Sorry, We're Sold Out!

As we enter new seasons in life, it's worth reflecting on what God has called us to be. What if we were a people that carried the presence of God? What if we saw miracles, signs and wonders - people healed in ways that defy belief, lives changed forever, and all for His glory?

I've grown up in church my whole life, and as a result I love this place, this house of God. I get to call it my home, and the people there my family.

I gave my life to Jesus when I was 3 years old. I remember it vividly. My family was visiting a church in the afternoon, and at the end of the sermon the pastor asked if anyone would like to know Jesus personally. It was as if he was asking me, and only me in a room full of people. The pastor asked "Would anyone like to know Jesus, come and see me at the front of the stage after the service". Desperate to know Jesus personally in my life, I asked my parents if I could speak to the pastor. They said yes and after the service had finished, people leaving their chairs to go get coffee or tea or whatever it is that they drink, I made my way boldly to the front of the stage. That day I gave my life to Jesus at the age of only 3 years old. It was an authentic, real, strong and personal decision I made as a young child. I believe God can work powerfully in young children, and that day I gave my life to Him not as a kid influenced by the propaganda of parents, not as a child who had been told to, but as a child of God choosing to follow Him for the rest of my life and that was the most important decision I have ever made and will ever make.

I loved Jesus, I had a personal relationship with Him, but it wasn't until the age of 15 that God began to mark my life to be sold out for Him. God began to display His power at church. We were having meetings every night, people were being healed and lives were changing. Signs, wonders and miracles. There were testimonies of blind people seeing, paralyzed people walking and people being healed of deep rooted hurt and pain holding them back in their life. It was an incredible time, but this was when Jesus marked my heart for revival.

Revival is when God reawakens His church to align with its original calling: To see hearts come to Jesus, lives changed, diseases and disabilities healed and heaven come to earth - as we ask in the Lord's prayer "On earth as it is in heaven". That's what revival looks like.

This time in my life showed me the power of God and gave me just a glimpse of what God makes possible. I began to obsess about who He is, worshipping Him and praying daily for more of Him in my life. I was hungry for His presence, and desperate to see miracles. I would ride every day on the bus to college, an hour long bus ride reading books about revival, listening to worship music and praying at the back of the bus. Every day my love for God grew and the calling on my life for revival became more and more evident. In this season, God would give me dreams and visions for what was possible in my life, my church and my city. I remember one morning going to school, so wrecked by what God had done the night before, the beauty of His presence, the incredible sight of lives being changed that I couldn't focus. It was such a stark contrast, on one side was my calling, my identity, who I felt I wanted to be for the rest of my life, and on the other? This horrible, painful environment that seemed as if there was no life, no future, no hope. I was spending my nights seeing amazing things, and my days stuck somewhere I didn't want to be, when all I wanted was to be worshipping Him. I remember getting so fed up at school I ran out crying, sobbing because I couldn't take the vast difference between what I was experiencing in the evenings, and what I was having to endure in the daytime.

But you see, we are called to go into our world to make a difference, not run away from it!

Never underestimate what God can do in your life when you choose to give it all to Him!

We are made for the presence of God, to worship Him and experience His glory.

"The fact that our heart yearns for something earth cannot supply is proof that heaven must be our home" - C.S. Lewis

The Great Commission and Our Responsibility

Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

When Jesus spoke to the disciples, His early church, He was giving this commandment to all who would go after them, including us. Jesus was writing the mission statement for His church. Today, we are Jesus's church and our mission hasn't changed. He has given us the job to reach our doorstep world so that they may know Him too.

Being Faithful to God's Calling

Isaiah 6:1-8 (The Message)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne - high, exalted! - and the train of his robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other, Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth. The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said, "Doom! It's Doomsday! I'm as good as dead! Every word I've ever spoken is tainted - blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I've looked God in the face! The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!" Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said, "Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out."

And then I heard the voice of the Master: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"
I spoke up, "I'll go. Send me!"

We have to learn to answer the call. Isaiah stood straight up, he pleaded "Here I am, send me!" He answered the call. Will you answer the call? Will you drop everything in your life to blindly follow Jesus?

Isaiah had got himself to a point in life where he was receiving dreams and visions, he understood the holy sacred nature of God, and he was willing to lay down his life because he understood God was worthy of everything that he could give back to Him, including his whole life.

What It Means to Surrender Our Lives

When you surrender your image, your popularity, your attention to Jesus, that's when He can work mightily in your life.

We say "God, you can have my life - take all of me" but we don't mean it. What we really should say is "God, you can have my life - take most of me, but not that. You can have my time on a Sunday morning, and maybe even on a Monday night, but I'll keep my addictions and unhealthy relationships and a Wednesday - I'm busy on Wednesday." "Deal?" No! No deal! He wants our all!

We play a dangerous game! What we don't give to God is a free for all, it's up for grabs and I can bet you who's going to take it. Don't let your life slip into the darkness that is out to kill and destroy you! Choose the light. Don't sit on the fence of life, picking and choosing between the good and the bad. You'll end up falling off where the grass isn't greener!

We have to surrender everything to Him. When we go to work on a Monday morning, dedicating that to Him. When we go to dance class on a Saturday, making that part of our doorstep world mission.

You are a vessel that carries the presence of God. When you accept Jesus into your life, you open up your heart to be a vessel that carries His spirit everywhere you go. The more you open up to Him, the more He pours into you the bigger your capacity gets. But get this, you wouldn't drink from a glass that was dirty! Your vessel is made to carry something more precious than anything on this earth, so it has to be clean. When we ask God for more of Him in our lives, but don't keep our vessel clean, we tarnish the power that God wants to pour into us. The more He pours into us, the more we can pour out into our friends, family, church, workplace, school, college, the people we meet. Keep your vessel clean.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

2 Timothy 2:20-21 (The Message)

In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets—some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.

As it says in 1st Corinthians, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit! We cannot take that awesome responsibility lightly. Be the kind of container God can use to serve every kind of gift! But here's the good news:

Romans 3:23-26 (NIV)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The bible says we will fall short of the glory of God, but He has sent His son Jesus to die so that our sins may be forgiven, cleaning our vessel to carry more of Him. It's by the grace of God that we are cleaned. Here's the best part, when we fall short, when we make mistakes, when we strive to honour God in our lives and miss the mark, all we have to do is pray and ask God to forgive our sins through Jesus Christ His son who died for us to be forgiven and have wholeness.

"God, I know I've messed up. That was wrong, and I ask you to forgive me and help me not to continue to make that mistake again."

Keep your vessel clean.

I used to love collecting music. Back when iPods were the best way to listen to music, and music libraries said more about a person than anything else, back then I built a library of tens of thousands of songs. I was proud of my music collection and boasted about it often. As God began to move in church and my life began to transform by what He was doing I remember having one Sunday afternoon where I felt God take my music. He wanted everything, and my music was getting in the way of that. Not in a sin kind of way, but in a surrender type of way. That afternoon I deleted my entire collection and started again. The albums I loved, the music that I loved, all the time and effort that went into building that library.

You see, it wasn't about the music, it was about surrender. Since then, because I was faithful with it, God has given music back to me. I can choose what I listen to and when I listen to it. Why? Because I proved that I could be faithful with it.

If you're not stewarding what He has given you well, then you're not ready for what He is about to release.

God will test your faithfulness. It's about surrender.

Connecting with The Holy Spirit

Have a strong prayer life.

When Jesus was on Earth, He connected to the Father through prayer. He knew the importance of a strong prayer life. Pray! In all times pray. When you're struggling pray, when things are going great for you, pray. When someone else around you looks like they need it, pray!

When prayer becomes your habit, miracles become your lifestyle.

Never give up on prayer, no matter what comes your way.

Prayer shifts things in the atmosphere. When you pray, prison walls break down, hell loses its power, regimes of the enemy can't prosper. There's power in prayer and you hold the key. Pray!

Get this, the Holy Spirit is the tool you have to connect what is happening in a heavenly realm to earth. When we ask the Holy Spirit to come and be our guide, we step out of a natural world and into a supernatural one.

There's a battle going on between good and bad and prayer is your tool for winning. True warriors fight on their knees, surrendered to God in prayer.

Make a space for just you, God and the Holy Spirit. A private time that only you know about where you worship Him, pray and intercede. Never underestimate the power of a prayer life led in a secret place. What God does in your life will have a direct correlation with time spent worshipping Him and praying on your own. It's about intimacy with Jesus. Intimacy - Into Me, I see. Being open and making connection with the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 6:6 (NKJV)

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

What we do in the secret comes out in the open. So spend time in a private setting with God, and the Holy Spirit will guide you what to do. The more time you spend in your secret place, the stronger you will become and the more natural it will become to you. You'll also find that the more time you spend in the secret place, the more you'll want to spend time worshipping Him and praying.

I love this quote from Bill Johnson:

"In the natural you get hungry by not eating, in the kingdom you get hungry by eating."

Honouring Him for Who He Is

God is so worthy of all we can give Him. Our lives, sold out for Him is the best thing we can do on this earth to honour Him and who He is. Our lives need to become worship to the Father.

We have to honour the Holy Spirit in our lives too. When you accept Jesus into your life, the Holy Spirit comes to live in you and wants to guide your way every day for your good and the glory of Him who sits on the throne. We can honour the Holy Spirit by listening and acting on what we feel He is saying. The more we listen, the better we get at hearing.

And we need to honour those around us too. I love this quote from Bill Johnson:

"A culture of honour is where you celebrate who somebody is without stumbling over who they are not."

Don't get hung up on the mistakes of others, you ain't perfect either. Honour them for who they are the way that God sees them.

So How Do I Become Sold Out?

Why have I titled this "Sorry, we're sold out"? Because it is my desire that we would all become sold out together following God's plan for us. As we become sold out for the Glory of God, incredible and life changing things will begin to happen. It's all about surrender, it's all about answering the call and it's all about obedience to what God is asking of us.

First off, wake up choosing to follow God each day. In the morning, dedicate time to thank Him for everything He has done in your life and ask him to be the Lord of your life today. Say "God, I choose to follow you today, lead my conversations, may my work be pleasing to you, may I only bring you glory in everything I do today. Protect me and keep me safe, protect me from mistakes today. Help me to be who you need me to be when you need me to be it."

Imagine what would happen if we all decided together that we want to be sold out for Jesus and acted on it?