February 2024

Praying God’s Outpouring of Love over You! 
Blessings & Peace Upon You,
Your Friends at LOOP

Greater Things (Dream Big and Trust God) pt.1

All Scripture taken from the New Living Translation

For the next several weeks we will look at how to overcome obstacles, and walk in the plans God has for us… 

We will also get back to our Book of Revelation series before long as well!

Today as part of our “Greater Things” series we are going to look at what it takes to “Dream Big and Trust God!”

Some of my biggest lessons as a Christian have been to trust God when I don’t understand what’s happening… 

Trusting God when we don’t know what’s really happening is not the easiest thing to do, and we can often get off course if we don’t have good solid people around us to help with the navigation of the journey God is leading us on.

I recently cast the vision I believe God set before us with our staff and will share the with our leaders here in the next month or so, and to be honest I felt the Holy Spirit saying that this is the foundation of what the next ten years will be built upon at Vineyard Community… Exciting stuff for sure!!

I believe we are walking through the first of many exciting new chapters here at Vineyard Community Church as we just celebrated 45 years of doing ministry!

When it comes to dreaming big and trusting God with those dreams, I think Ephesians 3:20 is a good verse to use as a base for today’s message…

Ephesians 3:20: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

It is God who accomplishes His plans through us… And it is God who is able to do more than we can infinitely ask or think… 

So dream big… And don’t hold back… Because God doesn’t… God is the One who gives us the desires of our hearts, and God is the One who will carry the dream to fruition!!

In the book of Revelation, the church in Philadelphia was not a very strong church, but they stayed true to their faith in Jesus… They stood strong in the face of adversity, and they persevered… And because of this Jesus said…

Revelation 3:8: “I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. You have little strength, yet you obeyed My word and did not deny Me.”

I want to be a person who lives his life in a way that when Jesus opens and door for me, nobody can close it!

This means we must stay true to God’s Words so He can accomplish His purpose through us… So when we dream big the doors will open!

Maybe you’re sitting here, and you’ve had dreams fall through, or you’ve had dreams not reach what you thought were their fullest potential… Maybe you don’t feel like you have the creative mindset to dream big…

Or maybe, maybe you’re skeptical of dreaming big because of the fear of let downs!

Listen to this… In the very beginning we are told that we are created in the very image of God…

Genesis 1:27: “So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; Male and female He created them.”

This doesn’t mean that we look like God with the way our bodies are formed… It means we are a three part being (Body, mind, and spirit), just like God is a three part being, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…

And we have the Holy Spirit within us giving us our God-given creative potential!

Look at all creation around us and see how creative God is… How intricate and precise it all is… And we are the only ones in all creation He made in His image…

Humans are the only breathing creatures who have the capacity to dream up a business… Dream up a ministry… To be creative with art and music…

We are the only ones in creation with the mental capacity to plan for the future!

The Bibles says in Proverbs 29:18: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.”

Without dreams and vision for my life I’m a dying person… My life runs wild because I have no direction that is connected to God’s will in my life…

The same goes for my family, and for this church… I must keep pressing into my relationship with Jesus to follow the dreams and plans He has for the path I’m on!

My hope for us as a church body is that this sermon series stirs us up as individuals, and as a congregation… To dream big and trust God… 

To press into the plans He has for each of us, by following His lead in our lives!

God is the ultimate dream giver… He is creative beyond our imagination… 

All through the Bible are stories of God’s imagination bringing people into His plan for mankind… 

How many of us have thoughts that have turned into a dream, or maybe we currently are thinking of something right now… 

A business venture… A hobby… Get out of debt… Try something new with family… To share my faith more in the new year…

These are God dreams where He is calling us to join Him in an adventure!

Everything starts with a dream, and when we accept the divine guidance of our Creator, we are joining Him in the plans He has for us…

Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

I would like to make the prayer the Apostle Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus, the same prayer for us during this season…

Ephesians 1:18: “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called, His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.”

The confident hope God gives us starts with a dream, with a vision, and we must trust Him in the process… Accept the guidance He gives and follow His lead!

The reason it is a confident hope that fills our hearts is because when God gives us a dream, or a plan to join Him in something…

He doesn’t lay the entire process out before us… We must trust in the process as God’s Holy Spirit gives us bits and pieces as we go… 

As each piece of the dream comes together… The trust process of our hope begins… 

The success of a process like this causes hope and builds our trust in the process of God’s plan… the dream He gave us… Our faith in God’s plan creates hope!

Proverbs 16:3: “Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.”

Our dreams and desires, the plans we have for the future, and our willingness to see them through is what keeps us growing in our Christian faith… 

Our internal drive, our God-given drive is what develops skills we didn’t have when the dream was not yet a reality…

We don’t know what we’re good at until we commit our actions to the Lord and He brings those gifts and talents, the skills we didn’t know we had to life!

God dreams force us to rely on Him as we grow beyond what we thought we could do!

I want to tie all of this together by reading a passage from Philippians…

Philippians 3:12-14: “¹² I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. ¹³ No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,^[a] but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

Prior to this passage Paul is talking about knowing Jesus on such an intimate level that he’s willing to suffer to the point of death so he can experience the resurrection of his life to heaven…

Then he makes it clear in this passage that he has not achieved any type of perfection in his faith… 

But that he continues to press toward the perfection of a life identified with Jesus…

Perfection will not take place until we are in our glorified bodies in heaven…

But until then, we all need to press forward with the dreams, plans, ideas, and vision, that God puts on our hearts to do life and further His Kingdom here on earth…

Often what happens is that our past keeps us from walking in the full potential of our future…

Paul gives great advice when this happens… Forget about the past… 

Forget about it… We cannot allow the things of the past to define our future…

We’ll never be able to totally erase the things that have been done to us, or the mistakes we have made… We’ll always have those memories…

But we can receive healing and guidance from Jesus to help in the matter…

I fully believe the past is a great tool we can learn from, and quite possibly helps others who are where we once were… 

God will not waste our mistakes, and God will not waste our bad experiences!

I think when Paul says in this passage that he has not yet achieved perfection…  

He means, that I am not yet who Jesus wants me to be… And neither am I… None of us are…

So here’s what that tells me… No matter our age in life there is always another dream God has in store for us!

In closing…

Let’s all agree to press forward to what it is Jesus is calling us to do…

If the dream seems impossible… If the dream makes you nervous… If the dream requires the help of others… Then the dream will take faith in God to accomplish!

And maybe, the dream is saying… We are not yet where Jesus wants us to be…

Then we must keep moving toward the dream that God has called us to receive through Christ Jesus…

Because without a God-given dream to work toward… Without a plan… Without a vision… People perish… 

And when this happens, we are not walking in our fullest God-given potential!

My prayer is that God begins to breathe new life into our spirits… New hope into our spirits… And new dreams to accomplish through all of us…

May this be the year we as a church body become fools for Christ because of the dreams we begin to accomplish in His name!!

God is the one who makes the impossible, possible… God is the one who gives beyond measure… 

And God is the one who has more faith in each of us than even we do in ourselves!

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners” (Psalm 1:1).

I was 13 years old when I first read a book on courtship. From those pages, I learned that God had the perfect husband already picked out for me. To me, it seemed that if I focused on my relationship with Christ, if I waited in contentment, my future husband would one day come into my life like a knight-in-shining-armor. It sounded like a fairytale, and I was enchanted. Like so many in my generation, I got down on my knees, gave my love life to God, and kissed dating goodbye.

I equated the promise of courtship with the promise of Psalm 1 — avoid the sinful path of dating, and you will be blessed with a godly marriage.

I did everything in my power to keep my side of this bargain, but when I finally entered into a relationship, it didn’t last. I amended my approach and tried other models of courtship and biblical dating. I went through several relationships of varying seriousness. My experiences taught me much, but left me single. At first, I couldn’t understand. Where was the love story God promised?

“All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence” (Psalm 73:13). 

In his book The Psalms and the Life of Faith, theologian Walter Brueggemann suggests that the Psalms reflect the spiritual journey of our lives. We begin in a place of orientation, where everything makes sense. Life is good and goes the way we expect it to. And then, one day it doesn’t. We enter disorientation, where life doesn’t fit our notions of reality. Brueggemann writes:

Human persons are not meant for situations of disorientation. They will struggle against such situations with all their energies. Insofar as persons are hopeful and healthy, they may grow and work through to a new orientation.

I struggled for some time against the light God had begun to dawn on my path. It took years for me to surrender to the reorientation of my steps.

Finally, I opened my eyes to a new and ancient reality — my story was never about me.

“For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100:5).

Before our beginning, Scripture tells us, God planted a garden. Then God created man and placed him in the garden to tend it. The commentators of the ESV Study Bible explain:

The overall picture of Eden … suggests that the park-like garden is part of a divine sanctuary. The man is put in the garden to work it and keep it. The term “work” (Hb. ‘abad … ) denotes preparing and tending, and “keep” (Hb. shamar) adds to the idea. … Later, the same two verbs are used together to the work undertaken by the priests and Levites in the tabernacle (“minister” or “serve” [Hb. ‘abad] and “guard” [Hb. shamar] … ). The man’s role is to be not only gardener but also guardian. As a priest, he is to maintain the sanctity of the garden as a part of a temple complex (53).

The garden was God’s; its purpose was God’s glory. The role of mankind in God’s young drama was to act as priests in this lush temple.

All too quickly, Adam and Eve forgot their lines. “Did God actually say,” queried the serpent, and the allure of the spotlight blinded their eyes. They gave up their priestly role to become gods themselves. But, instead of rising, they fell. They died, and brought death to all of creation. God sent them out of the garden, but the serpent’s curse carried a seed of hope: “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).

With Abraham, God began the process of restoring mankind to its proper role. He established the nation of Israel, saying “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6a). God brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey, and they built a temple to His name. Yet, in time, Israel too fell away. And like their ancestors, God sent them out of the land, but not without a promise of hope: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch” (Jeremiah 23:5a).

In his The King Jesus Gospel, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight writes that this is the Gospel: “the Story of Israel that comes to completion in the saving Story of Jesus, who is Messiah of Israel, Lord over all, and the Davidic Savior” (131). This is good news — where death reigned, life was born:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

This Gospel is the love story God promised to write.

In Christ, the Messiah, God began a new creation, with a new priesthood (Hebrews 2:17). And once again, He has offered us a chance to be restored to our role in His grand story.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

As we follow in the steps of our High Priest, we are called to love as He loved, by laying down our lives for each other (1 John 3:16). Like Adam and Eve, we are created for good works (Ephesians 2:10). To that end, God has equipped each of us:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4-7, emphasis mine).

In her book Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?, Carolyn McCulley points out that Paul uses the same Greek word for “gifts” in 1 Corinthians 12:4 as he does in his 1 Corinthians 7:7 discussion of singleness. McCulley explains that singleness, like all gifts, is for the church:

Spiritual gifts are given for the common good. The good news is that the singleness is not about you — either your good qualities or your sinful tendencies. You have a ‘gracious endowment’ that is for the good of those around you! … Friends, we have to stop here and ask ourselves if being gifted for the benefit of the church is important to us. This passage from 1 Corinthians 12 shows us that singleness gives us a context for the other spiritual gifts we may have and is a resource to be faithfully administered (30-31).

It’s not that the desire for marriage is wrong. On the contrary, marriage is part of God’s very good creation. For most people, God will satisfy their desire for marriage in the here and now, calling them to a relationship meant to testify of the love between Christ and His church. For others, however, God may use the unmet desire for marriage as a means of grace. He may give some people the gift of singleness — either temporarily or permanently — because it is best for His bride.

***

When I was a little girl, I asked God to write my love story. Instead, He has written me into something much greater. Through the tides of loneliness that still roll into my life now and again, I have felt God’s longing for His people. Through the brokenness of relationships in this world, God has opened my eyes to the depth of our need for a Savior. And as I’ve leaned into Him, He has given me a glimpse of His heart.

While my life has remained barren of husband and children, God has been faithful to fill it with opportunities to be salt and light. While I still pray for marriage, I trust God with my future. I doubt I’ll remember this hope differed when my eyes finally catch a glimpse of His face, at my death or His return.

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).

Copyright 2013 Candice Gage. All rights reserved.

How God Answers our Prayers: Dr. Ahmed, a well-known cancer specialist, was once on his way to an important conference in another city where he was going to be granted an award in the field of medical research.

He was very excited to attend the conference and was desperate to reach as soon as possible. He had worked long and hard on his research and felt his efforts deserved the award he was about to obtain.

However, two hours after the plane took off, the plane made an emergency landing at the nearest airport due to some technical snag. Afraid, that he wouldn’t make it in time for the conference, Dr. Ahmed immediately went to the reception and found that next flight to the destination was after ten hours. The receptionist suggested him to rent a car and drive himself down to the conference city which was only four hours away.

Having no other choice, he agreed to the idea despite his hatred for driving long distances.
Dr. Ahmed rented a car and started his journey. However, soon after he left, the weather suddenly changed and a heavy storm began. The pouring rain made it very difficult for him to see and he missed a turn he was supposed to take.

After two hours of driving, he was convinced he was lost. Driving in the heavy rain on a deserted road, feeling hungry and tired, he frantically began to look for any sign of civilization. After some time, he finally came across a small tattered house. Desperate, he got out of the car and knocked on the door. A beautiful lady opened the door. He explained the matter and asked her if he could use her telephone.

However, the lady told him that she doesn’t have a phone or any electronic gadget but told the doctor that if could come inside till weather improves. Hungry, wet and exhausted, the doctor accepted her kind offer and walked in.

The lady  gave him hot tea and something to eat. The lady told him that he can join her for prayers for which Dr. Ahmed smiled and said that he believe in hard work only and told her to continue with her prayers.

Sitting on the table and  sipping the tea, the doctor watched the woman in the dim light of candles as she prayed next to what appeared to be a small baby crib.

Every time she finished a prayer, she would start another one. Feeling that the woman might be in need of help, the doctor seized the opportunity to speak as soon as she finished her prayers. The doctor asked her what exactly she wants from the God and inquired if God will ever listen or listen to her prayers. He further asked about the small child in the crib for whom she was apparently making a lot of prayers.

The lady gave a sad smile and said that the child in the crib is his son who is suffering from a rare type of cancer and there is only one Doctor Ahmed who can cure him but she doesn’t have money to afford his fee and moreover Dr Ahmed lives in another far off town. She said that God has not answered her prayer so far but said that God will create some way out one day and added that she will not allow her fears to overcome her faith.

Stunned and speechless Dr Ahmed was in tears which were rolling down his cheeks. He whispered, God is great and recollected sequence of events. ….there was malfunction in the plane, a thunderstorm hit, and he lost his way; and all of this happened because God did not just answer her prayer but also gave him a chance to come out of materialistic world and give some time to the poor helpless people who have nothing but rich prayers.

We should always remember five important steps in our daily life:

1)Ask
2)Believe
3)Receive
4)Faith
5)Giving

May God bless us all!