This past weekend, it was great to have one of our Executive Pastors, Olin Holly, give the message in our services. He brought a profound word on wisdom based on the first parable Jesus ever gave us: The Wise and Foolish Builders. Jesus shows us the basic principle we are to live by in this parable to make certain we are living wise. Here’s the way Olin broke it down:

Jesus’ early ministry was characterized by teaching, preaching and healing of all kinds of diseases and performing incredible miracles. Multitudes followed him, and so he went on a mountain and taught them. An important thing to note was that when Jesus finished teaching, He gave us his very first parable:

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Luke 6:47-49 ESV)

Why did Jesus choose this particular illustration? To relate and connect with the people. They understood heavy winds and rains and knew that anyone would be foolish to build their house on the sand. Basically Jesus was saying, “Yes, you are right. And by the way—you would be just as foolish as that man who built his house upon the sand if you do not obey my words.”

The best thing I can do is obey what Jesus says; the most foolish thing I can do is ignore what Jesus says! So then, the people had to go back and think about what He said when he taught them.

In his message, Olin went on to discuss how some of Jesus key points are relevant to us today, including the topics of anger and murder, lust and adultery, loving our enemies and storing up treasures. His words were challenging and right on. If you haven’t already, let me encourage you to listen to or watch this message here. It will definitely build up your spirit and challenge you in your walk with Christ!

This past weekend, my wife Colleen brought a very moving word about God’s unrelenting love, forgiveness and reconciliation. If you missed it, you’ve got to hear it – listen to or watch it here. For now, here’s a bit of what she said to whet your appetite:

We all have a craving that goes much deeper than cravings for simpler things like food…it’s to be wanted, to be liked by someone else. We crave the sense of being wanted – I don’t mean in a sexual sense, but in the sense of knowing that we’re loved, accepted and valued for who we are. That’s something we all need, yet most of us didn’t grow up with it.

I wonder if you’re aware with an acute sense how much God wants you? If we could get that down in our hearts, it would radically transform our lives. But so many of us don’t get that. So, instead, we seek to fill that deep craving with all kinds of other things – food, sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, music, Internet, Facebook or any number of other things. We look to the things the world claims will fill that need…but they don’t. They only distract us from what we really need and then heap on shame and guilt to try to keep us running from God.

Jesus talked about this in a story that he told about a wealthy father and his two sons. This story is known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son and can be found in Luke 15:11-32.

In this story, the younger son is disrespectful and unloving to his father, rebellious, selfishly motivated, prideful, foolish and wasteful. Yet in the end, he is confident in his father’s heart to treat him kindly.

The older son, while giving the outward appearance of being the “good son” is actually hypocritical, cynical, selfish and prideful. He thought love was something that was earned. He had no more love for the father than did the younger son.

Neither son truly understood the love and acceptance of their father. They represent us, and our two main responses to God, before we begin to understand his love. They are flipsides of the same coin – rebellion or religion – both are mankind’s broken responses to our complete underestimation of God’s love and acceptance.

The father in Jesus’ story was out there looking for and expecting his son – when his son finally returned, he recognized him a long way off. He didn’t wait at the door, but ran to him (how undignified!), sparing his son further shame, refusing to banish him as would have been customary, but instead, welcoming him with an outpouring of affection and reconciliation…and then a huge party. What a response!

Yet, should we be so shocked by the Father’s overjoyed reception of his son, considering that is the way God views us – not as despicable heathens but lost sons? This level of celebration makes sense when you consider that the ultimate purpose for Jesus leaving Heaven to come to earth was that this restoration and millions more just like it occur throughout the earth on a regular basis.

This is how much God, our heavenly father, longs for us, looks for us to return. His first response is compassion – even beyond what is reasonable. He is selfless, humble, willing to do anything to get his children back, unrelenting in his love, so focused on restoration that nothing else matters. He doesn’t even question about the past, but forgives over and over again!

Our Fusion Pastor, Johnson Bowie, knocked it out of the park this weekend as he opened our new series, PARABLES, with a great message about forgiveness. This is something we all need to be reminded of regularly. It is one of the most essential parts of living a “kingdom” life. Why? Because we all have to deal with offense just about every day. Here’s a bit of what he said:

You are going to get offended! People will give you the opportunity to get offended all the time. That seems especially true in church…especially in Victory! We have way too many races and cultures and languages and funky people in here that you will not get offended. On any given Sunday there are thousands of people who don’t go to church because they are offended.

But we have to realize that a MAJOR plan of Satan is to get us offended at individuals in the church and then to react by breaking community, because then we’re all alone…easy to pick off…sitting ducks for sin and powerless in this life because there’s power in community. The trap of the enemy is isolation. When we refuse to forgive it breaks community with people, it gives a place for sickness in our lives and it breaks community with God.

But forgiveness isn’t easy. Where in the world does the power to forgive come from? The power to forgive comes from our own forgiveness. Those who have been forgiven much must go and forgive much. The forgiven must forgive because they’re forgiven. We had a debt that we absolutely could not pay. We were hopeless and we couldn’t reach out high enough to reach God, so He reached down to us. And Jesus came and He hung on a cross for us, forever dispelling the myth that forgiveness is cheap or easy. If you find yourself getting offended or judgmental towards others often…maybe it’s time you re-calculate your spiritual debt towards God.

Please listen; I’m not minimizing what has happened to some of you. Some of you have been through HORRIBLE things. People have done some absolutely horrible things to you. You have been through a lot. I’m not MINIMIZING that. But what I am MAXIMIZING is what you and I have done to God over and over again. And Jesus looks us square in the eyes and says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this… and He forgives us… now go and do likewise.”

At last I understood: in the final analysis, forgiveness is an act of faith. By forgiving another, I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am. By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out. I leave in God’s hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy. – Phillip Yancey

Is there someone who you need to forgive? Is there someone who you haven’t talked to in a long time because of what they did? Is there someone who you avoid like the plague, you won’t sit beside, or get angry when you think about? Is there someone whom you are waiting for a confession from before you offer forgiveness? You must forgive them. You can start by praying this prayer:

God, I forgive _________ for what they did. I release them from any debt they owe me. I release any anger and any revenge in my heart… and (maybe the hardest part) I BLESS them in the name of Jesus.

You’ve got to hear the rest of this message, including practical and godly wisdom on how to handle offense when it comes; watch or listen to it online here.

Here’s a powerful video about forgiveness:

This past weekend, I invited our 212º Youth Pastor, Rolando Gonzalez, to close out our One Prayer: Unstoppable teaching series. As many of us have heard, God has really been pouring out his Spirit in the 212º services and I wanted him to share some of what’s been going on with the rest of the church. He did so with a great message about the Unstoppable Kingdom. Here are a few of his key points that we all need to hear and receive into our hearts:

• The Lord enjoys spending time with us; he wants to spend time with us.
• God has a plan and if we can get out of His way ‘great things’ will happen for His glory.
• God is a lot happier and more joyful than we usually think he is
• In his presence is joy
• A lot of the things of God are pretty simple; they start getting complex when we try to take them apart, try to explain them
• God has set things in place and in motion and nothing can stop him
• His kingdom is who he is – meaning that God is not standing away just watching, but he’s currently active in his kingdom – Jesus is involved with his kingdom
• We know that God is everywhere, but sometimes it’s like He is more in one place than others; this “more” of God is His glory or presence
• His presence is what makes the unusual usual
• We were made to function in God’s glory, in his presence
• The Holy Spirit loves to bring revelation of the Father’s love and reveal Jesus Christ to us
• When the Spirit comes, He brings the unstoppable kingdom

If you want to experience God’s amazing presence and power as a part of his unstoppable kingdom, I urge you to listen to or watch the rest of Rolando’s message and then surrender completely to the Holy Spirit. You will definitely be encouraged. And, don’t miss the powerful collection of testimonies on the video that he played during service. I’m going to include it here as well. God is on the move. As we unite together with him, we are and will be unstoppable!

A lot of people don’t understand the purpose of the church. They think it’s a place to go and visit on weekends. But actually, that has very little to do with it. Clearly, all the people who have suffered and/or died, even still today, because they were a part of the Church, did so for something much greater than a once a week religious obligation or spectacle! In fact, we see something that is so powerful, so unstoppable that every wave of persecution, even in the present, has not only failed to destroy it, but has instead strengthened it and caused unparalleled expansion.

God’s Church is unstoppable. It continues on and on, growing stronger and stronger every day. And, it is made up of many smaller bodies of believers – individual churches like Victory – that are unstoppable. What makes them that way? Well, every unstoppable church exhibits the following characteristics:

1. The people are fully committed to the mission of the church. What is the mission of the church? Some would say that it’s to feed Christians. Actually, the role of the Church is to equip believers for the work of the ministry. The unstoppable church isn’t about what makes each of us feel good, but about taking part in God’s mission. Despite what our culture would teach us to expect, the church is not about “me”; it’s about the mission – what we can do together with each of us doing our part (not just sitting in a chair). “Going to church” doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a ballgame makes you a player. It’s not about just hearing a good message. Rather, it’s what you do with what you hear. Are we takers only, or participants? We’re not supposed to be spectators, we’re all supposed to be players. When you get a group of people who are all out on the field, the church is unstoppable.

2. The people live under the authority of God’s Word. When we commit to the Word, our lives change. We begin to see that His Word works and ours does not. Read it before you pass judgment on it. When you get a group of people who elevate the Word over their own reasoning, they become unstoppable.

3. The people are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others. This is certainly counter-cultural. Almost everything we hear and see on TV, online, at the movies, etc., is all about getting more, having more fun, being more comfortable or “enjoying” life more fully…it’s all about us…self-focused. But, if we want to be unstoppable, we have to start looking out for the needs of others above our own comfort. You see, it is when the church is least like the world that it has the most power. Just as Jesus laid his rights, his glory, his riches, etc., so also must we. Let us also be willing to give of our time, our resources, our skills and our giftings for the sake of others. Imagine what it would be like if all of us started living that way – sacrificially? Truly, we would be unstoppable.

You can listen to, watch or download the message I preached about this last weekend here.

Throughout the Bible, we see two major themes: Love and Faith. And, whereas we kind of get the love theme, when it comes to supernatural faith, well, that’s a little harder to understand. Faith involves believing in stuff we can’t see. Frankly, a lot of believers don’t understand how to operate with faith, let alone Unstoppable Faith.

Yes, the concept of faith is a mystery, but if you study the Word, you’ll see that this is the dimension in which God exists. And, “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6 NKJ)

God wants us to operate in the dimension of the supernatural – speaking in tongues, casting out demons, praying for the sick, etc. – these all require faith. From the very beginning, the more the Church operated in the supernatural, the more powerful it became. But this didn’t necessarily come easy, they had to go through times of testing and trials to learn how to walk in unstoppable faith. And, the same will be true for us. If we want to get close to God, near to God, it requires us to live by faith and not by sight…especially as we go through trials.

We need to remember Jesus’ words, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23 NKJ) In this statement, God took the lid off our lives…if we believe…ALL things are possible!

Now, this is not faith FOR stuff; but rather faith IN God. This kind of faith is unstoppable. And, once we understand this, once we tap into this, we’re unstoppable. We can take the limits off and live supernaturally. The more we use our faith, the greater our potential is realized.

On the other hand, consider this: If we don’t like where we are, it’s probably because we haven’t tapped into faith. You see, faith will change our perspective. Where we are, what we are doing with our lives, what we have achieved with our lives is in direct correlation to our faith. God wants us to walk by faith, to live an extraordinary life.

We have to keep believing God, no matter what people say or what our circumstances look like. If we do, we’ll soon find ourselves in the midst of something amazing, something unstoppable, something so compelling that it will even sweep other people up into it. Faith is unstoppable and unchangeable by circumstances! It doesn’t matter what’s coming, we have the power of God behind us. We’ve got to stop being in fear and start being in faith! The time of doubting is over; it’s time to start believing! It’s time to start walking in Unstoppable Faith!

To hear more about Unstoppable Faith, including three important things we all need to know about faith, let me encourage you to listen to or watch the entire message I preached on this subject last weekend by clicking here.

It was quite an honor to welcome a good friend of ours, as well as one of our Executive Oversight Board members, Bishop Wellington Boone, as special guest speaker during our services this past weekend. A number of years ago, I felt the Lord challenging me that if Victory was going to be a truly multi-cultural church, I would need to submit to an oversight board that was also multi-cultural. In that process, the Lord led us to Bishop Boone, who continues to both challenge and encourage us in ways that we’d never get if we were only accountable to people like ourselves.

Throughout the course of our four weekend services, Bishop Boone spoke on the theme of Unstoppable Hope, a subject close to his heart and ministry. Although none of his four inspiring messages were the same, each one centered on the Hope that we can have and share with others through the love and faithfulness of Christ. Rather than try to condense everything he said here, let me just encourage you to listen to or watch online the message he gave during our 10:30am service on Sunday. Or, even better, you can get all four messages in CD and DVD format at our bookstore. You’ll definitely be challenged and encouraged.

This past weekend, our Fusion young adults’ pastor, Johnson Bowie, spoke during our services. His message was right on and more than a little challenging. Continuing our ONE PRAYER: UNSTOPPABLE series, he spoke about the power of a Church united in Unstoppable Righteousness. If you missed it, go listen to, watch and/or download it now. Even if you didn’t miss it, you may want to hear it again! Here’s a glimpse of what he said:

“What would WE look like if we had unstoppable righteousness like JOSIAH did?” Josiah was one of the kings of Israel long ago. After becoming king at the age of eight, he restored the Temple of God, which was in disrepair and zealously sought to root out every vestige of idolatry from the land. 2 Kings 23:25 says about him, “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did — with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength.” (NIV)

And, I believe the word of the Lord is that He is giving us this same spirit… the same spirit that was in Josiah to rediscover righteousness in the midst of a crooked and dark world, where there’s so much tolerance that it’s disgusting, and for us to rise up, tear down the idols and pursue God…that we would have an Unstoppable Righteousness! A righteousness that would tear down every idol in our lives, everything that we give passion, praise and attention to other than Jesus.

Now, in NO WAY am I saying that your good deeds make you right before God or get you into Heaven. The Bible is overwhelmingly clear that it’s only because of JESUS that you are made right before God. Over and over again we are told that righteousness is by Grace through Faith. In other words – it’s because of Jesus, and only because of Jesus, that I am righteous and perfect and holy and acceptable in God’s sight. But God doesn’t just save me and tell me to go to church and live like everybody else on the face of the earth.

Romans 12 urges us to live our lives as living sacrifices. Galatians 5 tells us to choose the things the Holy Spirit loves and not the things our sinful nature loves. In fact, it tells us to CRUCIFY the sinful nature and its passions and desires. In Matthew 5 Jesus says that those who hunger and thirst for Righteousness are blessed. And it’s my prayer that today God would bless us with a hungering and a thirsting for RIGHTEOUSNESS again!

Righteousness is not an end to itself. Christ-likeness is never the end goal. Us living really well is never the end goal. What God wants is YOU! He wants your heart. He doesn’t just want your good deeds… What He wants you to do is get rid of anything that separates you from Him! So purge the sin. Purge the idols. Purge the thoughts. He wants ALL of YOU! He is madly in love with you and wants all of you!

And our righteousness comes from that place. The reason why we choose the good and refuse the evil – the reason why we choose the things of the Spirit over our sinful nature – the reason why we want to do good is because we’re so radically loved by God. Not to GET HIM to love us, but because He ALREADY loves us!

The church across the face of the earth needs this unstoppable righteousness again!

During our services this past weekend, I was pleased to have Olin Holly, one of our Executive Pastors, share a message that God had put on his heart. He opened our newest series with a bold message about Courage. During the next few weeks, we’ll be uniting with over a thousand other churches around the world exploring the theme, Unstoppable. Rather than repeat most of what he said, I’d like to encourage you to listen to, watch and/or download his message here. We can all use more courage in our lives – so it’s a message well-worth hearing. For now here are a few highlights:

Courage is the ability to conquer fear; to act in accordance with one’s beliefs in spite of criticism, persecution or the possibility of failure.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain

“Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared to death.” – Harold Wilson

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” -Anais Nin

How can I have unstoppable courage?

1. I must have a real and personal relationship with God.
2. I need God’s perspective on my situation.
3. I must be confident that the Lord has already equipped me for success.
4. I cannot be hindered by the intentions or expectations of others.
5. I must proceed boldly until the task is complete.

Kids are the number one target of the enemy in our culture. He knows their potential and he wants to twist or destroy them before they can reach it. And sadly, relatively few kids raised in the church today make it all the way from elementary school through college without turning away from God, backsliding and turning to the things of the world. But we can raise kids that don’t do that. We can train up champions for God.

There is nothing greater than the gift of kids. They’re a wonder and a blessing. They’re God’s best gift. We need to understand the power of children raised in the right way…they’re weapons – they do damage to Satan’s kingdom.

This is why the devil brings so many things come against our children from the time they’re born until they get out of our houses. Our number one success or disappointment is how we handle our children. How we treat them will determine whether they turn out dysfunctional or as champions. Think about how many of us spend most of our lives trying to overcome the dysfunction we were raised with.

God has put a specific path or calling in each of our children’s lives. For those of us who are parents, or those who will be, it’s our job to help kids discover and to launch them into that calling. In order to do so successfully, we have to help our children grow and mature in each five core areas:

• Emotional
• Intellectual
• Physical
• Moral
• Spiritual

We need to understand how each one of these areas of development is essential to training our kids to be champions. This past weekend, most of my message was dedicated to exploring what these mean and how we can raise kids that are healthy and strong in all five areas. If you’re a parent, plan to be a parent someday, or interact with children at all, I encourage you to download, listen to or watch that message online now. Just imagine the power of an entire generation of champions!