Are You Being Refined by the Almighty Refiner?? February 24, 2009

Sorry to all my readers…it’s been a while since I last posted!  Have you ever felt overwhelmed, but couldn’t figure out why? We all have been there and I am there at this point in my life and have been the past several weeks.  Is God trying to teach me something?  Is God trying to transform me?  Is God trying to mold me for the work He is about to have me do?  Is God wanting to use me, but can’t use me as I am now?  Am I just putting my hands in every spot that needs help in the church?  What are the answers?

I have been having tough issues of where I should be serving in the church.  What about your issues of serving?  Do you know where God wants you?  I know that my passion is for teens and have worked with teens the past 6 years of my life, is that where God wants me?

Since starting Crosspoint I have been greeting which I love very much because I am a people person, I have been working in Fusion K-5th grade and working in with the beautiful babies, my husband and I open our home to Lifegroup on Wednesday nights which is AWESOME in itself!  Has God put me in these places of ministry because He wants me there or have I taken them on because I think I should be apart of everything in the church!

My thoughts at this point has been that God needed me to experience these other ministries to know where my true ministry is.  It didn’t mean that he wanted me to stay in some of these ministries.  During the past 8 months God has been refining me for a ministry that I am very passionate about, I feel I just wasn’t ready for that ministry when we came to Crosspoint!  God did not want me there YET…He had some refining to do on me.  Not just small stuff…he was having to skim some very ugly junk from the Hot Pot of Silver!  From the time we came to Crosspoint…I was hoping to be able to work with the Youth….NOT!  God needed to do some work on me and He was bringing others to Crosspoint that had talents and qualities to form a team?  Thank God, He doesn’t let me be in charge!  It’s His timing not ours.  Ever been there? Uh…yep!

What is God’s refinement procees?

Psalm 66:10-12 (The Message)  Used “The Message” liked it’s interpretation.

^8-12 Bless our God, O peoples!
Give him a thunderous welcome!
Didn’t he set us on the road to life?
Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch?
He trained us first,
passed us like silver through refining fires,
Brought us into hardscrabble country,
pushed us to our very limit,
Road-tested us inside and out,
took us to hell and back;
Finally he brought us
to this well-watered place.

God’s refining porocess:  First God tries us (tests, proves or examines) us. This is not the most exciting place to be when this happens in our lives.  Sometimes I feel as if God is testing me constantly, but you know I figured out that if I am constantly being tested then I need to take a step back and look at how I am responding to His test.  Am I responding  in an obedient or disobedient way to what He is putting into my life to refine me.  If I respond obediently then I have made it through that set of trials.  See it is an ongoing process because we are not what God wants us to be and will not be until we meet Him in the air.  But He is getting us ready, and at the same time you could say, He is getting us ready for the next work he has for us in this world or ministry!

He refines (makes pure or purge) out our weaknesses, our weak hearts and unfaithfulness. He is setting the fire a little hotter because through his fire our Refiner will perfect an awesome work in us.  He will take what is impure and make it pure.  He will take what is dull and make it beautiful.  He will transform us into His treasure. I can look back from when we joined Crosspoint and see where God has been transforming me through the Silver Refinement Process…yes it hurts!  Now I see where I should be ministering in our church.  (By the way…I will not tell you the Ministry that God is giving to Paul,  I and several other Crosspoint team members at this point…it is a work in progress is what I can tell you.  It’s going to be an AWESOME ministry! Woot! I’m so excited!  Sorry lost my thoughts for a moment! Ha! Here we go!

There are so many fiery flames in many of our lives.  There are disappointing situations, from minor things that irritate us to major tragedies, this is where He will make a difference.  Different flames, different fires (trials) will come and go.  In the pressure of their heat is where we we’ll see the impurities of our lives being released and rising to the top.  Then the Lord will start to skim them off, purifying us, refining us into His image.  He sometimes will have to make the fire a little hotter to cause new impurities to rise to the top.  To be exposed for what they are.  Then these too, He will skim away.  (And man have I had some impurities exposed in the last 8 months and still having them exposed)  At first He may see only a dim image of Himself as He looks into our life.  But as time goes on His image becomes clearer, more glowing, more beautiful.  We have to remember that all these trials and tribulations that we are going through for Him is to refine us and to prepare us for our ministries ahead!

Remember, (which is hard to do…because I’m a failure at it) during all these trials and tribulations that we are going through for Him is to refine us.  He never leaves us or forsakes His treasure which is us.  As long as the fire is burning He never leaves that crucible, never steps away from the fire.  He is always there to make sure every flame that reaches us is exactly the right temperature- not too hot! – to accomplish its work in our lives.  He knows the precise temperature to maintain so we don’t face more than we can bear.  He test and proves our faith, not to discredit us, but to show us how far we’ve come.  He perfects our perseverance.

The fire has been HOT under me lately…He is purging!  Getting me ready for the next level of helping in a new ministry! I’m fired up, I love Jesus, I love my Pastor and his wife, they both have ministered to me!  God put me under Pastor Dave’s preaching for a reason.  God put me at Crosspoint for a reason!  I know that reason now!  Not only have I met knew friends, but have been able to minister to some of those friends and they have ministered to me.  God has released something within me to be able to go out and invite people to come to Crosspoint and explain to them what it’s all about!  Never would I have dreamed I would get to play a major role in God’s world like He is allowing me to do!  I give Him all the praise and glory for it all!

I will leave you with this question.  Who are you in the Refiner’s picture?  Can He begin to see His image?  Who am I in the Refiner’s picture?  I’m still dim in His image…but he is skimming the impurities right off the top and I’m sure my fire will get a little hotter and little hotter until I’m obedient for that next step I take in becoming more like His image!

What is Happening to Me… February 2, 2009

Twittering, Facebook, MySpace, blogging, what’s next?  Seven months ago I didn’t use any of these technologies to keep up with my friends or even know about twitter and I wasn’t going to do the Facebook, MySpace thing.  I thought I was the “cool mom” just knowing how to text.  Of course, I stunk at it….because I had the number pad phone at the time.  I remember the first time I tried sending a text. lol My oldest son was a freak about Harry Potter Books, we had to do all the before midnight stuff at Books-A-Million every time a new book game out!  About 3 years ago, I decided to take Blake and his cousin and drop them off at Books-A-Million for all the festivities and would be back at midnight to pick them up.

At midnight I returned to Books-A-Million and was waiting in the parking lot, so I tried calling…no answer!  I began to start trying to text…finally after 15 minutes of trying to figure it out, I had typed out “are u n line“, my son text me back and says “yes mom we r up close to the register,” (he answers me within 2 seconds after I sent my text to him).   I text back “ok great” (taking about another 10 minutes).  Blake text back and says, “what took u so long to respond lol?”  I text back and said, “what is lol?” So you get the jest of how it was going with me learning to text!

I began texting more and  more…I couldn’t type without counting out the number of times I had to hit the number pad to make an “n” or “r”, I needed an easier solution…I needed a Verizon Black Berry.   I needed this Verizon Black Berry, so I could easily text my kids while at school if I wanted them to know something or they needed to tell me something…I needed and wanted to stay in touch with my kids.  Yep, I was breaking school rules!  So, I go and get this cool Black Berry and can’t work anything else on it!  But, I can type out some freakin text in no time!  I was pumped!

Oh, where was I, yes so in less than 6 months I have learned to twitter, set up a MySpace, Facebook page and also a blog.  My blog is quite the amateur blog…not at all close to a state of the art blog like Pastor Daves, and never will be, but they’re my feelings written down.  I never dreamed of ever using any of these technologies until our family started attending Crosspoint Community Church.  This church is so technology based it was awsomely crazy and…I wanted to stay connected with Crosspoints vision.  For me to do that was to be able to be apart of this Church in everyway possible.  Techno savvy here I come!  I set up the MySpace page worked it a little, then came the Facebook page and blog!

I have met (not face to face) but see their picture of people from all over the U.S. by twittering what I’m doing, using Facebook to send messages and MySpace to communicate to my friends.  I have seen what other pastors churches are doing to win the lost to Christ…I just stand in awe of what all is taking place in the world to win lost people to Christ.

What we can do through this type of technology, we can pray for each other at that very moment, get Bible verses from each other, know when someone is hurting and needs the prayer right then…hear words of encouragement, and laugh.  I see their picture and when they respond to me I feel as if I can actually here there voice and imagine what they sound like.  People are using this technology to find better ways their church can do more to win the unsaved to Christ.  Through these 3 types of technology I’m using…the words of others and hopefully my words are touching others lives!  How amazing that is to me!

I can honestly say, I didn’t know there really was a world outside of my “traditional church” setting!  I am not at all knocking the traditional church, there are thousands of traditional churches that God is using to draw the unsaved to Him.  But, I believe God was wanting me out of my box.  When it came to what or how others were winning souls to Christ I was oblivious to the fact that it was really happening.  I was use to the christian people just switching churches when they would get mad.  Or having the children of the church come to believe.

I’m seeing the vision Crosspoint is developing and prayers being answered by God!  God bringing servants with awesome talents to Crosspoint.…I believe He is building His team.  There is an extreme presence of God in the service, you can just feel God moving in this place.  God is going to use Crosspoint to reach lost people all over North Alabama.  I feel blessed that God is wanting to use me in Crosspoints journey and vision to win the unsaved to Christ!

God Bless and start twittering!