Unswerving Hope

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23

Our first night in our new home came with a new set of realities. New obstacles, hopes and fears accompanied the beauty of having a fresh new start.

Like the Jews who were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the prospect of returning to the challenges of the past suddenly had new appeal. You don’t realize how confortable you can grow with your problems until they’re replaced with a set of new ones.

I can remember days I preferred a wheel chair over the prospects of walking again because of the pain that accompanied learning how to walk on new knees.

How quickly we forget the faithful hands of our Heavenly Father? How do the trivial matters of a new day dwarf His miraculous work of days past?

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Be Enthroned

Be Enthroned

Yet thou art holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel.     Psalm 22:3 (NASB)

What an amazing view! We can offer God a throne of praise to take as His own and reign as King over His people.

We don’t make Him a King by praising Him, He’s the King of kings, but we can enthrone Him as King of our hearts and lives.

Jesus said: “When two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst.” His presence in our midst also gives us the privilege to offer Him the throne of our lives. We can offer our thrones to the King of kings and the Lord of lords to preside over our lives. As King of kings, He deserves all the thrones and nothing less. When we praise Him when we exalt Him when we sing praises and glorify His name and extol His majesty, then we are acknowledging His Kingship and we are responding in a way that is appropriate. We are offering Him a throne to sit upon – the throne of our praises.

Don’t invite Him as a guest, offer Him the throne. Tell Him no other will ever inhabit it again. Make it His forever!

 

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When I am afraid

Psalm 56:3–4

When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?     NIV

The psalmist does not say, “I’ll never be afraid”, he says, “When I am afraid”. Trust in God does not remove my fear; it informs me what to do when I become afraid. I will know what to do. I’ll trust in the unfailing Word of God, and the promises contained in it.”

When you become aware of your spiritual life, our experiences will often have a conflict between two areas of our being. We’re accustomed to processing our fears, doubts, and uncertainty with our emotions. But our emotions only know how to submit to what it’s expose to. Our emotions know how to take it in but it doesn’t know how to respond with guidance or direction.

But our spirit is another area of our being. It does not yield to panic, it says, “I’ll not accept the verdict of my emotions about this situation. I’ll turn to God and remember what His Word says. I’ll find the promise of God that meets my need. And though in my emotions I may feel fear, in my spirit I trust. And that trust brings me into a secure place, which is much deeper than where my emotions are.

The emotions are just like the waves on the surface of the sea. It will always respond to storms. And it will always be a part of our lives. But the Psalmist says, “When I am afraid” he doesn’t stay where the waters of his soul are troubled. He goes down into the spirit, into the depths of his being; where God’s promises are kept and peace and confidence can be found.

Thinking about supporting our ministry?

If you’d like support or make a donation to The Fountain Fellowship, we simply ask that you include your support with prayer. You can also follow our journey on our  Facebook Page The Fountain Fellowship or subscribe to my Youtube channel at Pastor Carmelo Grajales

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Our Sermon Series section is a free resource. Complete with sermon transcripts and downloadable study guides for private use, Bible studies or small group settings. SERMON SERIES

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The Place of Authority

The place of thrones of Psalms 122 represents The Place of Authority in the life of today’s believer.
Psalm 122:3
Jerusalem is built as a city that is closely compacted together; to which the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord – a testimony for Israel – to give thanks to the name of the Lord. For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.

    In this passage, we see a place for thrones where God’s people come and rule over matters. These are thrones for judgment because God’s people are ordained to be His rulers. But there’s a place for those thrones of authority. The Place of Authority is the same place where they come together in unity and worship the Lord.

There’s A Place For You

So the place of authority for God’s people is found in the house where we come together. What a powerful and important reminder in an age where we hold loyalty to a specific house of worship and covenant relationships so loosely. As long as we remain separate, keeping to ourselves, even in our little tribe or gatherings, without meeting together, we keep ourselves from the full authority that God has appointed to us. When we come together is when we are able to access a throne level of authority.

When we gather, we enter a place of authority. Our collective presence testifies that we worship the same God, the same Lord Jesus Christ. That place becomes The Place of Authority where we have the right to take our place with Christ upon the thrones of judgment. In the time of need or great decision, God’s people need to go up to the house of worship God has given to them. In unity occupy your thrones and rule over the circumstances from The Place of Authority He has given to you.

Want To Support?

If you’d like support or make a donation to The Fountain Fellowship, we simply ask that you include your support with prayer. You can also follow our journey on our  Facebook Page The Fountain Fellowship or subscribe to my Youtube channel at Pastor Carmelo Grajales

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Our Sermon Series section is a free resource. Complete with sermon transcripts and downloadable study guides for private use, Bible studies or small group settings. SERMON SERIES

If this ministry has helped you in any way, Pastor Carmelo would love to hear about it. Leave a Note

Made For More

A made for more girl standing in dry river bed with hands raised up

Made for More

Psalm 126:4

Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the streams in the Negev.  NIV

In this passage, God’s people recognize their need for restoration. They’re fully aware they’re Made for More. So the picture of the dry Negev desert gives a very vivid illustration of what we become without God presence. The word “streams” in Arabic is wadi. In the Middle East, a wadi is a riverbed. You can see evidence that it once had water but remains dry most of the year.

We would never view the dusty desert as alive and flourishing. A desert is a place that longs for water. Likewise, we must acknowledge that our collective gatherings of humanity “our dust” longs for a life-giving river to flow through it. God’s people in this prayer view themselves as one of those dry riverbeds in the Negev. For that reason, their prayer is that God will restore them like the streams in the Negev.

Such an amazing picture. At certain seasons when there’s rainfall in the Negev, a dry riverbed transforms in just a few hours. The riverbed becomes an overflowing, torrential stream that sweeps everything before it. In one outpouring of rain, all the dust and broken earth are restored by life-giving waters.

But We’ve Become Less

The two evils of Jeremiah 2:13 are the abandonment of the fountain of living water and the building of broken cisterns. A cistern is an artificial water reservoir. What distinguishes a cistern from a well is its waterproof lining. A cistern without its lining cannot contain water. We build and sustain cisterns with our ingenuity. A cistern can be useful at first but easily becomes stagnated and polluted without fresh rain. A well, in contrast, needs no lining, natural streams supply it with fresh water. Our world doesn’t need more cisterns, it needs more supernatural streams flowing into it.

However, we’ve built cisterns for our lives, we’ve built cisterns for churches. But we’re called to be a river in a desert. We’re more than just vessels. We’re anointed to be channels of living water that both restores and heals, and it also destroys and washes away. It brings new life in abundance. What God brings can be gathered but it cannot be contained.
Yet with all our knowledge, resources and gifts, we’ve become less. We ‘ve become less prepared to pour out His presence, power, and love. We’ve become blinded by visions of enterprise that could never withstand the bounty of His harvest.
God can restore our riverbeds with just one outpouring. Oh that our prayers turn into prayers of restoration. That our dry riverbeds flow again with His anointing and presence and let the dust of our flawed wisdom be swept away forever.

If you’d like support or make a donation to The Fountain Fellowship, we simply ask that you include your support with prayer. You can also follow our journey on our  Facebook Page The Fountain Fellowship or subscribe to my Youtube channel at Pastor Carmelo Grajales

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Our Sermon Series section is a free resource. Complete with sermon transcripts and downloadable study guides for private use, Bible studies or small group settings. SERMON SERIES

 

If this ministry has helped you in any way, Pastor Carmelo would love to hear about it. Leave a Note

The Deal of A Lifetime

The Deal of a Lifetime

Psalm 18:25–26

To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked, you show yourself shrewd.     NIV

This may be a stunning discovery for some, nevertheless, the way we deal with God is the way God, in turn, will deal with us. If we learn to prefer God on life’s journey, He rewards us with The Deal of a Lifetime. If we are faithful to Him, He responds with faithfulness to us. Is heaven now operating on a tit for tat reward system? Not hardly, it couldn’t. Your faithfulness could never measure to His, in the same way, your generosity could not measure to His immeasurable generosity.

So to those who are faithful to God, you get a God kind of faithfulness in return. To the blameless, God returns himself blameless in his full measure. If we are pure, you encounter God at His purest not your own – your investment is matched by an eternal God’s measure of who he is.  What a deal!

This reminder is both encouraging and sobering; like reading the fine print of a contract. The way we relate to Him will determine the way He relates to us. There’s a final word of warning: “To the crooked, you show yourself shrewd.” We will never be able to pull the wool over God’s eyes and get away with it. Our intentions, He can’t ignore. Don’t try to outwit God because it can’t be done. God is also much shrewder than we could ever be. Every investment we make with God yields God size rewards, which truly makes it the deal of a lifetime.

 

 

 

If you’d like support or make a donation to The Fountain Fellowship, we simply ask that you include your support with prayer. You can also follow our journey on our  Facebook Page The Fountain Fellowship or subscribe to my Youtube channel at Pastor Carmelo Grajales

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Our Sermon Series section is a free resource. Complete with sermon transcripts and downloadable study guides for private use, Bible studies or small group settings. SERMON SERIES

 

If this ministry has helped you in any way, Pastor Carmelo would love to hear about it. Leave a Note