Living Whole Hearted - Restoring Your Original Design by Pastor Susan Fochler

God will never ask us to do something that He wasn’t willing to do Himself. So when He said it is important to love Him with all our heart and mind and soul(Mark 12:30), it was because He wanted us to receive His love from Him, in all those areas, first. Not by trying harder, or doing more, but by letting Him in, more. His desire is to be with and experience you in all your heart and mind and soul.

Recognizing the Walls
When I first got saved I think I invited Jesus in, not to the bottom, but to the front porch of my heart. And I don’t think the light was on, either. I was living in so much fear, so much shame and so much self-hatred that I would have probably freaked out if I thought someone, anyone, really wanted to know me, inside and out. But the interesting thing is that I appeared pretty functional, able to keep a job, balance the check book and look fairly together on the surface. But if you looked very close you could see a lot of defensiveness and judgment, because I felt so condemned. And down deep I assumed God condemned me too.

You Are Enough
One day many years ago as someone prayed a God-inspired vision over me, a new Truth came and landed in my heart. It began whispering gently and lovingly to me: that He saw me as enough, just being me. I had always thought something was missing, something so wrong about me that I was completely unlovable. The revelation that I was valued and accepted had a radical impact on my heart; but it took years of process for that truth and it’s implications to slowly work their way down, deeper and deeper into the fabric of my soul. I continue to grow in my ability to trust His love to be as good and unconditional as He says it is.

Becoming our True Selves
This journey to discover our true selves is the path of reconciliation: the reconciliation within our own heart and the reconciliation of our heart to God. As old misperceptions are enfolded by His loving truth we open up and allow our genuine hearts to be seen. You, just being you, is a one-of-a-kind treasure God delights in revealing to the world.

The Revealing of the Sons of God
The fullness of our true potential looks like this: living and moving and having our being in the Spirit. Feeling, thinking and making decisions in full partnership with Holy Spirit as the river of living water flows through us in power. The access you give to Him into your heart, will result in you accessing the limitless depths of His!

With love and great anticipation of the revealing of God’s sons and daughters;
Susan

Affirming The Intrinsic Worth Of All People by Pastor Russ Fochler

We took a closer look at this core value, #4, last Saturday night - January 17, 2015.

What do we mean by “intrinsic worth”? Basically, we mean that each person has value beyond “what they are good for” – beyond their usefulness for some purpose.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

“Many people find it useful to distinguish instrumental value and intrinsic values, first discussed by Plato in the "Republic". An instrumental value is worth having as a means towards getting something else that is good (e.g., a radio is instrumentally good in order to hear music). An intrinsically valuable thing is worth having for itself, not as a means to something else. It is giving value intrinsic and extrinsic properties.

Intrinsic and instrumental goods are not mutually exclusive categories. Some things are both good in themselves, and also good for getting other things that are good.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory)

Affirming and seeing the intrinsic worth in each person - is important to us because it is scriptural. And yet, it is completely foreign to the way the world values people. In the world system, someone is only as valuable to the extent they are a means to an end. A guy who plays professional football is valuable in the world system to the extent they help win games - or at least help generate TV and ticket revenue. Oh – and whether their weekly stats help the Fantasy Football players who’ve “drafted” them ; )

Here are some points from my talk:

Every human conceived has great intrinsic worth - bestowed upon us by our Creator and redeemed by our Savior Jesus.

The brokenness we experience in this world is proof of the great hatred Satan has for the one class of beings (human beings) the Trinity has chosen to have the deepest level of community with.

Through fellowship with Holy Spirit, our human spirit can perceive glimpses of what we are each becoming! (2 Cor 5:16, 1Cor 1:9-16)

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 John 3:2

This means that while some people may seem to have no usefulness to us or to the world – yet they have still value; intrinsic worth. As Wm Paul Young notes in his book “Cross Roads”, what we see now appears as unimpressive as the root, the bulb of a tulip. Someday, we’ll behold the stunningly beautiful, vibrant “flower” that comes forth from our present state – this dirty, humble, “homely” root/bulb! Then, we will be like Jesus in His glory.


Mark Zarubin shared about how he asked God to show him how God sees people – even people Mark did not care for. And then how Holy Spirit opened Mark’s perception to see brief flashes of the glory and majesty streaming from people!

You and I can ask to see this way too! May we become “attuned” to “know” people through our spirit receiving revelation from God’s Spirit. And may we grow in celebrating and affirming the intrinsic worth that Father God has placed in all people.

Even people-groups that we are being taught to fear and hate. May we see (as Leif Hetland teaches) with Son-glasses – their value and worth as beloved daughters, beloved sons to our Abba Father.

With the eyes of a child, captivated in wonder of the love and ways of our Triune God.

Love, Russ

What Was Finished? by Pastor Brent Lokker

Before the huge rainstorm came this past November, I had a sudden urgency to clean out my gutters so the water would be able to flow freely off the roof and away from the house. I won’t even tell you how many buckets full of muddy leaves and sludge I removed, but there was a great sense of accomplishment when I finished this project that needed to be done. The only problem is, the leaves and mud have already begun to accumulate and I will have to get back up on that ladder periodically and start all over again. It felt great to finish the task, but the task is never quite over.

This is a great picture of the old system of the Law. When the law was established in the Old Covenant with Moses and the Israelite people, it only proved they were lawbreakers and incapable of being right with God by living without mistakes. The muddy sludge of sin would build up and then there would be a cleansing of sorts as the priests would sacrifice a perfect, spotless, blameless lamb as a way of transferring their guilt of not measuring up onto something completely innocent in order to satisfy the sense of justice inside of us that “somebody has to pay for my wrongdoing.” The problem was, however, that just as soon as the cleansing sacrifice was made, the sludge of sin was already building up again.

When Jesus came to the earth at the will of His Father, all that changed forever! Jesus ushered us into the New Covenant of grace by living out every last bit of the law in perfect order for us and then--as the spotless, blameless lamb--taking upon himself the guilt and shame of sin through the ages upon Himself as the LAST and perfect sacrifice. You can read all about this in the book of Hebrews, chapters 8 through 10. In fact, if it’s been awhile since you’ve marveled at what Jesus accomplished on the cross, take some time to sit and read these chapters, asking for Holy Spirit’s help to see the depths of Jesus’ sacrifice in a new way. In Hebrews 10:16, the Lord says, “I will never more call their sins to mind, or their offences.” And in verse 18, “When these have been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.”

This is the context for Jesus’ last words on the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) These words packed an atomic punch that reverberated throughout eternity in both directions! He was saying, “I have completed the task that the Father sent me to do! There’s NOTHING more to finish! I have fulfilled the ruthless demands of the law! I have paid the full price for sin! I have made the way for every child of God to be right with Him, based entirely upon my sacrifice! So perfect and all-encompassing was my sacrifice that there is nothing more I can do, nor nothing more you can add, to make you any more fit for God as your heavenly Father. I have made you perfect for Him!”

This is the basis for our entire Christian faith and why Blazing Fire’s 2nd Core Value is this: We celebrate our freedom and healing paid for in full by Jesus.

By believing Jesus’ sacrifice and His resurrection were enough, we enter into the freedom He purchased for us. When we don’t believe, we get lost in the lies of shame and guilt that aren’t even real.

It’s time for us as true believers in what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, to fall deeply in love with our Savior who willingly gave His life for us, to boldly embrace the freedom that has been given to us, to live a courageous and fruitful life that honors the grace we have been given, and to be the ministers of reconciliation He has asked us to be.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 (NLT)

Following The Holy Spirit's Brillian Leading by Pastor Karena Lout

“I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.” John 14:16

The elder team will be spending the next several weeks sharing about our Blazing Fire Core Values. Last Saturday Pastor Brent talked about our core value #3: Following Holy Spirit’s Brilliant Leading. This is so vital to us as a church family. We’ve learned that laying down our plans when Holy Spirit decides to take us in a different direction has made room for God to do what only He can. It’s been a journey of trust and unpredictability at times but there is no other option for us than to live life by the Spirit’s leading.

Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit and calls him “our advocate” in John 14. In verse 18, He says, “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you.” This is really good news for those of us who grew up feeling abandoned at times. The first time I became aware of Holy Spirit was at a house meeting in Napa. I was 18 and had just become a believer. At the time, one of my fingers was broken from being slammed in a door. My fingernail had fallen off, as well as a lot of the skin on the top of my finger. It was crooked and pretty gnarly. During the house meeting, I watched as God began to heal my finger. The pain went away and the skin started to grow back right before my eyes. I got my prayer language and felt a warmth cover my whole body.

I had never felt anything like that before. To top it off, I felt the comfort of Holy Spirit begin to heal my heart.

To give some background, when my finger was injured, I was in a really bad place.

I had an abusive boyfriend and was extremely depressed. I needed someone to take me to the hospital so I could get stitches on my finger but my Mom was unable to care for me at the time. Many times we base our beliefs about who Holy Spirit is for us by how we have experienced relationship with our Mom. Holy Spirit knew I wasn’t familiar with what it felt like to be comforted or taught so he needed to heal the very wound where I felt alone before I could receive from him.

Holy Spirit was not given to us to only comfort us but to teach, counsel and guide us too. In Acts 2, Jesus sends flames and tongues of fire to settle on each believer. People were able to understand in their own language what Jesus had done for them. The Holy Spirit is given to us to be a witness, to empower us to do the things we couldn’t do on our own. There have been many times where I have felt unprepared and didn’t quite know how to solve problems in my workplace. I used to work at a high school in Napa doing behavior therapy with students with severe special needs. Many of our students were nonverbal and some immobile. I can recall one student who was becoming increasingly frustrated because she couldn’t communicate her needs. Our normal resources weren’t working for her. So I asked for Holy Spirit’s help and was able to come up with a solution that worked for her unique situation. Her anxiety decreased and her parents were able to implement the program at school and home. Holy Spirit is really brilliant and is readily available to help us at any time.

If you’ve had a difficult time relating to Holy Spirit, I encourage you to ask if there are any beliefs you’ve made that have prevented you from having a relationship with him. What does Holy Spirit want you to know? I also want to encourage you that not everyone experiences Holy Spirit exactly the same. Holy Spirit is so much more than a fuzzy feeling. Holy Spirit is God’s seal of oneness with you. It’s your internal inheritance that you can access at any time. Holy Spirit is the empowerment to face life’s difficulties, to solve problems in your home and workplace, to comfort the brokenhearted. What does Holy Spirit want to show you today? Following Holy Spirit can feel like tracing the steps of a good mystery adventure that always leads to life. I pray you enjoy the journey!

Love, Karena