Have you ever wondered about Heaven? Have you lost someone you love and wonder what it’s like for them in Heaven, if they were a believer? What we need is a more clear image of Heaven.

When looking at the Bible, there are two testaments, the Old and the New. The Old Testament gives us clues into the future and these are called types and shadows. It gives little bits of insight into a Savior coming to earth. The New Testament deals with that Savior Jesus coming to earth as a man and dying on the cross for our sins.

The Old Testament gives prophetic imagery about what is to come and it gets more clear the more we read it and the closer we get to it. In the New Testament we see the fulfillment of many prophecies in the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. However, there are so many prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

Many of these prophecies have been somewhat hard to understand or even imagine. The Bible speaks to this issue in 1st Corinthians 13:12 when it says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Simply put, there are things coming that we do not know. We know that there are two testaments in the Bible, but what if we consider a third? This is the final or eternal testament where everything is finally revealed. In this regard the New Testament is setting up the eternal testament!

Heaven is pure, and it’s perfect. The struggles we have on earth, the things that cause us to sin now will be dead and gone in Heaven. We will arrive there in perfection just as God created us before the fall of man when Adam and Eve sinned.

Back in the Old Testament we have the story of Noah and the ark. God saw the wickedness of the people and decided to start over with humanity. He instructed Noah to spend the next 120 years to build the ark. God allotted 120 years in order to give more people time to get right with God and get on the boat. Unfortunately, Noah, his wife, three sons and three daughter in laws were the only ones to join. This ark was so huge that the door was too massive to close from inside. God had to close it Himself.

We can take the imagery from that story and jump to the New Testament in Luke 3:16-17. Here John the Baptist is teaching and telling people that they need to repent. “John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” This scripture shows that there will come a time when Jesus returns and he will separate His children from those that are not.

Here are two examples of men of God who tried to warn others about the coming judgment of God. Just as in those days, there are plenty of folks who do not heed the warnings from those who speak about what is sure to come. There are many who spend their days only fulfilling and gratifying their flesh, who will unfortunately not take the warning’s seriously.

It is so very important to remember that when we hear about God’s judgment and His wrath, it is because He is righteous and hates wickedness. He has provided a way to spend eternity with Him and to escape an eternity in hell. We however, must avail ourselves to His provision in the form of forgiveness bought by the blood of Jesus.

Living on this earth, it is impossible to be sinless! We as Christians sin, but thank you Jesus we know how to repent and turn away from sin. We also need to draw closer to the Lord and form an intimacy with the Father like never before. This intimacy allows us to desire more of Him and less of the world. When you walk closely with Him, the things that grieve Him will grieve us and the things He loves, we will too.

Heaven is perfect and more amazing than our finite minds can imagine. Hell, is not a place anyone wants to end up, mainly because it’s an eternal separation from our Creator. Let us repent today of sin and dedicate our lives to reaching as many that are lost as possible.

The word “destiny” is one of those words that evokes many different emotions. It can really cause some joyful and hopeful feelings in some and some anxiety in others. One thing that is unequivocally true, however is that we all have a God-given destiny.

In Numbers 27, we read a story about five daughters whose father had died and left no sons. Generally, Scripture from those days would only list men in the genealogy, because that was the custom of these times. However, these five women had no father and no brothers yet they were certainly included in the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey. The fact that they were females did not negate them from the promise. No one was left out, and these women had to petition Moses to get their inheritance. It’s amazing that this is listed because this is actually a pretty big deal.

I know that many of us have wrestled with whether we were going to fulfill our destiny. We have gone through times where we feel like it’s the goal that we will never reach, and that it is simply unattainable. We see from the story in the Bible that we are all able to obtain our destiny if we believe in Jesus and put our trust and our faith in Him. Psalm 37 tells us that the steps of a righteous person are ordered by the Lord. This is further proof that we don’t need to spend our life stressing about our destiny. We do have to line our will up with the Word and God’s will for us to be IN God’s will.

It’s important to know that when we are tempted to compare our lives with others, our destiny to others, we must not be jealous or envious. When your life feels like a desert, void of miracles and blessings and you see others with seemingly all they need, it’s human nature to feel envious. Instead of “Why not me?” You can say, “I’m next, it’s on its way!” This will help keep your heart right and your faith firmly planted on the bedrock of God’s promises.

Another story comes from Numbers 32:4 and it involves the twelve tribes crossing the Jordan. Reuben and Gad were two of Jacob’s twelve sons that did not want to cross. They approached Moses and basically petitioned him about their tribes not going with the other ten. They liked the land on the safe side because it was great for life-stock and they felt they had done enough fighting. Moses was not happy that they would abandon their people in the other ten tribes and make them fight without them. They just wanted their inheritance NOW. Moses told them that if they stayed the others would be discouraged and not want to go and this would not be pleasing to God. In the end they agreed to go with the others and help them fight for their land and then they received the land they wanted. We see from this story that they needed to help others achieve their destiny and so do we!! None of us can achieve it alone!

One last story is in Joshua chapter 4 and it takes place after everyone crossed the Jordan river. The priests were holding the Ark of the Covenant in the Jordan River as everyone passed on dry ground. God told Joshua to instruct twelve men representing the twelve tribes to go to where the priests were and to each pick up a stone. The twelve men carried the twelve stones to their camp and built a memorial to commemorate all that God had done for them. This would be a memorial for the adults to teach the children of God’s promises to their people. The point here is that we are to be a living memorial or a living testament to all the God has done. This is our destiny…our testimony that will live on in the hearts of others.

Let’s remember today that we will not miss out on our destiny as long as we are following the Lord’s leading. Let’s rest in the fact that we all need others in order to fulfill our destiny. Finally, let’s focus on our destiny being our testimony, one of God’s saving grace, His eternal love and our promise of an eternity with Him. Let’s tell as many as we can so that we can take as many with us as possible!

When we align with God’s will, we can experience the sweetness of life’s blessings, and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. Whether you’re seeking a deeper understanding or a refreshing reminder, this sermon illuminates the importance of our spiritual roots and the richness of God’s love.

Today we continue our series called “Promised Land.” We have already learned that God’s promises have a command attached to them, so His commands have promises and His promises have commands. We learned that our faith walk can be a lot like a roller coaster with its many ups and downs, but God is there in them all!

Today, we are going to talk about something that affects each and every believer in some form. Let’s talk about strongholds and giants. Again, we look at Numbers 13: 25-28. The spies were sent to scope out the land and they came back with amazing news. They said it was beautiful and a land flowing with milk and honey!! There were men actually carrying giant grapes! The people were ecstatic and ready to go. “Oh yeah, there is one other thing.” They said. “There are men as tall as giants, we were like grasshoppers compared to them.” The people were terrified as we all would be! Joshua and Caleb were filled with faith and knew that God would go with them and deliver these men into their hands. The others however didn’t have time to think about God being with them, they were too busy focusing on the size and scope of the strongholds and the giants.

In the beginning, they had a physical problem with the size of the giants, but then it became a mental struggle because fear and doubt set in. Finally, it became a spiritual issue because they doubted and disobeyed God.

We deal with this same progression in our own lives. God tells us to do something that in the natural seems terrifying. We grapple with it mentally or physically and then it becomes a spiritual snare.

Now, the Israelites were promised fruitfulness, sweetness and prosperity. In the same way, we are walking in God’s promises and He promises us fruitfulness as well in the form of the fruits of the Spirit. These are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

These things are amazing, but the moment you accept Christ you step into war with satan, but have no fear, you are not alone. God gives us what we need to fight satan and it’s in this arena you need to understand what a stronghold is. A stronghold is a place of consistent mental and emotional resistance. When you have a situation that arises that is contrary to the Word of God and you know what to do, but you feel resistance to do it…that’s a stronghold. You could walk up on a group at work telling filthy jokes and immediately the Holy Spirit nudges you to walk away. However, you feel this resistance to do so because you may look silly or self-righteous…this could be a stronghold. You know you are a Christian and you would never talk that way at church, but you also feel a little resentment that you can’t just take part, what’s the big deal? Stronghold!

There are some reasons why strongholds exist in our hearts, and we will look at three. First of all repeated, willful sin will build a stronghold. These are addictions. Time after time, brick after brick you will erect a stronghold that appears to be unbreakable. However, with repentance, prayer, accountability and right choices you can replace each brick of sin with bricks of righteousness.

Another way they form is through trauma. You may have experienced great trauma as a child or in relationships etc. and now there is almost a knee jerk reaction that you have to certain things. These reactions are because of a stronghold on your life due to trauma. God can ask you to do something and out of self-preservation you default to fear and tune God out. This isn’t how we are meant to live.

The last way we will discuss today is with pride. This is a big one and it can be a giant stronghold in our lives. The pastor could be preaching and in your mind you could be assigning the examples given to everyone around you, but yourself. Especially in marriage it can be so easy to hear something and say, “That’s right! My husband/wife does that!” While you do the exact same things. Pride causes us to feel that we are superior to others and that we have got it together. When God calls us to take council from someone and we feel an immediate grrrr because we have more experience or we are older etc., it’s a stronghold.

Please remember as you read this and find truth in these words, you are never alone. God has given us the tools necessary to tear these strongholds down and the biggest way is with the truth of His Word! For every stronghold including, addiction, trauma and pride, there are scriptures to combat them. You can Google scriptures on any topic and you will find your weapon!

We can live free from strongholds in our lives. It’s not always easy and it may not feel so fun, but we have a loving Father! He cares so deeply for you and the human condition, and He sent His Son so that we can walk forgiven and empowered by His Word.

It’s no mystery that life is a lot like a roller coaster, full of twists, turns and some steep drops as well. One minute we are on top of the world with everything just clicking for us. The next minute it feels like the floor has dropped out from underneath us. This is a universal truth. Sometimes we may be tempted to think it’s just us or our own families, but that is without a doubt untrue.

There has also been the misconception that Christians are immune to this fact because we have Jesus working on our behalf. This also could not be further from the truth. Having a relationship with the Creator doesn’t excuse us from hard times, it just allows us to lean on Him when we experience them.

Another word picture for us to understand the ups and downs of life is to equate them to mountain top and valley experiences. We love the mountain tops because we feel the joy of things going our way. Maybe you just got married, had a baby or received a promotion at work. Maybe it’s as small as being able to have a pain free day where your body works properly. Mountain top experiences don’t have to be massive, they can be simple things we have prayed for.

The valley experiences are the ones that we generally do not appreciate. Maybe your car broke down again, you get laid off from work unexpectedly or you’re going through a divorce. These are the times that can really test our faith walk with God.

Deuteronomy 11:11-12 says, “But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

Spiritual mountain tops might include things like accepting Christ into your heart, water baptism, a healing or maybe just a Sunday worship time. It’s important that we worship the Lord on these occasions and thank Him for all He has done. It’s also extremely important to remember these mountain top experiences when you are way down in the valley.

Having the ability to look over your shoulder and see where you were just on top of the mountain metaphorically, helps to increase your faith. It allows you to remember God’s goodness and to trust He will bring you out of the valley. Conversely, as you exit a spiritual valley and head back to the mountain top, it’s good to see where God’s hand was on your life.

Now, another very important fact about the valley is that it’s in this season that you cry out to the Lord. You cry out for His help and guidance. You also plant in the valley, you plant and toil so that faith will cause you to bear fruit. That fruit is what you will need for your next mountain. The stretching and toiling in the valley sustains you on the mountain tops.

King David in the Bible is a great example of one who lived through many peaks and valleys. He killed the Philistine giant as a boy. He was a valiant warrior and became king. However, he also committed murder and infidelity. He lost his firstborn son and had to deal with his children acting treacherously. Those are some awfully high mountains tops and some mighty low valleys. God was with Him through it all, and God used David in a mighty way not to mention he is in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Remember today that whether you are standing on the top of a mountain in your life or if you are crawling through the lowest valley, God is there. Call out to the Lord in praise for the good and for strength and guidance through the bad. You are growing your faith and that is always a worthwhile endeavor.

The word promise generally evokes positive feelings. It is mainly used to describe how someone gives their word about something good they will do. Even if the promise pertains to something bad never happening again, it’s more positive than negative. It stirs within us a feeling of hope.

When it comes to the Bible, we like to get all excited about God’s promises don’t we? Who wouldn’t be excited to receive a promise from our Heavenly Father? Now, I’m not inferring that promises should not excite us, I am however going to submit to you that there is more to receiving them than we may understand.

God’s promises ARE for His children and they are freely made available to us, but not without some conditions. We play a part in receiving a promise from God. Our Father God in His infinite wisdom knew that we could struggle with staying spiritually immature in our dealings with His promises. He knew that if we received every promise from God without a personal investment of some kind we would not grow and mature. Therefore God attached conditions to His promises.

Let’s look at a story that will provide a rich illustration for conditional promises. In the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, you can find the story of when God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. God led them into the wilderness where He begins to tell them that He is going to lead them to the “Promise Land.” In Numbers chapter 13, we read the story of God instructing Moses to send 12 spies into Canaan to survey the land. When these guys returned the where excited and filled with hope! They reported that this land was flowing with milk and honey and had giant grapes that took several men to carry. All of a sudden a few of the guys chimed in and reported that there were giants living there that were so huge that the spies looked like grasshoppers.

Well, that last bit of information was all the Israelites needed to hear before they went from excitement and expectation to fear and doom. When it sounded easy, they were all in, but as soon as they heard about the giants they lost all faith in God and His promise. They no longer felt they would be able to take this land for themselves.

Later, as Moses was about to die and was passing the leadership to Joshua, he recounts the story to Joshua. He tells him that because of the people’s lack of faith and trust in God, no one but the children, Joshua and Caleb would enter Canaan!

This seems really severe, but God had showed them signs and wonders yet they still did not believe. If there was a chance of hardship they were out!! Receiving the promise of God was awesome…doing what God was instructing, not so much. They were perfectly willing to forfeit their God given inheritance out of fear.

You may find some common ground with these folks. It can be easy to read these stories and think that these are some thick skulled individuals. However, if we really take a moment to think, we can find similarities to ourselves. There have probably been times that if you’re being honest, you have sought out a particular promise, without paying attention to the conditions that went along with it. We have ALL been there.

God is no respecter of people according to Acts 10:34. This is great news because it means that His promises are available to ANYONE. Along with that is the fact that His conditions and commands are for everyone as well.

Today, we can reflect on areas in our lives where we are trying to take shortcuts to obtain God’s promises. We can ask Him to reveal these things to us because He is not in the business of hiding truth from us. He is a loving Father who wants His children to live in peace and for them to enjoy all that He has promised us.

In this video, our guest speaker Dr. Phil Brassfield shares a timely and impactful message that is essential for us all. We’ll hear about David’s Secret, the renowned King of Israel from thousands of years ago, and how his unwavering faith in the Name of the Lord made all the difference. Our speaker reflects on his personal experiences and the importance of calling upon the Name of the Lord in challenging times.

Revelation Frisco is a Spirit-filled, diverse, non-denominational church family located in Frisco, TX. Led by Pastor Ben Sanders, we envision a church that is vibrantly alive with true worship of Jesus Christ. Visit us online at http://rev.church.

Today we wrap up our series on The Ministry of the Saints with a crucial topic! We are going to discuss the subject of prayer and how it directly correlates to other issues in our life. Prayer can literally make or break our Christian walk.

I would imagine that there are countless ways of visualizing or even describing prayer. There are probably as many methods as there are religions in this world. However, I’m sure we can agree that the first and most important aspect is WHO do you pray to?

It’s easy to see how an unsaved person could be perplexed about which god to pray to and how the prayers should go. There is no shortage of deception out there when it comes to different gods and different worship practices. For the sake of time, it will be understood that there is but one God and He is the ONLY living God to whom we pray.

Now that we have that firmly established, it is beneficial to understand that our prayer life is in direct correlation to our faith life. If we don’t consistently exercise our faith muscles, by trusting that God is working on our behalf, our prayers will show it. Don’t misunderstand, all of us come to God with doubt about things, but if you don’t leave your doubt and fear in His hands, we won’t grow. If we don’t grow spiritually in our faith our prayers will be a laundry list of requests that we don’t even believe can be answered.

If you think about it, it’s a very cyclical process. The more you choose prayer over worry, the more your faith grows. The more your faith grows the stronger your prayer life becomes.

I Thessalonians 5:17 days to “Pray without ceasing.” Now this is a very tall order! For some reason worrying without ceasing or complaining without ceasing seems to come more natural to us. Ironically, prayer is the one thing that could bring us the most peace, but sometimes it’s a struggle for us. Truly surrendering our will, our emotions and our thoughts to the Lord in prayer can be difficult because satan knows it’s the place we experience the most power!

The big question that accompanies a sermon on prayer is, “How do we pray?! Well, God in His infinite wisdom knew this would be a huge question and so He provided the answer. Matthew 6:10-13 is what is referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer.” This is the perfect prayer and if you don’t know how to pray, then this is the premier place to start! “Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.” If you were to take every line of this prayer and make it applicable to your own life, you could be praying for several minutes on this prayer alone.

Praying the Lord’s Prayer or the Psalms or any other scripture is more of a formal prayer. Even though you might be repeating these scriptures over and over, it’s ok because it keeps your mind focused on the Lord. This is different from the “vain repetitions or empty phrases” that are mentioned right above the scriptures just mentioned. Verse 7 says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

This would be more like rushing through and repeating a memorized prayer in order to check a box. The formal prayer consisting of Scripture is not empty. These are life giving words. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” This is very different.

There will also be times when you have exhausted all your human abilities to pray about a matter. This could be from mental and emotional exhaustion or just a lack of understanding of all the details. In these moments you may choose to pray in the Spirit…or pray in tongues because it is the Holy Spirit interceding on your behalf. It’s the perfect prayer that goes unhindered directly to the throne room of God.

No matter how long we have been praying in our life, we can always pray more. Life affords us constant material to pray about and God is ready to connect with us in prayer. May we all desire a more rich and intimate prayer life with our Creator!

The Ministry of the Hands 

God is a very “hands-on” God. He never leaves us and never forsakes us!

We have been talking about the ministry of the Saints for the last few weeks. First, we discussed the different offices or positions in the five-fold ministry. We have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and all are beneficial to the body of Christ. Last week we discussed praise and how it was different from worship and a necessary aspect of the life of a Christian, especially a mature one.

This week, we continue with a topic that admittedly is NOT the most popular in the church. In Mark 9:14-29, we see the story of some of the disciples that tried to pray and deliver a demonically tormented boy. The disciples were unsuccessful so Jesus entered the picture and the boy was delivered. When the disciples asked why they couldn’t handle it, He replied in verse 29, “This kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.”

I know that there are very few who actually enjoy fasting because after all, it is the sacrificing and giving up of something we like. Whether it’s an actual fast from food, or a hybrid fast of some kind where you give up sweets or entertainment etc. It’s difficult for our flesh. The flesh is the part of all of us that must constantly be brought into submission to live in this world. We love food, tv, social media etc, therefore when we give it up for a time we can encounter some real hesitancy or warring because it’s not fun to go without.

As Christians we are taught and we believe in putting things in our spirit like the Word of God. We are taught to add prayer to our life in order to stand strong in our faith. We are told to put on the armor of God, Ephesians 6:11-18. These are all things added to our spirits and to our lives. However, there are reasons for removing things from our lives as well.

In this life and on this earth we are born into a constant struggle for our attention to pull us away from God. It is generally unnatural to just wake up and float from prayer to the reading of the Bible without something or someone else vying for our attention. Staying in a comfy bed, a nice yummy meal, Facebook etc. are all things competing with your precious time with God. It’s because of this fact that fasting should be a regular part of our walk with the Lord.

Have you ever wondered why fasting is so incredibly hard for us? It’s because satan knows of the unbelievable power that is let loose in our lives and circumstances when we fast! While it is a struggle to fast much less to want to fast, we can have a deep desire for more of God. He has provided a recipe for us if we truly desire more of Him. This will be a lifelong journey and the issue of fasting and starving the flesh will continue to come back around until we yield to it.

Let’s talk about what fasting is not. It is NOT for show or for recognition like the Pharisees did in the Bible according to Mark 2:18-22. They wanted everyone to know how spiritual they were for fasting and in so doing simply didn’t eat..you can get the same results from a diet. They missed the entire point of starving the body or flesh to focus attention on God. Pride is a work of the flesh so they literally missed the entire point. It’s not just about what you’re taking out, It’s about what you’re replacing it with, and that should be the things of the Lord.

At the end of the day, we are supposed to be about our Fathers business and that means snatching souls away from satan and leading them to Jesus. Now more than ever, people are scared and worried about what our future holds. There will be those that will enter a church for the first time because of the utter insanity of our world. When they walk into church they need to be met with a body of believers who have kept nothing back from God. They need to be “seen” and embraced by folks who cared enough about them before they ever came, to do the things that bring spiritual health and wellness. We need to be spiritually ready at all times to be a willing and clean vessel to reach the hurting and fasting is a huge part of this.

We are all in varying places in our Christian walk so start somewhere. Take steps this week to shut out the world, starve your flesh and feed your spirit. There are lives out there depending on it.