Learning to Belong - Jen Bentley BF guest contributor and Pastor Susan Fochler

The women of Blazing Fire church recently experienced a wonderful time of gathering together to enjoy one another on a weekend retreat in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains.  For some women this kind of event feels natural and easy, but for many it triggers feelings of deep insecurity about how to connect and be with each other. I so appreciated what Jen Bentley shared regarding her growth in this area of family and belonging.  She shares her process of coming to believe she has worth and value, both to other people as well as to God.  Jen says so eloquently what many of us have thought as we navigate the nuances of connection and relationship:

Hiding in Shame I grew up not having people I could trust with my deep self.  I had enough experiences of rejection and hurt to know that staying hidden was the best way to avoid pain and the ugly truth that I believed: that I was boring, stupid and really not much fun.  Shame would wash over me if I answered a question wrong, or got teased...the shame was so painful, I avoided it at all costs.  This may sound overwhelming, but life did go on for me and I found ways to be happy, make the best of it, manage to live on the outside even with this deep shame on the inside. Learning to Receive It has been during the past 4 or 5 years that God has been wooing me, drawing me out, inviting me in to embrace truths about myself I never knew were possible. I began to listen for His voice and He said the sweetest, most loving and intimate things about me...it was embarrassing at first!  From the first few interactions with Pastors Russ and Brent, I felt that they were seeing something in me I never saw in myself... I felt that they really saw me and knew me. I was welcomed into this culture of love, acceptance, and truth-telling. I really began to agree with the truth about me: that I am loving, insightful, kind, and fun!  I Belong! This culture we have is like none I have ever experienced. I was invited in from the beginning and celebrated for who I was, not what I could do or how I could perform. Believing I could be accepted just being has seeped into my soul slowly these past 4 years. I have been taking steps, slowly coming out of hiding. I realized this last weekend at our Women's retreat. I found myself happily doing things that used to be frightening... like walking up to a table full of women and sitting down, making conversation with ease and not feeling as if I was imposing or not wanted. I like this confident, courageous Jen that is slowly making her way to the surface. This is what it feels like to belong, to be seen and loved and accepted with all my weirdness and awkwardness. To know that I am unique, like no other, and cherished for that. This is what our Blazing Fire culture invites, cherishes and celebrates...the beauty and uniqueness of you.  Jen Bentley

Belonging is for All of Us Like Jen, we are all invited in.  In Christ we have stepped out of the Kingdom of this world, where we are orphans, and into the Kingdom of Heaven where we are chosen sons and daughters.  Let these words from Ephesians wash over you with the profound truth of what your Father in Heaven has to say about you:  “And he chose us to be his very own, joining us to Himself even before he laid the foundation of the universe!  Because of the great love, He ordained us as one with Christ from the beginning, so that we would be seen as holy in His eyes with an unstained innocence.  For it was always in His perfect plan to adopt us as His delightful children, so that His tremendous grace that cascades over us would bring him glory--for the same love He has for His Beloved One, Jesus, He has for us!”   Eph 1:4-6 The Passion Translation Love, Susan Fochler

Easy, Accessible Prophesying by Bill Hernandez - BF Prophetic Overseer

If you have received Jesus you can be a rocket scientist or anyone at any age who can have the ability to prophesy. This is because it does not depend on you, but on the Holy Spirit to flow through you. You have guaranteed access to this ability because it is your right and your inheritance.   "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance..." Eph 1:13-14   Anything belonging to the Holy Spirit is now accessible by you as the King's kid and He wants you to grow into all that He has for you. He will give to you a measure of grace to operate in some or all of the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit spoken of in I Corinthians 12. We need to be proactive and desire earnestly the gifts as we are commanded to in I Corinthians 14:1 and especially to prophesy. I don't think there will be any holding back if there is such eagerness from heaven on our behalf. As a matter of fact the many people I train and encourage are launching into prophesying quickly and accurately because I train with faith knowing that the Father is giving a big push to activate us. He's happy to see us take baby steps into all that belongs to us.   The whole process is so very simple. The first step after accepting Jesus is all spelled out in I Co 13, the chapter on love. Grace for others is so very important. Walk in that grace for others to be a carrier of the graces of the Holy Spirit, one of which is prophesying. Grace and compassion oils the flow of revelation. That revelation is God's heart of encouragement to His people.   The second step is understanding what your motive should be or what your job description is as a prophesyer. In I Cor 14:1-3 the duties of prophesying that are entrusted to us is to Edify, Exhort and Console - to build up, to call near, to cheer up. We are to look for treasures and look for all the good things in a person's heart and call those things out and they become a great encouragement.   Pretty much prophesying is helping people to see awesome things about themselves that God sees. We are not called to call out any bad stuff or dig around for pains and sorrows. We are called to bless and always leave that person blessed. If you see something heavy in a person's life ask the Lord what the solution is and give that to the person. If you see discouragement He might have you say that God is on his side and things are looking up.   Love and encouragement is easy, so prophesying is easy then. If you don't have something good to say, then you are done. Don't  say anymore. If you can't think of anything else to say, you're done.   Here is an easy exercise to accessing your new prophetic abilities:   Practice on your friends. Start with a few simple words of encouragement and work your way up as you practice over time.    First ask the Lord to use you. Wait for a bit to connect your heart to His. Speak to your friend, "When I look at you I see or I sense...." Voila! You have just prophesied. The feedback will most likely be positive or even astonishment the first time at the accuracy. Keep practicing and then try it on someone you don't know. Keep on practicing and develop your confidence. Building confidence will help you get over feelings of awkwardness and when all those feelings get out the way more and more you will hear more from the Lord. You will be a great encourager of the church and those around you, at home and the market place.   Please feel free to join me and Joel Pollard at Blazing Fire School of Prophets training which is free to everyone. Our next training is Oct 1 - 2:30-4:00. Visit blazingfire.org for more info.   Blessings - Bill Hernandez Prophetic Overseer

I Live For This by Pastor Brent Lokker

What happened this past Saturday at Blazing Fire Church was what I live for.  We’ve had nights somewhat similar before and, by God’s grace and design, many more are on the horizon.  So what happened?   The way our musicians tell it, their practice time before church did not go well, but the moment the first chord of the first song in worship hit our ears, something had shifted. Heaven was already partnering with them. But it started with a worship leader, Todd Lout, who determined in his heart, “I’m going for it—worshipping You with reckless abandon, Lord!  I must experience You—Nothing else will do!” And it required a worship team that would follow his lead and want the same.   But even that would not have taken us to the place we went together last Saturday.  There was a whole room full of people who had that same hunger and desire for the sweet and transforming Presence of God.  So many more of you than usual were actually there at the start of worship—almost as if something (or rather, Someone) had pulled you there with anticipation in your heart. The worship team would say later that they could feel your full, willing participation with heaven.   Our worship to the Lord with longing hearts for Him was a sweet smelling sacrifice. Heaven noticed and joined in.  We entered into Revelation 4:8, “Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!“   Holy…holy…holy…the room was transforming and many of us were glued to the floor with a reverent awe of the Lord, all of us transfixed by His overwhelming beauty.   Then prolonged sweet silence.  As if the Lord were saying to us, “Shhhhhhh…let your heart marinate in what it longed for. This is True Love’s embrace.”   Eventually, a word from the Lord came. “Everything you need is there for the taking.” In heaven’s realm where we live right now, there is no lack (Psalm 23:1).  The Lord is showing us what it means to live in two realms at the same time, which is what He’s always invited us into.   While on the floor, I told Papa, “I don’t need to preach. This is what we came for!” Those kinds of decisions are ones we all need to make—to lay aside certain things which are good in order to take in His best.  Don’t get me wrong, preaching God’s word is important, but there are times when He Himself supersedes our plans and agendas to say, “The Living Word is in your midst!  Open your mouths wide and receive the nourishment I have for you.”   In heaven’s environment that was in the room, healing broke out!  George, a man who was in great pain with metal throughout his body due to many surgeries and unable to walk for 20 years, was prayed for by Diana, a young woman who was at Blazing Fire for the first time, and he walked to the front of the room, beaming with joy and wonder, to give his testimony of the extreme goodness of God!

In heaven’s environment that was in the room, healing broke out!  George, a man who was in great pain with metal throughout his body due to many surgeries and unable to walk for 20 years, was prayed for by Diana, a young woman who was at Blazing Fire for the first time, and he walked to the front of the room, beaming with joy and wonder, to give his testimony of the extreme goodness of God!

The rest of the night was filled with saints, angels, tears, laughter, power, love, healing, freedom, prophetic encouragement…in short, heaven on earth!   When you sense His presence, take notice and honor that moment.  More and more of these moments are coming, my friends. This is what we all live for!

His Full Expression by BF guest contributor Charles Razzell

I've been stuck (in a good way) on the word "fulness" for the past week, which led me to read the following scripture in a new light:

"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." (Ephesians 1:22-23, NIV)

What do you see when you consider the body of Christ, the church? We probably tend to think most about our experience with our church family, and perhaps other local churches we may have attended in the past. Those who have travelled and ministered internationally typically see more of the “abundance of the nations” than those who have stayed close to home. But the stunning truth revealed in this scripture gives us another perspective, (Heaven’s perspective). The word “fullness", which is being applied here to the church on Earth, can be translated as “completeness” or “plenitude”.Another translation of this verse that I like is... "which is His body, the full expression of Him Who fills all creation." (CJB) So the church is expected to be, (and in some sense is), the full expression / fullness / completeness of Jesus, who fills all creation! If, perhaps, we are feeling inadequate, under resourced, or numerically challenged, it’s time to get a heavenly perspective on just how glorious and stunning the church already is and must become! Some of us, when faced with the vastness of the heavenly perspective, get a bit intimidated, perhaps even depressed, by the apparent gap between what we seem to have and what we're told we've inherited! It is good to realize that no single, local body of believers is intended to be the "full expression" of Him on their own, but part of a wonderful mosaic that builds world-wide into a glorious picture. Nor, does any one local expression (such as Blazing Fire Church) depend on any individual for its glory, but "From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." -- Eph 4:16, NIV. I hope these thoughts can be encouraging to you today.                                                                                    Blessings! - Charles

Fellowship With Holy Spirit by Pastor Todd Lout

The God Who created the vast expanse, and Who's love is ten gazillion times larger than even that (to start with), has always had a very intimate family.  Namely, it was "Me, Myself and I" in the Godhead. What more could He need or want?  Perfect love.  Perfect perfection.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  Yet, He sent Himself (Jesus) to be our advocate and redeemed us for all eternity.  AND THEN, upon going to prepare something for us, He wanted us to continue our training to ultimately live in perfection with Him by leaving us Holy Spirit.  in John 14:26 He tells us that Holy spirit will be here to teach us ALL things and constantly remind us about what Jesus said and did, intentionally keeping us in the loop.  He invited us into His own intimate circle of family.  Wow! On this planet, in this modern century, we have so much to grab hold of our attention that we often forget this whole thing; Holy Spirit is here, right now, to teach us and instill in us the ways of Heaven.  We desperately need continual and intentional fellowship with Holy Spirit.  In fact, it would be a hundred light years away from brilliance if we didn't take advantage of this. Think about it; we often tend to have feelings of despair over many things, like perceiving ourselves as inadequate to accomplish a thing, experiencing loneliness or disappointment over other people (abandonment, their shortcomings, their perception of our shortcomings, ill words spoken against us). Sometimes we feel ignorant or less spiritual than others who use more highlighter in their Bibles than we do.  So many mosquitoes (metaphorically) just sucking the life right out of us and all along we have access to perfect love, perfect knowledge, perfect peace, perfect joy and so so much more.  Remember, "He will teach you all things."  With Holy Spirit the possibilities are literally endless. His existence in our lives is like a red carpet, rolled out in front of us, that leads to resource unending. We just need to step on and keep walking. Paul encouraged us all with this, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen." 2 Corinthians 13:14.  That "amen" is telling us, "let it be true in your lives!"  (Also Philippians 2:1)   1 Thessalonians 5 tells us to pray nonstop, constantly foster thankfulness and not to suppress Holy Spirit. Right there we get a nice clue of how to fellowship with Holy Spirit.  Truly, when we are intentional with this, it's' not, at all, a laborious task.  This becomes our normal.  I would say it this way; WE CAN HAVE A LIFE OF HANGING OUT WITH THE ONE WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING AND WANTS TO TELL IT TO US....AND CRADLE US IN LOVE, ALL THE WHILE.  A great benefit to all this is that we will have rivers of living water flowing out from our innermost being, John 7:38, and that water will become a fountain of everlasting life, springing up from inside of us.  John 4:14 Dang!  That's not only great for us, but we get to splash that on everyone around us and on our situations! Oh, and we get to be totally transformed cause this fellowship will renew our entire thinking process! Romans 12:2 Holy Spirit owns all the freedoms that the human heart desires.  The more we fellowship with Holy Spirit, the more these freedoms replace bondages. Galations 5:16  From today on, as we decide to be more intentional in our Holy Spirit fellowship, we can go ahead establish trust.  I mean drive it into the soil of your everyday life like a solid tent peg.  He loves us to trust Him, you know. Hebrews 11:6  Here's a little acronym to help:             T - THANK YOU                      Thank Him for His presence, His love, His guidance             R - RELEASE REVELATION                      Ephesians 1:17    Exodus 33:18             U - USE ME                      1 Corinthians 12:31    14:1    Acts 2:17-21                S - STRENGTHEN ME                       Ephesians 3:16     Galatians 5:22-23              T - TEACH ME                      John 14:26                                                                             Love, Todd :)