Colossians 2 says that we are made complete in HIM, Jesus.

My prayer is that you will discover that kind of love.

Manor Church NEWS

Jenny joins the team!

We are excited that Jenny Johnson is joining our core team at Church at the Manor.  She recently preached on the theme ,  We are living in a love story"

Jenny shared snippets of her former life "I laughed when I wanted too cry, lived when I wanted too die" ...all the while she knew deep down God was calling her to live the love story designed for her.

Tina – Garden Caretaker

It has been awesome to see Tina B. step up to the plate and take leadership of our Manor Garden at the back of the property.  She has already had it rototilled, found a  $200- grant and seeds!!  We also have a water container to keep things growing as well!!

Biblical Literacy – we just tackled Ruth!

A great review of Ruth

http://www.shmoop.com/ruth/summary.html

Sharon focused on Jesus as our ultimate “Kinsmen Redeemer”.  He is our next of kin who has come to redeem us, to rescue us from a place of alienation and separation to a place of family and being part of God’s  Kingdom community! 

The Tragedy of Judges

Judges is really written as a tragedy.  The Judges were the regional, political, warrior leaders during that time. We see the nation of Israel called to drive out nations that were morally corrupt and was certainly evident through child sacrifice in the worship of their gods like molech.   So, what happens?  Israel settles into the land and becomes complacent, they forget the challenge of Moses to obey the laws and commands they are given. Unfortunately, the move in and end up adopting the same practices of the very nations that resided in the land. It really is a classic spiral, a desperate nation that turns to God, but one that falls into an ugly cycle. 

It looks like this.

                                  

                              

Ultimately, Israel needed to be delivered from themselves and the truth of it was a reminder of the human condition.  Ultimately, they cried out for a king and a king would come.  What they really needed was what Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 30:6, a heart circumcision that would come in the person of Holy Spirit.

The Choice of a New Generation!

It was an amazing adventure during my last missions trip for me as I joined my brother Lloyd, his wife, Lisa, my mom, a young adult from CTF Kitchener, Ariel and a former youth of mine, Travis.  We ran an “Encuentro Da Vida” Soccer Camp based on John 10:10 that Jesus came to give us life to the full!

On the last day of the camp close to 100 children did just that!  It was awesome.  The way my brother Lloyd shared with those who attended is very inspirational and empowering and it reminds me of our study through Deuteronomy that we recently went through at Church at the Manor.

The book of Deuteronomy is a speech, pep talk, inspirational call to a new generation of God’s people.  They had watched the futility and lack of faith of their parents that caused them to miss out on the very best promise that God had spoken over them.  What causes us to miss out on experiencing out on everything that our Father has for us?  It is the heart of unbelief.

Moses gives the famous ‘shema’ to this young generation and it is built on two words,

LISTEN and LOVE. 

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

It was a prayer that they were called to express twice a day.

Listen in the Hebrew is not just a call to hear, but to respond to what you are hearing, to respond to God’s grace, to obey the words of the covenant.

Love is the motivation for obeying the commands of the covenant.  It is out of devotion that the LORD (meaning the personal, covenanting God) wants us to respond.  If they are going to live out and fulfill this  Abrahamic covenant to be blessed and be a blessing

It is the same imperative that Jesus gave us when he said, He who ears, let him hear and James who said, let’s be doers of the Word and not hearers only.

In the second section of the book, he takes the to repeat, explain and clarify. 

Here is the breakdown:

The path of obedience leads to blessing, abundance and enjoying the land.  So, choose life.

The path of disobedience however leads to the curse and a time of famine, plagues and finally exile from the land that God has graciously given. This is the path of death.

The New Testament in Galatians 6:7-10 essentially lays out the same cause and effect.  We will reap what we sow.

However, there is a huge gap, issue with all of this… Moses essentially predicts their failure to live it out as well.  He basically says that they will be incapable of listening and loving much like Adam and Eve in the garden. 

The problem is a universal human condition and Moses then goes on to focus on a time after exile when they will be able to listen and love.  In Deuteronomy 30:6, “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts”.  Other prophets like Jeremiah also speak of when God wlll write the law on hearts of flesh.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  Ezekiel 36:26

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Jeremiah 31:3

And it’s reiterated again in Hebrews 8:10

So, bottom line for us is this, there is no way to live out the Christian life without the power and the fullness of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

It’s the Holy Spirit that enables us to do the things that God has prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10.

We had so MANY divine appointments where God set us up.  We had issues with the government about our camp and God literally brings a believer to us who works for the government.  Another time we were just visiting at the pastor’s home and a man “randomly” shows up to ask for prayer for his wife.  It turns out he was in prison, but here they put them to work in construction.  During our time with him, the pastor leads him to Jesus.  We ask him how often this sort of thing happens, he says this is the first time!  Amazing!!

The Bible Project video series does such an excellent job sharing this in the following video, it is SO worth the watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BGO9Mmd_cU

No Longer In Debt!

Our journey through the Old Testament continues along with the awesome videos provided from the team at Bible Project.  Some of our Manor peeps have put the app on their phones to journey alongside us.  The great thing about doing this systematically is that even we as leaders cover passages and subjects that in all honesty we just haven’t done.  So, recently we were in Leviticus and if there was a book that you might get bogged down in, that would be one!  The most encouraging thing for me was to read insights from a passage that one of our attendees wrote.  He gave me permission to share his journaling.

Leviticus 26:6  “peace in the land”  God will take care of all that ails us and holds us in fear and bondage, our addictions, fear of rejection, failure etc… He will rid the land (us) of all these things.  HE will, not us and our own efforts.  Our role is to trust and obey and believe.  HE will, no matter, what.

Exodus ends with Moses unable to enter God’s presence and in Leviticus we see how God graciously provides a way for people to live in His holy presence.  The big question to be answered is how can a sinful and selfish Israel be reconciled to God?   God is holy and we are called to holiness as well.  To be holy means to be set apart, unique, in life, purity, goodness and justice.  Israel was to do life differently and be set apart as a nation in the ways that they cared for the poor, in their sexual integrity and in social justice.  When we look at all the ritual sacrifices, the priestly requirements and the strict laws on purity, it can all seem overwhelming. 

However, the wonderful reality lies in the Day of Atonement where sin is dealt with. The key idea with this feast is that sin and its consequences have been removed from us, His people and allow us to be in God’s presence!

Fast forward to the New Testament and we read in Colossians 2:13,14

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

Thanks to the cross of Christ, we have experienced our own Day of Atonement and truly know the freedom of having our sins forgiven! 

Have you ever done the happy dance when you no longer have a monthly payment owing?  Man, there is incredible joy to be finished with payments for a vehicle or even a house!  I’ll never forget the celebration in my home when my parents ‘burned the mortgage!’   Now take that joy and multiply it infinitely!!  Every day as believers we can sing and dance knowing the immense joy of having our sins  forgiven.

It reminds me of a song by Delirious!

Oh I could sing unending songs

Of how you saved my soul

Well I could dance a thousand miles

Because of your great love.

My heart is bursting Lord

To tell of all you've done

Of how you changed my life

And wiped away the past

I want to shout it out

From every roof top sing

For now I know that God

Is for me not against me

Everybody's singing now 'cause we're so happy

Everybody's dancing now 'cause we're so happy

If only we could see your face

And see you smiling over us

And unseen angels celebrate

For joy is in this place!

When Friendship GETS REAL!

This past weekend I walked through Step 4 of NA with one of our Manor peeps that I have been on a journey with for close to three years now.  Step 4 is “making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”.   It was encouraging to be at this place in our friendship reached this level of trust.  I was open with him as well and it gave us opportunity to really put the past to bed through confession, experiencing the power of God’s forgiveness, desire to heal and restore.

Another eye opening experience for me was to visit one of our Manor peeps on a regular basis who was in T1 at Homewood. (Trillium One is a lock down facility of the mental health center.  Those instituted here have only access to their room with a bed and not even pens are allowed).The first time I visited him it felt like all hell was breaking loose.  Shortly after I was there, all one person could do was continue scream and rant taking Jesus’ Name continually in vain.  Doors were slamming as another person there just shouted, “I want to end my life”. Nurses were running and my friend looked at me and said, I think there is an awareness of the anointing here or more so the presence of Jesus!  We prayed together, praying for those who looked so tormented in their spirit.  He was there for six weeks and I’m happy to say he is now out and is experiencing real freedom.  He has taken the time to meet with his father and then mother to apologize for the hurt he caused over the years.  God restores relationships

I recently had the opportunity to officiate a wedding for one of my former youth from London, ON, Adam Larocque and now, his wife, Lisa!  Keep her in your prayers as she battles cancer.  We believe in the victory that Jesus has over sickness!  It is great to reunite in friendship  and hard to believe that it was 20 years ago that Sharon and I left London to take a ministry position in Cloverdale, BC…time flies!

At Church at the Manor, we have just finished walking through Exodus as I can’t say enough about the clarity and overall excellence provided by the Bible Project series videos.  Check it out here.  https://www.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject

As we reviewed the second half of Exodus we saw the incredible patience of our loving God.  After His people agreed to the terms of the covenant through the giving of the 10 commandments, it took no less than 40 days to break the first two commands of the covenant with God by having a golden calf made for worship.  It really seems hard to believe that after hearing the commands, seeing the thunder and lightning, a mountain in smoke and the sound of a trumpet, that it could all be forgotten so quickly!  A hymn writer summed it up best when he wrote the words, “prone to wander, LORD, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”  I know in my own life that intimacy with God can be lost just as quickly as it is experienced.  It is for that very reason that we need to jealousy guard it against all distractions.

The commandments were specifically designed around two things: worship and social justice and Jesus made that clear when He told us to love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and love our neighbour as ourselves.

The overall theme that we see in Genesis continues in Exodus and that is that God wants to bless all nations through His line, first Abraham and then His descendants, Israel.  They were to be a kingdom of priests to represent God to the nations and intercede.  Fast forward to the New Testament and we are the royal priesthood in 1 Peter 2:9 called to the same purpose!

Every time Israel sinned and every time we sin, we lose access to the presence of God and lose sight of our purpose.  They had the tabernacle and the priests, but we have the throne of grace that we can boldly come to and the Great High Priest!  We are called to a depth of intimacy with God like no other.

When God is seen in His frustration with His children’s lack of obedience, it is from Moses’ life that we learn we can hurt God like the NT teaches us about grieving the Holy Spirit.  We also learn the power of intercession and a God who relents!

We read in Exodus 34:6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

And as the second part of the verse goes on to say that He does not leave the guilty unpunished, we thank God for His indescribable gift in His Son Jesus, who took upon Himself the guilt of our sins and who breaks the chains of generational sin.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, no longer to be subject to a yoke of slavery!!

Also, please check out Sharon's new blog or should I more accurately say, vlog as she has some great video stories at  http://holyspiritand.me/

Church at the Manor is going 'deeper' in 2017

Church at the Manor 2017 

‘Deeper’

As a core team for Church at the Manor we have spent time in prayer together and believe that this year we want to focus on going deeper.  Sharon challenged the team to pray into this theme with an emphasis on listening to the Lord and journaling what each sensed.  As we came together to share, it was so good and affirming of how HE is leading us together in this ministry!

Here are some excerpts from what was journaled

Every week you bring me into the club and the spiritual light shines brighter as you worship and seek me together.  But I do not leave when you leave.  I stay.  My angels stay.  There is great power in your worship, in your welcome of Me.  Unlike others, I do not see a strip club, I see a space that needs to be filled with my Presence.  My presence that brings peace, my Presence that brings hope, joy… Love.

The lenses of ‘being perfected’ are those that afford the incredible journey of walking with others in brokenness towards wholeness.  So, going deeper isn’t about following a program, a list of resolutions or expectations or rules… remain in my love, go deeper in grace. 

The Manor is mine and will be used to glorify me.  Reflections on deeper water led one of our team to discover that  it was George Sleeman who sought to find the best water source in Guelph.  There is an artesian well right under the Manor!

You will go deeper in truth, in health, in relationships, in confession.  In your weakness is My strength. Go deeper in My Spirit to where you feel the flow of My Spirit.  Go deeper in engagement, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life.  Go deeper in the elevation of women in ministry.

More, more, more.  Stay faithful, stay true.  Look at what I have done.  Don’t count the numbers, but see the little things that happen.  The lions out front – remember the Lion of Judah.  This is my place.  Everything is preparation

So we want to focus on going deeper in relationships to going deeper in truth, from recognizing God moments to a greater awareness of His strength.

We started the new year by focusing on healthy relationships!  We began a conversation a few weeks back on the subject of what makes a ‘healthy relationship’ and we got great feedback.  The following captures what we shared: 

·         good communication

·         trust

·         faithfulness

·         respect

·         honesty

·         transparency

·         forgiveness

·         putting the other person 1^st

·         patience

·         mutual interests

·         loyalty/ someone who defends you

·         love

·         kindness

We then flipped it and said wouldn’t these same qualities apply to our relationship with God and it was such a great exercise to look at these same words through the lens of having a deeper relationship with the LORD!  We did a study of verses that really hit home on every word!

·         good communication - – We talked about two way communication and the power of learning to be still and listen to the LORD as much as we share our requests. 

 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3; When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. John 10:4 

·         trust – Trust in huge in a relationship and it was so good hear verses called out like Proverbs 3:5,6!  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding  in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

·         faithfulness   -God has said,“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.

And the discussion was lively as we walked out every quality of how God defends us from Scripture to the themes of respect, honesty, transparency, forgiveness and more.

 We closed with Proverbs 3:6 in The Living Bible complete with actions and a dab to finish the talk J

 In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success!

**It was also wonderful to see our Manor peeps raise $512.35 towards blenders for children with cleft palates in orphanages in Uzbekistan.