Aviram

Okay so here is a cool story…

I have been wanting to get a bicycle so I could have a speedy cool way to get around. So today I had some free time and I found this add on Craig’s List for a $35 Huffy bike. It looked like a pretty sweet ride. So I called up the lady and she was like, “The bike is still available so please come and take a look.” So I walk on over. Come to find out she just recently graduated from Bethel's 3rd year intern program. She had filled the tires up for me and told me to take a spin. I did, but honestly it was a formality for me at this point. So I said, “I’ll take it” and she said, “Take it for free. I believe the Lord told me to give you this bike.” I was like what!!! Then we thanked the Lord together and the Holy Spirit showed up and we got a little tipsy. So today the Lord has blessed me with a bike. God is so good!!!!! So rejoice with me and see what God does for you! I named him Aviram meaning, “My God is mighty”.



Also I have a little project going on called “Help End Whiteness.” This is a cry for help!!! The walls in my room look like the inside of an insane asylum. So in an attempt to avoid putting up padding I would like all of you to color me pictures that I can hang on my wall. If you are to poor to afford crayons and a stamp don't worry I won't judge you. But there is a competition for 1st through 3rd place. Get Ready. You have until October 6th. Have fun and good luck! Also, just so I've said it, nothing inappropriate please...
This is my address:

My House (Kind of...)
851 Mission de Oro Dr. Apt.39
Redding, CA 96003

Chupie Crew

Week two and I am still high as a kite! I have happy feet and I am sure if I had dancing shoes I would wear them.

First off, this post contains 3 sections. You are currently reading section one and if you stop now you will save yourself minutes of your life that you can never get back… or can you? But if you keep reading you will discover section one is the summary area of this post who love me 15 minutes much. The second section entitled “Who’s your Daddy?” is for people curious about my personal growth. Then section three entitled “What you see is What you Get” is an advertisement for anyone interested in my hand in marriage. That was a joke… It is a section of a sermon from school that I really loved.

Okay 15 minute crew here we go. School is amazing and I cry everyday as the Lord messages me into who He wants me to become. Right now school is focused heavily on how we perceive God and what our relationship looks like. “How we see God determines what we receive from God.” This is very stretching for my heart but I love it!!!!

I joined the set up and tear down crew for school. We set up and tear down the chairs… My captain is named Danny and his wife Lou is from England and one of my new favorites. I have decided I am a true American because if you have a British accent I am immediately drawn to you like a moth to a flame. What a goober. Our team is awesome and I ended up with a fiercely competitive bunch. We named our team “The Chupie Crew”. This name comes from the infamous el Chupacabra from Mexico a truly noble beast. What’s that, you’ve never heard of such a magical creature before? Then please educate yourself by clicking on this link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Prayer requests are as follows. Pray the Lord will show me the purpose He created uniquely for me, reveals his love for me, I can retain all this without exploding, and that I will be found worthy for the mantle placed on my life. Also pray for my roommates (Heather, Rachael, April), my classmates, my teachers, my pastors, and the congregation at Bethel that so lovingly puts up with us.

That’s it for this section. So for you summary people I love you and call me cause I want to hear your beautiful voices.


Who’s You’re Daddy

Okay so week two here we go. As usual it was an awesome week but to be honest it didn’t start so great. Sunday night we had a Holy Spirit service. What that meant was we showed up to school and then we just waited on the Holy Spirit to direct us from there. So we started to worship and then continued to worship for 2 hours. It was great.

Well then the person who is leading says something to the effect of, “I really feel like there are some people here who haven’t ever really felt the love of God as a father.” It was like someone punched me in the stomach. “We just want to pray for and allow you to have that experience.” So they prayed and for the next 2 hours I cried. It wasn’t a happy freedom cry either it was a messy, snotty, I am so mad right now cry. The last song they played was like an Irish jig and everyone is rejoicing and dancing and I am in the corner in a puddle and mad. I didn’t exactly feel loved.

So Monday I prayed and felt a bit better but still a bit confused.

Tuesday came and it was time for school. One of the pastors Mark begins his talk entitled “Who’s your daddy?” I was thought well God’s still got my number. He goes onto explain how we see God is going to determine what we receive from God. In the parable of the talents the wicked servant who saw the Lord as a hard man received a hard punishment. The Lord began to show me how I saw are relationship. I am a soldier and what he says I will do. No love necessary, no emotional exchange just me doing what he wanted no questions asked. That is a bad attitude. It also provides a shallow pool with which to love others. My mind was blown. The way truth was spoken pierced my soul like a sword. We prayed and did some basic deliverance from lies about how the Father saw us. Then we sat on the floor and waited for Him to show up. He showed me a picture of my heart having bad spots peeled off like a potato (hence the 2 hour cry-fest on Sunday). Then He showed me a picture of Himself sitting next to me and rubbing my back. I am truly loved by God and this heart revelation is amazing!

What You See is What You Get

Here is a lesson from one of my teachers Kris. This is the readers digest version but I think you will enjoy it.

It comes out of Genesis 30. Jacob asks his payment to be all the speckled and spotted offspring of Laban’s heard. Laban says ok and Jacob takes the flock away to mate.

37Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods.

38He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink.

39So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

What the flock saw it reproduced and that is the same for us. What we see in our minds and the thoughts we keep there shape who we are. If you spend your whole life trying not to be something guess what has been in your head your whole life. Guess what you’ll become. If you serve the Lord for love instead of from love you are living under the curse of performance. That same curse is what the devil used on Adam and Eve. If you do something you will be like God. When a few verses before it says they were created in God’s image already. What are you called? What do you call yourself? Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will take away your future. The Lord calls you his child and his beloved. To believe anything else is to be like an eagle raised with chickens. Always pecking and wobbling not knowing you can fly. Do you call yourself a sinner? The good news is your not. The cross didn’t just take away your sin it gave you a new self. We are saints saved by grace. The question is, are we still gonna live like chickens? Our bondage stems from an identity crisis. We have forgotten who are daddy is.

I hope this makes since. It is a little scatter brained. If you would like me to explain something more in depth give me a call on my cell. If you would like to call and argue call my land line at 9-1-1.

First Week Stories & Stuff We Have Been Learning

First week stories here we go…

1.Bill Johnson has spoken twice and each time he has blown my mind.

2. Jeremy Riddle was here to do worship and everyone was like ya its no big deal.

3. On day one I was given two words of knowledge and a word of encouragement that was spot on! Yesterday I was given a word of prophecy about my giftings and I am eager to see what comes of that. Call me if you want details...

4. Yesterday we broke up into revival groups, which is to be like our family for the next 9 months and we began to pray. Well the Holy Spirit fell on the room and the Lord told me to pray over this girl. Then He told me to ask if this other girl wanted to speak in tongues. I was like Lord I don’t think that is such a good plan. He insisted so I asked and she said "Yes!" so I started to pray and I thought to myself “Lord you better show up cause I sure can’t do anything”. Well then she started speaking in tongues. Crazy tongues. The Lord gave me a word and He said “Praises of the Nations”. I broke down and worshiped it was so powerful.

It has been an amazing first week!

First Week Learning…

We have gone over a lot of operation type stuff and some of it was boring but necessary. While other stuff blew my mind! What I would like to share with you are the schools core values, which rocked my world a little bit.

BSSM CORE VALUES

A Culture of Love
•We will always strive to love you and deal with you out of love.

•Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” It is very important for you to receive God’s love (and ours) and love yourself. Please keep love as a driving force in all that you are and do.

An Empowering Versus a Controlling Culture
•We work hard to get you to turn on your Holy Spirit-powered self-control and internal motivation so you reach your potential. An empowering culture consists of powerful people who consistently chose love, honor and respect.

•Verses a controlling culture which motivates primarily by the external power of fear and punishment.

Ownership
•You’ll never reach your full potential until you take responsibility with the Holy Spirit for your own personal greatness.

•As long as you merely perform so that you don’t get in trouble you haven’t taken responsibility for your own life.

•We will rarely work harder to solve your problems than you do and will work to solve them with you, not for you.

Honesty and Accountability
∞ Trust is the foundation of all good relationships. Trust is built on honesty and integrity.

∞ Telling half-truths, cheating or lying destroys trust so we expect you to be honest no matter what it costs you.

∞ Please be honestly transparent in small groups, with RGP’s and overseers—especially when you’re scared—so you can learn to trust someone more than you trust yourself.

Risk
∞ Faith can be spelled “R-I-S-K.” If you want to grow, you must take risks.

∞ If you don’t fail once in a while, you’re not taking enough risks (obviously we are not talking of moral or character failures!).

∞ So expect to fail some at BSSM (again, not moral or character failures) as this is normal for risk-takers.

∞ When you are asked to take a risk by BSSM leadership, please press through any fear you may have and do it quickly.

Honor
∞ Honor exists in God between the Father, Son and Spirit. We didn’t invent it, we follow God’s example in giving it.

∞ Life flows from honor as implied by the 5th command to honor parents so Israel would live long in the land.

∞ There are levels of honor in the Kingdom. We have been called to a rectangular table, not a round table where all have an equal voice. Take the low spot like Jesus says in Lk. 14:10 and let the host move you up.

∞ Please be careful not to confuse celebrity and fame with honor. These are worlds apart.

∞ Always deal with God, your leaders, each other and yourself with honor and respect.

∞ Try not to choose your behaviors out of fear of punishment. Do the right things to honor God, your leaders, your peers and yourself.

Confrontation
∞ We have a confrontational culture. If you do something that we think needs to be adjusted, we will talk to you about it.
∞ If your leader does something that you think needs to be addressed, you are invited to talk to them privately about your concerns. Don’t talk to others about an issue until you have first talked to the person that offended you. If this does not go well you may then request to speak to them with their supervisor.

Supernatural Power
•We expect the supernatural to happen often. You will find yourself in situations where if God doesn’t do a miracle, it won’t work out right. This is when you cultivate faith and pray with the humble but expectant heart of God’s child.

∞ You will be expected to walk in the supernatural power of God. Get used to it, it’s normal.

Servant Royalty
∞ King Jesus said about Himself, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.” You are royalty—like your heavenly father—princes and princesses of the King. But like Him, you are kings and queens who serve.

∞ You are not paupers, beggars or slaves. Learn to think and live out of you true identity.

∞ So, lead with a king’s heart and a servant’s hands.

Mind of Christ
∞ We have the mind of Christ and our mind is being renewed so you’re not merely to mimic we want you to think.

∞ Teaching you how to think is just as important (if not more so) than teaching you what to think. We’ll do both!

You Can Call Me Kermit The Frog

Why you ask? Well for one its lonely being green and for two, I have moved right along from the lily pad in the swamp to the Golden State of California. As I sit here at Bethel surrounded by mountains and radical people I will admit it all feels a bit surreal.

The past week has been absolutely amazing. To say we hit the ground running would be an understatement. I am not quite sure where to start…

Worship. We have had worship everyday in a place that has been prepared for the last 13 years. The best way to describe the room would be to say it has been thoroughly marinated in the Holy Spirit and the Presence of God. The other students are as hungry if not hungrier than I am for the presence of the Lord. I can’t quite describe what 800 starving people are like but if you remember your history the Russian Revolution was started by one such mob.

Teaching. The leaders are incredibly gifted teachers. The amount of truth here pierces my heart like a sword. I am a bit nervous about not being able to carry the large amount of treasure placed before me. And for those of you worried I was off to join a cult one of the schools favorite slogans is, “Turn on your brain.” But they did say next week we would be studying goat sacrifice… just kidding.

I feel honored to be around people with a like mindset. I feel extremely honored to be drawing from wells I did not dig. But the longer I am here the more I feel honored and privileged to be sent here by you guys. The Lord has blessed me deeply through your sacrifice and prayers. Known you have sown into something amazing. I can not express my gratitude and awe. I stand humbled in your generosity.

I realize this is a bit vague but there will be more juicy details to follow… You can call this the Readers Digest Version.