6.6.08 Service=Obedience

Notes from my study earlier this morning.

 

So it would seem that singleness (only one), worship, and service go hand and hand, as we read in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 4:8

 

But how do we serve God?  Paul says in Romans 1:9 NLT “…with all my heart [spirit]…”.  So we serve God with our spirits.  That’s the supernatural tool.  The natural (or physical) manifestation would be “…by spreading the Good News about His Son”  If you read back in verse 3, it clearly says that the Good News is about His Son.  Not necessarily about the Bible itself.  I think that’s the easy and palatable way to define the Good News, but it’s clearly stated that the Good News is solely about His Son, Jesus Christ. 

 

Let’s take a real life example.  Let’s say you just had a new baby – a beautiful baby.  And you tell best friend that she can now tell everyone you both know that the baby is finally here and they can come and see the baby.  As soon as your friend leaves your house, she goes shopping, she goes back to work, she goes and picks up her kids, she goes home and cooks dinner, and then goes to bed.  You don’t see her or hear from her for a week, almost two.  You know by now, since no one has called or come by, that she obviously didn’t do as you had asked.  How do you feel?  Do you feel that she has served you well as a friend?  Probably not.

 

So as a Christian – a friend of God, it only seems befitting that real service comes through doing one thing only.  God told us in Mark 16:15 NLT “to go into the world and preach the Good News to everyone”. 

 

And again it would be really easy to say that ‘to serve God, we are to tell everyone about Jesus Christ’.

 

Somehow I don’t think that is exactly it.

 

I think I have finally come to the root of the subject.  The key words in Mark 16:15 were “he told them”

 

To serve God, we must do one thing – and one thing only.  We must obey God – out of a heart of submission.

 

Everything promise, every blessing in the Bible, usually comes after a command issued to us by God.  The promise or the blessing is just a side effect of the obedience to his command.  Just as death is a side effect of sin.  And all sin is, is really a disobedience to a previously issued command.  Sin is knowing right, but doing wrong.

 

People say the church is in trouble, the church is weak, the church is segregated, etc etc.  All of those things are just side effects.  A good majority of the church today (myself included sometimes), are just disobedient to the commands of God or to the commands of people that are in authority over us – like our parents, our preachers, our bosses.

 

And no, we’re not perfect, and, yes, we do have a free will, and some level of intelligence, so we can’t always expect to be obedient 100% of the time (or not with a right heart, at least).

 

But we can assess ourselves daily.  We can repent when the Holy Spirit convicts us of something that we intentionally or unintentionally did wrong.  We can make every effort to be obedient in all things.

 

Disobedience was the first sin, and is one that is at the root of most all other sin and bad things.

 

We have to take a stand.  No…I will take a stand – to keep my spiritual ear in tune with the Lord, so that I can keep myself on the path of walking in obedience and thus in His will.

 

I choose, today, to serve God through obedience.

 

Will you come along side me?

 

 

6.6.08 Serve God or Bust

I haven’t sat down and blogged about my confessions for the last 3 days.  Before going to sleep Tuesday night, I settled in myself that on Wednesday, I would be “joyous”.  I woke up, and I would have to say that I was pretty joyous and joyous throughout the day.  Thursday came and I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to be on Thursday.  I had no pressing issues in my life that day.  I felt fine, work was fine.  I couldn’t really come up with anything.  Which needless to say I felt kinda bad about.  So last night, I began to wonder, am I really going about this the wrong way.  I definitely believe that we need to ask ourselves that each day, and set our mind on demonstrating a Godly character or position each day.  But I wonder am I wrong in the way that I come up with my confession for the day.  Obviously Thursday, I was led by was feelings – which were no negative feelings at all.  And if Satan, can get you to feel or do too much of one thing, he’ll work overtime to get to feel or do too little of another thing.  So today, it happened kind of differently.  I started praying following the guide of my written prayer checklist.  (You can ask for a blank copy if you want one) As I thanked God for my salvation, something down inside asked me “are you thankful that you’re saved because you don’t have to go to hell?” or “because you are entitled to enjoy the promises of God on earth if you do the work?” or “are you thankful for your salvation because you truly get to (not have to, but get to) serve God?”  And another question quickly came “what does it mean to truly serve God?”  So I’m off to study that passage and the real meaning of that word, and I’ll let you know what God tells me.  But today, I am going to set my heart on being a servant.

 

 

6.2.08 I Beat Up On The Devil Last Night, and I Feel Good Today

You know I told you last night I got to deliver a reflections speech at my Bible college graduation – go SMTI!  Well, that was not such an easy venture for me.  That Saturday, when I was told by my teacher that I was chosen to give the speech, immediately I tried to say no (but she wasn’t asking me, she was just telling me) and all these fears of public speaking came flushing in.  I’m very well-written but I cringe at speaking in front of people.  Anyway…I left for the day, and I started to mentally prepare my speech.  But then that Monday, I got some really bad, life-changing news.  The devil was really trying to attack my family and my mind.  I had some tough decisions to make – whether to stand on the word of God or follow after my own will.  I chose to stand on the word.  I emailed my Dean and told her that I couldn’t give the speech because I was just under so much mental attack.  As the weeks (2) went by, I was just under so much condemnation and mental stress.  The thing that happened didn’t even happen to me, but to someone else.  But I felt as if it were still my fault that it happened.  At our graduation rehearsal this past Thursday, I was still on the verge of tears.  This thing was so heavy on my mind and on my heart.  The Dean, then of course announced to all the other students who would be giving the speeches.  I was still half-heartedly hoping that she would not say my name, but out it came.  I couldn’t just deny her in front of everybody (well, and not feel good about it afterward).  After rehearsal, I went into the bathroom and just started crying.  I went home, sat in my parking lot and cried more.  Then I started talking – to myself.  Asking me, “Why? Why do I really feel like this?  Why am I putting so much pressure on myself?  Why am I keeping all this stuff locked inside me?”  I had to get to the root of all my feelings.  Sure, I felt guilty, but what was at the root of that?  So I think I got to the root of the matter.  And I just let it go.  I know that, like I said a few days ago, it’s just Satan trying to using my emotions to move me away from what the Holy Spirit has already set in motion.  So, I woke up Friday, went on about my business and feeling pretty condemnation-less for the rest of the weekend.  And you know what happened next…I gave my speech – copy on previous post.  And it was a good speech.  I delivered almost everything that was written.  But oddly enough, even when I try to be serious in serious moments, my delivery isn’t quite that.  I got compliments such as that was “you are so real”, “I didn’t know you were that funny”, or “you should be a Christian comedian”.  But I felt good.  I felt like I accomplished whatever the Holy Spirit wanted to accomplish through me.  I hope that I touched someone’s life the way they needed to be touched. So when I woke up this morning, I didn’t even think about what I wanted to be today.  I felt it.  The first thing my spirit said to me, was “Man, you won.  You beat the devil last night.  I am victorious!”.  So that is what I am going to be today.  VICTORIOUS.

 

As I was just writing this, my mind said to me, “what all does this word victorious that mean?” 

 

Here’s what my MSOffice thesaurus says it means.

 

Winning. Triumphant. Prizewinning. Champion. Successful. Conquering.

 

Here’s what the Bible promises us about victory

 

1 Corinthians 15:57 New Living Translation

 

But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 

1 John 5:4 New Living Translation

 

For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.

 

 

Phillipians 3:14 New Living Translation

 

I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.  

 

 

6.1.08 I Graduated!!!

Today is June 1^st.  I’m supposed to start today delivering you to my Word for the Day, but the course of today has been a bit different from most Sundays.  Today, I graduated from my first year at Bible college – Barclay Ministries’ Supernatural Ministries Training Institute (SMTI).  It’s been an awesome and transforming 9 months.  A special honor for me, was that I was selected as one of the 2 students to deliver a short speech at our commencement ceremony on what SMTI has done for us.  So instead of trying to come up with a new blog topic and Word for the Day, I thought I’d just share what the Holy Spirit put in my heart for my local body of Christ, with the body of Christ all over.  Here goes…

 

I’m Tami Nutall, and I’m a first year SMTI graduate.  This moment has been, for me, in the making for the last 3 years.  It was about 3 years ago, one of our previous SMTI graduates was preparing to enter into her first year at SMTI, and I so clearly remember her asking me if I wanted to enroll too.  I said “no way, not me, but I’ll happily pray for you as you do”.  I was happy just coming to church for those 1.5 hours every two weeks or months or so.  I think God was standing there smirking at me, saying “That’s what you think”.   So I continued on over the next 2 years, living my life the way that I wanted to and trying to make my heart’s “little” desires come true – with “little” success.  But I always felt God pulling me closer and closer to Him – it’s amazing how we feel that when nothing in our life is working the way we think it should.  So last year, I started to yield a bit, and I started coming to church every Sunday and as I did and as I began to get closer to God, His word really started to be fulfilled in my life. 

 

Everything God does always begins with the word, but sometimes we don’t get a revelation of what that word is until way after God has started something.  And for me that word was Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart”. For so long, I thought that meant whatever I wanted, God would give it to me because He loves me – never mind the first part about delighting in Him.  But around week 28 of SMTI, it became clear to me that that wasn’t all at what that scripture meant.  I got a ‘revelation’ – a light bulb – that scripture means exactly what it says in the exact order that it says it.  And I began to have flashbacks.  Looking back over the last (now) 365 days of my life, it started with the Sunday morning service the day of the 2007 SMTI graduation. It was just a small desire to come and support the 2007 graduating class.  Then it was a small desire to really have what they had.   I know me, and I know those 2 desires didn’t just come from me.  Then exactly 60 days later, God did something even greater.  He sent me to SMTI.  Didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go, just sent me.  Thank God I obeyed.  Because as I pressed into SMTI every Saturday morning at 9am for 31 weeks, I know undoubtedly that God did what He said He would do in that scripture.  He really did give me a new set of desires – which were soooo different from my previous set of desires.  Those little desires snowballed into a big desire to be here in fellowship and in Word with this company of believers every time Pastor requests, and a big desire to help build up my local church – not just fill a seat, and also a big desire to invest my time with my daughter above spending all my time at work.  Most importantly it gave me a big desire to have an eternal relationship with Christ.  It also sharpened my spiritual ear to hear the heart of my Pastor and to hear God through him, and it gave me a heavenly love and respect for both of them.  The lessons were great and on point each week in my life.  But the one thing that has really transformed in my heart, is my huge desire to follow after the things of God and His will and call on my life versus my own.  And you know what, it was like a big shift change beginning January 2008.  The more I sought God, the more peace, and joy, and even business sought me.  Now I might have gotten to this point eventually without SMTI, but it could very well have taken another 30-something years, and I and my family, and the Kingdom of God just don’t have that time to waste anymore.

###

 

So, to answer my question from yesterday,

 

“What do I want to be today???”

 

Simply…

 

 

5.31.08 Confessions Don’t Work!

That’s what many Christians truly believe.  “It didn’t work for me that one time, so it doesn’t work at all!”  And I’m here to agree with you.  Of course confessions don’t work.  Not if you suddenly get a ‘revelation’ of one at 9.30pm and half-heartedly repeat it in fear or desperation until you go bed a few hours later, after having let (keyword being let) the devil beat up on you and your family for the previous 15 hours.  I mean, really?

 

Wanna know a secret?  Your confession is much like your career.  When you were just a little tyke, I’m sure most all of the well-wishing adults in your life would ask “and what do you want to be when you grow up?”  The usual answers are often something like a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a scientist, a preacher, a police officer, or even a golfer (for the Tiger in us).  Not too many kids say they want to be homeless, or a stripper, a drug dealer, untrustworthy, an addict, a liar, or a person of questionable character.  Not judging any one because we’ve all sinned and fallen short, but the people who are stuck in this type of bondage today are more than likely people who never answered that question or people who simply lost sight of their original answer.

 

Any successful (even partially successful) professional will tell you that once they set their mind, mouth, and heart on their answer to that age old question “what do you want to be?” in the beginning of their career journey, and then set about doing the necessary things to make that a reality, along the way they began to see the ever-increasing fruits of their labor until one day they reach their pinnacle of success. 

 

Bible confessions work exactly the same way.  If you want the victory that comes from standing on the word of God, you have to start at the beginning and then chart a course of actions that will pull that confession from the supernatural realm into the natural realm.

 

What are you talking about?  Glad you asked.  I’ll give you an example.

 

Let’s say for instance, today, I woke up and for some reason I felt like I had ate nails.  I really don’t feel like being my usual ball of joy today.  I really don’t want to talk to anyone today, including my own self.  I just feel like I want to move quietly and invisibly through the world today and get back home in time for dinner.  Now, I know that emotions are divinely designed to move you in one direction or another.  I also know that, me being the introvert that I am, Satan will try his hardest to attack my emotions in such a way that will keep me locked inside myself, or my home, and away from the rest of the world – in essence, keeping me from spreading the love and word of God to other people in my daily life. 

Now because I’m smarter than the devil, as soon as I get up and realize what is going on inside my soul, I immediately begin to ask myself “what do I want to be today?”  After moving about the house for a few minutes, I finally settle in my heart that today I want to be a ‘worshipper’ – because that requires deliberate verbal efforts.  And since I’m spirit-filled and I yield myself to the spirit of the Lord, my body and my soul are going to have to fall in line.  So I start singing praises to my God and start getting dressed.  I throw on my ConfeesionTee to help keep in me remembrance of my confession for the day, and I’m out the door. 

Now, I know that when I lay my head down tonight, I will sleep sweetly because throughout the day I keep his praises in my mouth and I will withstand the tricks of the devil – because I know that today I am a worshipper – it even says so on my shirt. 

To sum up.  Confessions do work…but you have to work them, and God has given you the authority and the power to do so. 

 

 

 

5.15.08 Welcome to Wear the Word is Blogged

Since my childhood, I have held fast to a few scriptures that have really spoken to me and helped me through.  After really immersing myself in the teachings of the Lord, my church, and my Bible college classes over the course of the past year, I have (lackadaisically) accumulated a few hundred confessions and scriptures by reading my Bible, promise & confession books, handouts from church, and just listening to teachers of the word.  I have so many right now that it’s almost impossible (in the natural) to recall them off the top of my head.  I make it a point not to get into a spirit of religion or complacency by reciting the same confession over and over again without conviction by speaking confessions that apply to that day or hour.  One day, a few months ago, I began reading and reciting a 2-page confession on victory for my child.  Then a week later, I saw that she had come home from youth group with another page long confession on something else.  My spirit immediately became vexed.  All I could think was “why can’t we just confess the Word” – as opposed to confessing someone else’s 2 page prayer or wish list based on the Word.  From that point, I just purposed to confess the Word.  As I was going through a trying experience this week with my daughter, and searching for a word from God to stand on, I thought to myself how nice it would be if I could just wear my confession on a t-shirt everyday for the next few days as we go through this situation.  As I began to meditate more on the thought, it began to take root and grow, and became a full fledge business idea that presented several opportunities for God to work in our lives and in the lives of others.  Thus, Wear the Word was born.