Tonight, we begin a journey by stepping into the grace of God that will challenge, shape and guide us throughout this year. The one word that captures what God is saying and revealing is collaboration. There’s so much packed into that one word. Tonight we begin unpacking, as God begins pouring great grace into us — His Church for Collaboration 2021.

It’s true we can’t move forward while looking behind. But often those things behind were preparing us and revealing to us what will be needed ahead. So we look back, but with the awareness that we’re being prepared to press on. The first year of this new decade has shown us much and prepared us for much more.

Beginnings are important to God, you can never ignore them with Him. After all, the first four words of the bible are, “In the beginning God…” Beginnings are often choreographed to help us understand the scale, scope and intent of God’s work, if we just look closely. This is the case with the beginnings of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. He started in the manger…now we’re here.

Jesus is not satisfied with us simply no longer being oppressed. Jesus came to commission us, to set others free from oppression. It will never be enough for us to be free from oppression, we must also embrace our calling to set others free. Our on-going freedom is rooted in our on-going freedom fighting. We have been set free and sent forth into the anti-oppression work of Christ.

Since the Garden of Eden, the Kingdom of Darkness has sought to destroy the plans and purposes of God in the earth. As ambassadors of Heaven, our eyes must be opened to recognize the unseen forces working to subvert the will of God. And like Jesus, we are anointed to destroy the works of the devil. We are commissioned to be Troublemakers on behalf of the Kingdom of Light!

Oppression has been a devastating reality on this planet since the Garden of Eden. Oppression began when Satan willfully took a place and position of rulership belonging to God and His representatives agreed to it. All oppression is rooted in Satan causing and exploiting spiritual brokenness between God and His image bearer, mankind. Jesus came to cause good trouble — healing the brokenness and restoring liberty and justice for the oppressed.

In these dark and perilous times the church must learn how to see and how to function in the grace to open blind eyes. Blindness is a frequent theme in the bible, mentioned directly over 75 times and indirectly throughout the Old and New Testament. Jesus was anointed to bring recovery of sight to the blind and His body, the church is called and anointed to do the same.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel — the good news of His Kingdom — entering a broken fragmented world and our broken fragmented lives. God’s solution for a world held captive by the inhumane grip of orphans fighting for significance and permanence through empire building, political systems, caste systems, and resource hoarding was and is the gospel. When the Kingdom of God enters our lives and this world it ushers in good trouble — it ushers in freedom for captives.

Since the fall of mankind in the Garden, God has sought to restore His children to relationship with Him, standing up for the poor, marginalized, oppressed, imprisoned, sick and brokenhearted, and standing up to the people, policies, systems and devil causing them. This is the very reason Jesus came, delivering us from the consequences of sin and the systems erected upon them, modeling for His Body to do the same.

The Gospel of the Kingdom was the good news Jesus preached. His Kingdom coming had profound impact, reconciling and restoring mankind back to God, ushering in a Kingdom way of seeing God, seeing others and seeing ourselves. The Kingdom of God coming, first and foremost, was and is good news to the poor.

The good news of the Messiah's coming — the Promised One — ushers in good trouble. It upsets the status quo when the One who owns it all, rules it all and controls it all, comes to redeem and reconcile it all. And the gospel of the Kingdom has come to upset the existing state of affairs. Jesus and His body are anointed to bring trouble — Good Trouble.

Jesus has many names that reveal His character and the nature of His ministry; the Lamb of God, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the I Am and the King of Kings are a few. Although it’s not explicitly in the biblical text, Jesus has another name that is equally true about His character and the nature of His work — The Great Emulsifier. Jesus’s life and cross bring things together that are opposed and distinctly different, making something entirely new.

In light of it all and in the face of it all, don’t forget the sovereign God — He sees further than we can see; He knows in ways that surpass human understanding; He loves with a depth that exceeds our love; and His eternal purposes go beyond our temporary lives in the earth. God

You may be feeling challenged, overwhelmed, stressed or even depressed by the current affairs in our society. Trusting God and remaining faithful when He initiates or allows difficult situations to accelerate His purposes is essential for the believer.

The Sovereign God has promises ordained for each of our lives and for each promise, there is a process of manifestation He has determined. Though it often differs from that which we would have chosen ourselves, we can confidently trust in the Master’s process for His masterpiece.

Life from an eternal perspective causes us to see and experience day to day in a profoundly different way. Things that seem insignificant are significant and things that appear to be of little value are the key to it all. Like a good cook knows not to throw away the scraps — life from an eternal perspective reminds us not to judge useless, what others wish they could forget or just get beyond.

Life with the sovereign God brings moments and seasons where it appears He's for someone or something other than us. In fact, there will be times when everything happening seems to prove, God is against us. The eternal truth of the matter is, God is absolutely for us. He’s just for a version of us that is united with and yielded to Him. Because we were made by Him, for Him and unto Him, the best version of us will always be the version found in Him.

Kitchens are places of preparation and transition. Kitchens are where raw ingredients are made into finished products. Kitchens can be messy. Often, it seems the best chefs, have the messiest kitchens. With a focus on the end product, they give their greatest attention to the outcome, the end point, not the messy and often difficult details along the way. We live chopped lives with messy kitchens.

The glory of the triune God is that He is diverse yet one. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are distinct and unique yet completely united as One. We are made in His image male, female, every culture, every ethnicity and we reflect His image and glory when we are united. Our division denies the glory of God and leaves men, women, black, white other cultures and nations fighting for supremacy. We have been made and born again, diverse but not divided.

What if our purpose in life was inseparably connected to our response to the evil and adversity we face in life? So often we believe our purpose is wrapped in ascending to some adversity free experience in this world, but that view isn’t consistent with scripture. The question isn’t will experience evil and adversity, the question is do we believe our faithfulness to God’s ways and words will deliver us from evil? The Mater’s Recipe for our lives is seasoned with ingredients we would never choose for ourselves and a goodness and sweetness we won’t find in anyone or anything other than Him.

We tend to struggle with the unknown, grey, and in-between. We want to know what God is doing and we want the details. But the truth is we can’t handle the full picture. We wouldn’t want it. We wouldn’t understand it. We wouldn’t pursue it. God never tells us all we want to know about what He’s doing. So we must learn to trust Him in the midst of chaos, suffering and difficulty — knowing He’s good even when we don’t know what He’s making.

Life throws some of the most difficult things at us — things we didn’t ask for, things we feel we don’t deserve and things we never imagined for ourselves. Yet, time and time again, God takes life’s most bitter and detestable ingredients, using them to accomplish His will. Few things turn out just the way we want; but all things work together for God’s good and eternal purposes. We live Chopped lives — His ingredients producing His results.

We are sent people. We are living in this world, but we are not of this world — our primary source is the mouth of God/God’s word. Our sent lives begin when we’re restored to God’s word and liberated from secondary sources as first priority. It is the word of God that perfects us — restoring our mindset to the original intent God had when He sent us to the people, places and times we find ourselves. We are here to live a sent life.

Perspective matters and how we see and perceive is rooted in what we believe. We will never have right perspective, if we don’t begin with the simple yet profound truth — we don’t come from this world; we’ve been sent to this world. Too often, we cry out for God to take us from what He has sent us to. Everything in our lives looks and feels different when realize we’ve been sent to — we don’t come from.

We’ve all met someone, were making small talk or being introduced and were quickly met with the question, “Where are you from?” The question is asked so often because it tells so much or at least leads to so much assumption, about who we are and what we’re capable of. Even Jesus was dismissed by one of the early disciples when introduced as, Jesus of Nazareth. Can anything good come from Nazareth? The truth of the matter is our destiny is linked to our origin and our origin is linked to our destiny. The two are inseparably intertwined. Life will continue to ask us, “Where are you from?” And more than we realize, our destiny is tied to our response.

God is visionary. He sees what we can’t, knows what we don’t and has the power and resources to bring those unseen realities into existence. We typically associate new beginnings with leaving our circumstances and surroundings. But over and over throughout the bible, God begins again in the same place. No where is this tendency to begin again right where we are more stunning than in the life of Hagar. This enslaved, pregnant teen shows us what it means to be called and seen by the visionary God.

Our thoughts initiate our actions, our actions create our habits and our habits determine our destiny. Our Heavenly Father desires that we set our thoughts and minds on His plans and purposes for our lives and that we not walk in fear and fall into the traps that the enemy has made for us. We must be diligent to regulate and lift our thoughts so they rise to the level of God’s truth so we can fully manifest His desires in the earth.

Pain is a universal part of the human experience in this fallen world. Not one of us is immune. Our heart’s response to the pain we experience— and inflict —plays a pivotal role in our experiences becoming either a portal for manifestations of God’s power or for them becoming portals for great destruction as we respond in our own power.

This is the time to wail, mourn, and grieve over all that is happening in our nation, our states, our cities, our communities, our neighborhoods, and our churches. There is a clarion call from the Father who sees the destruction of His people. He is sending for an army, not of military might, but of women who are skilled at wailing, willing to cry tears over the broken systems, lives, dreams, and hearts of His people. This wailing is a sound that God commissions to alert the oppressed that He has heard their cries. His desire is for His people to mourn and seek Him.

We all have things in our lives and this world that we want to change.  Some have tried and found it’s too painful to change things in our lives and this world.  Some have witnessed others try to change things in their lives and this world and lose jobs, friends, family, and even their lives in the process and concluded it’s just too expensive.  But some have come to realize we are here to bring about change.  God has created and positioned us to push against the pain, to work with Him to remove the thorns in our lives and this world.  Give Online -  https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=R9FZD7HFSB7TYConnection Card - https://bit.ly/2wj4z2OPrayer Request Form - https://bit.ly/33NJmdl#Promise2020 #MindSet #Sunday #ChurchNeed Help?Email: [email protected] call (856) 817-6223Location274 Delsea DriveSewell, NJ 08080Email [email protected]

Too often, we limit our definition of change to something physical and external, overlooking the profound power of our mindset. Mindset can be defined as the beliefs, attitudes, and feelings that shape the way we choose and live each day. External change typically results in the same kinds of choices and the same kinds of results, because external change doesn’t change our mindset. Among all of the ways we can seek and pursue change, nothing is as powerful as a changed mind.

Crippled as a child, Mephibosheth spent the majority of his life in hiding. He came from royal lineage, but his life and experiences were far from royal. Mephibosheth shows us how radically our lives and circumstances change when we experience the sudden power and supernatural reach of the King’s Table — the promises of God. Like Mephibosheth, we are never beyond the capability or reach of the King’s Table.

Some of the greatest teaching moments in our lives happen right after we catch a glimpse of the true condition and position of our hearts. Reckoning tables are like final exams. They reveal what God knows about us, but we have yet to realize. God uses reckoning tables to show us ourselves and to order our steps. They are His way of adjusting our course so we hit the mark.

There are times in our lives when sacred tables are prepared to help us encounter God and His promises. There are also times when hindering tables are positioned to keep us away from God and His promises. We will experience both in our lives. When Jesus came across hindering tables, He overturned them. Jesus is still turning hindering tables over today and giving His followers the authority to do the same.

Sacred tables are places of intervention, confrontation, instruction, implantation, and promotion. God prepares sacred tables in our lives, where He encounters us personally. God also commissions us to serve others on His behalf. We are God’s wait staff, called to serve His truth and eternal perspective to those being repositioned by sacred tables and those being confronted with His truth while sitting in positions of power.

Tables are sacred to God. They are places of intervention, confrontation, instruction, implantation, and promotion. David, the Shepherd King, experienced God setting up sacred tables all throughout his life. But it was the tables God arranged and put in place in the presence of his enemies, that had the deepest and most transformational impact on David. God is still setting up tables in the presence of enemies and those tables still change us in “never to be the same again” ways.

The Resurrection is the source of the most profound hope we will ever find. Through His suffering, death, burial and resurrection, Jesus rescues us from a debt of sin while modeling how to RISE above our darkest days and crippling doubts to enter into His joyous plan. When Jesus rose from the dead, He laid a foundation upon which we can rest, knowing there’s nothing from which we cannot rise, nor is there anything that can separate us from His love.

There was nothing good about that Friday for those who loved and followed Jesus. Friday marked the death of their Rabbi, their Messiah, their hopes and their dreams. But Friday proves the Father has better hopes and grander dreams than we do. Friday represents the day(s) where what we know and value is crushed, so what God knows and values can be revealed. There’s a goodness in Friday that has the power to change every other day that follows.

Scarcity entered this world back in the Garden of Eden, when we separated from our Source. Scarcity does not return to generosity until we are restored to our Source, the Prodigal Father. Scarcity works to deceive us into believing what we really need is resources and control, but we didn’t lose resources and control back in the Garden. What was lost in the Garden was the life-giving connection with God as our Source, and our distinguished position of being the Prodigal Father’s Beloved.

“Prodigal” is expending resources freely, what some might consider recklessly, wastefully or extravagantly. The God of heaven is The Prodigal Father. He uses all kinds of resources, means and approaches to extend His loving, abundant Kingdom to those who are locked in and disfigured by the scarcity of this world. He is determined to see us restored and reconciled to Him and His ways. The Prodigal Father is constantly inviting us into the feast of relationship with Him and a place in His Kingdom.

The global health crisis has awakened us all to a truth we too often forget. No matter our religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity or culture, we all share one world. In this one world we all live with two choices. We will live and ultimately perish in scarcity or we will live and live abundantly in generosity. We all share this inescapable truth of living in one world with two choices.

There’s a popular saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Said differently, beauty is not found in the object, beauty rests in our perception. The same can be said about scarcity and abundance. What one person sees as more than enough, another sees as lack. It’s not about how much or how little we believe we have. It’s absolutely about what we see.

This world is filled with secondary success and governed by primary abundance. Secondary success is what we see, experience, manage and own in the physical realm. Primary Abundance is the triune God and His Kingdom, the source of all we see and experience in this physical world. It’s possible to have secondary success and never experience primary abundance. But God promises if we seek Him and His primary abundance, we will surely experience secondary success.

Texts. Emails. Tweets. Posts. DMs. In a day and age where our pace is driven by our tethered device, how does one find space? Space for rest, space to think, space to create, and even more so, space for the soul to be healthy.

Given the choice, most people will choose the riches of a good temporal life over the treasures of the abundant eternal life. Scarcity deceives the human soul so thoroughly, it makes it nearly impossible to get beyond defining what we see as the greatest thing to be possessed. As long as what we see is more valuable than what He says, no matter what we have we will live trapped in a world of scarcity.

In our journey of faith, we are often tempted to settle in our comfort zones, satisfied with the blessing we have received thus far and content to wait on rapture or resurrection for our exit. But what if there’s more—a higher call, a deeper surrender, a greater devotion that God requires, and that adds to us the significance we spend so much of this life seeking in other places? What if the path from scarcity to generosity is not lined with more stuff, but more surrender? What if the significance we seek lies in our wholehearted devotion?

Everything in the physical realm began in the unseen, spiritual realm. All we can see and handle was once a thought in God’s mind and a word in His mouth. Seeing and experiencing life abundantly is rooted in knowing God as the originator and source of all things. When we live ignorant of this all-encompassing truth, we see and experience life from a scarcity mindset, confined to being in this world and of this world. Functioning solely in the natural realm locks us in the scarcity of this fallen world. We must know and never forget — it’s all spiritual before it’s natural.