EASTER: IT'S ABOUT CATCHING NOT COLLECTING

For little kids, Easter usually means dying hard boiled eggs as well as hunting and collecting plastic eggs filled with candy. It’s exhilarating to hunt for and find those pretty eggs with the surprise inside. Even adults are having fun hunting virtual eggs on Facebook and collecting them onto their profile.

My son is a teenager now, but still a collector. When he was little, he collected Hot Wheel cars, rocks and Pokémon cards. As he’s gotten older, he started collecting movies, video games and baseball caps. Maintaining these various collections at different stages of childhood, created a lot of work for me and him to house, display and care for. His desire to collect is still strong. Recently, he went fishing with some friends and caught a crappie fish. He called me on the FRS radio all excited that he had caught this fish. I rejoiced in his hard work to be patient and persistent enough to actually catch a fish. He was so proud of himself that he wanted to keep it. Now had it been his first caught fish, I might have conceded, but it wasn’t his first. I said “What's the point of keeping it if you can't eat it? What purpose does it serve to keep it?” Then I said, “Remember son, it's about catching not collecting. You need to throw the fish back into the lake.” Reluctantly he agreed with me and released the fish back into the lake.

I thought about that phrase, “catching not collecting,” while sitting at the park waiting for my son and his friends to fish. In my current walk with God, he is showing me new and exciting things that I have never seen or heard before about his will in my life and the power he wants us Christians to use over the enemy. God doesn’t want me to catch his Spirit and just hang onto it like a collection! He wants me to release it and share it with everyone I meet.

So what about you? Are you catching or collecting this Easter Season?
Jesus "releases" us into the world to share our faith in Him. Follow his example and don't keep Jesus all to yourself. If you've "caught" the spirit of God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ the risen Savior and son of God, then share him with everyone you meet!

Matthew 28: 18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been give to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAUGHTER!

Well, last Sunday's experience will be a hard one to follow, but thank goodness life with God always gets sweeter and more exciting.

This past Thursday during worship practice, while we were singing the song, “The More I Seek You,” we spent some time just playing the music and making up our own words in musical prayer to God. I envisioned myself sitting on God’s lap; snuggling and reaching up to hold his face in my hands. Then I saw Jesus laughing and calling me to come and dance with him in a meadow near a lake or creek. I loved being in God’s lap, but I really wanted to go and dance with Jesus. I felt incredible awe and joy.

As I wrote this experience down, God reminded me that Thursday was my spiritual birthday! Thirty-three years ago, March 26th, I decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ and asked Him to live in my heart and life. God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were rejoicing with me tonight! Heaven was rejoicing! Angels were rejoicing!

Then as a gift for my spiritual birthday, God blessed me with healing for my painful hips and gave me a prophesy about how God is about to increase my writing ministry and take me to places I have yet to be with Him. To see things I have never seen. He instructed me to be ready to write down what he shows me and teaches me.

My spirit is about to burst. God’s Spirit is bubbling inside me and keeps spilling out with words, songs, singing with no words and sometimes with words only God understands. I enjoyed the sweetest song between my spirit and God while driving home from worship practice. I didn’t understand a word of it, but the melody was so sweet and the goodness of God splashed all over me!


For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

As I suspeceted, with such a spiritual high, and awesome prophsey, the enemy was hard at work in the following days to wear down my spirit. But my God is greater than anything Satan has to offer. Beware seekers, when you connect with God in a mighty way and He changes your life forever, you must guard your heart against spiritual attacks on you personally. Read the Bible and metabolize it so that you will have an endless supply of God's power and wisdom embedded in your spirit.