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I love the discoveries I make as I review my notes from sermons I heard the previous year. As I read over the sermons from the first half of the year, I found a continual calling back to dependence on God, a continual encouragement to live above our circumstances by trusting them to Him. You can read highlights from those sermons here.

I got waylaid a bit before going over my notes for the second half of the year. It’s almost Easter and I’m just now publishing highlights from the second half of 2012. Sometimes life gets away from us, doesn’t it? I was tempted to not publish these because I’m so late, but these are too good to not share. I pray that you are as blessed as I’ve been reviewing what God said through mighty men and women of God in 2012.

On June 11^th, I attended a prayer meeting. It wasn’t your typical prayer meeting, but a weekly “soaking” prayer time that takes place at Ekklesia Revived, our local prayer center. (You can find their Facebook page here.)  This is a time of sitting and listening to the Lord – soaking in His presence and waiting on Him. At the end of the prayer time, people share what they’ve heard from the Lord. Often God speaks through images, thoughts that come to our mind, or things others say. Here are my notes from one such “speaking”:

“I saw us dancing with the Lord” one woman said. When she said that, I immediately thought of the movie Hitch. “This is your dance space, this is my dance space” [Hitch instructed his client]. The Holy Spirit immediately said to me “It’s time to dance outside your space.”

How cool is that? I love the way the Lord speaks to us. Is it time for you to dance outside our space?

“For God to mend our hearts, we have to give Him all the pieces – or it will never be fully mended.” Pastor Dan Caudill, 6/17/12

“It’s not what you see, it’s how you see it.” A stray note in my written journal. I have no idea who said it. But it’s a good line!

“There must be a desire in each of us to see God move. Wherever we are is to become a habitation of our Lord.” Pastor Larry Klaiber, 7/22/12

“He is our Shepherd and without Him we are helpless and harassed. (see Matthew 9:36)” Pastor Larry Klaiber, 8/26/12

“There isn’t a wall that satan can build that cannot be torn down – demolished – with praise.” Pastor Dan Caudill, 9/23/12

“Praise disarms a complaining spirit.” Pastor Dan Caudill, 9/23/12

(And I would add – and we all need that!)

During our worship time on September 30, 2012, I made these notes in my written journal:

During worship I saw an image of mighty warriors standing in front of the king – creating a protective wall around him. Nothing gets through them. That’s how we’re to be for one another – especially when we see one who has fallen. As I considered this, I saw an image of many guards standing over a fallen warrior. They were clearly giving the fallen warrior time to heal. They were not standing guard over his death. It was not a death watch, it was a protection detail giving time to heal. They were saying to the enemy “we’re standing here and you’re not getting through. We’re providing a protective barrier until our brother has healed.”

Lord, make me one of those warriors!! Enlist me in that army. Teach me that dedication and that steadfastness and that courage to stand. Not here, satan! Not now!

PS note: The sermon that followed that day was titled “Faithful, Fearless Courage!” God was preparing me to hear the sermon and respond!

“God says that no one can stand against us. Does our life show we believe it? Pastor Dan Caudill, 9/30/12

“Trust requires action before God moves.” Pastor Dan Caudill, 9/30/12

“The battle has nothing to do with the size of the enemy; it has everything to do with the size of our God. So don’t minimize the size of the problem, just maximize the size of your God.” Pastor Dan Caudill, 9/30/12

“Let the darkness cause us to be excited – because the light is preparing to come!” Francis Frangipane, 10/13/12

“Darkness gives off an air of deception that nothing can penetrate it – making it seem as if there’s no use in trying to impact it. It is a deception. God is the God of Light. He created the Light. The Light has overcome darkness.” Francis Frangipane, 10/13/12

“There’s been a lot of talk about ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Satan now uses ‘weapons of mass distraction’ and it leads to a quiet erosion of our life.” Francis Frangipane, 10/13/12

“In the uncertainty of change, cling to God.” Pastor Larry Klaiber, 10/28/12

“God’s sole purpose is to change us – to make us more like Christ. Therefore, our sole purpose should be to let Him!” Pastor Dan Caudill, 11/25/12

Whew! It’s already January 18! I feel like January is slipping away quickly. So much that I am just getting around to doing my 2012 in Review! At the beginning of each year, I like to review my notes from sermons I heard the year before. And I like to share the gems with you. So I sat down this morning to do just that.

What a tremendous blessing to read through all my sermon notes from the first half of 2012. Looking back, I see themes that God was developing as I heard from different speakers. I didn’t necessarily absorb those themes as I heard the sermons over a number of weeks. But taken as a whole, they were powerful.

Here are some of the best “lines” from sermons I heard in the first half of 2012. I try to let them stand on their own, but sometimes just couldn’t resist adding my own commentary. Be blessed as you read! Free free to pause and reflect as frequently as you want!

“When God shows up, the norm is set aside.” Pastor Larry Klaiber, 1/8/12

This sentence both excites and challenges me. It excites me because I want God to show up and do the unexpected. I want to be a part of that. Yet I know my nature is to control what is happening and we have a plan so let’s stick to the plan! The quote challenges me to be more attuned to God’s plan and more quickly throw my plan out the window when God shows up.

“God is waiting for us to come into agreement with Him.” Jack Nehmer, 1/15/12

How true! It’s interesting that I heard this message just a week after making these notes in my personal journal:

“There is a difference between God’s power and His authority. God has the power. When He’s given us the authority, it is the authority to ‘use’ his power…Lord, I give my schedule to you – because submitting to You is where Your power is.”

In my prayer on that especially stressful day, I was coming into agreement with God over my schedule. I was submitting it to Him to resolve and saying “I will agree with You in working this out in whatever manner is pleasing to You.”

“We all believe in Jesus…but do we know Him? If you want to know Jesus, you must go to the cross and look into the eyes of Jesus.” Pastor Dan, 1/22/12

I would add “If you want on maintain your relationship with Jesus – not just learn more about Him, but get to know Him more – you have to continually go to the cross and look into His eyes.”

“Jesus didn’t die for you to live in doubt and discouragement. He didn’t die for you to live under the circumstances.” Pastor Dan, 1/22/12

“There is a beauty and radiance that flows from the spirit of a Godly woman.” Sandy Hovatter – this was a nugget God dropped into my heart while listening to a sermon on Psalm 34

“Sometimes we have to set everything aside except our covenant with God.” Pastor Larry, 3/4/12

In other words, all that matters is our relationship with Him. All that matters is my promise to Him and His to me.

“The beauty of the Lord is light and color and song and flowing movement.” Sandy Hovatter – from my personal journal on 3/12/12

“Wherever we go, we are the house of God…We need to live in the awareness that we have the ability to bring others to Christ through our obedience and maturing…We are the gate to heaven. We are the ambassadors of Christ.” Pastor Larry, 4/8/12, 4/29/12

“There is power in the tongue. Words are containers – they carry faith or fear. They carry blessing or cursing. Do you really want all the negative things you’re saying to come to pass? ” Randy Wolff, 5/4/12

I love the imagery of words being containers. Randy’s question was so logical and powerful – “Do I really want all the negative things I say come to pass?” Lord, forgive me.

“Don’t deny that sickness exists, but deny its right to exist in your body.” Randy Wolff, 5/4/12

“God’s Kingdom purposes were overshadowed by the pain of the journey in Joseph’s life.” Julia Schatz, 5/6/12

When we keep things in perspective, we can live as Joseph did – allowing God’s Kingdom purposes overshadow our pain. Julia continued with some hard-hitting lines:

“We don’t have to let our circumstances thwart God’s plan for our lives…Let’s not settle for anything less than God’s purposes in our lives…Don’t let your trails go to waste – use them as the place form which you glorify God.” Julia Schatz, 5/16/12

“Where we struggle in life, somewhere there is a lie! We’re looking at the world through a broken piece of glass.” Pastor Dan, 5/13/12

“If we’re to walk tall and consistently with the Lord, we must be unmovable in Him.” Pastor Dan, 5/27/12

“Faith is not idleness. It’s an action word.” Pastor Larry, 6/3/12

So let’s live it!

¹Faith is the confidence and substance of things hoped for – things we confidently expect to happen. It is the conviction and evidence of things not yet seen.
Hebrews 11:1 (expanded translation using NLT, NASB, NKJV, NRSV and Strong’s Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary)

Faith is this wonderful, supernatural, practical, every-day living thing. I’ll use a word that might offend some and say it almost seems magical. Sometimes you have it and sometimes you don’t. When you have it, you feel like nothing in the world can hold you back and nothing in the world is going to discourage you. When you don’t have it, it’s so easy to slide into defeatism and wonder if you’ll ever have enough faith, if you’ll ever be able to accomplish things, maybe even if you’ll ever be good enough for God. Of course the answer to that last doubt is no, you’ll never be good enough…but God doesn’t require that you be good enough. He’s already done the heavy lifting and is ready to forgive your sins if you just turn your life over to Him. If you’ve never done that, I encourage you – I urge you – to do so. You can learn more about it here. Or send me an email (sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com) and I’ll respond.

Yet even those who are confident they are living in Christ can become discouraged. As we continue to walk with the Lord, He expects us to mature in our faith. He no longer spoon feeds us to help us get through our daily life. We learn to live in Christ and overcome the things of this world. Don’t misunderstand and think that Christ isn’t always with us. He is. Just as a loving parent, though, He allows us to grow up and confidently face the challenges and experience victory in Him.

So how do we encourage ourselves in our faith? How do we increase our faith when we feel it lagging? In this series we’re going to look at five specific actions we can take that will move us past discouragement toward faith and confidence. Each of the steps will strengthen your walls of faith. They will patch the weak spots and repair the broken edges.

Remember that if you’re at a weak point, it’s unlikely you got there overnight. You’ve probably been sliding for awhile and now you find yourself at the turnoff to discouragement valley. Or perhaps you’ve already taken the exit ramp. It may take a little time to get back to the road that leads to confidence and faith. Take your time and be consistent. Take these actions – starting today – and trust that God will restore you.

Faith Building Action 1 – Praise
There is no substitute for spending time praising God and it is the single-most important action you can take when your faith is dwindling. Often, however, when your faith is low, it can be difficult to remember how to worship and praise God. (Lord, forgive us. Lord, help us.) There are two practical things you can do to help you praise God when your heart is heavy and your mind is blank:

• Remind yourself who God is. There are many ways you can do this.Here’s just a few.
  • Study or read about the different names of God. He Jehovah-Jireh – The Lord, My Provider. He has always provided for me and He always will. He is Jehovah-Raffe – The Lord, My Healer. He has made me whole!
  • When I’m having one of those medical tests that cause me stress I work through the alphabet identifying characteristics of God that are praiseworthy. He is the Alpha – He’s always been. He existed before the beginning of the world. He’s Big – bigger than any problem I’m facing. (He’s also Better at dealing with them than I am.) He Cares for me – like a mother hen wants to protect her chicks. You get the idea. If you’re working on faith building, don’t just do this in your head as I’ve done during uncomfortable medical tests, do it on paper – journal your way through the alphabet. It is a powerful exercise that can easily take several weeks. Make it a special time between you and God.
  • Read through the Psalms. Many of them describe God in ways that wouldn’t be on the tip of our tongues. He is the good shepherd (Psalm 23). He is a shield around me (Psalm 3:3). He is my rock (Psalm 18:3 and many others). You’ll also find example after example teaching you how to praise Him. “I love the LORD because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy.” (Psalm 116:1)
  • I love to read the creation story in Genesis 1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said…” (Genesis 1:1-3a, NLT). I am blown away by the power of God each time I read it – His ability to create all that exists from nothing. God’s Spirit hovered, then He spoke. And the world came into being.
  • Sing praise music. This Sunday, after each worship song our pastor had us call out things we were thankful for that we had just sung about. It made us think about the words we were singing – making it impossible to treat the worship time like a songfest. Engage while you sing praise songs and pause after each one to audibly praise God for things the song identifies.
• Remind yourself of what God has done for you. Be specific.
  • Tell yourself your “God story.” How were you saved? What prayers has He answered? How has he protected you? How has He intervened in your marriage? How has He changed your life and the lives of your children? Who has he put in your life to bless you? How have they blessed you?
  • If you’ve kept a prayer journal, re-read it. Slowly.
  • Think through the major seasons of your life and identify how God has been a part of them.
  • Think through the major events of your life and remember how God has directed them.

Our pastor said something this Sunday that I put two stars next to in my notes:

“There isn’t a wall that satan can build that cannot be torn down – demolished – with praise.”
Pastor Dan Caudill

He followed it with a second double-starred note:

“Praise disarms a complaining spirit.”
Pastor Dan Caudill

How very true this is. It’s that complaining spirit that drives us to discouragement valley. Praise takes the keys away from it and returns them to the Holy Spirit. Then He drives us to faith and confidence.

Friend, praise Him! In the morning, throughout the day and before you go to sleep every night.

It will keep you off the road to discouragement.

In a few days I’ll give you a second action to build your faith when it’s wavering. For now, let’s praise Him.

As I share more tidbits from sermon notes I took in 2011, I want to give a bit of credit. I opted not to identify who I am quoting in each line because that would be a bit tedious as most were said by one of my pastors. In other words, the same two names would appear after most of the lines and that would just take up space. So let me give credit where credit is due at the beginning of this blog. Most of the gems of wisdom and motivation you’ll read in today’s blog were said during sermons by Pastor Larry Klaiber or Pastor Danny Caudill. Both men have served Jesus many years while continuing to work an outside job. That is quite a challenge, folks, but it is also often the norm in rural areas.

After we moved from “happening” suburbs to this rural community, I often wondered why God would place such gifted preachers in such small settings. I’ve come to understand that it is not the size of the setting that makes us successful, it is our obedience to our calling; and God places His people strategically in the place of His choosing for the upbuilding of His Kingdom and His ultimate glory. Just as so many spectacular creatures shine in the darkness of the sea where no one but God seas them, many of God’s treasures labor in obscurity for His glory and without the applause of crowds.

So let me share some of the gems from my pastors’ sermons in 2011.

• When Satan brought his A game (tempting Jesus in the desert), what did Jesus do? He quoted Scripture.
  – I can’t quote it if I don’ t know it.
  – Lord, help me to remember to do the same thing when I am tempted.
• It’s not the absence of the storm that sets us apart. It’s the One we find in the storm.
• Isaiah 6:3 says that the whole earth is full of God’s glory. Let’s look for His glory everywhere we go!
• We were developing in the womb for the life we would live here; we’re developing now for the life we will live for eternity. Those things we ask “What’s the sense of it all” are for our future life (for example., our mouths had no purpose in the womb!).
  – This truth explodes in my mind! For everything you and I have ever questioned, there has been a purpose in God’s bigger picture. If we can’t see it now, we can have confidence it’s for our future.
• Faith is more than believing, it’s obeying.
• In every western movie, someone comes riding into town and all hell breaks loose. Two thousand years ago, Jesus came riding into town and all heaven broke loose!
  – Hallelujah!
• Let us act like the redeemed of the Lord – in the midst of it all – and shout “Hosanna, Son of David!”
• Ask God: “Draw me away with You.”

Which of these quotes had the most impact on you today? Leave me a comment below or on Facebook.

If you missed my first post of tidbits from 2011, click here.