Tag Archives: God

Reasons and Excuses for Worship

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
07 Apr

Reasons To Not Worship

“Too Shy”

“I am too shy for worship… I don’t want people to stare at me. What will they think of me? I look ridiculous.”

These are what I like to call excuses for not worshiping. For not lifting your hands in praise to our King. One thing we have to get straight is WHO CARES? When we worship, it should not matter what others think about you. You are not worshiping for their sake, so they can see how “holy” you are. The only reason for worship is to lift up the name of my King, to let His praise ever be on my lips! Why are you shy? Why does it feel like the world is looking down on me when I lift my hands? Why is it that all I think about when I lift my hands to praise is shame and embarrassment? These are questions I once had before my true encounter with the Lord.

Why Is It So Hard?

What I want to point out is, it is not hard. All the feelings you have of fear is not God. All the shame, not Him. You are thinking too much about pleasing people and not about what the Lord sees in you. He delights in YOU. He delights in dancing over you and seeing you sacrifice yourself for Him. When we lift our hands in praise it is a sacrifice to God because we are denying the feelings of embarrassment and pleasing others to worship Him. When you lift your hands things happen. When you deny yourself chains inside begin to break and you begin to feel His presence, you begin to feel set free. ‘

Reasons To Worship

Why not worship? He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords! Why not praise Him? He deserves it. He is worthy of all our praise and worship, isn’t He? Worship is like showing your affection to Him, showing your commitment, showing your love for Him. When I worship I just begin to thank Him for all He has done for me. He fights for me everyday even when I am having a bad day and I do not talk to Him at all, He still blesses me, He still loves me, so how can I not praise Him? Worship is the closest thing to Heaven on earth. That is what I can compare it to. I love the lyrics to this new Hillsong song called, “What A Beautiful Name”. It reads, “You didn’t want Heaven without us, so Jesus (Yeshua) You brought Heaven down. My sin was great, Your love was greater, so what can separate us now?” I just love that verse. Yeshua did not want Heaven without us and that is why He died for us, He wanted to be close to us because He loves us. When we praise Him we are thanking Him for the things He has done, for what He did, and what He is going to do in the future.

Worship In Everything

I was listening to a interview the other day with Jenn Johnson and was talking about worship. Her father in-law was in the car with her and she was frustrated with her kids and she said, “Mommy hat off, worship hat on.” In an instant her father in-law replies, “The problem is, is the worship hat never should have come off.” I love that. No matter where you are, you are always in a state of worship. We do not just wait to be in His presence when we go to service once a week or a prayer meeting, the worship NEVER ENDS. I talk under my breath constantly… I am always praying. I am always communicating with my King because I do not know what to do without Him. I come to my church expecting to meet with Him because on the Sabbath our level of holiness is lifted higher than any other normal day and the Father has a meeting with us. So when I come, I come ready, I come already filled with His spirit, I come expecting to be healed, to be set free, to be filled with the joy of His presence. In everything, praise the Lord. When I wake up the first thing that should come out of my mouth is “Thank You for waking me up this morning and breathing Your breath into my lungs.” Let your day be filled with thanksgiving for the things God is doing in your life. He is always dong something for you whether you know it or not.

Worship Setting

There is so much joy involved in being apart of a worship service with other people who are expecting to meet with God the same as you. The most beautiful sound in the world, in my opinion, is the sound of a new song being sang from Gods people in a state of worship. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, a new song is a term used for a spontaneous song from the Holy Spirit. It is the stillness between songs, the moment when the music continues but all you hear is new songs coming from peoples hearts as they lift their praises to the King. It is so beautiful. Worship changes your life, your attitude, your mind… Everything you do will change because of worship. Your health will even be changed. When you are in a constant state of joy and peace you will physically feel good and healthy. If you’re always sad, always down cast, not full of hope, not full of joy, your bones will ache and your heart will sting with bitterness and depression.

Worship Sets You Free

Worship will set you free, because Yeshua is invited in, the Holy Spirit is flowing through the place you are worshiping and touching people. Have you seen altar calls? People who go to the front of the stage and bow down to God to give up things that is not of Him because they desire to be closer to Him, they desire to be set free. Usually others feel led to bow down, or someone will feel led to go up and pray for those who are asking. As a body of Messiah we work together to help each other to be set free from bondage. Yeshua can set you free from sickness, depression, anxiety, fear, worry, sexual addictions, lust… All these things you lay down at the feet of Yeshua. My father in-law told me something that I will never forget. He said this,

“When you meet with Yeshua face to face are you gonna shake His hand or lay at His feet?”

That line says it all. This is how we need to treat worship. When you worship you are coming to meet with Yeshua, to lay yourself down in surrender. To not think of what everyone else thinks and think of what God must feel to see His children laying at His feet in awe of ALL that He is and thanking Him. What joy He must feel…

Scriptures About Worship

“Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago” Isaiah 25:1

“Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you.” Exodus 23:25

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Psalm 150:6

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

“Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” Psalm 103:1

“You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

“My mouth is filled with your praise,
declaring your splendor all day long.” Psalm 71:8

“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.” Habakkuk 3:17-18

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“How great you are, Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.” 2 Samuel 7:22

 

When you go through deep waters

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
13 Oct

” When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
    you will not be burned up;
    the flames will not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2

Have you been through deep waters lately? Have you struggled over and over and just can’t seem to shake it off? Well I have and it’s been rough. It’s not so much the physical problems usual people go through, but the spiritual battles we as believers face daily. God says He never EVER gives us what we can’t handle. He gives us the supernatural strength we need to get through this crazy life! I feel the older I get the harder and more difficult my life gets. I look back to when I was a little girl and think, ” Wow, I had it so easy!” But when I was little I thought my life was so hard. I look back to when I first turned 16 and thought my life was very hard. But now that i’ m 18 I feel like life just got really slow, but i’m seeing the difficulty ahead of me now that i’m about to go to college. I have a lot more to learn and a lot more battles to overcome. It can be very overwhelming. But the Lord will never give me what I can’t handle. I have to remain faithful. I can’t keep my eyes fixed on the future, but only fix my eyes on the One who holds my future in His hands. He will take us through deep waters to show us that we knew how to swim all along. We just needed to let Him do His job by letting Him let go so we can have faith knowing that He might let go but He will never let us sink into death. He promises everlasting life! We shouldn’t worry about the future! And I know everyone does, it’s human nature to worry… But it’s Gods will and His will alone, so why should we worry? If only we would just take a deep breath and let go and trust and stand strong and pray without ceasing! God is GOOD! He is mighty, and mighty to save. We cannot continue to walk through life stuck in our own self pity and selfishness! We need to give it up and let it go! Worship, worship Him with your whole heart. Go into your secret place and worship Him and pray to Him. He will give you peace. He will take you through the deep waters, through the rivers of difficulty, and walk us through the flame of oppression, but He will never leave us nor forsake us! The enemy will try anything to remove us from His love, to keep us from realizing that we won’t drown. He screams inside and declares that we are FREE! The Lords shout overcomes the enemies whisper. The Devil is a liar, and he seeks only to destroy you. God won’t let you go without a fight! Trust Him! He is faithful and He will protect you from the enemy, just let go of your flesh and cling to the truth! The storms will rage, but God is faithful.

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:27

Fellowship

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
26 Apr

” Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

He is renewing us. He’s cleaning out our fellowships, getting out the bad parts and keeping the good. It’s hard and it hurts… We lose friends and family, but we can’t let it get to us! We have to keep moving forward! We have to keep pushing and worshiping and praying harder than ever before! The enemy comes to devour, to destroy and divide. When a lion hunts for its prey, what does it do? Well, it comes to a herd and searches for the week, the ones that are separated from its herd. The herd might not even notice the lion at first, because it comes in secret and comes in hiding, crawling through the long grass. Then it spots its target, and then snatches the separated one and kills it. The herd needs to stay together! They can drive the lion away if they band together and fight! One big herd against one lion will win.

What I’ m trying to show here is how the enemy is searching for believers who have separated themselves from their fellowship. Ones who are falling away. I’ m not saying you have to be in a congregation, or that if you’re not then the devil is coming to take you to hell. What I really want to hit on is how we NEED fellowship. To have that brother or sister in Messiah to pray with you, counsel you, worship beside you, and be there to give an encouraging word or be used by the Father to speak into your life. Iron sharpens iron, right? Then how can we sharpen each other if we’re never communicating to one another? Fellowshiping? The enemy is causing us to get angry with each other, causing us to gossip, to hate one another! Yeshua says that if you hate someone then you’ve already committed murder in your heart. We cannot do that! We are supposed to be a light in the world! To live in Spirit and Truth and preach to the nations! How can a unbeliever follow someone who has too much hate in they’re heart? Because if they see that anger in you, that extremism, the constant disagreeing, the fighting, the bickering, the hypocrisy, they are going to want to flee from God! Because all they see is a bunch of stubborn people who can’t agree on Kosher, or Feast day ” Timing”, moon cycles, and silly things that aren’t even a big deal. I’ m sorry if this offends you but we really have to stop! We are supposed to be the body of Messiah! But we’re broken.

Lets look at some scripture verses on fellowship and congregation.

” The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. BUT if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23

” As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:1-6

” May God our Father and our Lord Yeshua bring us to you very soon. And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. May He, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Yeshua comes again with all His holy people. Amen.” 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

” In the presence of God and of Messiah Yeshua, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” 2 Timothy 4:1-5

That last verse really sticks out to me. It’s exactly whats going on today in ministries! People are turning from sound doctrine, or ” A balanced teaching” and going to conspiracy theories and weird things that DON’T line up with Gods Word. Guys, we have to stay balanced. We can’t have spiritual ADD. Its not good! Trust me, I’ve just been realizing this now! I’ve been letting other peoples ideas of things get to me and I let it cause me to let anger in me, and to not love the body of Messiah! We can’t let the enemy win! He’s coming to divide us! And cause us to leave our fellowship because one, tiny, silly, disagreement. We agree on A TON of things don’t we? I’ m not being sarcastic, we actually do agree on more things than we do disagree! That’s great! We agree on keeping Kosher, we agree to keep The Feasts Of The Lord, To keep Shabbat! And the ultimate agreement is, we believe in Yeshua! The Son of God! Who came to earth that He created and walk with us who are dirty and full of sin… Who died on the cross so we could be renewed and born again! So that He could get rid of the laws of the Pharisees ( Who were extremists) and showed us how to keep the Torah in a balanced way! He didn’t do away with the Law, He just showed us how to live it and be filled with His Spirit while we walk in Spirit and Truth! That, my friends, is perfect balance. Walking with one another in this agreement! We agree when we all stand in the presence of our Savior and we worship as one body! We worship in Spirit and Truth! Please, fellowship with each other! Please, find your balance, find friends who will walk with you! You will never EVER agree 100%, but you have to try and get along with one another! I urge you to please try!

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Yeshua, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:19-25

Fear vs Faith!

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
24 Mar

Servent-Leader-700x441

 

Faith- A strong trust or belief in something you cannot see
Fear- Unbelief, Doubt; To dread; to be afraid of; to be anxious.
These are the definitions of fear and faith! As you can see they are completely opposite. Fear and faith cannot occupy something at the same time. Except for when you fear someone out of respect. Like God says we are to fear Him, He doesn’t mean to be afraid of Him! He’s our Dad! He wants us to respect Him and love Him. Have a deep respect for the Father. So let’s talk about fear. FEAR is NOT given by God.
“ For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

A sound mind! That’s something we should all have! That never-ending trust in the Father! The complete faith in Him, no fear, no worry, no anxiety, none of that. But, we are human! So this isn’t the case for us. We do worry, we do fear sometimes. But that’s okay! Just know that when you feel that way you have to stop what you’re doing and pray! Pray for it to leave you, pray for peace and a sound mind! He is our comforter! He will get us through. Nothing good comes out of fear. We can’t live our life being afraid of everything. We need to be positive! We need to live our lives boldly so that all can see God’s power working in your life! People will see you and in a stressful situation, you could be the calmest person and everyone is going to think you are crazy! And they will ask, “ Are you crazy? Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” And then you can say. “ Because God gives me peace. I know He’s in control.” And they will be amazed. That’s all you have to do. And you can be that person that they will go to for advice and they might even start to ask you some things about the Bible. So you can really change someone’s life by just making a small change in your thinking process.
So what happens when you walk into a room with no light? It’s overtaken by darkness. You start to get scared! It’s unfamiliar, you don’t know what’s in the room, if there is a hole somewhere, you know nothing! You are completely surrounded by darkness. So you just curl up in a ball, start to panic, cry, or whatever it is you would do in that situation. But then, you discover, there’s a light switch! That light switch is faith! And all you have to do is flip the switch and then what? What happens when you turn on a light in a dark room? Darkness HAS TO FLEE! It has no choice! It cannot stay! It cannot occupy that space anymore. Sure that light might create some shadows, because our lives aren’t perfect, but we know that God will always make the darkness go.
The Bible says a lot about faith!

“ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1
“ But 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. ( And it continues on explaining the faith of Noah) By FAITH Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with Godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of righteousness which is according to FAITH.” Hebrews 11:6-7

You can also continue to read and it talks about the faith of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the harlot Rehab! And the writer of Hebrews keeps going on how things were done by FAITH! These people of God lived by faith! They believed and they overcame many things because they had faith! We can look to them for example! They were just ordinary people like you and me! But what made them go from ordinary to extraordinary? Having faith in God! They accomplished amazing things because our Father, who still does amazing things today, used them because they had faith! God is always working “behind the scenes” in our lives. He does things for us that we probably don’t even notice. So we must thank Him always and trust Him with our lives! He has already done so much for us that we take for granted! He gave us life! He breathes air into our lungs! He gives us power to heal the sick and to lead nations to Him! He gives us everything! He IS our provider. He gives us faith. How do we get faith?

“ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the WORD of God.” Romans 10:17

We get faith by HEARING! Hearing worship music, by hearing a good teaching, by HEARING the Word of God! Not just reading it in your head, but declaring the words out loud so that you can hear every word! It gives you faith. Try it out and see! It really does work!
Spend time in prayer and worship in your secret place and establish your relationship with the King of Kings! Trust Him. We CAN lean on God! We can depend on Him and Him alone! Faith does not mature or strengthen without trial or persecution. We need to go through things to learn and to get a deeper faith! Going through trials is a stepping stone closer to God. You can either trip over it and curse God, or you can use it as a step UP! Use them as stairs to go up to the throne of God! He sustains us to keep us coming closer and closer to Him! If you fall, stand back up and keep going! When you’ve done all you can to stand, just stand.

Be a servant, be a leader.

Posted on by Olivia Mancini
27 Dec
Exodus 18:21“Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.”

So what does it mean to be a leader? Usually when we think of a leader, we think of someone with authority, someone with confidence, someone with wisdom, and a lot of other qualities. Recently, I have been thinking about what it really, truly means to be a leader. Those qualities above are important, but I think the number one quality is to be a servant. I know that sounds strange because servants serve leaders. But to be a leader, I believe you must be a servant first.

Being a servant humbles you, it doesn’t make you rise above all the others, but it brings you down to everyone’s level, because not one person is better than the other; we are ALL God’s children, He loves us all equally, we are His. Therefore being a servant makes you a leader.

People want a leader who is God-fearing, lays down its own life for another, who serves others and is honest, caring, speaks with authority, and much more. People won’t respect a leader who doesn’t serve, who doesn’t care, abuses power, lazy, selfish… I don’t want to be led by someone like that. Do you?

Someone who is in a leadership position should have a strong relationship with the Father. Go in your secret place and worship, pray, talk with Him. He loves it so much when His children come to Him, and humble themselves before him. I was listening to someone talk about being a leader, and having a passion for the revival of the nations, and the guy said something very interesting that caught my attention, he said;

“If you make HIM famous in the secret place, HE will make you famous in the world.”

I love that, but of course you shouldn’t be made known for your OWN glory, but for His glory, make His name famous in the world. That’s one of the things I desire to do most, to go out and travel and make my Fathers name known to ALL and be part of a generation who seeks His face, the generation who revives the nations, who brings glory to His name, forever and ever. I want to be part of leadership who leads thousands to Yahweh, through Yeshua and with the power of the Holy spirit, with the Word of God in my heart forever. Make Him famous in your secret place, prayer works, don’t ever doubt it!

If you want to hear a really great teaching about being a leader here’s the link                             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ekKgF8jxlk

Anyway… Here’s a very interesting verse I just found,

John 3:30  “He must increase, but I must decrease.

 What does that mean? Well I believe it means that it means, more of God, less of us. More of Him less of me, God, above everything else. When you are in a large leadership position, or in a small one, make Him higher than yourself.

Is everyone a leader? YES! We are ALL leaders, so don’t single yourself out, because you think you’re not a leader. But let me tell you that you are! You might not be a leader of a fellowship, or in a large company, or big stuff like that. But you are a leader in your home, school, anywhere. There’s always someone who looks up to you, someone who needs your leadership in there life. Leaders need other leaders to sharpen them, pray for them, help them. So WE are ALL leaders. Don’t be a slave to fear, you are a child of God! Be courageous! He’s calling us out! He’s drawing us in, closer and closer. He’s calling us out to be leaders among nations, to be on the front lines of battle.

 Joshua 1:9

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

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