As we begin a new year, it's a time to set aside some special time to see the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength -- more than just praying but adding fasting. It's a time to seek God, deny the flesh, so that you can heart from God and press in closer to God. 

Set aside a period of time -- 3 days, 7 days, 10 days, 21 days. Ask the Holy Spirit: Would You lead me and guide me into a season of fasting where I seek the Lord with all my heart for God to plan my steps going forward? 

Fasting is all about leaning in to God and allowing the Holy Spirit to consume you as you seek God for a specific matter in your life. 

What is fasting according to the Word? It's where you voluntarily abstain from food/drink while you're seeking God. 

You are denying your flesh from some food/drink for a period of time. But, during that period of time, you're seeking God. You're leaning in to God. According to the Old Testament, "cover the mouth" = denying the flesh from food; according to the New ...

What does Christmas look like for me?

We want to remember Jesus and build memories -- with Family and Faith. 

1) My favorite activity: Christmas Eve Candlelight Service (at my church)

Remember Jesus -- to focus on the birth of the Savior. We look at the cross but we see the manger. He's no longer in the manger. He went to the cross. And now He's with the Father. 

We light the candle. He truly is the light of the world. But, He's the light in my heart because, without the Savior, I would be in utter darkness. 

2) My favorite decoration: the Nativity scene

It is such a visual to remember what Jesus did: that He laid down in Heaven His shekhinah glory. And He came to earth at this time, this season, in a humble way -- in a manger. Why? For you and for me. 

And His parents -- Mary and Joseph -- in their humility were willing to serve God, to sacrifice their lives. 

It's a remembrance -- not only of the Savior but of humility. "Jo, walk humbly with the Lord your God today. Fall on t...

Who will way the blessing at your house this year?

Will you willingly search out people during this Christmas season and you speak words of life, value -- that you speak to the heart of another person -- that they know they are worthy, have purpose. 

I want to focus on the blessings that came forth -- how we can continue those blessings, how we can be a blessing to other people around us and recognize our ability to give a blessing

The Format of a Blessing

Take the Word of God and by faith, based on the authority of God's Word, you speak something into the heart of another person that gives them life, and value. 

* "She brought forth" that means life. 

What she did brought life. It was done in a very humbling way. 

When we speak blessings, it gives life -- spoken from a humbled heart -- submit to God what He would want that person to know, so that God gets the glory and they are lifted up, encouraged. 

* "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace goodwill toward men." 

No...

Everyday, you truly want it to count for eternity. 

I was overwhelmed that many moments in my past, my history that I've missed You. 

How many times have we thought, Lord, I know what to do, but I didn't do it. Or I know what to do in the moment, and I'm just not doing it. 

Because I've missed You, God -- because I've missed not living the Word, yet knowing the Word -- God, I have messed up. 

God, forgive me, because I've missed living Your Word, and not showing the world around me (my family, my friends, people in close proximity to me) truly who You are. And yet, Lord, I'm part of the mess that we're in. 

And, then, I began to praise God for His mercy. But for His mercy, I would be consumed. 

How much we miss God when we yet know God, know about God, or sometimes we don't know the Word, because we didn't live our lives from God's perspective. 

1) I've missed God because my heart's not set on living the Word. 

Example of the family who read the Word all the time 

They had a h...

Regardless of our circumstances, the condition of your family, don't miss this thankful season. Let's prepare our hearts to truly be thankful. 

How do we become thankful? We've got to focus on the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts. 

Caution: Don't look to the world. It will be counterfeit. It will snatch a grateful heart. 

We can be thankful that God hasn't removed His breath from us. He hasn't given up on us. 

What do you do when the enemy tries to snatch your thankfulness? Come back and let the peace of Christ reign in your heart. Because we are one body, we are in Christ and we can be thankful. 

How do we get our hearts back where we have the peace of Christ ruling our hearts where we can truly be thankful? 

1. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring to your remembrance all the benefits you've received from God this year. 

2. Then, write them down. It's easy to be presumptuous and take for granted what God has done that we miss it. 

3. Out of faith, begin to read aloud scriptures of...

Within the Christian community, it should cause us to pause and ask: What next?

It gives us great concern. We don't bury our head in the sand.

What is happening to our culture? What is happening to our world around us? What is happening to the next generation? When our spiritual landscape, our nation takes such a shift (wickedness is not even hiding its face), what do we do? Does it cause us to fear what will happen next? Retreat? Panic?

Or could God be using this as a very distinct moment to cause us to rise up with a holy boldness and to take action? Could this be the moment that God's been waiting to move us into the forefront -- out of our complacency and move us into the moment to do something? 

This is not a moment to say that we're defeated, that we've lost the battle. 

We need to get more intentional. 

The Israelites were taken into exile into Babylon -- a pagan place, wicked, ruled by pagan leaders who were opposed to God. But what did God tell them? Don't hide in the mo...

Before we get into he middle of the holidays, what is our purpose? What are we aiming to achieve?

Jo - Get that thankful heart establishing our steps (for Thanksgiving). At Christmas, we want to keep Christ in Christmas. How do you keep those goals the focus?

Sydney - When that heaviness creeps in, that's not from the Lord. It can suck the joy out. 

Give careful thought to what we're going to do -- our plans to be made. Take time to get alone with God, get alone with your calendar, your husband, your family and be thoughtful, before all the craziness starts. Know what your aim is; focus your eyes. What is our family aiming to do?

Give careful thought so that we can be steadfast and calm and experience the joy of the season. 

Jo - Sometimes that's the intent of the enemy -- whether it be flesh or satan and his kingdom -- is to get us all flustered and chaos. We want to remove the chaos before we get into the middling of the holidays. 

Let your eyes look straight ahead.

Sydney - O...

Jo begins...

We know a lot of things but we're not doing them because we don't have wisdom. Wisdom is when we know what to do and we do it. 

Many times you may have to go it alone. Many times, others may not come along with you or behind you. But if it's God, God's got it. You go with Him because you don't want to miss Him. 

I always found in my life that the closer I got to God, the fewer it got out there. And that's ok. That's a good place to be. Because now you're leaning in so close to God that He's the one you hear. And you're listening to the point that you're obeying. In that obedience, there is such blessing. And that is success. 

Sydney: We've talked about that sacrifice. I do think you lay some things down. What's our choice when God puts something in front of you? 

Our success is finding the purpose God has for you. 

If you feel God working in your heart -- something's going on, He's grabbing you -- talk to godly council about it, find buddies that you can trust and pr...

Why are you celebrating Halloween? 

As Christians, we are to reflect the light -- in our lives, and in our homes, the activities that we do. We're to reflect Christ. 

> We set boundaries pursuant to the Word of God. 

* How close can you get my carriage to the edge of the cliff without going over? 

Five truths about Halloween

1. This is a festive time. It started 2,000 years before Christ was, and it's rooted in pagan worship of Druids, the priestly leaders of the Celts. On October 31st, they head up a festival honoring the sun god, the lord of the dead, to fight evil spirits. 

2a. The activities involve offering a human or animal sacrifice to the god of the dead in belief that these sinful souls (those that had died during the year) that they were in a place of torment and they would be released by the sun god, if the sacrifice they offered was so pleasing to the sun god. 

2b. The Druids would offer good things to eat to these evil spirits so that the evil spirits would not do m...

"You look just like your father!" 

We, as God's children, should favor Him. 

> What does that mean? 

> Do you?

> Who do we act like? Look like? Resemble? Who do we favor, as we go about our day, go about our lives?

We often think of favor when we come to God and ask for favor. We want God to do good to us, ("God, give me a special privilege, benefit. Do something for me on my behalf or lift a burden.") 

* But God's favor is about giving God the opportunity to move in our lives so that every action and reaction resembles Him. 

God, I want to resemble You. I want to favor You. 

When you became a child of God, He really began working His goodness in your life, to make you rememble Him. So everything that comes into our lives -- what God is working in our lives, what God allows to come into our lives is good because the end result is so that we resemble Him. We look like Him. We favor Him. 

God, from Your perspective, what is "gracious to me"?  

The Hebrew word means to show favo...