Dear Friends,
CedarWood Int'l is one arm of World for Jesus Ministries. The Lord instructed us a few years ago to begin this branch of our ministry to help meet the needs of the poor in the Seattle community. CedarWood Int'l includes a weekly Pantry, BackPack food support, and Coats & Clothes Closet. On August 20th, we will host our first annual Back2School Bash!
The 2016 school year brings with it so much excitement. New shoes, new clothes, new backpacks, erasers, binders, and all the fun things that we, as parents place inside to help our children begin the year off on the right! Unfortunately for some, the chance of purchasing new socks is a luxury, let alone new backpack supplies, especially in the rural communities. This desperate need is why our CedarWood Int'l team is stepping up to meet this need by creating "Back2School Bash"; a fun-filled afternoon for these precious children!
We have over 80 children, Kindergarten through 12th Grade, signed up for our Back2School Bash! Our staff and volunteers will be in place to work the games, cook hot dogs, and hand out backpacks filled with almost everything children need to start the school year. An incredible team of professional hairdressers will be onsite to provide free haircuts to every child. As an added blessing, we just received a generous donation of new and gently used children's clothing and will set up racks so families can 'shop for new school clothes' for their children.
Under the guidance of our CW Director, Vivian Du-Porter, Kim Howard (who is currently overseeing this event) and our CW Staff have done an excellent job searching out great deals for the 80+ backpacks, and supplies we plan to provide at the Back2School Bash. We'd like to provide socks and underwear for the children as well; a surprisingly costly need. Prayerfully consider supporting our first annual Back2School Bash this year. All donations are tax-deductible. For more information on donating and/or volunteering for this event, contact our office 559-435-2423. If you'd like to contribute supplies, our office will provide the shipping address. If you are not familiar with our CW Department, click here for a video, done for us as a gift, by a local videographer. Click here for a direct donation link to help support this special event. Blessings & love Ricci Wilson
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“How To Walk With God”
Session One
Part C
By Nita Johnson
NOLA Revival Services June, 2011
From Last Week: The Bible says the fear of the Lord is clean. Is that not exciting and wonderful? Does it not make you feel like you want it? I love when it really rains hard because the air smells so crisp and clean. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. How do you walk in the abundant life? You learn how to stand in awe of God. When I go into someone else’s church to preach I am so respectful of the authority of that pastor; I would never do anything deliberately to offend him because he is God’s authority over that congregation. I highly respect authority because I respect Him. If you do not have the fear of God it is easy to rebel against authority and become careless and agitated or find excuses for not doing what is right but when walking in the fear of the Lord you cannot do that. When you have the fear of God, you respect authority because you know that no matter who it is upon, that is something of God that is resting upon that person. So you may not respect the authority for the sake of the person, but you do because you stand in awe of God.
How is it that we gain this abundant life? We stand in awe of God. All it means is that we have a new relationship with life. Not only do we see life differently but we have a new relationship with life, with the Church and even the world—because a separation has taken place. To give you a better picture—when I think about standing in the fear of the Lord I think about a five star general standing at attention with chest out and broad shoulders back. There is just something about him that that makes you respect him. When I think about standing in awe of God, I think about it like this—you are in silent worship, loving adoration, lost in the glory of the One that is before you and both the love and the awe must be embraced. The fear of the Lord makes you stand at attention to His righteousness and holiness along with His just demands. You do not sin easily in this state—you practically cannot—it is so hard and painful that you will do just about anything to avoid it because you are standing at attention before His holiness. When you stand in awe of Him, your whole being is awakened to the beauty of His glory, holiness and majesty.
What does the Bible say? Stand in awe and sin not. If you have the awe of God in your heart, that awe will protect you from blatant terrible sin. If you have a TV at home and you have the awe of God and the fear of the Lord in your heart, that TV gets thrown out because it brings sin and the spirit of sin into your home. It is true! And if you stand in the fear of God, your soul cannot bear it. I cannot stand to walk into a living room with a TV on; it is painful to my soul. The awe of God and the fear of God have to go together because those two together bring on the abundant life. Walking in the fullness of God’s life is walking with Jesus, but it means a character transformation of the soul that must be endured and desired. Why would you walk with someone if you do not like his ways? He is righteous and holy; if you do not like being holy then why walk with Him? You will be miserable because He really is holy and every time you do unholy things you are going to be disciplined real fast and when you do what is unrighteous, you know what is going to happen.
Malachi 2:5 5My covenant [on My part with Levi] was to give him life and peace, because [on his part] of the [reverent and worshipful] fear with which [the priests] would revere Me and stand in awe of My name. 6The law of truth was in [Levi's] mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness and turned many away from iniquity.
I love that scripture because the law of God is in His mind and in His heart. It is not a casual relationship with the Word of God because. The law of truth is in His mouth… It is another way of saying that the law of truth is in His heart. What did John say? That the law came by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Truth cuts like a double-edged sword, cutting asunder between soul and spirit; it is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Father and of the eternal kingdom. When you walk over the threshold of truth, your soul has to change; it cannot remain unchanged. Truth is eternal; it is what God is, what He says and what cannot be changed. Anything that is changeable is not truth. If it can be changed—if it has a beginning or an end then it is not truth because truth is eternal. When truth pierces your heart, it has to transform something and depending on the soil of your heart and willingness to embrace it, it may only transform a couple of cells. But, if your heart has been made ready for truth then when it pierces your heart, it may transform a major area of your character. You need this penetration often, because the heart is so deceitfully wicked that it continuously wants to steal the light from you. When you keep bathing and penetrating yourself with truth, it is finally going to find a resting place where it can explode, abound and become abundant life in you, transforming you into the image of Christ.
Is it not amazing that the Word of truth has this kind of power? The world was created by the Word of His power—by truth. If God speaks it, it is truth. If it was created by truth but is not truth, it is because it can change and it does change. You and I are not truth, but God has called us to become truth, which means you cannot lie—not even to yourself. When you begin to lie, you are not truth and neither are you gravitating toward it and whenever you lie you cannot walk with Jesus because He is truth. Truth is a light and anything that is not truth is darkness. How can darkness walk with what is light? The Bible says not only that it cannot but that it also will not come to the light because the light reveals its deception, so if you want to walk with Jesus what must you do? You must love truth and you must love it until you become truth; so seek it and war against the deception that tries to steal your soul away from God. He is truth and all of this is embodied in Him.
So you want to become compassion, love, mercy, light, gentleness, goodness, kindness; except we know we are not there yet, right? But we are running in the right direction as long as we are running to Him. Because we are not perfect we may run away from Him—please know that is the wrong decision. Come to the light. He desires truth in the innermost parts and you have to get close enough to the sword to let it pierce. When it pierces, it makes greater places for the light to cohabit with you.
To be continued next week…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
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