How to have a fulfilling and vibrant devotional life, walking daily with God, learning to pray God’s Word in faith, and how to experience personal victory.

GYC 2016: When All Has Been Heard

<p>How to have a fulfilling and vibrant devotional life, walking daily with God, learning to pray God’s Word in faith, and how to experience personal victory.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Above and Beyond: Keys To Personal Revival And a Lifestyle of Vibrant Living in Christ!

Melody Mason

1. Above & Beyond Living and Praying

This message was presented at the GYC 2016 conference, When All Has Been Heard, in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

How many of you are first-time attenders for GYC?

GYC has been a highlight for me for, I don't know, probably the last 10 years or so.

It's just such a blessing every time I come.

Anyway, I'm privileged and honored to be here and excited about what I'm going to be talking about today.

Above and Beyond Living and Praying, as you saw in your booklet, I'm going to be talking about keys to personal revival.

Now I'm really convinced that the enemy does not want us talking about personal revival.

He doesn't want us talking about prayer or anything that's going to help clear the roadblocks between us and God.

And I just see, I just see that all the time, different places I go and things that happen.

And the reason also I'm saying that is, is just like a day ago I came down with this really strong head cold and I was like, well I guess, you know, he doesn't want me to get up and speak but I'm going to anyway and God's going to bless so anyway it's a blessing to be here before I have a word of prayer I think I always like to hear just a little bit just a synopsis really quick where speakers are from and all of that so I just share this in the very beginning.

I grew up as a country girl in the Ozarks of Arkansas and parents had a big garden a big farm I had just loved it out there in the country.

I had 2 younger brothers, I should say I have 2 younger brothers, and the picture on the right is back about the time I was in high school, so you can see that I'm significantly older than my brothers.

And this last picture is about 5 years ago and this picture is a current picture.

The 1 on the right just got married and his wife is not 12 by the way.

But anyway, they just got married this summer.

And my brother on the right, he and his wife are expecting a baby.

So I don't know about you, but I've just been very blessed to grow up in a supportive family and if I had my choice I would be with my family in the Ozarks there on the farm.

But I really believe that Jesus is coming soon and that we don't have much time and I want to be ready and I want to help as many people be ready for his coming as possible.

And so because of that, he's called me to different places that I probably would not have gone if I was just choosing myself.

Currently my mission field is in Silver Springs, Maryland with the church and that's the last place I ever thought I would be.

I'm going to share more of my testimony later about that.

But I just praise God for His goodness because I have seen in my life truly His plans and His choices for us are better than what we would choose for ourselves.

You know, this is not necessarily what I would think or want, but God says, I know what is needed.

And you seek me with all your heart, you are going to have the best.

So anyway, with that, let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer because I have a lot of things to share today, and I'm just praying I can cram it in in the time we have.

Dear Heavenly Father I just thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with these young people at GYC and I'm just praying Father that this will not be like any normal GYC but Father that this will be a life-changing event for us.

Father that we will not leave the same way that we came, that you will break us, that you will open our hearts to our desperate, desperate need of you, and Father that you will fill us with what you alone can give us.

Father I just submit to you this morning I'm just asking that you would forgive me of my sins.

I'm asking that you would cover me with your righteousness.

Father you know I don't have what I need to share today, but you do, and I'm just seeking to hide behind the cross and just asking that you would be glorified.

Father, we don't have much time, and I'm just praying that you would open our hearts, that there would be nothing between us and you, that we can truly be ready for your soon coming.

Father give us eyes to see the God that you are, the God that you want to be in our lives today.

Thank you for hearing this prayer in your precious name.

Apologize again for those of you that are just coming in that I am fighting a head cold, but I praise God that He can work even through our weaknesses.

In the beginning of the seminar I want to turn to John chapter 11.

Those of you that have brought your Bibles, John chapter 11 and we're going to just look at a story that I know many of you are many of you are already very familiar with.

In John chapter 11 we see Mary and Martha of course and Lazarus who were very close to Jesus.

And when Lazarus got sick, they came to Jesus, right?

Expecting that Jesus is going to do something to help.

But as we know, Jesus did not come right away, right?

Now listen, we're going to actually skip to verse 21 when Jesus finally does show up and Martha goes out to meet him.

John chapter 11 verse 21, then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord if thou had been here my brother would not have died.

So basically if you'd been here 4 days ago, Lazarus wouldn't have died.

But then Martha continues, but I know that even now whatsoever you will ask of God, He's going to give it to you.

I know, you know, if you've been here, this wouldn't have happened.

Well, listen, what Jesus says, verse 23, thy brother is going to rise again.

Verse 24, Martha says unto him, I know that he is going to rise again at the resurrection at the last day.

Do you see what Martha has done here in this passage?

She has expressed a faith in the God of yesterday.

If you had been here yesterday, my brother would not have died, or 4 days ago, right?

And then Jesus says, well, your brother's going to rise again.

Now was Jesus saying, yeah, in the future he's going to rise again?

But Martha automatically puts it to the future and says, well, I know at the last day he's going to rise again.

And this is the same thing that we often do in our own Christian walk and experience.

And it was really eye-opening to me when I realized, you know, I have grown up in the church.

Many of you have, some of you haven't, but you've heard the Bible stories, you've heard the miracles about what God has done in the past.

We believe, look at, you know, we serve a God, He opened the Red Sea for the children of Israel, He parted the waters, He's brought down bread from heaven, all these amazing things.

We believe in a God of the past and we also talk a lot about a God that is going to do amazing things in the future.

A day is coming when His Spirit is going to be poured out.

We're going to see people brought back from the dead.

We're going to see spiritual healings in great multitude like we've never seen before but what about today do we serve a God that is living and alive today now you will say amen that's right but do we really believe it by how we live our lives and by how we pray?

If you look at the story and it goes on, we actually see that Jesus takes Martha to the tomb and the others go as well, but even when he's saying, roll away the stone, Martha is still protesting.

Don't roll away the stone, he's going to stink.

And how many times have we said the same, you know, to Jesus?

You know, this is going to be making an even worse mess than we already have.

But oftentimes, I have learned in my own life that is it seeming more and more impossible and more and more sticky.

It's almost like this is what Jesus can be most glorified in, in that miracle, in that rolling away the stone.

And so I want to encourage us as we're beginning today to recognize that we serve not just the God of yesterday, He's the God of yesterday, not just the God of the future, He's the God of the future, but we serve a God that is living and alive today.

2. Above & Beyond Humility at the Foot of the Cross

Okay, we'll get started on session number 2.

Above and beyond humility at the foot of the cross.

Dear Heavenly Father, I just want to thank you again for the opportunity to share here today.

Father, I just again want to pray and ask that you would speak through me.

Father, you know that the enemy is attacking my voice and He doesn't want us to humble ourselves at the cross.

He wants to keep us holding on to those things that separate us from you.

And so I just pray that you would prick our hearts today and Father that we would not leave the same way that we came, into this room today.

Father, we need a deeper revelation of who you are, of what you long to do for us, and of what you are calling us to.

So Heavenly Father, please speak through me today.

I pray, please cover me with your righteousness.

May you be glorified in all that's shared in your precious name.

I just want to begin by sharing a little bit more of my testimony that I alluded to in the first session that we just finished.

As I said I grew up in the church, in the Christian home, Seventh-day Adventist home and background.

My family on my mom's side actually goes back for about 5 generations, so I was very immersed in that my father I think 3 generations but the point was that I was in a wilderness spiritually now I did not realize it at the time I thought life was pretty good as I shared earlier I had a really good experience in Academy, went to Oklahoma Academy and that really helped cement me more in being a solid Seventh-day Adventist.

But even still, I didn't truly understand what God wanted to do in my life.

And I'm still growing, to be honest, because we keep thinking, oh, I've arrived and I've learned and then you come to a new point in your life and you're like, oh, I thought I had arrived before, but God's taught me so much more and he keeps teaching us more and more.

But I got very exposed early to the mission field and mission trips and activities and I wanted to work for God, I had a desire to work for God, so I started getting involved.

Traveling here, traveling there, going on all these different mission trips around the world.

And I had a lot of great experiences, but the reality was, especially during those early years, that I became very busy doing many good things.

In fact, many people told me, oh, you get to do so many exciting things.

I mean, I had lots of exciting adventures, traveling here, traveling there, seeking to be a blessing, but very little fruit as a result.

Of course it was always cool because I could come home and I could show my friends pictures of the amazing places that I had been, the things that I had seen, the things that I had gotten to do.

Now I would say, back then, I would say that my first goal was to be a missionary.

And honestly, I thought that's what it was.

But as God began opening up my heart to my need and how desperately I needed a closer walk with him, I think that this was more the way that things were.

I wanted to be a missionary but I wanted to have adventures and I wanted to see places and it was it was a lot of that.

There was a lot of pride in self but it's interesting because I didn't recognize that initially.

I began sensing that I was missing something.

I remember seeing different people that were broken at the foot of the cross.

Have you ever seen those people that have come into the church and they're just so excited?

They're weeping and praising God, what he has done for them, for his forgiveness, for his grace, for his mercy, you know, all these different things, they're just so broken over what Christ has done for them.

They're basically broken at the foot of the cross.

And I would see these people and I would think, I know Christ has died for my sins.

Intellectually, I knew that, but it did not pierce my heart.

In fact, the best thing that I can say is I was numb in my heart to what Christ had done on the cross.

I grew up knowing intellectually, but it did not pierce my heart.

And, kind of telling you my story in stages, because tomorrow I'm going to share a little bit more about the real struggle that brought me to this change in my life where I began daring to ask for more.

But I came to a point where I just said, God, I do not understand the cross personally.

I know intellectually in my heart that you've died for my sins, that your son has died for my sins, but it doesn't touch me.

Can you please give me a glimpse of what your cross has done for me?

Help it to touch me and pierce my heart personally." And that's what I started praying.

You be careful when you start praying because God, He wants to answer those prayers.

And especially if you just say, Lord, help me!

Teach me how to have a deeper walk with you.

If you start praying those prayers, God is going to answer.

Well it's kind of interesting, I'm going to share just briefly how this came about.

I was planning another mission trip to another exciting place where I thought I was going to go.

I thought I was going to go to the country of Peru, I had never been there.

And while I was planning that trip, things kind of fell apart and they weren't working out.

And I had a friend, I was living in Loma Linda at the time, and working there, a friend that was in the school of dentistry at Loma Linda and he said, hey Melody, you know we're going with a group to Bangladesh in a couple weeks and we need more nurses.

And he said, would you be willing to come and help us?

So I'm going to give you a little missionary thing here.

Bangladesh is a little, little country over there next to India, crammed in there between, surrounded by India.

Just to show you a little bit of Bangladesh, the US population we have 300 some million people in the whole United States, ok, that's in the whole United States.

Now in Bangladesh they have a hundred and 60 plus million people crammed into an area the size the state of Iowa.

So they have half the population of the United States crammed into like 1 little area.

I did not know anything about Bangladesh basically before I got there but what do you do when 4000000 visitors come to town?

This actually happened a couple years ago when I was over there working.

They had a big Muslim festival in the city and this is what the trains look like coming in and out of the city they're riding on the rooftops of the trains just coming and going it was crazy Bangladesh has beautiful beautiful people but very devastating poverty and there are many places around the world that did and I've been in many of those places but this was really the first real hardcore wake-up call for me.

Now I had been praying that God would give me a glimpse of the cross.

I had been praying that he would help me to catch a deeper vision of who he is and what he is to me.

So I'm in Bangladesh and I'm seeing all this poverty and this suffering and people on the streets.

I don't know how prevalent it is, but parents will actually mangle their children so that they become better beggars.

It's just horrendous and I'm sure this is probably not the only place where it happens in the world, but you'll see children with these weird crazy deformities that their parents created so that they will be better beggars.

I remember being there with my friends from Loma Linda and since we're Americans of course they want to take us to a nice restaurant where we can have safe food where we won't get sick and we went out and this restaurant probably cost us about 10 dollars a meal which is nothing compared to what we pay normally but he was talking to us we had just passed children on the street, this little baby was playing on the street, naked, nobody apparently paying attention, I'm sure there was somebody around, but just playing there and different kids hungry and begging And the doctor there that was working there at the time told us we were asking about money and how far it would go.

And basically found out that $10 would feed like 30 people or something on the streets.

And my friends and I were really convicted you know we don't need to go out for these these expensive meals even if they are only 10 dollars let's save the money and let's buy some food that we can give to the people and so we started doing that giving out food to the children and different things but the problem was is there's more and there's more more children more need more you know everywhere I mean just give a little and then the the need is magnified and the need is magnified and it just kept growing and it's just breaking my heart and I go back to my room at night and I'm just like Lord what do I do about all these people?

Anyway so it was interesting because I had started praying a few months previously Lord please give me a glimpse of what you've done for me on Calvary.

And I was crying about these people on the streets there in Bangladesh and I'm just like Lord how do I reach them?

I mean like just looking at the city of Lon, Dhaka, the capital of the city, It's impossible.

Not considering the whole country, of course.

And it was during that time, wrestling in prayer and just all these different things.

I was reading my Bible 1 morning having devotions and God says, you know you've been asking me for a glimpse.

Do you really recognize what I've done for you on Calvary?

3. Growing an Above and Beyond Devotional Life

This afternoon we're going to be talking about growing an above and beyond devotional life.

In other words, themed on Ephesians 3.20, which says, Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think.

I believe that we serve a God that wants to do exceedingly more than we can imagine.

We're told in Jeremiah 33 verse 3, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

So This morning we talked about growing a prayer life, daring to ask for more, and we talked about above and beyond humility at the foot of the cross, how important it is with revival if we want to have a personal revival with God, it really starts at the foot of the cross.

The glory of man must be laid in the dust and recognizing, taking on the righteousness that he has given us, recognizing that in ourselves we can do nothing we cannot save ourselves so there's still seats out here please feel free to come forward I see a number of seats up here there's room to squeeze in so there's seats up here if you guys aren't saving maybe you can hold up your hands or something so people know where there's seats.

And there's still some up here on the front row too, which is the best place to sit by the way.

The best place to sit is on the front row.

So yeah, There's a number of seats up here still.

Let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer if you would bow your heads with me.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for what you are doing in our lives, Father.

We thank you so much for bringing us here.

And this afternoon, I'm asking that you would just speak through me in this time that we have together as we take some time to share, and also some time just to think and pray about how to have a closer walk with you and to see you in the scriptures.

I just pray, Heavenly Father, that you would be glorified and magnified here, and that we would leave today with fresh inspiration for what you want to do in our lives, and how you want to grow us to have a vibrant and alive devotional life for your glory.

Thank you, Father, for hearing this prayer in your precious name.

Okay, if you have a seat next to you that's open, go ahead and raise your hand again.

So all those hands, there's seats open that you can come and sit.

Those of you in the back, if you see a hand raised, there's a seat beside them that's open.

There's still a couple more seats up here.

You know, we struggle in our devotional life and this is something I think very typical for us.

If you did not have training with your parents, if you did not see this modeled, you don't really know, you know, how do you have a devotional life.

And my parents were very dedicated, godly, they believed in the power of prayer.

I saw God answer many prayers in our home, But I didn't really see practical devotional life modeled until I was actually in academy and I had a roommate that had devotions every day with Jesus.

And that was the first time I'd really seen it modeled.

But I didn't really understand myself and of course it's been a growing process.

You know, God wants to bring us, we talked about this morning, how he wants to bring us out of that wilderness Christianity experience and he wants to bring us to a life more abundant.

There are reasons that we get stuck in the wilderness though, and this is very, you know, common sense.

You say, yeah, I understand, but I want you to think about the fact how many of you have how many of you guys have had a good meal at least 1 time a day for the last 30 days if you weren't fasting How many of you guys have eaten just a normal, at least 1 meal a day, right?

Most of us are eating something every day, right?

That was just amazing that we had down in the dining hall.

We are eating our food because we know if we don't eat, we're not going to be able to go forward, right?

We're going to get weak and start getting dizzy and we're not going to be able to think.

And think about the fact that if we had a spiritual battle or something going on, no, no, no, sorry, If we had a physical battle that we were going out to fight, would we want to be armed before we went out to fight that battle?

We would want to be armed, we would have to be armed.

By the way, there's still a couple seats up here for anybody that wants to come.

There's like a couple here and a couple there.

We would have to have our physical armor on before we went out to battle.

But the problem is we are in a bigger spiritual battle.

There's still 2 more here so you can pull them together and go ahead and sit there.

How much more important is it that we have our armor on?

How much more important is it that we are ready?

You know we're told in Steps to Christ page 94, the darkness of the evil 1 encloses those who neglect to pray.

The whispered temptations of the enemy entice them to sin and it's all because they do not make use of the privilege God has given them in the divine appointment of prayer.

How many of you heard that testimony that we heard right before lunch with Alex.

You know why the enemy tried to shut that testimony down with the fire alarms?

He does not want us talking about these things.

In fact, every time I see prayer ministry or something like this going on, the enemy is constantly attacking to try to keep this message from going out.

And so when the fire alarms went off, the person I was sitting with, we started praying, we're like, Lord, this message has to be shared.

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Series

Above and Beyond: Keys To Personal Revival And a Lifestyle of Vibrant Living in Christ!

3. Growing an Above and Beyond Devotional Life

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. Above & Beyond Living and Praying

1h

2. Above & Beyond Humility at the Foot of the Cross

59m

3. Growing an Above and Beyond Devotional Life

1h

4. Above and Beyond Adventures in Prayer

1h

5. Developing an Above and Beyond Faith, Even When God is Silent!

1h

6. Called to Above and Beyond Surrender

1h 12m

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