Hello everybody! Looks like we’ve been missing in action for quite some time. However, we are back and we will attempt to update as often as we can. Thanks for the emails requesting that we post again. They were much appreciated.
To start things off…I have a video that’ll give you some “lack of food” for thought lol
I have a confession and it’ll be coming via video later on in the day. Stay tuned! 
My face was to the floor, bruised and dirty from the constant blows from life. The burdens of this temporary place held me down to the point where standing up on two feet would not suffice. I crawled in confusion, groaned in grief and drowned in defeat. But alas I had heard of One who’s words were as melodic as a symphony and as medicinal as the finest medicine. Practically, blind from the dust others had kicked in my face by walking about me, I reached out with all of the strength I could muster. The tips of my fingers felt the hem of his garment slide ever so slightly beneath them. I barely touched this Man. Defeated and in despair my face collapsed on the floor…then He spoke. The power in His voice was like fire in my bones and at once I looked up and stared into the eyes of Love. My eyes studied the face of Glory and my whole world changed with just a glance. Dirty and filthy He looked at me as clean and I arose to my feet with renewed energy. Words could not be formed on my tongue and those around me faded into black. It was just Him and I…me and Him. Alone. Unholiness with the Holy One. Uncleanliness with the One who cleanses. Filthy rags with the One who fashioned linens of righteousness.
In what was possibly a crowd of hundreds if not thousands, He had heard me although I spoke no words, He had felt me although I barely touched Him. He was the lifter of my head and that day we danced in the glory of His holiness as we swayed to the rhythm of His heart. The chorus was Holy, Holy, Holy and there is where my whole life was changed…
by Romance Himself…
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 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 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! 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]
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!
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?
Man…the drop kicks have seemed to come to an end and now I have felt the arms of comfort. I can’t say that the assault has finished completely (when does it ever) but it’s not as aggressive. Instead, it’s been like a bunch of midgets that come up to my thighs are punching me in my stomach. The result is not much damage but if I don’t flick them away then they may begin to leave a bruise. Okay, now that the imagery is done, let me get down to it.
I’ve noticed God does monumental things in my life over holidays. The last monumental thing I felt He did as in throwing me into the next arena of Glory was on Resurrection Sunday of 2008. Not to say He hasn’t done amazing things since then because He has but the last alter that was built, if you will, was on Resurrection Sunday of 2008. We are in 2009 and on the day before Memorial Day what does God do? He invites me into the Holy of Holies to show me one last memory of what was, as He lovingly pulled me in close and showed me what is and what will become.
There are things that I don’t like about me…habitual and sinful tendencies that need to be broken, completely uprooted or passions that just need to be tamed. Over the last few months I have been asking Holy Spirit to search me and do with those things as He wishes. Well, He has and now I feel like a prepared individual who now knows exactly how to react and battle some of these things.
I’ve been studying 1st and 2nd Peters and I’ve found that Peter and I have a lot in common. I too have found myself treading on waters one minute and then the next drowning and crying out to Him to come deliver me as a result of me taking my eyes off of him. Peter was passionate. His passion wasn’t always tamed though. It led to him to cut off ears, deny Jesus after explaining he was the Messiah and later when that passion was tamed led him to be crucified upside down because he felt he was unworthy to be crucified right side up like Jesus. Anybody who knows me, knows I’m passionate but when my eyes are off the One who eases my storms…I end up overtaken.
Well goodbye old ways…I died again and the memorial was on May 25th, 2009. Now off I go to cut off ears of enemies and flick these dumb midgets…
Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. – Proverbs 6:6-8
I’m not a fan of ants. They’re intrusive, there’s never just one of them but they invite their whole entire crew and if you ever had one crawling on you, it’s enough heebeegeebees to make you shake like you’re a pentecostal at a football game. I do not like them. This is probably why when I read this Scripture I disengaged myself immediately. However, me knowing me, I realized it had nothing to do with the small insects for which I carry much disdain but all about the storing food for the Winter part. It was the provision and wisdom of the ant that drew me away then drew me right back in.
Why?
Well, simply put, I suck with my finances. I have millionaire dreams with hundred dollar realities. Am I lacking? I shouldn’t be but often times I find myself in those millionaire dreams until it gets popped by my now negative hundred dollar reality.
Stewardship. It’s a word Holy Spirit keeps impressing on my heart and spirit and it’s uncomfortable. I struggle with pride often and to know that finances is an area that I don’t have together causes me to be humiliated instead of humbled, prideful instead of persistant and habitual instead of hopeful. This sinful nature is a beast.
His people parish for lack of vision and that’s simply it, I don’t have vision for my finances. Not realistic ones. My hopes are not to live this fabulous lavish life but to live being content with what I have and simply stewarding it right. That’s my only hearts cry concerning finances.
This is a bold move posting this for all the world to see but maybe one of you will keep me accountable and keep me covered in your prayers. I’m in a season where enough is enough and although the drop kicks continue coming and even the lies as well…I must remember to whom I belong to and keep my eyes on things that are lovely, righteous, holy and eternal.
I suppose I should open up my arms to the ant and invite him into the room of discomfort that lives within me. Grrrr…
 | Aimee Ortega on WE ARE ABANDONED BUILDING… |
 | DCA on HOLY |
 | wild man on HOLY |
 | Erica on HOLY |
| Erica on NOW THEREFORE GO |
Do The Write Thing 