RECAP 02.12.20

Good Morning Sisters,

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!! I want you to know just how very SPECIAL and LOVED you are! If you ever question that just look at the CROSS as your reminder. His love for you is unique, unconditional and immeasurable! You are HIS beloved daughter in whom He is well pleased!

Deep, personal and powerful! What a perfect end to an anointed season of study! I am in awe of what God is doing. As we go deeper with Him each week it requires a new level of surrender and an acute awareness of His ever growing love for us. Although our minds always want to question and ask “why” and “when” our spirits always point us back to “who.”  Wednesday night we discovered what it means to “carry your cross.” How the cross is the answer to our healing, redemption and restoration. It was revelational and very powerful. Below are my notes.

Our new study starts next Wednesday! We have made a change! Instead of Christine Caine’s 20/20 we have chosen to do  “A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23”, by Phillip Keller.

I did not realize until I got my book that 20/20 is a video based teaching. Usually studies like these are video optional...this one is not. If you have already purchased 20/20 through Amazon you may return or hold onto it as we may do it over the summer.

“A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23” comes highly recommended. It is written by an actual shepherd. Keller gives deep insight into why the Lord likens us to sheep.

We will walk through each phase of the 23rd Psalm, making it come alive and thoroughly understandable as Keller explains how an actual shepherd cares for his sheep and making the analogy of our Good Shepherd who takes care of us.

There is no way for us to fully understand the diligent care of a shepherd unless we hear it from a real shepherd. The author has assigned a chapter to each verse and gives a very insightful lesson on his perspective as the role of a shepherd. Friends of mine who have gone through this study say it is absolutely WONDERFUL!!!!

Have a blessed week! I look forward to starting a new season of study with you.

Love,

Sherry :-)

Notes on Chapter 14  “Cross Carry”

What does the CROSS mean to you? Can you describe what it means to you in one word?

We carry a cross and a crown. The cross for the most part is invisible. Christ has given us an invisible crown. On this earth the crown represents our position of authority. We are backed by the power of Heaven’s realm.

We wear the crown, and we carry the cross. Jesus bore our cross so we could WEAR HIS CROWN. He became like us. Isn’t it time we became like Him?

In Matthew 16:24 Jesus told His disciples “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

What exactly is Jesus asking us to carry? Where do we find our cross? The cross captures all that the work of salvation has placed in our hands.

How do we carry our cross like a hero?

In 2 Corinthians Paul described his cross-carry this way:

“We carry this precious Message (of the Cross) around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.” The cross I carry is ALL that He has done for me, just as the cross you carry is your gospel, your witness, is what He has done for you. It doesn’t stop there. We are containers that pour out Heaven’s gifts. We do not filter the gospel, we just carry it. We take our ordinary, everyday life...eating, sleeping, going to work/school and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God has done for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Take it to the grocery store, to the office, on the place...carry it everywhere your life takes you. Paul tells the believers in Rome (Romans 12:1-2) that they shouldn’t become so well-adjusted to their culture that they fit in without even thinking. Instead, we should fix our attention on God. We’ll be changed from the inside out. Jesus carried God with him everyday, everywhere He went, and He is asking us to do the same.

Embracing all of what God has done for you and reflecting this life to others can be likened to taking up the cross. As we lay hold of this truth we see the world differently and we carry ourselves differently. Our world would see Jesus lifted up. When we focus on Christ and what He did for us our gaze shifts. Instead of looking at ourselves, we look at Jesus. As we read our Bible we learn the way he moved through his days. What we were freely given we freely give.

The Cross was God’s ultimate display of his unconditional love for us. Jesus loved people by speaking truth, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, healing the sick, confronting religion, and raising the dead. Jesus showed people they were forgiven by speaking truth feeding the hungry, casting out demons, healing the sick, confronting religion, and raising the dead.

Read Matthew 9:2-8.

“And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”--he then said to the paralytic--”Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

He did this so we would know that the authority to heal and forgive has been given to us. He did this miracle (healed the paralytic) as the Son of Man. How much more should we do as daughters of God.

This verse really struck my heart today. I was subbing at school today and saw all of the kids that were suffering from an infirmity. 18% of the high schoolers!

There is a glaring need for redemption in our world today. The word “redemption” has a massive reach, and includes salvation, exchange, deliverance, rescue, refurbishment, restoration, and recovery. How did Jesus show people redemption? He showed them they were redeemed by speaking truth, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, healing the sick, confronting religion, and raising the dead.

Psalm 107:2 says “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.”

Psalm 107 records a list of circumstances that got God’s people into trouble. You can rest assured you are not alone my friend. You should read it. Too long to type. Know this, whether you’ve messed up or found yourself in a mess due to no fault of your own, GOD REDEEMS. Regardless of how we got into trouble, he leads us out and into a place of goodness. He alone has the power to save, and we who’ve been redeemed should say so. It’s another way we carry our cross.

Did Christ’s sacrifice on the cross heal your life, body, and relationships? Do believe it still has the power to heal every disease and affliction? We know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Can’t the same be said for the Cross?  Jesus charged his disciples to follow His example after his resurrection.

Matthew 28:17-20 “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

If He is with us and He is the same, then He is willing to display on earth all that the Cross has purchased. Read Mark 16:14-18.

Think about it. Shouldn’t we be following the teaching of the early church? Acts. 5:12, 42 says that many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. Signs and wonders and teaching and preaching should be everyday events. For the believer the supernatural should be more natural and the greatness of His name declared everyday. If the early church took the message of the Cross everywhere they went, and hearts were encouraged, the sick were healed, and the oppressed were set free, why shouldn’t the same be true of us?

Are you looking for a sign that Jesus wants to heal you? That he wants to do wonders in your life? The CROSS is your sign, and YOU are His wonder!

We will see signs and wonders to the degree that we preach the Cross of Christ and live the Word of God. A minimalistic gospel produces minimalistic results.

1 Corinthians 2”4-45 says “My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” The blood of Jesus made a way for us to approach the throne with boldness so that we can find all the power of heaven we need.

Just as Jesus was the Word of the Father made flesh, our lives are to become the Word of Jesus made flesh. Because the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit and Jesus was the Word made flesh, as his body, we too, become living swords.

Psalm 104:4 says “He makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire”. We are flaming swords who proclaim He is the way.

All that He has done for us and all that he yet longs to do should not be restrained by our self-doubt and religious traditions. The cross left nothing undone.

The Cross has positioned you to be a hero. You should carry it as one with hope in your heart, faith for the impossible, and love for all of humanity. The disciples did not have room not time to record all of the things Jesus did. (John 21:25).  His wonder is immeasurable.

Each of us has been chosen as a living expression of His wonder. We need to daily remind ourselves of His goodness, redemption and mercy. This is why we take communion every Wednesday...to remind us of His great love for us.