Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel

This morning we went to church.  Like always.  The worship was soooooo good!  Every time I'm about to go into church or homegroup I pray, "Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel and let me see what You see."  I pray this to be more connected to the Spirit so that I can hear him speak more clearly and receive anything prophetic He has for me or for people.

During worship the last song we sang was "With Everything."  Every time I hear this song or sing this song I get a vision of a multitude of people in white robes singing to Jesus....

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands [...] Then one of the elders addressed me, saying 'Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?'  I said to him, 'Sir, you know.'  And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9-17)

This song is the song I imagine hearing and singing when Jesus returns and we, who endure the tribulation and end times, are caught up with Jesus.  It moves me to tears just thinking of it.

The chorus in the song goes like this: "With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your glory / With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your praise."  When we sang this song in church today and got to this part people actually starting shouting the name "Jesus" and shouting out prayers to him.  The climax of the song is an interlude when the people just sing "Woaahh" and people were shouting out to Jesus.

This has never happened to me before, but I was so moved by hearing so many people in my church shouting out for Jesus with a passionate heart that I started crying with joy.  Really, I was bawling.  I knew at that moment, I was feeling what the Holy Spirit was feeling, He was moved to tears by the passion for Jesus that was in the room.  I was seeing what the Holy Spirit was seeing: a beautiful Bride longing for Jesus.  I could feel how pleased Jesus was and how much he adored our worship to Him.

In that moment, everything fades but Jesus.  Everything that seems important doesn't matter.  It's just Jesus.

This is what I imagine worship will be like when Jesus returns to reign the earth in person and we are with him.  I cannot wait :)

By the way, here's the song I was talking about.  I have a bunch of favorite songs.  But this is THE MOST FAVORITE of my songs.  This song inspires me to endure.  This song inspires me to look to Jesus and to be excited for His return and to eagerly await it and to eagerly PRAY for Him to come back and make everything new.

my wife instincts are kicking in

I think my maternal instincts...or maybe WIFE instincts are finally kicking in.  I've recently been inspired to try cooking some new recipes and bake desserts and use some of the bakeware I got when we got married.  Last weekend I made spaghetti squash with sausage.  Yesterday, Rollin was gone in San Antonio support raising and so I did a lot of baking.  First, I made a double layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting for a girls nights I had Friday night, then I made peanut blossoms and marble swirl pound cake!!!

Here's the double layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

It's not perfect.

Making peanut blossoms!

Then last night I felt really guilty for baking all of this sweet stuff that I definitely don't want to eat!!!  So I've been giving it away so I'm not tempted to eat too much :)

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit

About 15 minutes ago I finished this book.  Awesome book!  I highly recommend reading it.  The book is a "narrative theological argument" talking about the gifts of the Spirit and healing and talks through scripture that supports those beliefs.  The book also contains amazing stories of people being healed and miracles that are really encouraging.  Reading this book has really challenged me on those topics: the gifts of the Spirit and healing.  Since reading this book I've felt really convicted that I need to start praying for healing more; I need to obey the Lord and trust him in faith.  It's okay if I pray for healing for 20 people and nothing happens, the most important thing is to pray and ask the Lord and to obey when I feel like he puts it on my heart!

What I like about this book is that Jack Deere talks about all angles of these sensitive issues.  Yes, I think gifts of the Spirit and healing is a sensitive issue.  Why?  Because it's been abused and so there's fear.  You can tell by reading the book that Jack Deere isn't some crazy charismatic just throwing out his opinions, but that he has diligently read the Bible and studied it and asked the Lord about these things.  Also, the underlying basis of this book is Jesus: having intimacy with Jesus and having passion for Jesus.  The last chapter of the book is about developing passion for Jesus and he talks about how scripture even shows that the disciples walked in the power of the Spirit because they had intimacy with Jesus.  Healings and miracles were the overflow of their passion for Jesus.

Jack Deere talks about developing passion for Jesus at the end and shares a prayer that he prays daily:

"Father, grant me power from the Holy Spirit to love the Son of God like you love him."

I like that.  I think I'm gonna start praying that everyday.

Red Velvet Cake Cookies

These are cookies made out of a Red Velvet Cake Mix!  I read through the recipe on the blog and saw the pictures and it looked too yummy to resist!!!

If you'd like to try making these yourself click, HERE to go to the blog where I found this recipe!