Lesson from God in Tithing

In prayer today (after reading Chapter 2 of Hearing God), I had a vision that I believe came from the Holy Spirit.  I was a little boy, and I was with a man (who I understood to be the Father), and we were basically in a blank space (nothing around us but empty space, but not dark).  I asked for a large sum of money (which I recently did do in prayer, for which I believed the response was affirmative).  When the Father figure gave it to me, I saw myself (as a little boy) run around and then throw a huge pile of the money.  I took this to mean that I would just ‘throw the money away’.  After denial and then reflection, I responded that "yes, I would just throw it away, but I am dependent upon you, Lord.  Your will be done through me."

Then the scene seemed to ‘reset’ and this time, the Father gave me small pieces of money at a time.  I thought about how I have been tithing with the money that has seemed to me to be above and beyond my salary (bonus and website development).  Then as He was giving me more money, I was distributing that money like cards on a card table, small stacks spread out.  I took this to mean that I am to distribute my money to various causes and ministries in small increments.  Then I saw one of the piles ‘light up’ (so to speak), or somehow became more noticeable.  I then put more money in that pile.  I took this to mean that as I see how each cause or ministry uses the money toward God’s kingdom on earth, I am to increase my investment / gift accordingly.

That was the end.  I then had a repeated feeling to write the experience down.  I tried to fight it off for a while, but it was very persistent, so here I am.

I love you Lord and I trust you.  Thank you for molding me into the man you want me to be.  I live to grow in my relationship with you and bring others into, and strengthen their, relationship with you.

Be Joyful

Tonight in prayer, I started to become tearfully emotional, as I have been lately when appreciating God’s grace and power in my life.  The Holy Spirit asked me:

Why are you crying?

I responded:

It’s tears of happiness

His response was:

It’s not joyful…

Then the word sulking came to mind.  I looked up the word online and it’s related to the word sullen.  Those two words are a better description of me than I would like to admit.

The Holy Spirit said (commanded?), three times:

The Rock San Diego – 3/8/09

When building a building there are three groups of people involved in the process:

1.  The person with the plan / vision
2. The person who executes the contract
3. The project manager – the one who is there to ‘get it done’

The Old Testament was the plan.  The New Testament is the contract execution (Jesus) and the execution of the plan (Holy Spirit).

Trinity:

1. God the father
2. Jesus – executed the contract
3. Holy Spirit – executing the plan (doing the work)

1 – God the father establishes the plan of salvation (big picture)

2 – Jesus, the mediator, executes the plan’s contract (1 Cor 6: 19-20)

3 – The Holy Spirit, as helper, implements the plan

• The Holy Spirit is 100% qualified to radically change your life – to guide you in every moment of your life
• Your "person" is not your body.  Your "person" is unseen – the soul
• The Holy Spirit can do more than you ever think to ask, but if you don’t know what those things are, then you won’t know to ask and won’t take advantage of the power that is available to you
• You can be saved, but not know the Holy Spirit

4 – Understand that all three (God, Son, Holy Spirit) are all one God

(The Holy Spirit is God)

5 – Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to you.

• Names of the Holy Spirit:  The Helper, The Spirit of truth (He teaches you spiritual truth – ask for Him to help you),

6 – The Holy Spirit is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere all the time), and omnipotent (all powerful)

• You don’t even know what you don’t know

Imagine you had a friend that you trusted so dearly, so completely, to know the right and true answer to any and every question you could ask.  You would be talking to that person constantly!  You would never let that person out of your sight!

Great First Step in Web Development

I feel like I’ve been in a flurry.  I’ve been so driven toward learning about web development lately.  I think it’s good, and I believe that it is what God is calling me to do.  I have realized, however, that it is not a race.  I don’t need to force it.  God will teach me what I need to know, when I need to know it – and that’s that.  I can rest in faith in Him and His plan.

[My client] really liked my initial design of their website.  She said that my and [my wife’s] proposal looked very reasonable.  She wants to talk about what the three options entail.  This is encouraging.  It’s like God has given me a perfect ‘first step’ project.  Truly perfect.  Their expectations aren’t enormous and it has lead me to become more serious about my approach with this.  I’ve purchased the Adobe CS4 Web Premium software, which should arrive in a few days.  I need to learn all I can without feeling pressured to have to know it all right now.  People spend their lives doing this; it’s going to take time and practice.  I pray that if this is God’s direction, that He would grant me wisdom and aptitude for learning this material easily.

Beer

Since largely giving up drinking (I don’t know how long ago), I have bought six-packs a couple of times.  Both times, when I have drank, I have felt that drinking pulls me away from God.  God is working in powerful ways in my life right now.  Alcohol seems to (in reflecting on my experiences and state of mind afterwards) result in a disconnection from God.  I am not willing to accept any behavior in myself the would result in diminishment of my connection with God.  I want to live out God’s plan for me.  I need to be ‘in tune’ or in touch with his directives.

Website development

I am truly experiencing the power of God right now.  As I wrote on 3/2, I have been studying website development.  Right when I finished studying Head Start XHTML and CSS, Jen pointed out on Caitlin’s preschool’s newsletter that they were looking for someone to update their website!  Talk about good timing!  I contacted the director right away, and we’re moving forward with it.  Nothing is really contractually solid, but it will be a good experience, good practice, and good for my portfolio.  I have already come up with a new design and showed it to [my wife], [father in law and his wife], my mom and [step dad].  Everyone seems to really like it.  [my father in law and his wife] even sound like they are going to refer me to [my father in law’s wife’s] daughter to put together a website for her.

The part I’m really struggling with is how to charge for my work.  Hourly, per page, per project, etc.  After a lot of discussion and some prayer, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to estimate a range and the school director can tell me what works with her budget.  Whatever amount she is comfortable with, I will devote the appropriate amount of time.

After talking with [my oldest daughter] and [my wife] about things, [my wife] seems like she’s very interested, and there may be opportunity for her to do some business development for me.  [my oldest daughter] has also expressed interest in graphic design, since she’s taking a class in school for it.  What a blessing it would be for each of us to work as a team!  We’ll see what the Lord has in store for us! 🙂

Lord, I trust your plan. I’m excited to see your plan unfold! What wonders you have in store for me! Thank you for the opportunity to serve you. Thank you for working in my life in such powerful ways. I pray that you would use my talents and the talents of those around me, especially my family, to serve and glorify you.  Amen.

Focusing on Relationship

While reading and reflecting on pages 113-114 of The Divine Conspiracy, I have realized that maybe I’ve been focusing on the wrong things, or possibly that I just need to remember that it’s what is in the heart that matters most to God.  If I could just get there and open that up to Him, I’d be much closer with Him.

Regarding MyBibleDiary, I need to remember that it would be counter-productive to provide a tool that takes anything away from real and heartfelt interaction with God.  For example, by keeping a table of ‘prayer requests’ what does that really do for me?  Enables me to remember what’s important to me?  Why would I need reminding if it truly were important???

The Rock Church – 2/15/09

Two questions:

1. Do you believe in the afterlife?
2. What are you doing to prove it?

• You have faith in gravity and oxygen, love and God.  You’ve never seen these things, but you trust them.
• We are all creatures of faith
• "You get saved… You get equipped… You get sent out"

1.  Identify a specific burden you want to help someone carry

• There is some burden in your family (or elsewhere) that you are called and equipped to help
• Who do you feel burdened to help – who / what does your heart break for?
• Nobody can help everybody
• Who has God called me to help?
• 2 Cor 5: 17-21… God has given us the ministry of removing the barrier between people and God and He’s given us the message of reconciliation.  He is pleading through us, to somebody.
• Ask God – who is it that for me?  Who do you want me to focus my energies on reaching?
• Honor God with not only your money, but also your time, and you will be so blessed, you will overflow
• Everything you have is borrowed

2.  Identify a friend you can serve with

• God created us to be dependent upon one another
• Humans are the most evolved creatures, yet are fully dependent on one another

3.  Spend time planning ahead and thinking out of the box on how you can carry that burden.

• God, show me how I can help them
• What does your faith in God look like?;
• The answer should be:  I faithfully serve, pray, study the Word
• You don’t need to go to work saying "I’m a Christian".  Live it, and they’ll see it.  The best evidence of who you are is what you do.
• God’s power is in His word.  The Bible, creation, healing, etc
• God only forgives those who ask for forgiveness and repent
• God’s greatest work is what he’s able to do in people

4.  Deliver the person to Jesus

House hunting

The last couple of weeks have been filled with drama around the search for a home to buy.  We got pre-approved and put an offer on a house on 2/18, and later the sellers countered with only $1k off their asking price.  We countered $5k higher as a ‘final offer’ and they are not interested.

Lord, I pray for your wisdom and guidance as Jen and I determine what to do with our living situation.  I desire only to follow your will.  Please make your direction apparent.  I trust in your plan.  Amen.

It’s been too long

It’s been way too long since my last entry.  Why would I stop right after my baptism?  It doesn’t make sense to me.

However, I have experienced what I feel is the Lord preparing me for work.  I have been heavily engaged in not only studying for the PMP exam, but also learning how to develop web pages.  I feel called in this way, and it feels like a natural ‘fit’ of my talents, abilities, and passion.  My feeling is that whatever I develop needs to be free to the user, and (obviously) centered on being Christ’s "hands and feet".  I need to stay sensitive to how He is calling me in this (or other) way(s).

Later in the evening…

In my Rock Church sermon study tonight, pastor Miles said the following: "You get saved… you get equipped… you get sent out".  This directly correlates with (and confirms?) my prior entry (above) in my energy toward learning to build websites.