Infusion Magazine | Spring 2022 | Issue 28

From the Desk of Evangelist Nathan s I look back on all that has happened in this past season, I am more convinced of the reality of the faithfulness of God than ever before. From the lockdowns and cancellations of multiple Gospel Campaigns that were planned for 2020 and 2021, contrasted with the supernatural favor given to expand the STN Studio and complete Phase One of our STN Headquarters renovation, I see that God has ordained times and seasons to work together for His ultimate glory even amid the enemy’s goal of fear and discouragement.

Here at Shake The Nations, along with the extended Body of Christ, our hearts have been awakened that the Bridegroom King is preparing us for His return. This has been the cry from the Church since her beginning, yet there is an urgency in this hour that cannot be denied.

As it says in Matthew 25:6, “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’” As the Bride of Christ in one accord, and as individual lovers of Jesus, we must be in a state of readiness. This is not the time to shrink back and get comfortable. Now is the time to step boldly into our destiny.

In this issue, we bring you encouragement from our friend Brian Guerin, Founder of Bridal Glory International, Scott Bottger, our Global Director, and our Associate Evangelist, Mauricio Canales, as well as myself. We also have the opportunity to introduce you to one of our newest staff members, Janet Canales.

We have great expectations for 2022. God is opening doors like never before to the nations of the world. There is nothing that the Lord, Jesus Christ, cannot do through a willing vessel. May we remain faithful as He is faithful!

This is not the time to shrink back and get comfortable.

Now is the time to step boldly into our destiny.

For His Glory,

Ev. Nathan Morris

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n Chapter 58:1 of Isaiah’s prophecy, God directs him to “Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet…” This was a cry of awakening to all who would hear! His voice was the resounding alarm to a generation that had slipped into the depravity of sin, religious ritual, and apathy. Oh, that they would heed the warning and be spiritually awakened! Oh, that they would turn their faces and hearts back to God. I felt like we were entering into yet another fulfillment when Jesus Christ prophesied of ‘wars and rumors of wars’ and the ‘beginning of sorrows’ as in Matthew Chapter 24. Although these signs of the times speak of great unrest and moral decline, I did not feel a sense of fear.

On the contrary, it was the sense that God was releasing the sounds of

awakening at the same time. I could feel the Holy Spirit moving upon a generation and reaping a mighty harvest of souls!

As I sit here writing, we have witnessed the lockdown of nations during the pandemic over the last two years. We are now seeing the instability of world economics and the fallout of uncertainty in the marketplace. We are currently witnessing the devastating situation in Ukraine as Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, seeks to wage war upon the innocent civilians within Ukraine and surrounding regions.

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This action is shifting world politics and reshaping the lines of peace and stability. Biblical prophesies concerning Russia in the book of Ezekiel tell us clearly that we are moving into the last stages of history.

Christ is coming back for His Bride!

I look back and now realize that the Lord was giving me a forewarning to be ready for what He seeks to do in this moment. For it is in such a time as this that Jesus declared, “This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end shall come” (Matthew 24:14). Oh, that we would be a people ready to be used in

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these days to sound the alarm to a generation! We are called to run like never before, to preach the Gospel, reach the broken, heal the sick, and set the captive free!

As we move through the prophecy, Isaiah calls out to his generation and cuts through the religiosity of ritual and hypocrisy. The Spirit of the Lord cries out in Isaiah 58:6, “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?” Wow! This is the call to action. Can you hear it? It is the ‘Go’ of the Gospel. It is the mandate of heaven. My spirit has been filled with

the urgency to sound the alarm. This must occur with an unrelenting heart and unwavering passion — to press forward like never before and to preach the Gospel to the multitudes across the nations!

When we press into the plan that God has for our lives, we gain access to His promises. When we do things God’s way, we walk in His blessings.

By our obedience to his Word, we are transformed from a posture of condemnation to a posture of confidence. We stand in a posture of light that shines in the darkness.

As the world deteriorates around us, our immediate environment turns into that of ‘a watered garden, and

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like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail’ (Isaiah 58:11). Imagine! By ‘satisfying the afflicted soul’ (Isaiah 58:10) as we are instructed to do, God changes our reality to be that of a watered garden. A watered garden is full of life. It has vitality and lavish fruit! It delivers an abundant harvest!

Obedience also brings us into unfailing waters. This is key to fulfilling the call. God provides His people with His Holy Spirit to accomplish the goals He has set before us. His Spirit never fails – it is our job to stay in the spring!

Those who abide in the shadow of the Almighty have the confidence and divine blueprint for rebuilding the old waste places (Isaiah 58:12).

This represents the areas of our lives, society, and churches that have been laid dormant or abandoned. We must return to the reality that God is who He says He is and that signs, wonders, and miracles are meant for today, not just in the time of the

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first-century church. Just as Isaiah was prophesying over the Israelites, we, also, are given the responsibility to clarify any teaching that may have crept into the church that has weakened the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now is the time to stand boldly in the truth found only in Jesus!

Throughout the Bible, we see for every Pharaoh, God will raise a Moses; for every Goliath, God will raise a David, and for every Jezebel, God will birth an Elijah. For every Antichrist spirit that seeks

to destroy, there stands the Church of the living God – preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that through the power of His shed blood, we declare to Satan, principalities, and powers, and to the accuser of the brethren, that Jesus CHRIST has overcome the world! No matter what Satan seeks to bring upon a generation, we shall overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony!

I believe that God is raising up ’Repairers of the Breach’; those that

the Holy Spirit will anoint to stand in the gap and be fearless to preach the Gospel! “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). When we walk in the newness of life for which Jesus paid, we join with Him in the destruction of the works of the devil!

When we are filled with the might of the Holy Spirit, we step into our destiny to give hope to the hopeless, strength to the powerless, victory to those that are defeated, and bind up the brokenhearted. We are given the authority to comfort those who mourn, bring healing to our generation, revival to our cities, and harvest to the nations! This can only be done in partnership with the Holy Spirit! Never forget that Jesus paid the price for our access to the Holy Spirit, a precious gift.

When we possess this truth, we have the power to move Heaven and pull it to earth. Can I declare to you as a child of God that you are not searching for power? You are saturated with power because His Word lives and abides in you! You have the power to bind and to loose.

You have the power to build-up and to tear down. You have the power to speak life and to rebuke death.

You have the power to overcome the works of the devil!

The fire of the Holy Spirit awakens giants in the faith – ordinary people ignited by an Extraordinary God! We are called to be Repairers of the Breach!

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In the last hour, and leading further into the days ahead, we are going to see a great separation of those who claim to know Jesus, and those who genuinely do as found in Matthew 7:22, “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and done many wonders in Your Name?’” Similarly, there will be a separation between the Matthew 25 bridesmaids – the ones with extra oil who truly know Him, those who have just enough oil, and those who do not know Him at all.

I love these passages because they hone in on and highlight the Church.

These parables are specifically talking about you and me. In these last days building up to the end, we will start seeing a separation between the Matthew 7 ‘Many’ and the ‘Bridesmaids’ in Matthew

25. There will be a clear separation exposing the truth of our knowing the Lord – truly knowing Him; not just head knowledge of knowing the stories, but an intimate relationship with the Man, Jesus Christ.

Even Malachi prophetically spoke of this separation in the last days, “Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him” (Malachi 3:18). Everything will come down to the one day in which we present ourselves before Him. It will not be about what you have done on earth (this is a byproduct), although you will be rewarded for those good deeds as described in Revelation 19:8, “And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is righteous acts of the saints.” It will be about whether you know Him and whether He knows you. Nothing is done without God allowing it, and nothing comes to His surprise. I see the culmination of all things being fulfilled through Him. The shaking that God is allowing by His perfect design will continually reveal this separation more and more.

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One thing I would like to point out, which I believe is imperative that we realize, is that there can be a belief or perception that we truly know Him when we actually do not.

We can often see this on the side of humanity. This is where shaking comes to our favor as Believers because it elevates us if we are stabilized by Him. As the shaking occurs, it draws those who truly know Him into deeper fellowship as there is history that has been created in the Secret Place. To some, this shaking will cause them to reassess or realign their lives into a deep, true

THE MANY AND THE BRIDESMAIDS

that He was their everything. In their minds, He was their supreme authority. ‘He to whom my whole life belongs’ is how they described Him. But after looking out the wedding feast door, He tells them, “I do not know you.” The Matthew 7 ‘Many’ used the same word for the Lord, giving Jesus full ownership; but again, Jesus tells them, ‘I have never known you.” Both groups thought that they walked with Him deeply, but Jesus never knew them.

understanding of Him; and for others, it will cause them to fall away. This shaking will expose what we thought we had firmly built in the Lord and what was not. When the shaking starts, we will see who is built on sand and who is built on stone.

There are areas of our lives that we can believe are full of Him until the shaking starts. His shaking reveals the places where we do not know Him. None of us like being shaken, but it shows us upon what we are built. He who knows Him sees the beauty in the shaking because on the other side is more of Him. Both Matthew 7 and Matthew 25 show us something important at the end when we meet Jesus face-to-face. Both groups assume the same position or the same relational posture. They both said, “Lord, Lord,” because of how real He became in that moment to them.

Both verses use the same word for Lord in Greek, kurios, meaning “a person having the absolute ownership or rights over one’s life.”

The Bridesmaids’ perceptions were

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literally invested their whole lives into the Kingdom, only for it to culminate to this one day. And on this day, it was truly real to them, saying “Lord, Lord.” They called Him the one that had ultimate authority over them.

We must pray continually for clear intimacy with Him so that we never assume we are Heaven-bound but end up getting the door shut in our faces. I think we will be very surprised on that day, as many with the perception of truly knowing Him are going to be revealed as not knowing Him. Many will have invested their lives into the things of God and even pursuing His Kingdom and for the workings thereof, without truly coming into genuine knowledge of Jesus Himself. Let our pursuit of knowing Him grow year in and year out until we become one with Him on that glorious day!

We need to pray and ask God for wisdom so that we never become so blindly arrogant that we think we are good where we are in our relationship with Him. No matter how long or deep we are into our intimacy, we can always go deeper.

The Matthew 7 ‘Many’ devoted their whole lives to ministry functions.

They were completely invested in the growth of the Kingdom. The Matthew 25 foolish virgins were bridesmaids, meaning they had devoted themselves to becoming one with the Bridegroom. Both groups

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WELCOME TO THE STN TEAM!

first heard of Shake The Nations in 2014 when Ev. Nathan was invited to our church in Irving, Texas. At that time, my husband, Mauricio and I were the youth pastors, and we heard of the miracle of Delia Knox at the Bay of the Holy Spirit Revival. We reached out to the ministry to see if Ev. Nathan was available to minister at our youth conference. He came, and that year we had over 700 youth attend the event! It was absolute overflow both in numbers and in Holy Ghost fire!

From that, Mauricio and Ev. Nathan knew that God had a plan for them working together in the ministry but didn’t know the timing. Mauricio was able to translate for Ev. Nathan during his Latin American Gospel Campaigns. Ultimately, he felt led to join the ministry full time in 2018.

I always wondered if I was supposed to work in ministry fulltime. I had words spoken over my life that one day it would come, but I didn’t know how that would look. I didn’t necessarily expect it would be with Shake The Nations, but God has clearly shown my family and I that this is His plan.

With over 14 years of experience in business management and Human Resources in the secular world, I currently manage the office and provide HR support. I will be leading the Partner Relations Department

as well as helping with Hope Of All Nations Initiatives. I will also be part of the team for the upcoming School of Evangelism.

I am amazed by the passion that everyone brings to the office every day. In the secular world, there are those who dread coming to work.

Here, it is different. We all realize that our ultimate boss is God. There is a unity in purpose and vision here at Shake The Nations to bring glory to Jesus Christ. We all have a story that reveals we have been handpicked to work in this ministry. We have all had to sacrifice something in our lives to walk in obedience. I genuinely feel that this is a family!

I want to share with the readers

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to persevere and go after Jesus. I am reminded of Hebrews 10:39, “But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.” I was born again at 17, and I never turned back. There have been struggles, temptations, and challenges along the way – but I never turned back.

We must persevere because there is a generation that needs to know the truth, and that Truth is Jesus Christ. We need to reach the lost and go after Jesus however that may look. There is hope for a better day.

Persevere in the Lord even though strong attacks may come. We have to help the next generation. We have to go after Jesus!

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ooking back on the first trip, El Salvador 2017, I can’t put into words how great it was to be involved.

For the first few trips, I was a part of the Prayer Team, and then I was asked to assist with photography. I did sports photography for so many years, and I did it in the same way I do it on the campaign field. I pray and ask God to lead me to the right place and show me ‘the good shot.’ I invite the Lord Jesus to be with me during the photographs; ‘speak to my heart – show me where I need to stand or not stand.’ And without a lack of a better term, it works!

I enjoy seeing the faces of the people through the lens. I can be in a place where no one knows I am there, and I can see how God is blessing people. It is in their face a lot of times. I enjoy watching other people get blessed in the glory and caught up in worship. I can see how much people love the Lord, especially the Prayer Team when they are praying for people. I can see the compassion in their hearts. I can sense the love they have for the people in their faces as they go about ministering on the field.

What I’ve experienced with a lot of the Prayer Team is how much love there is among us. The friendships and relationships that develop afterward are amazing, and

I treasure them all. Jesus says they will know us by our love; we will be distinguished by the love among us. These trips give a sense of what fellowship among the brethren can be like, and it gives me hope!

What Jesus said in the Gospels is true. I know it is true in my head, but it is always another level to see things demonstrated. I am always encouraged when I see Him work in people, seeing God use someone like me. When I get home, I sense an increase in the anointing of the Holy Ghost to minister to people. I wanted to experience the anointing that is part of the office of the Evangelist,

but I also wanted to see an increase in the anointing on my life. The way you do that is to get out there and get under pressure. Being around STN and Nathan Morris, you can’t help but be stretched!

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UPPER ROOM EXPERIENCE In both Luke and Acts, upper rooms provide an intimate setting for Jesus’ disciples. For example, in Luke 22:7-38, Jesus communes and dines with his disciples in an upper room on the night of his arrest. Later in Acts 1:13-14, Jesus’ disciples have again gathered in an upper room before the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, Peter raises Tabitha from

have intimacy with Jesus on a daily basis.

We must not be so full of the world that we no longer have an appetite for the Presence of Jesus. A young generation is dying every single day and stepping into an eternity without Jesus. We owe them a move of the Holy Spirit.

Before the imminent return of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, we must contend for revival. As we place a demand on the promises of God, heaven will invade earth,

the dead, whose body had been laid in an upper room in Acts 9:36-42.

Finally, we come to Troas in Acts 20:7-12, where those believing in the resurrection of Jesus worship God in an upper room. In all of these examples, the setting reflects a context of intimacy. We are called to

and a young generation will be delivered from darkness. They will be transforemd into the Eutychus Generation - a generation raised to life seeking to move on behalf of the Father’s heart to bring the Kingdom into manifest form on the earth!

As the Church gathered in

know, they were about to experience the power of God in a powerful way. e join Paul on his third missionary journey back to Jerusalem to deliver offerings to the Church.

Remember, these are his final visitations amongst the churches the Spirit of God established through him. When you read this section of Acts, it is amazing to see the hand of God move so powerfully in the details. Luke, the author of Acts, gives strategic insight into the movement of Paul in the regions of Macedonia and Asia, as well as Greece. He collects representatives from the different churches along the way to bring their portion of the offering to Jerusalem. We learn that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread happen during his journey with his goal to arrive in Jerusalem by Pentecost.

On his way, Paul arrives in Troas, where he spends a week with the disciples, and at the end of the week, he joins them all in an upper room where he breaks bread and gives a final teaching to those gathered. In the midst of them was a young man named Eutychus. Little did they

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the upper room, Paul preached the message of the Gospel until midnight.

THE MESSAGE AT MIDNIGHT Midnight is a dark time not only in a physical way but also in the form of a metaphor relating to dark times, times of testing, and times that cause tears of pain. However, midnight also represents a turning point from one season to another. That’s where Paul found himself in Troas at the midnight hour preaching.

The message at midnight is what Paul writes to Titus. “… teaching that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…” (Titus 2:12-13). For this reason, the great ‘I Am’ is calling us to sanctify and separate ourselves in order to bring the Kingdom into its manifest form on the earth. Methods change, but the message of the Gospel never

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changes. In this crucial hour in which we live, we must reach the least, the lost, and the last generation!

Our assignment is to reach a generation that has lost the absolute truth of the Word of God, a generation that is being seduced and brainwashed by an aggressive atheistic agenda. It’s crucial that we reach this generation because they do not believe in the infallible, unchanging, eternal Word of the Lord. That is why the message of the true gospel needs to be preached without compromise and cannot be diluted or polluted.

The message at midnight needs to be that there are not three ways nor two ways into Heaven, but there is only one way to Heaven. That one way is through Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God! John 14:6 says, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” We then read that Eutychus fell asleep and fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.

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THE POWER OF RESURRECTION Upon witnessing what happened, “Paul went down, threw himself on

the young man and put his arms around him saying, ‘Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.’

Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed. They brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted” (Acts 20:10-12).

Luke, a medical doctor, an eyewitness to the incident, unequivocally says that Eutychus was ‘dead’ (Acts 20:9). The fall from the third-story window had been fatal for the young man. But Paul spoke the word of God and moved in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, bringing Eutychus back to life. Every Christian believes and receives salvation, but sadly, most are not operating in the fullness of the resurrection power available to every one of us. Resurrection power

isn’t something for which you have to wait. It is already in you right now through Jesus Christ. The power of Jesus’ resurrection that you have received from Him abides in you now. You are to walk in that power every day! His resurrection power removes oppressions, burdens and destroys yokes! That’s why Paul writes in Philippians 3:10, “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection….”

Before Christ comes for His Church, a young Eutychus generation will be transformed and brought back to life as they experience the supernatural power of the Resurrection of Jesus.

This generation will experience salvation, healing and will walk in the miraculous because Christ has conquered the grave! That’s why the Bible says in Rev. 1:18, “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”

As the Bride of Christ, we are to walk in an upper room experience where we worship the King of kings and the Lord of lords regardless of how difficult things may get all around us. We understand that prophetically we are at the midnight hour where the bridegroom is soon coming. Matthew 25:6 says, “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’” At the midnight hour, we are to speak the message of the Gospel and let a generation know that through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, there will be salvation, healing, and breakthrough. That is why we can boldly stand on His word

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and know what John the Revelator declared in Revelation 22:20, “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

ater in the Bible is captivating. From the story of the flood, and the great Exodus, to its use of cleansing in Jewish ritual and the ultimate baptism of Jesus Christ, water is used to foreshadow and ultimately represent the power of the Holy Spirit. Practically, water had great value to the people in the times of the Bible because it was rare; you had to work for it. The desert was all around, and the threat of drought was always present. Water is necessary for the survival of all things living. It is the same in the spirit realm. For the survival of the spirit, it must have continual access to water. Without this water, the spirit shrinks, and the life is removed.

In John 7:37-38, we read, “. . .

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’” Verse 39 describes that the rivers are actually the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of the Living God is a gift

from Jesus Himself. His rightful seat of authority with the Father led to the fulfillment of His promise to send ‘The Comforter’ – the Holy Spirit.

When we look at Ephesians 5, we enter into the powerful revelation of the preparation of the radiant Church. The Church will not step into her fullness without demonstrating this reality. It is Jesus who washes us. The water that He uses is the wonderful Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uses the Word, which is Jesus.

This changes everything! What unity! What love! What wholeness!

With the realization of the value that

God places on us, His Chosen, and the desire of His heart to make us holy and blameless in preparation for that great day when we stand radiant before Him, we can’t help but cry out for the deeper things of God. The more we understand the love of God, the more we can come boldly to the source, which is Jesus Christ. Taste and see that the Lord is good! Give the Holy Spirit access to your mind, heart, will, and emotions.

Daily, allow yourself to be washed afresh with water through the Word.

Washing comes with fellowship, and fellowship comes by meditating on the Word, prayer, and time together.

Saints! We can’t settle! There is more of Jesus! He is worthy of our pursuit of holiness and righteousness. He is the avenue. He is the source. Stay in the river!

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When I think of the word obedience, one of the first things I ask myself is, ‘Who am I obeying?’

As a child, you obey your parents.

As a student, you obey your teacher.

As a junior officer, you obey your captain. You hope that the person in authority has your best interest in mind, but that is not always the case.

Sometimes past experiences can be a roadblock to our future with God, and we think we know better than the one giving the directive. I think of the story of King Saul and Samuel the Prophet. The Lord spoke through Samuel to Saul that he was to attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belonged to them,

including livestock, because they had treated the Israelites harshly on the journey out of Egypt. But Saul felt that he knew better and took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and all of the choice sheep and cattle. When Samuel confronted Saul as to why he did not obey the Lord, his defense was that he kept the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to God. We then have the famous scripture found in 1 Samuel 15:22, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of the rams.”

It can be tough to recognize that we are still disobedient when we are only partially obedient. But, when we understand the level of trust that God is worth, we take a different posture to His requests.

of need” (Hebrews 4:16)! This is the God we serve!

There are seasons where we may not make the most of this access through prayer. We may forget altogether. We may make it a 15-second prayer before a meal or a little longer prayer before we go to bed. But when we cry out to God – really cry out – ‘He is faithful to hear us’ (1 John 5:14).

There are seasons when our prayers may be focused on what God can do for us. We ask for things and needs to be met. This is a genuine and practical form of prayer, but when we get stuck in this mode, we miss out on the fullness of God’s heart for us.

There are some seasons when we are to wait upon the Lord. We are not to move in our strength, but we act in His timing and direction.

There are other seasons where we

TAKE ACTION Never take for granted the reality that we serve a God who desires to communicate with His creation.

Other religions have gods that are distant and impersonal. Instead, we serve a God that loves us so much that He entered into His creation to show us the way back home.

“Through Jesus Christ, we have been given access to come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time

are called to take action and ask the Lord what He wants us to do. This allows us to move forward in God’s will for our lives.

In Exodus 14, we see Moses as an example. In verse 13, Moses responds to the children of Israel after fear came upon them when they saw the Egyptians marching after them. “Why have you taken us into the desert to die?” they asked.

At this, Moses rightfully makes the statement, “Do not be afraid.” But

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THE SEED OF OBEDIENCE

sometimes, we add our own words instead of speaking the Lord’s.

Moses told the Israelites to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

But what God was looking for was action.

Verse 15 says, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘…Tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.” God is faithful to finish what He has started in our lives, but we must be willing to die daily to give Him a yielded vessel.

Sometimes, we think we are participating in God’s plan by being still when in actuality, He is calling us to action. It’s okay to need an extra prompt sometimes! We must learn to ask God ‘what’ instead of always asking God ‘to do’. Obedience comes by having your ear tuned to His voice – the Holy Spirit. He leads and guides us in the direction we should go. God will reveal His plan as we seek Him in prayer.

TRUST GOD Looking at the life of Abraham, we see a maturing trust between a man and his God. We must trust God in order to live a life of obedience.

In Genesis 17, we see the promises of God presented to Abraham. He was told that he shall be a father to many nations, that he would be made exceedingly fruitful, and that kings would come from him. God declared that He would bless Abraham’s wife Sarah and give them a son, to be named Isaac, through her womb,

| SCOTT BOTTGER

and she shall be a mother of nations.

Abraham was 99, and Sarah was 90 at this point! It was hard for either of them to believe this word, yet Isaac was born at the set time of which God had spoken.

Sometimes, we laugh as Abraham and Sarah did at the promises of God. But when we continue in obedience, regardless of what the flesh may tell us, we see the reality of God and His word. Our obedience is strengthened by a mindset that if He has done it before, He will do it again!

We then come to Genesis 22, when Abraham’s faith is confirmed. Having sons of my own, I often imagine what it would be like to be Abraham at this moment. Would I have the faith and the trust to take my son whom I loved and present him as a burnt offering? Would I be able to look at the received promises of my history with God and be able to conclude that, like in Hebrews 11:19, “… that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”? Abraham’s obedience revealed his faith that God would do what He said He was going to do – through Isaac, he would be a father of many nations. God’s will was released to the generations because of this obedience. What is God trying to release to the next generation through your obedience?

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HIS WILL Looking at Leviticus 26: 3-4, we see that the best place we can be in life is in the will of God. “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.” God’s will for us is a fruitful life. All fruit starts as a seed, and I believe that our obedience is the seed that releases God’s will, which is the fruit. Our future isn’t in front of us, it is inside us because all fruit grows around a seed! As you obey the voice of the Lord, His will becomes manifest in your life. In this hour, we must press in to hear the voice of the Lord. We must be in the Word so that we know the will of the Father. Paul prays over the church in Ephesus that the eyes of their understanding be enlightened. Pray that over yourself and your family.

Oh, how we need a revelation of the ‘…hope to which He is calling us – the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints’ (Ephesians 1:18)!

When we hear His voice, we must act in obedience - full, surrendered obedience. Even when it doesn’t make sense, look at His faithfulness in your life and know that He is good.

He will never lead you astray. Let the fruit of His will grow abundantly in your life as you manifest His reality to the world around you. The hour is getting late. We must prepare the way!

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hen we look at the Bible, we read that we are to share with the Lord’s people who are in need and practice hospitality.

Hospitality is taking an outsider and treating them like an insider. It is to host a stranger, someone who does not have the means to repay you. In our culture, we have been taught to

give only when we get something back and are usually looking for what economists call a ‘return on investment.’ The Bible teaches us the opposite and says we are to look intentionally to serve and be hospitable to strangers, those who cannot pay us back.

The pandemic, product shortages, and current global crises have allowed for an unprecedented opportunity for the Body of Christ to practice hospitality. We do not have to look very far to see someone in need. My heart is to provoke you to service in your community. There are endless opportunities from helping a neighbor, donating to a local charity, volunteering for a food drive, or serving at a church outreach.

I am personally excited about the future. As things get darker in the world, the needs of others become greater, opportunities to be hospitable increase, and the light

of God’s love shines ever brighter, drawing people to Himself. This is the glorious Gospel!

Through Hope of All Nations, we are committed to serving communities, seeing poverty broken, and transforming lives by the power of the Gospel.

I hope you are encouraged to be a part and help make a difference today!

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SPRING 2022

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