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The weight of the curse in Deut 28 was overwhelming this morning!  But, the good news is that Jesus became that curse for us and the blessings pronounced at Mt. Gerizim are now ours in Christ…shew, thank you Jesus!

Monday, February 7-28, 2011, The Crossing Church will be participating together in a 21 day corporate prayer and fast. One of the greatest events in the life of a church is when it’s people partner together in prayer and fasting, asking God to show Himself in a mighty way!

There are a lot of misunderstandings about a fasting. We have developed a web page at http://www.crossingonline.org/awakening21 to give you the tools and information to help you on your journey. We have teamed together with an organization called awake21.org which has brought churches together from all over the country. Through these practical and helpful tips we feel you will be given the tools to make this year’s corporate fast fruitful.

Check our website to learn more. http://www.crossingonline.org/awakening21

Don’t miss this very special weekend at The Crossing as we rock the house in celebration of what God is doing. I have prepared a special message for the occasion, which includes special music, praise and worship, all while John Nofsinger, our resident artist, adds to the experience with his gifting in painting and drawing. We will be taking our special Nehemiah Project Offering. This will be a service you don’t want to miss! Two locations: Tampa and Celebration. Visit www.crossingonline.org for times and directions.

Don’t miss First Wednesday tonight at 7pm, Tampa Campus.

I was away this weekend in Colorado and the Lord surprised me with His grace!  I don’t know if you have heard my story or not so I will recap and then tell you what happened…I am still in shock!  

I wanted to play football at the University of Oklahoma but was hurt my senior year in high school ( yes, I know Mizzou beat OU this weekend…what can I say it’s college football…good times, but I am still a Sooner at heart!) and ended up playing football at the University of Missouri.  I didn’t want to play for the Tigers but I didn’t want to quit either, I’ve never quit anything in my life and I was deeply distressed over it all.  All of my ill-founded feelings and self prescribed pain culminated one night in my small basement bedroom.  I can’t believe I did this but it made sense at the time?  I was being fed some very powerful lies during this period of my life.  I mustered everything I had and asked “God”, the one I didn’t yet believe in; (reminds me of the words to the song ”Breakeven” from The Script…”Praying to a God that I don’t believe in”) to physically hurt me so that I wouldn’t have to play or just outright quit the team.  Little did I know that I wasn’t praying to God at all but I was calling on “Belial/Beelzeboule”…the god of this world (Satan) who brings hopeless ruin and sends demonic oppression?  Unbeknownst to me, I was asking to be oppressed by the destroyer, all so I could be relieved of temporary pain.  I literally asked to be “maimed” so that I couldn’t play.  I know what a foolish thing to even consider.  My back and neck started giving me serious trouble from that day forward as my wish was supernaturally (not by God) granted.  I retained the full privilege of my football scholarship on “medical” status.  Things went from bad to worse in my physical and personal life and I spiraled into a place of darkness and despair that ultimately lead me to call on Christ.  I hit the lowest point of my life and cried out to God; to this day I am still amazed and thankful that He responded to my plea! 

February, 9, 1991 my life was forever changed as I asked Christ to be my savior.  It was a radical conversion!   I graduated from MU, got re-acquainted with my future wife (Tamara), and started going to church.  I was then called into full-time Christian service, went to Seminary and began pastoring.  Through the years the pain and dysfunction in my neck and back would slightly ease off at times and then spike back into critical levels in revolving seasons.  Recently, I’ve been experiencing “life altering” pain and severe spasms in my neck.  I have been to four doctors and have given considerable thought and attention to neurosurgery.  I currently submit to four hours of therapy a week and see my Chiropractor at least twice a week.  All the while, in the last year, the Lord has given me three specific “words” out of the scripture declaring that He would heal me; in fact, He has been encouraging me to confess that He has “already” healed me.   I wrestled with the biblical concept of healing for some time and then came to the conclusion that “I am indeed already healed”, already healed in Christ.  The second layer of understanding became clearer to me as the Lord instructed me to “believe” Him.  I started declaring that the Lord “has healed me, I am healed”…but I don’t know when and I don’t know how.  These two critical points had to be added because the Lord is sovereign and we don’t tell Him how or when, He decides that! 

All of that to say, I really struggled with going to Colorado this last weekend.  We are in the most important season we have ever been in as a church and it seemed unreasonable to miss the weekend, but I had committed to a Pastor from Kansas to teach at the retreat over a year ago.  After much deliberation and prayer I was convinced of the fact that I needed to go.  The Lord (and other faithful friends) helped me realize that my character in committing to go was a very important issue to the Lord and to the success of the retreat.  The morning I got up to catch the plane to Colorado I heard the Lord tell me that He was pleased with me and that the trip was going to be attended by the supernatural.  If I shared all of the little “God moments” with you all in detail it would comprise a whole book, suffice to say, every moment of the entire trip was simply amazing!  

I spoke three times while at the retreat.  After the mid morning session a man named Patrick (who was supposed to be in another meeting) approached me and told me that a man in the other group that was there was a Chiropractor in Dallas and had seen many people healed through his practice and prayer.  Patrick asked if he could bring the doctor over to pray for my neck.  I agreed but I didn’t think about the offer after our conversation and interaction that morning.  The evening session was an hour away and Patrick and the doctor (Dr. Shane Hand) showed up, I was surprised and blessed to see such loving brotherly kindness and thoughtfulness. 

The rest is just so God it’s hard to write it out long hand.  All I can say is that Jesus showed up in such a powerful way for me, it was sooooo personal and powerful words can’t really do it ANY justice. 

There was a brief introduction and Dr. Shane asked to pray for me.  He placed his hand on my neck and the first thing he said to me was…”I believe this is a curse and it doesn’t belong to you”…”this shouldn’t be here.”  “It’s been here a long time and you don’t have to carry this any longer.”  I was already feeling very weak in the knees at this point.  He went on speaking in a regular tone and rebuked the “principalities of Babylon” who levy infirmities on men, and then he called out “Balak” who tried to curse Israel but ultimately ended up blessing them instead.  A massive rush of power swept over me and I fell straight down to my knees, followed by several, very course, deep-chested coughs.  I felt the stronghold break and release and it was forced out as I coughed!  It was very clear what had happened, I am free of the yoke of that bondage!  I wept and thanked Patrick and Dr. Hand who had so graciously come to help me…I remember praying over their “beautiful” feet while I was on my knees.  The doctor had boots on, go figure he is from Texas.  I also remember the him repeatedly telling me…”you are a blessed man”, “this is settled”, “it’s over”, “you are a blessed man of God.”  Amen and Amen!  The band was practicing in our meeting room so I had the opportunity to praise the Lord with loud shouts, prayer, and singing  for about forty-five minutes before the next session was to start. 

I wrote this to testify of the magnitude of God’s grace!!!!  So that you aren’t confused, let me end by telling you exactly what the Lord has confirmed, and spoken.  The oppression (The Curse from so long ago) has been broken…I mean broken!  The Lord witnessed to me just after the prayer time that “now” I am to continue therapy and that “now” I will have the blessing and opportunity to actually get better with the treatment.  My physical body has been through a lot over the years but now it has the ability to respond “normally” to medicinal and therapeutic applications, maybe the need for surgery still exists, but I am not going there right now.  I am canceling my appointment with the neurosurgeon for next Monday; if I need it in the future I will figure that out when the time comes.  I am trusting the Lord for the whole deal.  I am healed, I am healed, I am healed…and now I am in the process of the fullness of His promise!!! 

Through reading the Word (Logos) every day the Lord has given me His specific and personal Word (Rhema) regarding this promise to me.  The night the curse was broken I was severely attacked with wicked images and verbal assaults, all to try to discourage me from what truly took place.  Interestingly, the same thing happened to me the night I trusted Christ.  The enemy will try to discourage you any way he can, but don’t make the mistake of letting him steal anything from you, especially what the Lord has already declared as revelational truth.  I was in pain the next day as we travel home but I kept on confessing the truth of what took place, the enemy has been defeated and the oppression lifted.  My neck has begun to feel “different” from a structural standpoint.  My Doctor and the therapist both commented yesterday that “something has really changed”, praise God!  My wife was weeping tonight, she said “I don’t know what to do with you; you have so much spunk back”.  I had resorted to taking muscles relaxers (x 4 per day) and a mild pain medicine (x 3 per day) I started last week.  Not today though, I haven’t had the first one and my neck and back feel better than they have in a really long time!  The muscles are still tight and there is still discomfort but “something” has been set right internally.  No one has ever been able to truly pinpoint the depth of the dysfunction or where it originated.  It’s like the “lock” in my neck was released and I know that the “gate” for full recovery is open and the structure is now ready to respond properly. 

Holy junk, Jesus is the Crunk (reference to our last First Wednesday).   I am rejoicing all over again!!  Our God is an awesome God, faithful throughout every generation!  He heals and sets free, He calls and delivers, He anoints and justifies those who trust in His Holy name! 

Unto your freedom, be free!

I’m trying to come to grips with fasting. Ok, I’ll go out on a limb and confess that I haven’t fasted much in my Christian life and I don’t fully understand it. So when a call for corporate fasting goes out, rebellion begins to rise up in me. Not wanting to go against God, or leadership or God’s people, I have begun a quest to find out what God wants from me concerning fasting. I started reading the book Fasting by author Jentezen Franklin and I think by the time the 30 days are up I’ll be finished reading it. So God decided to talk to me from His word and He did it through one of my Journal writings on the 29^th of September.

Of all the books of the Bible He chose Haggai to get my attention and set me on a course of correction. Haggai was a spokesperson for God. *“Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by the Lord to stir up the people to 1) not only rebuild the temple, but also to 2) reorder their spiritual priorities.” So Haggai says “Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ‘Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’” (Haggai 1: 3) Haggai declared the Word of the Lord when about 50,000 Jews had returned to their homeland and the temple was in ruins. Here’s my observation.

With their temple in ruins the wealthy Israelites were content to live in their cedar lined houses; “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?”(vs. 4) They wanted their wealth for themselves, not a temple. As the farmers stood before their fields and observed their crop shortages, God said: “You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” (vs. 6) Their shortages were because they were disobedient to God. “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’” (vs. 5) How does this apply to me?

Jentezen Franklin says in his book Fasting: “The three duties of Christians are giving, praying and fasting. When you faithfully follow the three duties of a Christian, God rewards you openly.” I know The Crossing Church is not in ruins, but there is so much need for all the ministries both financially and for volunteers. I’m not suggesting you are all wealthy, but some of us are. The point being, I think I can learn from these ancient people, who allowed the prophet to stir them up and they took the message to heart and the temple was completed 4 years later.

Does it feel like there is a hole in your wallet? Maybe it feels like you have invested much but there has been little yield. Maybe if you and I put God first, He would then be honored in our worship and we would be blessed in the secondary matters of life. If by giving, praying and fasting we realign our spiritual priorities, what will The Crossing Church look like in 4 years? Haggai wasn’t just talking to those ancient people, he is talking to me!

Father, teach us how to become zealous for taking care of Your house (The Crossing Church) and by setting our spiritual priorities aright please spare your people from economic catastrophe!

P. S. When I fast, I fast for You O Lord.

Amen

Dennie Walker, Discipleship and Care Pastor

 The Lord seems to be emphasizing praise lately!  Jesus received the praise of the people as they shouted and danced before His triumphal entry in Luke 19, but they still didn’t realize that His entry would involve the humility of His death.  A couple of weeks ago after the 7:00 service on Sat night the Lord explained some things to me in regard to the primacy of prayer and praise.  He used the story in Ezra chapter 3 where the first group of Israelites returned from captivity to rebuild the temple.  The first thing they did was to build the altar, were they started sacrificing daily.  Oddly, the texts imply that this was out of order and that they were doing this because they were afraid of the people of the land.  Can you see them taking those bloody sacrifices off of the altar saying to God…”do you see our sacrifice, we are here, we love you, we really want to see you, and please be with us, please look at all the work we are putting in to this.”  God seemed to say, “You are out of order, you can’t build the altar and ask people to sacrifice on the cut stone of man while it’s disjointed from the foundation of the temple.”  They should have started with the foundation (who is none other than Jesus – The stone the builders rejected…but that is revealed later on in the New Testament).  Once the people of God have their orientation in the temple of God and are firmly grounded on the foundations of God then they are ready to sacrifice, but not until then.  The altar belongs in the Temple not separated from it.  

So, in regard to worship and preaching, the Lord seemed to say to me, priority is the key!  First and most profound, your job is to entreat the Lord and worship Him…we are to minister to God first and most…even when we are on stage!  Secondly, we are to minister to the body, those who name the name of Christ and who are in need of His word and touch. Third, we turn our eyes toward those who don’t know Him yet, knowing that we have the power to truly seek them out of the overflow of being in the presence of God.The Lord said…”I don’t care how many songs you sing or what you preach but Heaven hasn’t registered a body singing or praying or preaching until it’s FIRST TO ME…it has to be unto me as priority First.”  THEN when I touch you and anoint you and heal you and fill you, you will in turn be able to shift into ministering to the body, and then out of that overflow you will love those who are far away. Give Him everything you have today!!!!Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, for He has done great things for us, who is like our God!  Pastor Greg

The Elders (doesn’t mean old guys, means spiritually mature) gather to pray each Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m. in my office.  It is a Holy time each and every time.  Yesterday one of the Elders commented on the fact that I had been obedient in a particular situation.  I was immediately sick to my stomach, not because he was thanking me for my obedience, but because the Spirit of God prompted me to understand that obedience is JUST the beginning of our faith.  Don’t get me wrong it’s huge, but it’s “only” the necessary foundation we need to experience the full potential of our faith, healing and power inherent in Jesus Christ. 

I am blown away when scripture connects in real-time with what’s just been thought, or said.  This morning the Lord laid it out right in front of my eyes for my heart to hear Him once again.  Luke chapter 17 describes Jesus’ discourse with his disciples where He tells them plainly what the Spirit witnessed to me yesterday.  Note as you read verse 6, verse 10 (especially) and verses 18-19.  He sets it up with faith, if you only possess a little you will move in the physical and spiritual realm with great power.  Second, he uses the illustration of a slave coming in from the field, he is told what to do, when he does what he is supposed to do it goes without saying that what he did is only what he was supposed to do, no fan fare involved.  Then the scene shifts to an example where 10 men have leprosy, this is really bad stuff.  Jesus starts the healing process and all ten of them do what He tells them to do, they all obey.  But, only one comes back to thank Him and to praise His name.  Note the distinction between the 9 who were cleansed and the 1 who was healed, interesting huh?  To boot, the man who returned to praise was a Samaritan, go figure, the least respected of all people of that time. 

So here is the deal…Obey the Lord, it’s not only basic it’s necessary for every other thing in your spiritual life…THEN praise Him and thank Him properly for all that He has done for us!   He has done great things for us…interestingly…again…it blows me away time after time…the psalm for today is psalm 150…the entire last psalm is a heavenly praise…let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Be amazed!

Pastor Greg