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Identity

Posted on Jun 21, 2017 in BLOG | Tags: Identity, Self worth

Do you know who you are?

I’m serious. Do you know who you are? Sure, you know your name, where you live, what you do, what you like, what you avoid. But do you know who YOU are? If not, it’s because your identity has been stolen from you. The modern day identity theft is nothing like the spiritual identity theft that has been taking place since the garden of Eden.

Here’s what I mean. Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

The word created is to form, shape, create. God spoke everything else into being. God formed man and shaped him. He was personally involved with His own hands. God made man in His image. He blew His breath into man’s nostrils to give man His very life. Man was the crowning piece of His creation. He blessed man. He gave man authority and care over all the works of His hand.

God rested after creating man. He was done. His work was very good. No second thoughts. No redo’s. Done. Perfect.

God, Adam & Eve walked together in the cool of the evening. They talked and shared with each other. God was happy. So was man.

The devil was not happy about this divine love affair going on between God and man. He wanted to hurt God by hurting what God loved. Enter the devil at the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden. He questioned what Eve knew God said. “Did God say….?” He suggested God was holding out on her, that she was lacking something, was not enough. “You shall be like God,” he said. He then contradicted God. “You shall surely not die.”

But wait, didn’t we confirm above Adam & Eve were made in God’s image? God made them the crowning glory of His creation. Deception is deceiving. We would never buy the lie if it were easy to discern.

But the power was always with Eve. One word would shut Satan down. She had been given authority by God to rule over the devil. Instead she came into agreement with the devil rather than God. Even though she was perfect she believed she wasn’t.

That is the ultimate choice. With whom do we agree. Who do we trust.

She gave away her identity when she made the wrong choice. And she only discovered it after the fact. But don’t judge. We do the same thing everyday when we fearfully say or think, “I’m not enough…….not thin enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not educated enough, not pretty enough, not handsome enough.

NOT ENOUGH.

But you are. You are made in God’s image, the same as Adam & Eve. God believed you were enough to give His only Son to die in your place so He could give you the life He intended you to live. Jesus died to reDEEM you. To deem you as worthy. To deem you as righteous. To deem you as His beloved. To deem you as His child. To deem you as the apple of His eye. To deem you as a joint-heir with Jesus Christ of everything God possesses in heaven and on earth. IT’S ALL YOURS!!!!

But you don’t believe it because the lie has entwined itself into your thinking, just like generations before you. You live with condemnation and fear of GOOP—the Good Opinion of Other People. You fear people will discover your nakedness. So you hide and you cover. Your fig leaves may be stuff: cars, houses, jewelry, your career, your name brand clothes. But just like fig leaves, these things wither and die so you are always striving to cover yourself, to hide your ‘not enough’ identity. Your only option is performance. You spend all your health trying to attain wealth and position while always knowing you are chasing the proverbial ‘carrot on a stick.’ You really are not enough in this ‘alienated from God state of being’ to pay the price of sin. It requires the blood of a spotless lamb.

That’s why God sent Jesus as a human baby, to live a sinless life, then to die, offer His pure blood to pay for your sin. He knows you and I are not enough apart from Him. But with Him we are more than enough! We are more than conquerors! We are more than victors! We are righteous. We are redeemed. We are worthy. Because God through Jesus MADE US worthy.

There remains only 1 question. What will you do about it? Will you accept what Jesus did to pay for your sin and REDEEM you, restore your true identity? Or will you keep striving and running in your own futile power with no identity?

Here’s the answer. “Heavenly Father, I bought the lie. I believed I could live life in my own strength and knowledge. I have sinned against you. I have disobeyed and rejected Your way. Please forgive me. Wash me clean now through the blood of Jesus Christ your only begotten Son, the spotless Lamb of God. Erase all my sins according to your word, as if they never happened. I accept Jesus’ death as payment for the debt of my sin. I release every sin from my spirit, soul and body. I receive Your offer of redemption. I give You my life, my heart, my soul and my strength. Create in me a new heart, O Lord, and a right spirit. Remake me in Your image, holy and righteous, that I may live for You in all Your power, might and glory. In the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen.”

Welcome to your new identity as a child of God! Welcome home.

If you prayed for God to forgive you and receive Him as Lord of your life, please let us know. We want to celebrate with you. We want to send you material to answer questions you may have and to help you grow in your new identity as a child of God Most High. You are now a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. There are new spiritual laws and authority to help you in this new life. We want you to have all Jesus Christ died for you to have. Send us a letter in the enclosed envelope. Call us at 704-473-4212 or email us at pray@godspeedministry.com. Congratulations on your new identity.

YOU ARE REDEEMED!

Renee Bingham 1.2017

Untainted Love

Posted on Jun 21, 2017 in BLOG |

Love Untainted by Lisa Bingham

March 13, 2008

Love is a great thing, perhaps the greatest of things. It is a natural occurrence and reaction. Yet to be realized in its purest form it must be worked out with much diligence and effort. The best expressions of love do not come easily. For, they can only be expressed at the cost of something of value to yourself, namely a part of yourself. It is impossible to show love in its truest form and keep yourself in mind, to be focused or concerned about yourself at all. Love can (and does) exist – pure, true, and untainted. Such a love is truly the greatest of things. Such a love is inherently selfless. Not self deprecating, or self depleting, but self-forgetting in being consumed with something more. Love is not the intense flattering or pleasing of others. But being so much more consumed with another being than with yourself that you desire only the absolute best for them, giving no thought to what that may cost you.

Is this the kind of love God has for us? I would challenge my own previous inclinations and say, yes. What a poor self-serving emotion we often declare love to be. What a poor representation we give of what love actually is. Can we not get outside of ourselves for one second to truly know and receive love – to be more concerned with someone else than with ourselves? Can we not see this great thing that God offers us – His perfect love. For God is Love. The only proper response from man to God is complete self-LESS-ness and complete God-MORE-ness – to be so completely consumed by Him that we forget ourselves altogether. And this response is only possible because He has done so for us first. He loved us first. And only when we give up any insistence upon ourselves are we able to fully love Him in return. Let all sense of self disappear that we may be consumed purely with our loving Creator. We were, indeed, created for this purpose – to love and be loved.

A Realization of Love

Posted on Jun 21, 2017 in BLOG |

A Realization of Love by Lisa Bingham (1.12.08)

I’ve always known that God loves me. At times I’ve been more convinced of this deep love than others, but I’ve always

known it even if I haven’t felt it. The Bible compares God’s relationship with us in many different ways: Master/servant, Father/child, Friend/friend, Teacher/pupil, Groom/bride, and many more. The dynamic of love in each of these relationships is different and meets needs of different levels and strengths. God’s great love for His people is much more powerful than we could ever imagine. Still, with all I’ve known about God’s love, I think I’ve always viewed it through broken lenses. The Bible says that God loves the world

(we all know John 3:16). So I’ve often thought of God’s love toward me as similar to my love for the world, just stronger. Kind of like an amazing and beautiful kindness. This idea of love is good, great even, but is yet lacking. I do often think of God as my Friend and my Father, but I usually still sense His love as more of a wonderful, but vague outpouring upon all of humanity.

I don’t know much about the love between a man and a woman, but I know that when it is true it is strong, powerful, even life-changing. You don’t want to spend one minute without that person and you are inexplicably drawn to them (maybe even despite your best efforts to thwart your love). You find there’s a place within you that no other person can fill but him, and you feel as though you simply cannot live without that person.

GOD is my Groom, my Husband, the Lover of my soul. His love is not and cannot be a vague outpouring on the world at large. It is a specific, ever personal connection to me. There is a place in God’s heart that only I can fill. He doesn’t want to go a day without me. He thinks about me all the time. He cherishes me, adores me, LOVES me – more deeply, personally, passionately, and truly than I could ever imagine.

Whereas each person on this earth can just fill one relational need for another, God meets all our needs, fills all our voids, right down to our deepest desires. He is the fulfillment, the perfection, of every relationship that we try to complete ourselves through others. Even the best human love is tainted. God’s love is amazingly pure, true, lacking in nothing, irrevocable, perfect. Wow.

While a great outpouring of kindness onto mass humanity by a loving God may be a more sensible and more graspable concept of God’s love for us, it is decidedly false.

God’s love for us is an inexplicable connection between the faultless heart of God and the truest hearts of His people – a love reaching way beyond kindness, a love that captures my heart and soul in a way no other living thing can, a love so deeply real and personal it can hardly be imagined, a love that is the fulfillment of my deepest desire.

What I offer in return is so petty and poor that I am ashamed to even call it love.

Oh Lord my God, give me a greater capacity of love for You. Enable me to love You as You deserve, with a love worthy to offer the Lover of my soul, the Captivator of my heart, the Fulfillment of my every desire.

“If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness…He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, more tragic, most inexorable sense.” -C.S. Lewis

And I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will give you mighty inner strength through His Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever to dare to ask or hope. May He be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen. – Ephesians 3:16-21

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, “For Your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:35-39

by Lisa Bingham (now Collier)

You Have The Mind of Christ

Posted on Jun 21, 2017 in BLOG |

TEXAS Bar Sues Church

In a small Texas town (Mt. Vernon), Drummond’s Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers.

Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise in its reply to the court.

As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this case. It appears that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.”

CHALLENGED!

I laugh at the above story because it is funny.

I laugh because it challenges me. Scripture also challenges me. Jesus’ life and example challenge me. Do I truly, completely believe in the power of prayer?

I was at Rockingham Dragway one year for the IHRA team finals. IHRA announcer Scott Heaton introduced me to do the Invocation before eliminations began. I asked God “to line the track with His angels to guide us, guard us and speed us on our way.” I said amen and turned to give the microphone back to Scott. He was writhing and rubbing his arms. I thought he was having a seizure. Then he said to me, “

Did you feel them?” “What?” “Did you feel the angels as they sped through here to take their place along the track?

They almost knocked me over as they came through here. Wow!…..Wow!”

Scott definitely had a supernatural encounter with angels that day. I did not. I missed it. But that day sent me on a journey to discover the supernatural or rather—

WHAT GOD KNOWS!

HERE’S HOW!

A thought pops into your head. If you disregard it, it disappears. If you give it attention, it begins to produce physical substance in the brain. The more you think on it, the more it grows. Your thoughts literally become flesh, creating pathways of information in your brain. Whether good or bad.

(Dr. Henry Wright. Dr. Caroline Leaf) But here is the most wonderful part! As you hear, read and think on the Word of God, you are actually implanting the Word of God, thus the mind of God, into the structure of your physical brain. This produces health in our minds, bodies and spirit. Because “as a man thinks, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7 As we renew our minds with the Word of God, we are able to know and live God’s good, pleasing and perfect will!

One Day With Jesus from Matthew 9 Matthew 10:7-8

*Jesus heals a paralyzed man.

*Calls Matthew the tax collector to be His follower; goes to his house to eat with his friends (aka sinners).

* He raises the dead daughter of a synagogue leader.* The woman with the issue of blood touches Him and is healed as He is on the way to the leader’s house to raise the dead girl.

*As he leaves the house, 2 blind men were healed. Now they see.

*As the 2 blind men were leaving, a mute demon possessed man was brought to Him. Jesus heals & delivers him.

*In Matthew 10:7-8 Jesus sends his 12 disciples out. “As you go, preach this message: The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

Scripture and Jesus’ life example challenge me.

“As you go”…..the supernatural, the kingdom of heaven trumping the kingdom of darkness….. is meant to be the everyday, natural occurrence for those who truly believe God’s word and Jesus’ commands. Our minds are to be so filled with faith in God that we do what He says to do. “

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me—or at least believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 14:11-13

Everywhere the kingdom of God is preached, there are signs and wonders like Jesus did. Everywhere but in “educated, enlightened” countries such as the US. We’ve replaced faith with rational. We’ve replaced faith with resources. We’ve replaced the word of God in our hearts and minds with the knowledge of the world.

And look where it has gotten us! The church looks and acts very much like the world: diseased, divorced and in debt.

That is not God’s want or way. We MUST take up the Word of God and become transformed into the amazing, supernatural, God conformed, God glorifying, people of light who have the mind of Christ.

HOW?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Romans 10:17 We MUST hear ourselves read the word of God aloud. We MUST hear others read the Word of God.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 As we hear the Word and think on the word, it actually deposits substance in our brains and begins to build evidence and faith in what God says. It builds pathways of thinking and directions for doing in our brains. The more we hear, the more faith comes. The more faith that comes, the more substance is built in our brains. Our minds are renewable to be conformed to the word of God that we may know the perfect will and way of God. IT’S SO POSSIBLE!!!!

HOW? Hear the word of God. Play it at night while you sleep. (I have a electronic pillow where I can hear it but it doesn’t bother anyone else. Amazon) Your brain always is working. Renew it while you sleep. Sleep better too!

Chaplains Jean & Don Patterson played scripture in their infant daughter’s room when they put her down to sleep. Their daughter, now grown, knows more scripture than anyone they know.

HEAR the Word at every chance. It becomes your brain!

-Renee Bingham, April 2017

Created to Love

Posted on Jun 21, 2017 in BLOG |

CREATED to Love.

God’s plan was to create people in His image with the capacity to love Him and others exactly as He loves. We are to demonstrate that love with all of our being. Dr. Caroline Leaf, brain research scientist, says, “Even the most devout atheist brain scientist agrees human beings are designed to operate and function from unconditional, giving love.”

God’s love transformed the world when He gave Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins. Now He wants to transform the world through us, His sons and daughters, conformed to the exact image of Jesus Christ. (Romans 8:29) We must rise up to the High Calling of Jesus Christ. We must believe what God says about us. We must believe we can do what Jesus did. He loved. He loved by healing. He loved by giving—his time, his compassion, his service and his life.

Why did Jesus do all this? Because He saw us in our finished fullness, a beautiful being with God’s heart and capacity to love fully. “Just as he chose us beforehand in him from before the foundation of the universe, that we shall be holy and without spot before him, and he ordained us beforehand in love for himself.”

Ephesians 1:4 We are His joy, His purpose, His bride—the object of His love.

God’s plan has not changed.

Therefore we must change our way of thinking and living to align ourselves to fulfill our part in God’s plan. We must learn to see people as God sees them—at the end of their life, trophy in hand, completely in their fullness, exuding the image and likeness of God.

My trouble is I see them as they are. Now. Why? Because that’s all I’ve seen modeled. But God is RENEWING me, calling me into my fullness and asking to see people as He sees them…..finished and perfect, holy and beautiful.

He has placed over

7 billion pieces of His heart on this earth. He asks me to love them through demonstration. Why? Because that is how I demonstrate my love to Him. (“The king will answer them, ‘I can guarantee this truth: Whatever you did for one of my brothers or sisters, no matter how unimportant [they seemed], you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40) It’s how I become more and more like Him, as I practice loving those around me. God wants me and you to call forth His purpose in the lives of those we know and meet. He desires for us to “….consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.”

Hebrews 10:24 God desires for us to love with the love of heaven those who, in our eyes are unworthy, as worthy, as redeemed.

God is building a people. He gave Jesus to live as an example and to die to pay the price for everyone’s sins. Then He raised Him from the dead. Jesus passed His mission and authority to everyone who would believe in Him. Jesus is now there at the right hand of the Father interceding for us, praying for us as we learn to live like Him.

God wants to teach you how to love others as He loves you. The relationships believers share within the church should draw the lost to Christ. The unity of believers is a magnet pulling people to Jesus. John 13:35 says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

CREATED for COMMUNITY …

The huge redwood trees in California are amazing. They are the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and more than 2,500 years old.

You would think trees that large would have a tremendous root system, reaching down hundreds of feet into the earth. But that is not the case. Redwoods have a very shallow root system.

However, the roots of these trees are intertwined and interlocked. Thus, when the storms come and the winds blow the redwoods still stand.

Redwood Tree Roots intertwined.

With an interlocking root system they support and sustain each other. They need one another to survive. So do we!

God planned for us to dwell in unity as His body filled with and operating by love. “See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity.” Psalm 133:1

Through Christ we are bound together in a community of love and unity. Fellowship with Christ translates into fellowship with each other.

God’s love and plan can be summed up in this passage of scripture: “

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.” (1 John 4:7-11

Jesus is already interacting, intertwining with the whole world.

WE are invited to join Him in His work. He longs to reset us with the love culture of heaven.

He wants us to invest His love into people, focusing on who God created them to be and calling them into the fullness of their destiny here on earth.

What an awesome invitation!!

God trusts us because He knows His plan will succeed. Let’s join Him. Let’s trust Him. Let’s invest in people. Let’s change the world! Just like God planned.