“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  John 7:38

What is flowing out of your life?  We need to stop and ask ourselves this question every now and then.  We need to answer honestly and then do something about it.  If we ask and answer honestly, we will have to admit that we sometimes have “STUFF” flowing out of our life that is everything but “RIVERS OF LIVING WATER!”

Here’s The Key: If rivers of living water are not flowing into, then they can’t flow through your life and if they are not flowing through you life, then the rivers of living waters cannot flow out of your life.

The place to start is by making sure that you have the good and positive stuff of God’s Word flowing “INTO” your life.  We do this by reading our Bibles and encouraging blogs like this one, as well as listening to messages live and recorded.  You will notice that this is an “INSIDE’ thing:  The Scripture says those that believe in Jesus will have flowing from “WITHIN”!

“Flowing Into” is the first part.  The second part is “flowing through” and if we are not careful this is where we can really mess it up.  We tend to filter with our own ideas, prejudices, understanding and personal preference.  We can re-route the river of living waters so that it has to run through a bunch of junk before it trickles out of us.  Be on guard to not obstruct the flow of the “river of life” with your own personal junk or the personal junk of others.

Let the river flow into, through and out of your life and live a life that gives God glory and blessing to everyone around you!

Some mornings as I am waking up, the devil seems to take great pleasure in feeling my mind with depressing thoughts.  He seems to hit me with his best shots with a desire to take me down for the count.  On these mornings, I don’t want to get out of bed, but know that I must.  On these mornings I want to give up and wonder if it is possible to just quit life?  On these mornings I feel defeated, discouraged and very depressed.  There is no real rhyme or reason.  They just seem to come out of nowhere and there does not seem to be much that I can do to stop their ebb and flow.

This morning was one of those mornings, yet here I am at the blog writing about it.  In fact, I am not just here at the blog writing about it, I am sitting at Grace Place where I have a full day of meaningful ministry unfolding before me.  How do you move through the dark and dismal attacks of life to find light that allows you to travel on?

This is how I do it:  I get up and get into God’s Word.  I allow His word to speak louder and with more authority that any of the words that the enemy tried to speak into my life earlier.

Here is what the Lord reminded me of this morning – it’s found in Psalms 121:1-8

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?   2 My help comes from the LORD,  the Maker of heaven and earth.   3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.   5 The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.  7 The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;  8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Here is a worship video with The Brooklyn Tabernacle singing this Scripture – One of my favorite songs!  Hope you enjoy:

It was another great Sunday at Northwood.  It is exciting to watch God build a congregation and sad to see those that can’t or won’t get it.  The beautiful thing is that God’s work still manages to get accomplished, even if it is often in spite of us, instead of through us!  Here are a few highlights from today:

*Great Small Group/Sunday School/Bible Fellowship time this morning!  Very excited about some of our people who are stepping into teaching/facilitating roles and looking forward to what they bring to the table.

*Sweet Worship time at both campuses!  Approved four new deacons and recognized and gave appreciation to all of those that serve in this very important ministry to our families.  Had a great time of learning about how God wants to bless us and multiply His blessing in our lives as we love and trust Him!

*Good teaching this evening which reminded us of the importance of making disciples here, there and everywhere by practicing being obedient disciples ourselves! If we can really get this, then it is amazing what God could and would accomplish in and though our lives.

*Looking forward to a busy and exciting week of ministry!  God Bless & Press On!