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The old has gone.
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Narrator: God our Heavenly Father
"So you are a car (work with me here! Use your imagination! lol... *you = all the different parts of a car including the person inside all make up who you are) and you were beat up real bad and parked in The Oppressor & Co. Garage where you were being scrapped and in line to be crushed. I sent my Son Jesus who bought you with a price from The Oppressor. Since Jesus already paid the price once and for all, He went up to you, knocked while signaling you to open the door. So when you heared Him knock and saw Him through the window you opened the door and let Him in. Once Jesus was inside you immediately left The Oppressor & Co. Garage, passed through The Blood of Jesus Interior Carwash and the title deed got transferred to The Father & Sons & Daughters Garage. (Your spirit- "the driver of the car" got revived/made new once Jesus' spirit entered in) You might think that that's where the transformation ends but as amazing as that is, it's just the beginning! The show ("Pimp my ride") just began so sit tight and enjoy the view! :)
So you keep driving with Jesus in the opposite direction from the The Oppresor & Co. Garage and you find yourself off the main freeway where most people are on and you steer into this one Narrow Road coz you saw the sign that said "For Destination Heaven follow this route" and Jesus told you to follow it. You are super-excited about what Jesus just did for you and you wanna re-enact it for the whole world to see so you go through The Water Carwash (as a statement to the world, an external reminder for yourself and an "in-your-face-Oppressor-I-no-longer-belong-to-you!" statement). You keep driving and you talk to Jesus along the way. You are sooo glad He's living inside you coz now you have a buddy everywhere you go! :)
//Flashback// Black-n-white Scene// Before you were a loner on the inside, ...yeah you were surrounded by your other car friends and you used to talk over the loud speaker and sometimes you would roll down the window but behind closed doors and rolled up windows you could not deny or escape that loneliness. So you filled up the inside of the car and the trunk with stuff that you liked just for laughs, for comfort or for pleasure to at least distract you from facing your lonesome-ness. And it worked but the effect didn't last hence it did not fully satisfy. But when you let Jesus in that day He filled up you up with His love, joy and peace but you hadn't yet gotten rid of the clutter in the car.
Back to driving on the Narrow Road, ... so as you drive with Jesus you chat some more and get to know Him more. You get to know stuff like what He likes and what He does for a living. He reminds you that He's still in His Father's show business (pimping rides) and that He's not done with you yet. You get excited and let Him know about all the additions you want. He tells you that He likes to start from the inside out and that He only makes changes with your consent. So you're like, "Sounds great! Do Your thing." So He tell you about His coming Kingdom and of it's beauty and how He is preparing you to dwell there with Him for eternity. Then He gently lets you know that all the junk in the trunk and all the clutter need to leave coz it gets in the way (it gets in your way blocking your vision - you can't see the back; what's coming at you. Plus it's in Jesus' way- He wants to make all things new so you have to let go of the old. And it's in the way of your relationship with Jesus - He wants your full attention but you divert it periodically to your former sources of comfort and delight.) So when He tells you this you think to yourself, "Gosh! What a clean freak!" And He hears your thoughts and replies, "Well, The Name's Holy... Holy Spirit. And that's just how I roll. {So fresh and so clean!}" You think that Jesus is being too bossy and once again He hears your thoughts and replies, "Well, my title is 'The Lord' and you did tell me to 'do My thing' and pimp your ride to prepare you for my coming Kingdom and that's what I'm doing... My way. I am both "Lord and Christ' and so I insist on doing things My way because I know better than you; I am all-knowing. I am looking out for your best interest...it may not seem that way right now but I am making everything work out for your good in the end. Just you wait and see the results. I'm not done yet." :)
//Commercial Break : Car Insurance// At this point the makeover Jesus wants to give you seems a little too extreme. You look outside at the other cars around you and you can see that they are also full of packages of comforts and pleasures just like yours and they are still on the Narrow road so you decide that the clutter must not be so bad after all. So you stop listening to Jesus for a while and you keep driving on without asking for His directions - once in a while you ask Him for things you want- things you ran out of; you make sure that you don't ask questions like what does He want for you coz you're not ready to give up your clutter. Since you had ignored Him for a while you even forgot that He's there with you and then one day a storm hits (lightning, thunder, heavy rain and strong winds)... you are totally unprepared since you hadn't been seeking Jesus for His directions and for the weather forecast. So the rains fall, the winds beat against your car and since the narrow road is a dirt road it gets all muddy and you are skidding all over the place and all your 'insecure' clutter is flying everywhere and bumping into you. You work up a sweat trying to control the steering wheel while taking hits from your merciless clutter and after a while all your strength is gone and you can't take it anymore. You are about to crash into a boulder just when you remember Jesus and cry out to Him to help you. He immediately takes the wheel and steers the car safely to a halt. You look outside and see that the cars you had previously compared yourself to are crashing into each other and others are stuck in the mud. Then from behind you some cars speed past you with ease in the midst of the raging storm. You are really surprised since you hadn't seen such cars before; they did not have the packages of comforts and pleasures like you did... they must have been in your blindspot ... Then you snap back to your reality... Though you are not crushed externally you were crushed on the inside. You are worn out and ashamed at your futile efforts to accomplish things your way because as you have learned from experience doing things your way does not have your best interest in the long run. So you apologize to Jesus for ignoring Him and resolve to listen to Him and to keep on following His directions. He accepts your apology. In tears you thank Him for saving you again. You ask him about the cars that were like you but are either stuck in the mud or crashing into each other. He tells you that that storm was allowed to happen for the purpose of testing- to test whether or not the drivers know that they have car insurance. So for those who are now stuck in the mud and crashing into each other, they are in a very vulnerable position because in this time of darkness agents from The Oppressor & Co. Garage are working hard to con the drivers on the Narrow road to get them back on the main freeway and into their garage-they are really sly- for example, they go round offering to tow people's cars "for free" (little did they know that they are being towed back the The Oppressor's garage), they also go around selling more packages of comfort and pleasure to take people's mind off the raging storm, or the drivers themselves form unions where they try to make it through the storm by themselves. All those options are the wrong way to go since they are options one would take if they had no car insurance but you remembered your insurance, Jesus, and you called on Him and He saved you. So for those cars, they will remain stuck in the mud or go round in circles but they will not advance on the narrow road without turning to their car insurance coz the narrow road just got rougher and they just can't make it through on their own strength- in their current condition- all cars require major re-modelling to be able to make it through the storm that is here now and what's coming later and to be equipped for glorious race that is ahead- what they were created for. It's time for the drivers to choose to go all the way, Jesus' way. The only way that has your best interest in mind :)
//Back to the show with driver's consent// Now that you have decided to stop and listen to Jesus we can proceed with the show. So you take the comfort packages that "attacked" you during the storm and you offer them to Jesus and He gets rid of them. Since you have come to know Jesus as a refuge you find that you no longer need those comforts and are happy to leave them behind. Moving on, your engine is pretty messed up and it always makes noises that freak you out, steal your peace, and distract you from hearing and following all of Jesus' directions. So Jesus gives you a 'weird' solution to fix it. He gives you a brand new sound system and throws out the old one along with the CDs you've been listening to (i.e. CDs by"Short-sighted & World-Conformed, The Band" and "How to be oppressed and enslaved while thinking that you are free"- audio messages from The Oppressor & Co.) And He gives you a new CD set called WORD Up! (66 CDs in the set- Messages about Jesus and His coming Kingdom and other such messages of hope and truth in music form). The new sound system had the ability to filter out the lies that came in through the radio or from the cars around you and to take in Truth. He told you to run those CDs as often as you could especially when the engine is noisy and loud because Jesus' messages about your real identity in Him would cancel out the discouraging noises that make you feel insecure and inferior. And that's how your engine will be renewed. So the more you listen to "Word Up!" you learn the truth about you, the real identity that your Maker gave you, and the more you hear and believe the more confident you become in your identity. When this happens you realize that most of your comfort packages in the backseat have been there for times that you feel like inferior and insecure; they made you feel better about yourself but the truth you learn from Jesus fills you with confidence in your identity as a LOVED child of God (me) and so you let go of the rest of the clutter in the backseat. Jesus gets rid of them and He expands to fill up their space with more of Himself, more of His Love. His Love is the tool He uses to transform your ride. You still have stuff locked up in your trunk, comfort/pleasure packages you have had for a very long time. You are ashamed of them and as much as you want to get rid of them, you are so used to them and cannot muster up the strength to let go of them. Jesus tells you to stop striving and just to focus on Him. So you remind yourself the Word Up! messages you had been listening to (Truth about who He is- King, all-powerful and full of love and who you are- loved, forgiven, redeemed, a new creation) as you do this your ride passes through The Holy Spirit Fire Carwash. Jesus frees you from those deep-seated junk in the trunk and fills you up with more of His Love and power. He expands to fill up your whole inside when this happens you realize that you are much closer to Him (a closer relationship) so you have more of His love, joy, peace and Wisdom. He also gives you more power to have more self-control (faster reflexes when driving coz He is helping you drive) and boldness to be a witness to the great things He has done for you.
So now Jesus has done a lot for you and you are exploding with joy. But He tells you that He is not yet done. He starts to scrap off the dark tint on your windows but you interject, "That too! But my great grandmama and everyone before that always had dark tinted windows. It makes us look cool and it keeps people from snooping in our business." He lets you know that it's not your business to begin with (It's His business. You His masterpiece in the making) and that you need to be transparent so that the love He put in you could shine through to others and so that they could see how much interior work He has done so that they too could let Jesus in to pimp their ride (yep it's all about Him). He further explains that that dark tint was a product from The Oppressor & Co. they were selling it as "cool" yet they intended it to blind people from seeing the Light that was shining out of Jesus directly from Him or from other cars. Jesus also gives you new side-mirrors to enable you to see more cars around you so that you could love them more. Love is not just the tool that Jesus uses to transform you but it is also His goal for pimping your ride. Bearing more of His Love to be able to give out more of His Love to others.
Final Touches!!! 2012 = Perfection of Government / The Year of the Lord's Favor :-)
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| We are going to SHINE in the Light of His Glory!!! :-) |
"But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."
(1 John 2: 5-6)
"As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give."- Jesus (Matthew 10: 7-8)
" I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."- Jesus (John 14:12)
"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." (1 John 4:18)
{End of Narration from The Father}
We are in the last days and we are about to see the biggest revival (Acts 2: 17) God will fill His people with more of His Spirit (His love/ His power/ His glory) and then send them out to shine for the whole world to see His glory and be drawn to Him before the coming of the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus is coming back soon so He is preparing us to harvest the fields before that. (Read all of Isaiah 61 and I'll have more to share about that :)
(Update: God told me that the 2012 prophecies He gave me refer to the Hebrew year which started in September so it overlaps into our 2013)
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me.”- Jesus (Revelation 3:20) :)
"Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
(Psalm 51:10-12)
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38)
Dear InterVarsity, God is making us new. The fires we are passing through are not to harm us but to refine us for His glory to be able to dwell in us. So let's trust Jesus and embrace the refiner's fire. He gave us lots of promises at ->Prefall <- (if you weren't there and don't know what I'm talking about I shared the story in that post so take a read) and we were confused why revival in our school hasn't happened yet. That's because God revives His people (the church) first and sends them out to share the perfect love that He gives us. "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) He is building us up so He will first break down anything that's not of Him (Ecclesiastes 3:3) So let's humble ourselves to God and to His renewal plan for our lives while anticipating the glory He will impart on us, more of Him! :) "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor" (Isaiah 61: 3) :-)
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:23)
Feel free to share any comments or questions you may have. Peace :-)
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