PUT ON GARMENTS OF PRAISE - by Todd Benjamin Lout

Sadness, heaviness, depression...these are all too common for so many today. The causes are many many, from societal pressures, to trying to make marriage work in today's atmosphere, from financial bindings to living in regret and so on.  There is NO SHAME to be had for experiencing sadness.  In fact, the shame so many feel over this is another lie! But God, knowing we are in human bodies in human conditions with human emotions, is kind and loving. He offers us a way to ultimately replace sadness, by praising!  Does this mean He's egotistic and refuses to help us until we tell Him how great He is? Not at all!   God created us in His image. We have some heaven in our DNA.  There, (in heaven), the atmosphere is completely flooded with praise.  One enormous component of praise is thanksgiving. God  knows that when we turn our focus on things that are blessings, things God has done, and generally His goodness, that the things we're sad about seemingly shrink. The sting of depression is not so effective anymore.  This is how God has set things up because in Heaven it just IS and always was!  Our Father tells us that He will wrap us in victory, gladness and praise to replace depression and hopelessness.  This is in Isa. 61:3 (the Voice).  Here's the key, we need to open our arms to have this garment placed on us.  Even in the sadness we can allow faith to open our arms enough to be clothed.  This is us making up our mind to shift focus to what is praiseworthy.   We can do this!  God knows best and He has given us free will and we can do this. YOU can do this!  This week, whenever those sad feelings try to settle in, turn your eyes upon Jesus. He's got the answer. He IS the answer.

GO AND BE JESUS - by Brent Lokker

Our Blazing Fire Staff got away on a retreat the first weekend of January to lean our hearts together into the Lord’s sweet Spirit for anything he would want to communicate with us. One of the more tender and fun things we did was thanking God for all the ways he has blessed our Blazing Fire family throughout these many years. Maybe it’s just human nature, but we often have this tendency of focusing on what’s not going well or what needs to change—and some of that can be helpful—instead of celebrating what’s going right. So, we did just that and here are just a few of the many wonderful things expressed:   We give room for God’s Spirit to move and space is made for personal encounter. The worship atmosphere is free with no expectations to act or perform a certain way. We are loved for who we are and not judged. We value and practice vulnerability and authenticity as an important aspect of our intimacy with the Trinity and in our relationships with each other. It’s safe to explore and ask questions, not feeling like we must have everything figured out in this lifetime journey with God. We enjoy a prophetic culture of encouragement as we build each other up and remind one another of our authentic identity in Christ. We choose loving connection over having to be right.   I could share many more, but I wanted to give you a taste of what all of you have been a part of creating and sustaining as we’ve learned to open our hearts more and more to the goodness of God and to Holy Spirit’s brilliant leading. Thank you, fam!   Through these remembrances of what’s going right, God was communicating his deep pleasure to us of how we’ve all been living out our vision together with his help:   Encounter God’s transforming presence Enjoy Kingdom life as His family Equip world changers!   I can see our Father’s beaming smile saying to us, “Well done!”   We also sensed his desire to help us even more intentionally this year to go and be Jesus to the ones who so need to experience his love and acceptance—the entire world full of people who are longing to belong, not knowing they’ve always been included in the Father’s tender heart. Jesus is the one—through his death and resurrection—who opened the way for all to come to our Father in a warm embrace and we have been commissioned to go as the face of Jesus to our family, our office, our school—literally anywhere we are—to love without judging. With his kindness and compassion that has it's source in Christ within, we get to take part in the heaven to earth transformation that continues to happen in the heart of each person we encounter.   Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit have been faithfully transforming us through encounters and by drawing us into their loving union and fellowship so we can know our authentic selves as they’ve created us and let our light within shine this year in a way that will surprise us!   What Jesus instructed his followers over two thousand years ago hasn’t changed:   “Go into the roads and search every nook and cranny, find them behind every hedge and barrier and compel them to come in and fill my house to the brim, because the fields are ripe for harvest!” (taken from Luke 14:23 & John 4:35)

REMEMBER - by Elijah Breon

At the start of December I asked God for a word for 2024. I was feeling a bit behind spiritually and felt that I needed to catch up on what God was doing in my life. So I expected to hear something that would inspire and challenge me going into 2024, but instead I heard quite clearly, “REMEMBER.” Immediately I knew what Jesus was communicating to my soul. “Remember what I have done in your life? Remember where you came from? Do you remember how I delivered you from fear, from anxiety, from living without a purpose?” When we remember what God has done, it always sets us up for what is to come. Our God is a builder and he uses each season of our life as a stone to build a monument before the world of His love and faithfulness. Are you having a hard time looking forward? I encourage you to sit with our Father and remember what he has done in your life. Like the children coming from the wilderness to the promise land, recalling what God has done in our lives will speak to the future generations of the realities of God. ”When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over… that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”“ Joshua 4:21-24 NKJV

2024 - YEAR OF THE HEART CRY

Last Saturday, we were greatly encouraged by Joel Pollard, Tiffany James, and Bill Hernandez as they shared what they were sensing from God’s heart. It was a night of encouragement and instruction for the heart. You can check it out on our Youtube Channel or Facebook page. One major theme, Saturday, was that 2024 is the year of the heart cry. Tiffany was getting this from Holy Spirit for us all.  This cry of the heart is an important one for us.  When we position ourselves before a loving God, fully trusting Him with our vulnerability, we get His heart.  It's like when our own kids cry for us. We know that voice very well and will drop everything else to answer.  God loves us like that and He wants us to come without masks, without us trying to show that we have it all together, without holding back.  In our weakness He is strong. He's not looking for us to be perfected in our own strength.  And God is fully aware that this life we are living on Earth is hard at times. Our cry to Him invites Him to display His love for us through the rough stuff.  In Matthew 5 we read the Beatitueds, which sound like a heart cry: 3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,     for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. 4 God blesses those who mourn,     for they will be comforted. 5 God blesses those who are humble,     for they will inherit the whole earth. 6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,     for they will be satisfied. 7 God blesses those who are merciful,     for they will be shown mercy. 8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,     for they will see God. 9 God blesses those who work for peace,     for they will be called the children of God. 10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,     for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. The HEART is the core of us....our entire self. This year let's bring it all before Him who is love. Let the heart cry be lifted before the King of our Hearts!   By the way, even our tears are precious to God. Psalms 56:8 says: "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

CELEBRATING INCARNATION

I wanted to share with you a slice of the fascinating history of why we celebrate Christmas the way we have as followers of Christ. It’s written by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan theologian.     Merry Christmas with Love!   Pastor Brent

In the first 1200 years of Christianity, the central feast or celebration was Easter, with the high holy days of Holy Week leading up to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. But in the thirteenth century, Francis of Assisi entered the scene. He intuited that we didn’t need to wait for God to love us through the cross and resurrection. Francis believed the whole thing started with incarnate love. He popularized what we now take for granted as Christmas, which for many became the major Christian feast. Christmas is the Feast of the Incarnation when we celebrate God taking human form in the birth of Jesus. Francis realized that since God had become flesh—taken on materiality, physicality, humanity—then we didn’t have to wait for Good Friday and Easter to “solve the problem” of human sin: the problem was solved from the beginning. It makes sense that Christmas became the great celebratory feast of Christians because it basically says that it’s good to be human, it’s good to be on this Earth, it’s good to have a body, it’s good to have emotions. We don’t need to be ashamed of any of it! God loves matter and physicality. With that insight, it’s no wonder Francis went wild over Christmas. (I do too—my little house is filled with candles at Christmastime.) Francis believed that trees should be decorated with lights to show their true status as God’s creations, and that’s exactly what we still do eight hundred years later. And there’s more: when we speak of Advent or preparing for Christmas, we’re not just talking about waiting for the little baby Jesus to be born. That already happened two thousand years ago. In fact, we’re welcoming the Christ that is forever being born (incarnating) in the human soul and into history. The gifts of incarnation just keep coming! Perhaps this is enlightenment.  “The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1:9 (NLT)

FAITH WITHOUT HOPE IS WEIRD - by Steve Buckland

I remember hearing Wendy speak these words while we were preaching together years ago. It captures an important truth for those who want to have a healthy faith.  Hope is an overall optimistic attitude about the future based on the goodness and promises of God. I am not a proponent of simple positive thinking, but I do ascribe to biblical optimism. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).  Faith is very specific while hope is more general.  Faith says, “God is going to do this!” Hope says, “I don’t know what God is going to do but good things are coming.”  We are all waiting on something. Whether it’s a promise from God, restoration for our family, breakthrough in our finances, or physical healing, things are not where we’d like them to be. Although faith keeps us focused on the breakthrough that is coming for us, hope helps us thrive in the season we’re in right now.  Without hope, it is impossible to thrive until things are perfect. Hope says the future will be better than the present and I have the power to help make it so. You don’t have to wait a single day to have radical hope. It might not be a convenient time to stir up radical hope, but you can thrive right now, even in the season of waiting for what’s to come.  Let’s explore more about the difference between faith and hope:   Faith-people without hope tend to believe they cannot really live until certain things happen. Faith-people with hope are living while they are waiting.    Faith-people without hope have difficulty overcoming disappointment because they believe their fulfillment and purpose depend on specific things happening. Faith-people with hope are adaptable and believe they can thrive in whatever situation they face.    Faith-people without hope tend to have a spirit of heaviness while they are waiting for something to happen. Faith-people with hope are delighters in the Lord while they are waiting for their desires to be fulfilled. “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Delighting, a main aspect of hope, is key to seeing what we are believing for in faith to manifest.  When we add hope to our faith, we become adaptable and live with many options. For more on hope, check out my online devotional, "40 Days of Hope" Click to check out Steve's book, "Igniting Hope in 40 Days"

OUR SOURCE OF HOPE - by Karena Lout

Thank you so much for all your help and donations that made the Christmas Outreach so special for the community! City Serve shared that 111 households were served which includes 500 family members and 278 children. It was so beautiful to look around the room and see kids choosing toys, doing crafts, getting their face painted, parents receiving prayer and encouragement, receiving needed items, enjoying apple cider. I met a young couple who have four children. They shared how difficult life has been and that the day brought a smile to their childrens' faces and brought them hope. Jesus, our source of hope, never disappoints.   "May God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his super-abundance until you radiate with hope!" Romans 15:13 (TPT) As we celebrate Jesus, I pray you too are filled with abundant joy and hope! So thankful for you, Karena