9am Sat — Tithing vs. Giving: CONCLUSIONS: “Are You Free to Give?”

How Can I Judge How I’m Doing? If I’m Successful? If I’m On the Right Track?

Well, ask the Judge. Unlike in the Olympics, our Judge is also our Coach, Teammate and Biggest Fan. He has walked this way before, and knows what it’s like. Most often we will find that we are much harder on ourselves than He is.

God does want us to know how we are doing, so He will often give us tokens of accomplishment or graduation appropriate to what we have overcome. He knows we need encouragement, and does what He needs to in order to keep us coming to Him for that encouragement. But be aware that His affirmations are not like ours… His score card is much simpler!

For many years I was very afraid of dealing with anything demonic. But there came a point in time when I knew that if I continued in the direction the Lord was taking me I would have to face and overcome this fear. So I told the Lord I was willing to be taught in this area, even though I was still afraid of my reaction. Well, without going into details, a few weeks later the Lord orchestrated a situation where a demon manifested itself into the room where I was working. When this happened all I felt was curiosity, then surprise that I wasn’t afraid. From that time on I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that even these things are all completely under His authority and control. To me, this was not only an encouragement to continue to proceed in the direction I was heading, but a reward for allowing Him His choice and method of teaching.

While we are here on this earth our battlefields consist of overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil. You know you’ve overcome in an area, or achieved a goal, not because it’s finished or a deadline met, but because you can rest in dependence in that area.

Tithing vs. Giving 9am Sat — “CONSEQUENCES: A Matter of Control” Continued

Tithing vs. Giving 9am Sat — “CONSEQUENCES: A Matter of Control” Continued

How Can We Recognize Success?

Because of the nature of Christian success, it is often hard to recognize. So our motivation should not be derived from how we’re doing, how we’re measuring up. But measuring our success IS one way God encourages us; we just need to know what His standards are (again, His standards will be based on bringing us into dependence on Himself).

First of all, the Kingdom of God is entered, not built. His work is complete. Our spiritual walk and work is complete in Him. So where is the activity and change? In the soulical realm, with the physical following after. Our goal is to enter into His rest, not to become more productive, build His Kingdom, or even to make disciples of all nations (remember Jesus didn’t send out everyone, only those who had first come to Him, and had learned dependence on His Father).

So recognizing success will be a private thing, centering around a restful dependence. That’s not to say that a successful Christian walk is passive; far from it. It’s just active in a different way. Jesus’s walk on earth was the perfect example of a dependent life, yet the last thing we would say was that He was passive. But His motivation to act, His ability, His power all came through His depending on His Father.

This dependence must be experienced to be truly understood, and as we cooperate with the Lord we can be confident that He is working it into us, but a common example of dependence is the vine and the branch. All the branch has to do is be still and receive the life coming through the vine. In its season, fruit is borne, effortlessly, though through the branch. It is the vine that produces the fruit, the branch simply receives the life. As the life passes through its being, what was already there is en-livened and creates after its own kind. So we as the branches needn’t be concerned with how, or how much is being produced through us by His life flowing through us, unless the Lord specifically brings it to our attention.

Here’s an example the Lord gave me to remind me to rest on a regular basis: On my sliding glass door I’ve got a birdfeeder that’s held on by a couple of suction cups. The birdfeeder keeps the birds from hitting the glass, as well as feeding them up-close and personal so I can enjoy them. But what makes it work is the suction between the glass and the suction cup. All the suction cup needs to do is nothing; its purposes are being fulfilled without it doing a thing but being what it was meant to be. It just hangs in there! (You may want to ask the Lord to make this concept real to you; He’s a personal God, and knows what has meaning for you!)

“Tithing vs. Giving” 9am Sat “Government Taxes Replace Theocratic Tithes”

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We’re having some technical difficulties with the feedburner feed. We hope to have it corrected promptly.

*PLEASE NOTE: We will be migrating our subscriber list from feedburner in the next couple of weeks. This will give us greater control and fewer subscription issues, so we can focus on developing content and new resources.

Thank you for your patience!

Happy New Year 2010!

More Updates: PREPARE Webinars!

Well, in the process of setting up TalkShoe, we recognized that there was little improvement over our existing options. Instead, we’re very excited to be announcing we will be scheduling Live Webinars in the next few weeks. Webinars, which incorporate both audio and video, give us full flexibility of presentation and scheduling, and are much easier to use for the attendees. Though we will keep our Saturday BTR programs, Webinars will be much more useful for teaching and ministry and will likely be the format-of-choice for some time to come. The downsides are that there is an expense involved (Registration and Participation is always free, though attendees will have an opportunity to contribute if desired) and it is more labor intensive on our part. We feel the final results will definitely be worth the extra effort and expense.

Thanks for your patience and we hope this will be of benefit to you.

In Abundant Life, Dianne

[Hedz Up!] Opportunities to Release

This week look for opportunities to release yourself and others from past perceptions into future realities. The present circumstances have put things into perspective in many ways. Make an effort to change habits to accommodate these new perceptions.

In other words, “let by-gones be by-gones,” and deliberately incorporate that freedom into your way of treating yourself and others.

Have a great week!