Home

614 has become my home. At this point, if someone asked me where I was from, I would prefer not to say "California" or "New Zealand," I'd like to just say "Vancouver." God has been teching me a lot lately that He alone is home. When I read through Hebrews 11, I'm greatly comforted because all the people of faith were "aliens" here. I am too. I feel like I've been a nomad. God is my Home, and I just want to be wherever He wants me to be. So, I'm praying about next year. I want to go and stay all at the same time. I wonder if God even cares? I mean, as long as I'm faithful to Him He's stoked right? And after spinning again and again through this cycle of thoughts, I come back to "God is home." I'm alright with that.

Praying the Bible

The heart of 614 Vancouver is prayer. It is our hub. It is our energizing ability to move forward in God's strength and Calling. Everyday we begin by praying the Bible. We need to meditate on God's word so that we are strong and courageous, that we don't let his word depart from our lips [hearts and minds]. We PTB so that we are careful to obey everything that is commanded us.

Today we cleaned house. We took an examination of our hearts Ps 139, because God looks at our hearts [1Sam16:7]. We recognized that our carnal heart is deceitful [Jer 17:9, Matthew 12:34] and that we need God to renew our hearts/minds [Rom 12] as we take captive our thoughts and subject them to Lord Jesus [1 Cor 10]. We asked that we would have the attitude of Christ and unity in the Spirit [Php 2] and that our words would reflect our hearts of pure love [James 3, Proverbs?]

We then looked at Psalm one [NLT] and the trajectory of the heart leading to action.

1 Oh, the joys of those who do not
follow the advice of the wicked,
or stand around with sinners,
or join in with mockers.
2 But they delight in the law of the Lord,
meditating on it day and night.
3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do.
4 But not the wicked!
They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment.
Sinners will have no place among the godly.
6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly,
but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

The downward spiral that leads to destruction begins with not praying the Bible. The wicked begin listening to counsel other than God and God's people [sheperds, prophets, apostles evangelists]. They don't submit to God's authority or the authority of whom He apoints as overseers. They listen to people from other faiths, other communities, Oprah, false teachers, those who tickle their ears: people who enter from the back door, sneak in over the fence and are not approved as God's workers [John 10].
Watch out for the next step! -  from walking with the Lord to standing with sinners - Identification with others than the body, stagnancy of faith, losing joy. The sin here is APATHY!!!

Apathy shows up as the fruit in our hearts with lack of participation, lack of sacrifice, lack of fellowship, lack of Bible reading, lack of prayer, and lacking in the fruit of the Holy Spirit... one being self-control. Essentially full blown sins. These are sins of commission and omission. Sounds like Romans 7 to me. "I do what I don't want to do... I don't do what I want to do."

The third step is the scariest: Sitting in the seat of mockers. This is a complete dissassociation with the Body of Christ, or the congregation to which one belongs. [You can couch the heart of sin through judgement and church hopping]. Some lose their faith entirely while others slip out of the fight, become critics disguised as Holy people with lots of concern but not the fruit of creating disciples, serving the poor and  internal holiness. God's hand of blessing has departed your life. The sturdiness of Christians in the Word is lacking and your emotions, reactions and impulsive thoughts have control over your life. You may be doubting and tossed around the sea with every wave of trouble, persecution or sacrifice that comes your way. What you do is not fruitful and is chaff, blown away and burned in the eternal fires of judgement.

What must we do?

God purge our hearts! [Ps 51]

7 Purify me from my sins,^[c] and I will be clean;
      wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
 8 Oh, give me back my joy again;
      you have broken me—
      now let me rejoice.
 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.
      Remove the stain of my guilt.
 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God.
      Renew a loyal spirit within me.
 11 Do not banish me from your presence,
      and don’t take your Holy Spirit^[d] from me.

 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
      and make me willing to obey you.

Amen!

JE

Blast from Holy ______ Session

Are you The War College?

Ready and Willing conference and other stuff

So we're into the last night of RAW for this year; there's only one morning left before everyone goes home. Although I must admit I was not looking forward to it (I wasn't in a BAD mood about it, I was just apathetic towards it), it has been really great. I've really gotten in touch with the Lord this week, I've got some more great stories about the downtown eastside, I've met some really great people, and I've eaten some really great food :-)

I just want to share some stories from street combat tonight.

On my first round, my partner Jess and I were really blessed by people. They prayed with us and for us, and even asked the Lord to bless us. It was a great example of community and I indeed felt really blessed by them. It was great to meet more brothers and sisters in Christ living in the downtown eastside under some of the worst conditions. They are beautiful people.

My second round out tonight was much quieter until the very end. One dude we met asked for quick prayer but when we asked him his name and what specifically he wanted prayer for (healing for the cuts and bruises on his face), he told us just feeling the good "energy" coming from us was enough and walked away. So we prayed for him anyways on our own, but what he said stayed with me. Then, not even a block away, I noticed a woman standing in a doorway needing prayer. She wanted to know how I knew she was having a bad day, but I didn't really know what to say except that the Lord told me so. So she told us what she wanted prayer for but didn't want us to stick around to pray with her, she said we should pray while we walk away. She was very nice about it, and she too, asked us to send some of our "energy" her way.

Hmm...throughout the Bible, the Lord talks about always being with us and that we will be separate from the world but in the world, marked by His Spirit. In fact, today's cell talks were about being set apart and sealed by Christ (Revelation 7 & 8), and what that looks like. This is getting very exciting! We are marked by the Lord as his very own! (My rations today was also revisiting Isaiah 43:1-3 - I am the Lord's). I don't know about you, but I think the very fact that two people on two occasions said they could feel or see the positive "energy" coming from us is evidence of the seal of God on our lives - hallelujah. I am so glad that the Lord is always with us and sends his Spirit to seal us for salvation. Tonight was evidence of that and it was really good to be reassured that the Lord is with me, in me, and reveals himself to others through me.

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Three things I'm looking forward to in the next three months: Doug Burr visiting next week, "Fullness" prayer conference April 25th - 27th and meeting Janet Munn, and Chicago brigade May 1st - 5th!

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Please pray for the White family. Dominic, their youngest son turning two in april, has been really sick for a couple weeks. He was taken to the children's hospital on Sunday where he was diagnosed with infant, type 1 diabetes. Please keep Aaron, Cherie, and Joshua, Ciara, Noah, and most certainly Dominic, in your prayers. Our community needs prayer, all the time, but particularly in a difficult time like this. Dominic's life and well-being affects us all. I love that boy a lot.

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Thanks for your prayers surrounding RAW. Even with my somewhat busy job as a producer of the RAW morning and evening sessions, I have been really at peace, a peace that is not my own. If I was doing this on my own, I would not be this calm, in fact I probably would have pulled out my hair by now. So the prayers of the saints have been affective, yet again, on this one. Thanks guys. RAW has been going really smoothly. If you read this before tomorrow morning, keep the last RAW session tomorrow in prayer. Pray that it goes as well as all the others, and better!

God is good

Peace out,

Megan S

RAW

This week we are hosting a youth conference called RAW, here in Vancouver. Were our second day in, out of four and things are smooth. Please pray for us here, for the delegates and everyone working together to make it happen. May the Lord be glorified!

Please pray for good health. The enemy is at work, but we will worship the Lord. 

Schedules

Last Night I was getting ready to go to Knee Drill and a friend of mine came in my room and asked me to pray for him.
He started talking to me about his struggles with priorities, relationships, his time with the Lord and other things. Really he felt like he lacked time management and that he often misses things or neglects people and the Lord because he's not good at managing his time. 

Funny thing is, in the last couple of years this same friend has taught me so much, just through being him, about not allowing myself to be ruled by my schedule, ruled by time. 

It's been a long hard process, but I think that I have finally reached a balance. Don't get me wrong, I still forget things, miss out on things, am late for things etc. It's one of those "just for today things"

However, I have learned that it is more important to be obedient to what the Lord wants me to do each day, instead of trying to just do everything that needs to be done. 

I was reading Genesis today, the story of creation. The Lord made us in His image. 

When he was keeping himself busy with you know, CREATING EVERYTHING. I don't imagine that things were hectic and he was running around trying to get everything done by the end of the day. I imagine that he planned, prepared, did things over a length of time. 

Not even the character of Christ strikes me to be unpeacful, busy or hectic like. 

Why do we do that?

My friend felt like he was doing something wrong because he has not yet been able to conform to this life of busyness that world has created, and perhaps he is missing some structure. However, the fact that he finds it so difficult to live off of a schedule, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. 

After all we are meant NOT to conform to the patterns of the world, right?

I ended up not going to knee drill last night. I was kinda happy about that. Not about the idea that I missed out on some great corporate prayer and worship, I'm sure. 

I was happy that I was at home praying and worshiping the Lord with someone in my community, it was not on my schedule,  and that was okay.  

Love.

The classic question,
What is love?
Well you could quote me some bible verses and tell me that "Love is patient, love is kind.."
LOVE HURTS.

Why doesn't anyone teach us about how love sucks.
How people don't love like God loves. People hurt us, people reject us, people neglect us, people leave us.
People make mistakes, people break down, people get sick.
People are so imperfect, every single one of us. How can we help eachother, how can we comfort eachother?

I constantly go up and down with people. Even the people who I thought I would never have to worry about, our relationship would always be okay, always be intact. I never know if they truly love me, and whenever I think they do they turn around and spit in my face.

It's frustrating because I know that I'm imperfect too. I don't know how to love either.
Even God's love hurts sometimes. Not because he's bad at it, but because we don't understand it.

If you readers haven't guessed I'm not having a great day.
But, God is still God, he is still good, he still knows, and he's still in control.
He is still worthy of all my praise.

No matter what happens he will always love me, and never leave me.

I am a sinner

Recently the Lord has been revealing to me more who He is and what He requires of me. In effect to that I can say I have grown immensely in my fear of the Lord in the last year of my life. 

I think that the fear of the Lord is something that has been lost, slowly crushed down to a smaller and smaller priority throughout the generations. Impurity is everywhere and is destroying people all over the world by causing compromise, even within people in the church. So often we seek the compassion and forgiveness of he Lord, but is there something missing there? The Lord is compassionate to me. The Lord is forgiving to me. The Lord also desires righteousness from me. The Lord also examines my heart and rewards me accordingly. (Psalm 18) I think that the Lord rewarding me when I act righteously is Him being compassionate. I deserve no rewards I am a sinner, and the Lord - He is perfect and Holy. May the Lord give us each a desire to search and reach for Holiness and righteous living.

 1 In the LORD I put my trust;
         How can you say to my soul, 
         “Flee as a bird to your mountain”?
 2 For look! The wicked bend their bow,
         They make ready their arrow on the string, 
         That they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.
 3 If the foundations are destroyed,
         What can the righteous do? 
         
 4 The LORD is in His holy temple,
         The LORD’s throne is in heaven; 
         His eyes behold, 
         His eyelids test the sons of men.
 5 The LORD tests the righteous,
         But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
 6 Upon the wicked He will rain coals;
         Fire and brimstone and a burning wind 
         Shall be the portion of their cup. 
         
 7 For the LORD is righteous,
         He loves righteousness; 
         His countenance beholds the upright.

non-violence?

I wonder if I try really hard if I can keep up with this blogging deal. I now have a computer and internet so I should be able to. I think I am going to try, on my own blog as well. 

Tonight we went to Merton's Peace Conference. Well, it wasn't much of a conference. It was a packed room where a Mr. John Deer (not the tractor guy) spoke about non-violence. With everything in me I want to agree with all that he was saying. I want to be able to say that I believe that there is absolutely no reason or situation for violence to be used, ever. But I don't.
Maybe it's the fact that I am American that there is something in me that just shouts no! Maybe somehow I have taken up this desire, as most Americans have, to protect with my own human authority and not trust in the Lord, as though I could more practically protect someone from harm!
I agree that it's probably not what the Lord would want from me - to act violently. To try and combat violence with violence, thus contributing to the endless cycle of death in our world. 
However, when I think of the many possible situation where I would instinctively act in violence I wonder - would that be sin? I suppose it makes sense that since by nature, we are born sinners and if I choose to go against the will of the Lord - then it would be sin. 

Obviously the Lord desires peace among us. He gave us this gift. After His death, He arose and left with us peace. We however, live in a fallen world filled with evil not peace. As much as I would enjoy and favor the Ethiopian idea, it is not fully manifest on Earth. Where there is not peace in this world, as Christian, what are we to do? Walk in the opposite spirit, or defend the innocent and helpless? 

happy woman's day.

The Big Box theory

I carried a GIGANTIC (I'm guessing 5x4x3ish) box all around downtown Vancouver. Peter and I had been wanting to find huge cardboard boxes for an upcoming youth conference (decorations), and met a guy inside a massive dumpster grabbing out big boxes. So, he helped us get a few and off we went. We used our arms, we used our heads, we walked sideways, we walked backwards, we rested, and we both have really sore arms (did I mention that it is a HUGE box?)
Anyways, that got me thinking about how weird we are as Christians. When it came to a gigantic box, cars let us walk on a red hand signal, children laughed, grown men cried, and we looked fantastic.
As Christians, I don't really think people know what to do with us. We are unusual, we are a light in a dark place. Aliens in our own homes. We are out of place, seemingly something to smile at or else shrug off.
What do you do with that?
My only thought is that you get that dang box home!