Fire On Your Head

Finally brothers… (Paul is saying to sum up this whole book) whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians 4:8

I used to be really introspective.

On the outside I was quite happy and fun but I often used to over analyze people’s reactions to anything I said or did. I thought a lot about anything that was wrong in me because I wanted to be pleasing to God.

I went to a bible school that came out of a revival and it was a place where holiness was so important. God definitely changed my life there, I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything. But in that culture of repentance and holiness a lot of us became often introspective. Always looking for new sins to repent of, and trying to look around our heart for anything bad to despair over. There were altar calls twice a week. Through all of this I never really felt good about my relationship with God, I felt there was always so much more sin to get over before I could really be close to God. Then one day I read a prayer.

I was reading a book by Bill Johnson, one of my biggest heroes in the world. He was so hungry for revival and always trying to repent and get closer to God. But he kept feeling so down by how far he felt from God. Then one day he prayed a prayer like this

“God you know I don’t do so well when I always focus on my sin. Would you please convict me when there’s something you want me to deal with? Let me just worship you and keep my eyes on you, that’s what I like the most.”

It blew me away, I felt so much freedom and excitement that such a lifestyle was possible. Here was one of the holiest men I knew of who walks in incredible miracles and the presence of God and he just trusted God to convict him whenever God wanted him to deal with an issue. It was so freeing.

On the race it’s really easy to compare, it’s easy to get frustrated because there are so many amazing people, with really strong giftings, or beautiful personalities and it’s easy to feel like we are missing out. I’ve caught myself a few times this year getting introspective and frustrated with how much I still need to grow. But I feel like God is calling us to be sons and daughters again. Children don’t care much for self-analysis, they just love being with their dad and playing with him. They want to help him at work and they don’t mind if they mess up much because they just love being with him and doing what he’s doing. And he loves that!!!

To sum it all up if you are thinking about your sin you are in fact sinning. Because sin isn’t pure, lovely, or admirable. If God convicts you then just repent immediately and quickly move on to abundant life with Him. I can testify that ever since I let God worry about convicting me and shifting my gaze to God and everything that’s good and pure and admirable in the world my life has changed dramatically. It’s amazing. I remember I used to watch movies with my eyes on the look-out for swears, or sex scenes to look away from then after my Christians friends and I could complain about how bad movies are nowadays and say things like “Why did they have to put that scene in there and ruin the whole movie?”. Never did I realize that the whole time we were focusing on what wasn’t pure. It’s often the people who are the hungriest for holiness that have their eyes most fixed on sin (in order to avoid it).

Now whenever I watch a movie I have my eyes fixed whatever is beautiful in the movie, where courage is displayed or genuine love. I ask God to highlight anything he wants to teach me from the movie. I am so focused on just absorbing everything beautiful and good from the movie that I hardly remember any bad parts. (as a disclaimer, I’m still not perfect and I’m growing in this, but it’s an exciting adventure). Paul would read greek and cretan poets and was trained under Gamaliel, one of the most culturally aware and relevant rabbis of his day. Still regarded today as one of the great rabbis of all time.

I think as Christians we need to start absolutely being committed to beauty, to purity, creativity and life. We can’t retreat any longer into our comfy sanctuaries and churchy lingo. The gates of hell can’t stand against a church on the offense. The armor of God has nothing for our backside, our only protection is continual advance and victory. Let’s not fear creativity and truth, no matter from where we find it. Every good and perfect gift is from above.

Editor’s note:

Currently David Hepting is traveling the world doing “The World Race”.  To learn more about it and to read up on regular updates, visit http://davidhepting.theworldrace.org.

God is a rewarder of those that seek him…

How does God reward?

How do we seek him?

Is it worth it?

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

I just read this verse tonight and my heart was stirred. When I forget that God is a rewarder of those that seek him and let my culture of equality determine my thoughts it always breeds passivity in my life. But when I remember and know that God rewards those that earnestly seek him, I want so much to be close to him and be rewarded with his presence.

So how important is faith? This verse says that it is absolutely impossible to please God without faith.  The last verse of Romans 14 says that anything that is not done in faith is sin.  In Luke 18, Jesus’ biggest concern when he comes back is “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth?” This is what He is focused on and 1 Corinthians 13 says that faith is one of the only eternal things that remain.

What is faith? This is something that has really captured my thoughts lately. It is a substance according to Hebrews 11. I believe that in some miraculous and merciful way faith is like the currency of the supernatural realm. As we step out in faith and offer it to God, He will release the miracle. It’s not a formula but it’s an aspect of our relationship with him.

What is faith like? It’s something that is always growing, it is alive. We have to protect it against doubt and skepticism, and it is powerful. Every time we see God come through as we step out in faith it sets a standard and a high water mark in our lives. So then to stay in faith I believe that we have to keep on getting more radical and trusting him with more. In my life three years ago God challenged me to give a significant amount to missionaries each month and test his faithfulness to provide for me. Money was so tight, but God gave me the faith for it and He met absolutely every single need that year. Then the next year he said “David, I have been there and supplied every need, can you trust me to give more through you?”.

And my faith grew.

Each year God challenges me to trust him with more and more. It’s a beautiful and exciting thing. I just encourage every one of you to grow that mustard seed of faith. Step out in trust and see how powerful God is.

1 John 5:4:

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—
our faith.

Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe vs Wade (The court decision that legalized abortion in 1973 in America). I thought it would be appropriate to write a few of my thoughts on abortion.

Actually first of all I want to link to one of my favourite preachers and a dream that he had as well as some of his thoughts on abortion

What was it that brought Germany, one of the most civilized nations in Europe to commit the Holocaust? They convinced the people that the Jews were not people, they dehumanized them. Then they were able to do anything to them without harming their conscience.

What was it that brought America, and Great Britain and much of the known world to brutally enslave millions of Africans? They dehumanized them, taught that they were not humans, just animals. And then it was OK, it was socially acceptable.

How is it that we have let more than 4,300 babies die every single day and say not a word? We have dehumanized them, call them fetus (Which by the way is just the Latin word for “offspring”) and can do anything that we want to them?

This breaks my heart more than almost anything else in our country today. I believe it is an issue more pertinent today than even slavery was in the past. This is an issue of entire people group (the unborn) being silenced and ravaged.

I’m not here to condemn anyone, to shame any of the mothers who have had an abortion. To spread hate against the abortion doctors. I’m writing this to stir us up to do something, not with anger or aggression but out of a deep love and compassion for the unborn. Let’s let our voice be heard, and speak up.

Over the past few months I started writing down some of the things that God has done in my life and in the lives of my friends. The Psalmist says “One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.” Psalm 145:4. So I just want to take this time and talk about some of the things that happened in my last trimester of FIRE school of ministry.

I was at a prayer meeting and I told a guy named Ernie that I felt like there was anger and fear coming against him. It turns out there is a lot of anger coming against him.
I was emailing my friend Matt back home and I just wanted to encourage him that I was praying for him and not to feel alone because God is with him. And he emailed me back really encouraged and said that he had felt alone because he had just moved into a duplex from a dorm and was feeling really alone.

In the mall I prayed for Heather with a brace on her arm and all the pain went away except when she stretches sometimes.

God gave me the opportunity to go home from school to be at my grandmother’s funeral and on the way back in the airplane I met a really cool hunter from Colorado named Steve. And God just gave me the boldness and grace to share the gospel message with him. It was the first time I had ever done that on a plane so it was a cool day for me and he was a really genuine and nice guy.
At my brother’s wedding I got to pray for my best friend Rob for his voice to get higher again and Rob kept praying after that and God totally restored his voice range one day.
At Christmastime we prayed for my good friend Thomas because of intense sleep problems, they were really messing him up and two days later it broke and he was able to sleep great again!

My roommates and I were all praying together one monday night and Mike Prayed for our neighbours to hear the gospel. And then honestly like just a minute or two later they walked into the house and totally sobered up when they stepped on the carpet even after they drank 12 beer that day. Mike shared the gospel with them and really challenged them to have more than just a mental assent to who God is, they need to live their life for Him.
Mike and Eddy and I were at the Circle K during treasure hunt time and we talked to the lady at the counter and Mike asked her about her daughter and how she was doing. She said “My daughter was kidnapped a year ago” somebody just came to me today asking about her. It’s the saddest thing in my life, I wanted to commit suicide. And we prayed for her and she just felt a refreshing I think and a bit of her burden lift. It was really cool.

Mike and I were walking out of Sam’s club and he sees a big black woman and he asks her if she has “arthritis” she says yeah and we ask if we can pray for her and she says “Yes, as long as you don’t lay hands on me” so that was kind of interesting, we prayed and she said thanks and walked away quickly.

At the bass pro shop we see a guy in a motorized cart. We pray for his ankle that he hurt in a fight and he gets up, he’s like 6′7″ and he looks at us like “Whoah, what did you guys do?” but then as he tests it out the pain started returning to the level that it was normally. But it was really exciting at first!

At Wal-Mart today God blessed us with a lot of people in our path that wanted a touch from him. We prayed for a few people and they were really appreciative and one of the guys named Chuck said “I feel something that I can’t even describe”.

Last week I was in worship and I saw an angel feather fall into my hand and then disappear immediately. The day before another hit my chest and dissapeared. It was just a really cool reminder that God is working and there are things going on in our midst that we can’t even alway see.

We prayed for my sister as a house and she stopped needing sleeping pills for the next while.

Mike prayed for my stuffy nose and all the snot turned to liquid and started pouring out.

I just had been feeling this week that Mike had been thinking less of me that I was wasting time when I would study on my computer. And so I just asked God to remove any bitterness in my heart but I also asked God that Mike would appreciate me and understand me better. And honestly like 30 seconds later he opens my door and says “You’re awesome David”. And we had a really good conversation. It was just a simple little thing but it meant a lot to me.

Wade and a some roommates pray for Mikes back and almost all of the pain goes away

Praise God!!! Every testimony that we hear sets a standard as to what is possible and what is available to us. I’m even just encouraged hearing these again. Feel free to post any of your own in the comments section. God bless.

For so long I thought that it was the men and women who prayed a lot that shook the world and really moved powerfully with God. But then I came and saw many who prayed long and hard but with little results. I realized tonight that it is victorious believing prayer that is the key. Those people who pray with expectation and don’t give up until they get what they need from God.

“What do you want David? What are you living for? You can find all of your desires fulfilled at my hand because I put them in your heart. “

One of my friends spent a lot of time in prayer with Lou Engle and he heard a story about this 16 year old guy that had incredible heart of intercession. She was almost constantly fasting, she prayed so much on her knees in her room that her bones actually came through her skin. Her parents got so worried that they took her to a doctor and he said “You absolutely have to start eating and praying less intensely on your knees.”

So her parents asked her to tone it down a bit but then they were watching the news and actually seeing the things that she was praying for come to pass. There was a murderer that had been on the loose for months and when she started praying for him to be found the police just happened upon him and things like that. Her parents so realized that God brought her to this place that they let her go back to this type of prayer and fasting. Her prayers were actually changing the outcome of world events. She prayed specific things and prayed through until God released her and answered her prayers.

Praying specifically creates an atmosphere of faith, and expectancy. Because you expect it to come to pass. George Mueller and Smith Wigglesworth were known as apostles of faith.  They were known for their definite and specific prayers. George Mueller had 70,000 specific answers to prayer recorded in his lifetime. Smith Wigglesworth would pray against a disease or injury specifically with an expectation of results. Believing prayer is victorious and it demands an answer and it is not satisfied until it receives what it came for.

How could that friend who was begging for bread be satisfied with anything else but the food his guest needed? The reason that so many people don’t know if God answers prayer is because we pray these generic prayers or specific prayers for things that are almost guaranteed to happen by calculable odds like safety on a car trip. Where is our faith!?!?! Where is that tenacity to approach God for the things that we very much need and desire? I believe that it is our main duty to find him as our delight and then our secondary duty is to come  to him with every single request (Psalms 37:4, and Phil 4:6).

Prayer meetings are boring until they become believing meetings, times when we come together to believe God for the impossible. I love the tenacity of A.A. Allen, he locked himself in a room until God anointed him with his healing power 8 days later. Or Jacob absolutely prevailing with God for a night, getting a new name and being the very patriarch of God’s chosen people. “I will not let you go until you bless me!” God loves that attitude!

Why would Jesus make so many promises again and again in Scripture like “Ask whatever you wish in my name and it will be given to you” (John 14).  With that great freedom does come great responsibility. But does not that great responsibility compel us even closer to God’s heart to understand his ways and what he wants? Let’s not just see him as a cosmic Santa Claus, but pursue his heart to know him as the loving father that loves to express his love to his children in tangible ways.

Worship

For so long people have searched and scoured the earth for some form of satisfaction that will last. People have gone to incredible lengths to find satisfaction in their life. Risking life, family and health to see if they can find something that will fill that longing in their soul.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.  Psalm 107:9.

Some have turned to drugs, alcohol, pornography, friendships, marriage, success and all sorts of other things. Even trying religion. But many walk out of churches disgusted and disheartened that the people there are as hungry and searching out broken cisterns as anyone else.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

I believe compellingly, rationally and fully that the answer to the above question is yes. But I want to examine some objections and hindrances that people have in coming to that conclusion

Where is God when I cry out to him?
Why are Christians so bored?
Why is pornography so rampant in the church if God really satisfied?
Wouldn’t christians be willing to undergo any sacrifice, any length and depth of hardship because God was so deeply satisfying that nothing else would be a matter of consequence in their decision-making?

I would contend and fight for the conclusion that God does satisfy, truly and deeply. There is nothing else, no entertainment, no drug, or high that can even come close to the level of fulfillment and satisfaction that there is in God.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

Then why is he so hard to find? Why do so few find him and experience that deeply satisfying relationship?

I know that in my journey of life for many years even after I had become a Christian knowing this fulfillment and deep peace was only a momentary and fleeting thing. Every once in awhile I might experience it, but for the most part I never came to that place. I struggled with acceptance, loneliness and lust throughout high school, as well sometimes feeling like God wasn’t even there. It probably hasn’t even been until this last year of my life that I really began to encounter God in ways that I never had before and it has made all the difference.

He satisfies the longing Soul.

I don’t need to make friends to fill my desire for acceptance, or do things well to gain the approval of those people that I respect. Or look at images to fulfill my desire for a relationship with a girl. I can finally say in honesty that He is enough. He is truly sufficient for every need. There are times when I don’t feel that way but I know it’s true. Even in our weakness and human frailty he is sufficient.

I find that the extent that a Christian worships and has experienced the presence of God is that extent to which a Christian is satisfied in God above all other earthly things.

He satisfies the longing soul.

The truth of the matter is we have tried again and again to quench our thirst from empty and broken cisterns.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13

I am longing again for that passionate fulfilled life, that place where he is the only one that I go to fulfill every need. Lord, please help me in my pursuit of you, for even in this I need you and I can’t do it without you.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
-Jesus

My thoughts are a blur as I try to pen the feelings and ideas swirling through my spirit. These are some of my recent thoughts and some of the things that God has been teaching me.

One thing I learned at Street Invaders that God has used to give me more freedom and help me live life more naturally is that mistakes are ok. I gave myself permission to make mistakes. For so long I held too high of a standard so that I couldn’t really take risks and grow because I wasn’t willing to let myself make mistakes. And I’m not talking about moral failure but just not being worried about making a fool of myself or falling flat on my face. So I share what I’m feeling more often give advice that I know could easily be flawed but is what I’m feeling right now. And I say things more often that I think could be really funny but have no idea how they will be taken. But the most significant difference is in the way I approach God. I still come with reverence and a heart of worship but I don’t feel the need to always come the same way or do the thing that worked before. I can be more real and not worry as much about offending him. I can step out and pray radical things, can step out in faith and not worry so much if I’m sure he will catch me. Because even if he doesn’t come through in the way that I expect or hope I know that he is still good and that he will work it all out in the end.

Love Freely
The thing about love is that everyone who is human deserves to be loved because they were created in God’s image. I was talking with Victor Thomas a couple of weeks ago and he probably knows about half of the people at the U of R (a school of about 7,000 students) and he remembers their names. I asked him how he could do it and that is what he said. “You know God created each one of them in his image and so they are intricately important and valuable to him and thus to me as well. I just connect something interesting about them with their name.” When I heard that it totally just blew me away with the heart of God. If he took the time to number and remember every hair on our heads can we not at least make a committed effort to really care about people and learn their names and what they tell us about them? I want to live and love freely, even to those who will never love back.

“Trust God, he called me and I didn’t follow. Trust God.” That’s what a man said to me after I preached in Kindersley. He wouldn’t let go of my hand as we were shaking hands he really wanted to emphasize this above anything he could say. He chose the way of comfortability and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I was shook by the importance of his request, and the urgency with which he spoke to me. No matter how big my dreams for my future are, if they are from God I need to just trust him and step out to fulfill those dreams.

Never Compare, Comparison is the heartmother of envy, discontentment and distrust. It’s a weird way of saying it, but I am so inclined to look at my life and progress and compare with others around Paul says in 2 Cor 10:12 Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves… when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
When I look at others my focus leaves Jesus and I feel inadequate I see the strengths of others and feel lesser or I see the weaknesses and become proudful.

When I look to Jesus, I see all that I need.

Be natural, be yourself.
God created me exactly as he wanted me to be and in so many ways these last few years I feel like I have been trying to be a different person. Specifically, I feel that God created me to be one who just loves and enjoys life. I’m not someone that dominates situations or the man of God who just comes in knowing what to say and how to lead each situation. Sometimes I’ve felt a pressure to become that, but I just need to live as I really am. That way more and more people will naturally be freed from the weight of perceptions and allow themselves to live who they really are as well.

But in the end the biggest thing that he has been teaching me is just how ridiculously good he is. Even in situations where it doesn’t look like God is good, it seems more like he’s being a jerk. When I still trust him and love him he shows his true character in beautiful ways that I wouldn’t have expected. I can’t let my theology be determined by the experiences in my life but only by his word.