fusionatl

How do you look at your brothers and sisters in the Faith?

Are they merely some cool people that you fellowship with 2 or 3 times a week...
OR
Do you look at them like a fellow warrior who is helping you train?

Have you ever heard the phrase "Come expecting" from one of our pastors?

The Anointing increases with expectation

All of you are a threat to Hell... And there is a particular reason why satan hates each one of you

Good points Samuel.

Soldiers are only any good if they get on the battlefield.

Here is a very fun habit to try and break...and we all do this


We all refer to God in the third person, like He isn't there. I challenge you to , even when you are bragging on Him, do it in the first person.

Since I've been working on it the Lord had given me such an awesome revelation of His presence. It's like when you acknowledge the fact that He is right now not only inside of you but that He is walking next to you all day long, you begin to approach situations with a certain swagger.

Sorta like, "The Creator of all that Exists is walking with ME right now, what can really hurt me."
Deuteronomy 31:8
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."
Proverbs 3:6
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

So yeah give it a shot let me know how it goes.

Ha! Good point Samuel, but it's funny that you refer to God in the third person when you are making the point not to do it!

Since I've been working on it the Lord has given...

Interesting thought though.

Hope folks don't miss the point because you made fun of me

Thats good Samrezzal. I never view community or the body from that angle. You did not miss a beat.

You know I'm just messing with you Samuel! I think it's a good point. I think we distance ourselves from the reality that God is always with us when we refer to Him like that in the distant, impersonal 3rd person.

If my wife was standing beside me in a conversation with someone else, I wouldn't keep referring to her as "my wife." She would be like, "Hey, I'm right here stupid!"

I definitely think there's validity to saying "He" more often than we say "The Lord"... one is much more personal & conotates a closer presence & connection.

If my wife was standing beside me in a conversation with someone else, I wouldn't keep referring to her as "my wife"...

THis part is more what I meant

Rather than

"He" more often than we say "The Lord"

http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e10/S ... person.flv

I'm a tad bit sleepy so bear with me.

I'm tracking now...

Dig the tshirt!

Gee, I wonder why you are digging the tshirt????

I was reading a book today titled "Beginning to Pray" by a Catholic Priest, Anthony Bloom. It's actually a pretty deep book for a simplistic title. But it was talking about what you brought up Samuel. And I thought I would include a few excerpts.

Prayer begins at the moment when, instead of thinking of a remote God, 'He', 'The Almighty', and so forth, one can think in terms of 'Thou', when it is no longer a relationship in the third person but in the first and second persons. Take, for instance, the Book of Job, where there is conflict. Take so many other instances in Scripture and in life, in the lives of saints and sinners, when there was tension and a violent confrontation. This is always a personal thing.

There is no prayer as long as there is ceremonial between us and God, as long as we cannot speak to Him but must go through a long and complex series of words and actions. But there is a moment when, instead of all this, we pierce through and speak in the first and second person. We say 'I' and we expect Him to be 'Thou', or 'You' in the singular. Let it not be the polite, but royal 'You' but the singular and unique 'You.'

Unless we can find the right name for God, we have no free, real, joyful, open access to Him. As long as we have to call God by general terms like "The Almighty," "The Lord God," as long as we have got to put 'the' before the word to make it anonymous, to make it a generic term, we cannot use it as a personal name. But there are moments when the sacred writers, for instance, burst out with something which has the quality of a nickname, something which no one else could possibly say, which is at the limit of the possible and the impossible, which is made possible only because there is a relationship. Remember the psalm in which, after more restrained forms of expression, suddenly David bursts out, 'You, my Joy!' That is the momet when the whole psalm comes alive. Saying 'O Thou our Lord', 'O You are the Almighty', and the like, was stating to God facts about Him, but bursting out and saying 'O You my Joy!' was quite a different thing. That's relationship.

It is very important for us to have a look and find out whether there are any names in our experience that apply to God, like 'You, are my Joy!' That becomes your way of saying, 'In my uniqueness this is the way I perceive Your uniqueness.' You must be able to say a word that shows that it is YOU who have been in serach of HIM, and not just an interchangeable human being in quest of an anonymous God.

Might take a little thinking through it to get it down, but it's good, deep, true stuff.

Samrezzal wrote:
Are they merely some cool people that you fellowship with 2 or 3 times a week...
OR
Do you look at them like a fellow warrior who is helping you train?

Wow, this is something I have wrestled with for some time. I once went to a retreat where the speaker asked us if we were on the Love Boat(just having a good time) or on a battleship(constantly fighting the enemy). Since then, it occured to me that a lot of Christians seem to take it easy and think that just by going to church, they're doing the Will of God.

I also came up with an analogy on this subject (please note that I have never been in any branch of the army). Going to church is an army barracks, where you train for battles, and the world (who doesn't know Jesus) is the battlefield. How many soldiers do you know who got a medal just by doing their best in training? No one gets a medal of honor for being the best gunner in the training grounds. No, you have to go out onto the battlefield and do the hard work. Same thing here, we don't get anywhere just by sitting in pews on Sundays, we have to be active the other 6 days of the week too! Like James says, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." (James 1:22)