We’re not just “trying” to PASSIONATELY PURSUE the Lord. We are “training” to passionately pursue the Lord! If you just try to bench press your weight it can be very discouraging. But you can train to bench press your weight and make progress to get there. Training physically and training spiritually have a lot of resemblance.
God is inviting us into a deeper place. A deeper place comes at a greater price but great is the reward for those who choose this path with God.
This deeper place is where we discover Kingdom realities of wisdom, peace, and joy that cannot be found anywhere else. The deeper we go, the more we realize that the true reward is not in what God gives but in who He is.
#KingdomAdvance
PUT THESE THINGS INTO PRACTICE! God is moving us from lectures to laboratories where we are not just hearing the Word, but we begin doing the Word in a mindset of Kingdom Advancement.
We are OUTRAGEOUSLY LOVING people who PASSIONATELY PURSUE the Lord with IRRATIONALLY GIVING lifestyles as we CONSISTENTLY SUBMIT to God’s desires and EFFECTIVELY DISCIPLE others to do the same.
These core values have core practices so we know how to put our values into practice.
Core Practices for this Core Value of PASSIONATELY PURSUING are Fasting and Prayer & Experiencing God in Scripture.
The practices are not the goal. They are the train tracks that help you find your way into a deeper place with God.
1 Corinthians 3:1-9 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. ESV
You are God’s Field. How are you doing at conditioning the soil of your heart to be hungry and receptive to all God desires to plant within you?
Soil can exist yet suffer deficiency of minerals, etc. It can be depleted if it is constantly feeding out and not being replenished. Fields need rest and restoration. The only thing you can control is the soil of your heart and that’s why we’re told to watch over it, guard it. Can’t control the seed. Can’t control the growth. Can’t control the storms. But I can control the soil of my heart that can readily receive God’s word.
TRACY NEISENT:
As I was praying for all of you, I began sensing the significance of the end of 2024 and the new beginning of 2025. There is something very important about this period of time in our lives, individually and for Destiny as a church family and for the church as a whole across the globe. There are 24 hours in a day. At the end of 24 hours a new day begins. 24 marks an ending of a period of time, and then it is a new period of time. Yesterday ends and today begins. At the stroke of midnight. Isn’t it interesting that a new time begins at midnight - in the dark and darkest part of the night, a new day begins. Maybe you are experiencing a dark time, but there is something significant about the end of 24, the end of the year 2024, that marks the end of a period of time, and this year 2025 begins a new period of time.
A shift has happened. 24 is finished and something new is beginning. I want you to really hear what I’m saying and begin to pray into what this means in your life. Whatever was, is now in the past, and a new time has begun. The clock has turned over. Old ways of doing things are finished, and now there are new methods coming to light. This is a time of unexpected timing, you are expecting the same rhythms, the same cadence of time and the clock ticking, but 24 is finished, and a new season of time has begun and in this season, time works differently, things are accelerated, the grief and trauma that you expect to take years before you are going to be able to feel normal again but you press in and supernaturally your mind and heart shift into the newness of the season and a new beginning, unexpected timing happens with relationships, divine connections at the most unexpected times, you cannot expect the same old patterns because there is a new rhythm and this rhythm is not really a rhythm at all - time accelerates and slows when needed. When things need to move, the pieces come into alignment like the teeth on a zipper and then it is moves up so fast. We are entering a new period of time unlike the old time.
I’m excited about what is ahead - pressing on toward the goal in 2025 - To know Christ more and more and become more and more like him!
GP2RL: Patterns reveal our priorities so what will your pattern of experiencing God in his Word and in fasting and prayer look like this week?