NOW THEREFORE GO

I’ve been reading Exodus in the midst of my 40 day journey and was excited when I found out it had 40 chapters. Now as I was reading Exodus 4 something stuck out to me…

Exodus 4:13 – “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

After Moses is going back and forth by in essence telling the Great I Am that He got the wrong guy, God tells him NOW THEREFORE GO…hmmm. Most of you are probably thinking okay, great…go where? But I’m not concerned with the there after I want to look at the power in those three words alone.

 

Now

Now is not a synonym for later nor is it a synonym for when you get around to it. When man says now, there may not be as much weight behind it but when God says now…how often don’t we take Him seriously? Here we see God telling Moses NOW, meaning urgent. Pretty much Moses wasted time already trying to tell God that he has a speech issue, although a lie according Acts 7:22 and God had had enough. Now is the time, He urges, not later.

 

Therefore

Therefore is the exclamation point on whatever God just got done saying. In this case, God responded to Moses by saying (paraphrasing) “Did I not create your mouth? Really, do you think, if you actually did have a speech issue that I couldn’t correct it?” Then he goes on to say, therefore, as a way of saying what I just said stands, there’s nothing further to discuss. How often do we find ourselves trying to still get the last word in? Hmm…

 

Go

Go! If God is for us then who can be against us? Go means green but often times I think us believers are spiritually colorblind. Green means stop and red means go. The God of all creation just got done explaining to this Egyptian, born a Hebrew that He would be with him, he would put his words in his mouth, etc. and Moses is still pumping his breaks, better yet hasn’t even turned the car on. Yes Moses was royalty here on earth but he had a lot to learn about being royalty from the Kingdom of Heaven. Are you spiritually colorblind and do you know from which Kingdom you hail from?

Moses is a lot of things right now…and his faith is lacking big time yet once he got a hold of who He was in God—he split seas and spoke with God face to face.

Am I the only one who wants that? Well, it’s mine for the taking and it’s definitely yours so you better believe God is saying…

Now therefore go…[insert excuses here if green means stop]

INCREASE

In the next 40 days (began on June 17th) our church will go on an all-out loving God journey. What does that look like for me? Well, I’d like to see increase.

I want to increase in my love for people. I realize how conditional I can be and it’s only in these last 2 1/2 years that I’ve realized what unconditional love is. I’m still learning but I want to love like Christ loves. I want to increase in my faith. Knowing that God is Sovereign has been an interesting thing for me. It should bring about peace and not anxiety so wrapping my brain around that is key. I want to increase in wisdom. I want His thoughts to be mine and His ways to be mine…not the other way around. Lastly, I want to increase in prayer. How often do you say I’m going to pray for you and completely forget…well that’s me too so I’m sorry if I’ve ever said I’m going to pray for you and haven’t followed through. PRAY FOR ME!!!

Will you join us in the 40 day challenge? We base this off the Israelites who turned a 40 day journey into 40 years.

40 days or 40 years…I’ll take the one month and ten day one for 500…thanks!

WE ARE ABANDONED BUILDINGS

There’s something about abandoned buildings that pulls on my heart. I’m not sure if it’s because I see literally hundreds of homes or abandoned warehouses here in Philly that would make great apartments, condos, stores or churches but I love seeing the potential in them. I live in the Frankford section of Philly (moving soon which is why I’m putting the business out there) and there are tons of abandoned apartments right by and under the EL. Often times I think, I wish I was an investor so I could do 1 or 2 things: gut out these homes and rehab them or break them down and build them right back up.

So as I’m walking to get Chinese food from Chinatown I notice these huge warehouses. They’re hideous on the outside, broken windows, discolored, completely unattractive and abandoned on the inside—empty if you will. Do you see where this is going? So I got to thinking as I often do and I thought hmmm, aren’t we as mankind just a bunch of abandoned buildings that need 1 or 2 things to happen to us? We need to either be gutted out and rehabbed on the inside or broken down completely and built right back up. Slapping some nice paint on the outside won’t do the trick. We need a change from the inside out. We need an investor who is fully vested in us and is willing to give these projects of ours some TLC. We’re abandoned as well and once we are adopted in then we have the Holy Spirit who takes residence in our home.

I can probably go on and on about this but I want to leave some food for thought.

Have you let Him invest fully into your life or are you abandoned wondering why you feel empty?

I LOVE ANTS…

Okay, so I just got paid today and I’m staring at my bank account with a huge smile. When suddenly, this great big gigantic enormous gargantuan outpour of joy fills me up. So as I’m writing down all of my bills that need to be paid and items that need to be bought, I realize something. Are you curious to know what I realized? Is your curiosity gnawing at your insides like mad midgets with shark teeth? (Can you see my excitement level?)

Okay, I’ll tell you what I realized. I looked my bank account square in the eye and told it, monies you’re going to submit to the Word of God today. Monies, you are not going to act funny this time around. For the next two weeks you’re going to have to bow down to the authority Christ Jesus placed inside of me. I will not obsess over you and you will not consume my thoughts. Actually let me tell you something honey, I mean money, I am going to rule over you and multiply you. Do not get it twisted money, you will not rule over me and divide and subtract me. You and I can play nice together, you and me money. I can take you under my wing and show you the finer things in life. However, you will not sell me millionaire dreams when you have yet to multiply into millions. You are so funny money they way you disillusion me and create vivid pictures of wants and not needs. But oh no money, it ends today. I have set up a nice home for you and it’s called a savings account. That’s right, I said it…a SAVE-ING-S UH-COUNT! There you can rest your little head if it “interests” you and it will.

 

I’ll see you in two weeks where you will be unscaved and untouched by the material madness of this dark and present world. 

Looking forward to making you work out for me so you can grow multiple muscles…

 

Your Master,

Nina del Valle

 

So, how that turned into a letter, I have no clue but my point is that today is a day of change…hahaha. Except, I’ll have dollars in front of the change. KA-CHING!