Exodus Freedom
June 8-11, 2011

The Reality of Grace is what makes the Gospel of Christ Good News! While individuals often strive to please and appease God as a means to earn His favor, the reality or the truth is that Grace came down to earth in the form of Christ.
Come and experience the Reality of Grace. You will encounter it in the moments of intimate worship, through the words of inspiring stories and impactful teaching and in the unplanned conversations with other attendees. 

This was my first Exodus Freedom Conference.  Tony asked me to write a little something for the Truth Ministry newsletter, so I thought I would share it here too!

As I arrived on the campus of Ridgecrest, I put my four children and my husband out of my mind.  The truth was that I missed them already, but, in my mind, I was there to work.  After all, I had never struggled with SSA or homosexuality.  This conference was not designed for me.  I was there to serve and maybe get to know my colleagues in ministry better. I had just started working for Truth Ministry in March.  I felt I needed to show my commitment to the work of the ministry- so I was there to be a part of the team.  McKrae and I unpacked the car, already wearing our “Hope for Wholeness” shirts and headed to the bookstore to set up our display.  I, like most people who serve Christ, felt like, at least in a small sense, that I had it together.  I am, after all, studying to be a minister of the gospel.  What I didn’t realize was that God had a surprise for me.  He had brought me there to change me.  To go into all the details of “how’s & why’s” would make this rather lengthy.  So, I will just testify to you that God showed Himself to me in a new way.  Not only did I not get to “serve” as I had intended, I ended up in bed sick, but God served me! What a beautiful turn of events!

I walked away from the conference with a new confidence that I was doing (in pursuing ministry) exactly what He intended for me.  I gained an assurance of the calling and purpose of God on my life. I walked away with a new view and understanding of brokenness, transparency and realness and how that relates to the body of Christ as a whole and to me personally.  He showed me a part of His heart that I had not known before. That alone made this trip worth it!  There is something special that happens when God’s people, with an awareness of their brokenness, gather together in a safe environment and worship a kind and loving Father, though that brokenness.  THAT is where I want to live.  Forever.   

 

We Can Do It!

I have been reading this all week- just can't step away from it. I could come up with some good commentary to add to it, but quite honestly, there is nothing left to say.  It speaks for itself.  So powerful and life changing!  Read it.  Often.  :)  My personal favorites are highlighted red. 

 

James 1:1-27

 ¹JAMES, A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad [among the Gentiles in the dispersion]: Greetings rejoice)!

    ²Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.

    ³Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

    ⁴But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

    ⁵If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.

    ⁶Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind.

    ⁷For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord,

    ⁸[For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides].

    ⁹Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his elevation [as a Christian, called to the true riches and to be an heir of God],

    ¹⁰And the rich [person ought to glory] in being humbled [by being shown his human frailty], because like the flower of the grass he will pass away.

    ¹¹For the sun comes up with a scorching heat and parches the grass; its flower falls off and its beauty fades away. Even so will the rich man wither and die in the midst of his pursuits.

    ¹²Blessed (happy, to be envied) is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation, for when he has stood the test and been approved, he will receive [the victor's] crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him.

    ¹³Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one.

    ¹⁴But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions).

    ¹⁵Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.

    ¹⁶Do not be misled, my beloved brethren.

    ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect (^]free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].

    ¹⁸And it was of His own [free] will that He gave us birth [as sons] by [His] Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures [a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself].

    ¹⁹Understand [this], my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear [a ready listener], slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry.

    ²⁰For man's anger does not promote the righteousness God [wishes and requires].

    ²¹So get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble (gentle, modest) spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in your hearts] contains the power to save your souls.

    ²²But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth].

    ²³For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror;

    ²⁴For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like.

    ²⁵But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the [law] of liberty, and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer [who obeys], he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience).

    ²⁶If anyone thinks himself to be religious (piously observant of the external duties of his faith) and does not bridle his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person's religious service is worthless (futile, barren).

    ²⁷External religious worship religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world.

Amplified Bible (AMP) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

Do Not Take Revenge

By the lovely Sandy Payne

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.  (Romans 12:19)

Doesn’t this sound crazy?  I mean, in the world WE live in, you have to defend yourself because, well, nobody else will, right?  But, if we’re after real transformation, we’ve got to be radical and serious about looking more like Christ than the world.

Here’s why this is so hard: it takes an enormous amount of trust to let go when we’ve been wronged and hand it over to God.  It takes a belief that He knows more than we do, that He’ll handle it better than we would, and that His motives, means and His desire for the very best for us and for others is far above our own.

A few years ago, I suffered what I believed to be unfair treatment from some friends.  For weeks, I frantically tried to plead my case by talking to all of the friends involved--explaining how I had been wronged, who was really at fault,  and trying to get to the bottom of who had caused the problem.  In the meantime, I stirred up a hornet’s nest that ultimately led to the loss of several friendships and dissension among the group of Christian women involved.  If I had left the situation in God’s hands, I might have avoided what turned out to be an ugly spectacle of the dark side of female friendships—and I ended up playing the starring role.

Ultimately, the whole issue was my pride.  I wanted to be right.  I wanted to point out how others were wrong.  My pride overrode my desire to please God, to put others first, and trust that God would take care of the situation.

We never have all the information.  We never know every side or every perspective.  But God does.  He can right wrongs in ways that we cannot.  He sees our hearts—and the hearts of others--and can help us sort out emotions and fears and insecurities and conflict in a way that doesn’t leave a wake of damage and destruction behind us.  His ultimate desire for us is peace, but we have to leave selfish selves behind if we are to obtain it.

I am learning to check my motives when I feel I’ve been wronged, and to ask God constantly to weed out any selfish motives or emotional strongholds that the Enemy may use to cause dissension.  And ultimately, it boils down to whether or not we really believe that God will handle our lives better than we can.  His ways really are higher than ours.  (Isaiah 55:9)

In humility, consider others more highly than yourselves.  Look not to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Philippians 2:3

“Love has a hem to her garment 

That reaches the very dust. 

It sweeps the streets and lanes, 

And because it can, it must.”

--Mother Theresa

As I sit here at my computer for what seems to be the hundredth time I have tried to write this, I watch the train go through the woods behind my house and realize that this is the first time in months that I haven’t felt like I have been hit by one. 

For all of the lovely things that are said about love, marriage and relationships and the idealistic way we romanticize the wedding, the babies & life forever intertwined we fail to realize, and perhaps prepare other young ladies for the cold, hard reality that marriage is hard. So hard, in fact, that it just might be the most difficult thing you will ever do, assuming that one of you doesn’t give up on the other altogether. This year has been a true test of love for me. Not just love for my husband, but for God, our family & myself. Queen Elizabeth II said, “Greif is the price we pay for love.” If that is true, then, this year, my price has been paid. 

Merriam-Webster’s definition of love to me seems weak. So, I will bypass it completely and get to what God says about it. For all the ways we, as humans, think about and describe love, really examining the scriptures, highlights the lack of real understanding we really have, when compared to the way we live. God is really specific about what love is. I came to the understanding, this year, that I really had no idea what it was like to really love like God taught us to. Please don’t misunderstand, I do not have it licked, but pain is a great teacher. 

The short version of what God says about love is this: Love is patient, kind, rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and NEVER fails (from 1 Corinthians 13, of course). What I discovered about myself this year is that loving comes easy when someone can love you back. When the road is smooth and you “are in it together,” you find comfort in the love you share. The true test of love is what you do when you find yourself in it alone? What do you know about love when your husband doesn’t come home? Or your family walks out of your life? How about when people you love purposely try to destroy you? What happens when people you love find themselves in a struggle or place where they aren’t capable of loving you in return? What then? How do you respond? What is in you? 

I have come to understand that there comes a time in every relationship where you much choose whether you are going to really love or not and it has NOTHING to do with what anyone else says or does. It is about you! 

Loving others is a way we serve and honor God. This perspective makes it possible to have unconditional love and to display a love that many humans just don’t understand. When you get there, when you really learn how to love, you discover that no matter how educated, how talented, how much money you have or don’t, what neighborhood you live in, what church you go to, if you go to church at all, or how well you control yourself or others, love is about giving. That giving is love in its purest form when that love is given regardless. It says, “I love you- no matter what!”

“When you love someone you no longer put yourself first! Putting your own needs, wants and even your rights last...We know that to be the truth, don't we? Love IS about sacrifice.” (J.R.)

So, when I get asked the question, “Why did you stay?” My answer is simple. I stayed because God taught me what love is, He taught me about forgiveness and that being who He called me to be is, quite simply, between me and Him. I told a friend of mine recently, “If you run every time a catastrophe happens, you never get to see God work a miracle.” I know this to be true because I have lived it and am now living with the blessing of watching God fix what man could not. I know it to be true because I am watching God restore what people told me could not be fixed. I am watching God change what people told me could/would not change. The greatest part? I can say that it has all been worth it. When you do what God is putting in your heart (regardless of what people in your life tell you is best), you will find that God is faithful. He knows the beginning from the end and He always knows what is best for us even if getting there hurts like crazy. Learning to trust him is hard, learning to obey Him is even harder, but I promise- the journey is worth it to get where He wants us to be. 

I have learned that the train that comes to destroy you is often the one that will take you where God wants you go. 

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take. “ --Anthony Robbins