WILDERNESS TIME

In Hosea chapter 2, it talks about God bringing His people into the wilderness. The wilderness can be a scary place, dry, desolate, wild animals, etc. You get the picture…

But what we must know is that God brings His people into the wilderness, not to strip them bare or point the finger and dig up old wounds or torment them for past sins. The point of the wilderness is to free you. Free you from the attachments to lesser and damaging things. Wilderness time is not primarily about the pain and struggle; it’s about you getting closer to God.

Hosea 2:14-16
14 “ Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
15 I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
16 “ And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the LORD,

“ That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’

So in that wilderness comes a door of hope, take it and walk through to your promised land.

Yours for revival,
Pastor Francis Armstrong

The Life of Faith

I’m not sure how you feel but I don’t like mundane or boring routine. I feel life should be exciting and unpredictable. Serving Jesus should be an awesome life, but religion has made it boring and full of routine.

I say let’s break it!

Noah was a farmer and God came to him and said, “Build a boat, it’s going to rain!” Here is the problem, if I’m Noah, “What’s boat?” and “What’s rain?” Noah was being asked to build something he had never built, for something coming that he had never seen.

Folks, that is called FAITH!

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 the righteousness which is according to faith. (Hebrews 11:7)

Faith breaks the routine and brings us into another world where all things are possible. Would you not rather live in that world? I know I would.

Yours for revival,

Pastor Francis Armstrong

True Revival

The danger of being a Christian for any length of time, is that church life can become routine with very little expectation of anything new.

It's like taking a teaspoon, dipping it into the ocean and saying, "this is God". Then we pour it over our head and say "this is the Christian experience".
God calls us to dive in the ocean. Prayer is boring when it is merely an attempt to maintain our present level of communion with God.

Let me encourage you to read Psalm 85, it is a prayer for revival.

It's a prayer about asking God to help get you out of your spiritual decline
It is a prayer to get you out of apathy, vs. 6 says "will you not revive us again" and after we are revived, the promise in vs. 12 is to "get ready for a new harvest".

Psalm 85 should make our mouth thirsty for Him, because if it did, Jesus said "come and drink".

Yours for Revival

Pastor Francis

Is God asking you to do more?

In the fall of 2007 I met a boy who changed my life. He was a little boy we found in tears on the street. He had just lost all of his money after working all day and was upset at the prospect of going home to face his father without earnings. Myself and the others with me that day gave him more than enough to double what he had lost – to us, it was just about twenty dollars. To him it meant much more.

That little boy right now is somewhere in Guatemala, probably earning a living for himself and his family the same way he was that day. I haven’t seen him before or since in my several trips to the country. But that day God asked me if I could do more.

More meant opening a children’s home in Villa Nueva, Guatemala, a more rough community than some in Guatemala. We have called it Casa de Alabbanza – “House of Praise”.

In November 2008 we found land to purchase. In April 2009 we began a three year contract to pay off a $200,000.00 USD building that once was a school. This April we will pay the third and final installment of about $70,000.00 CAN (depending on our currency at the time of payment).

Not only will we be finished paying for the building this April, but we believe we will be permitted by the Government to begin taking children into our home. We will begin with just a few, but within a year we could have up to 40, possibly 50, children that right now are living in abusive, neglected and abandoned states.

We have renovated, bought supplies, received donations, brought on Directors (Dan and Ashley Arnoldussen), and are ready for children. But we need your help. We have just 10 weeks before we need to send $70,000.00 CAN. My question to you is this: Is God asking you to do more?

Yours for revival,

Pastor Francis Armstrong

Hope

As I randomly read the news today I noticed several different things.

in one article they were wondering if there was a war on police officers with 11 killed across America in a few days period.

Another article was about the mystery birds falling out of the sky, to find out they were poisoned for being pests.

Another article talks about churches that are going into foreclosure at an alarming rate. And there were many others of the same nature.

It’s not quite a world gone bad; it’s a world gone crazy.

Yet Jesus told us these days would come upon the earth in the book of Matthew. For all the uncertainty in our world, one thing you can count on – Jesus is coming!

So with a world in a free fall, should we, the church, not come out of hiding and tell the world Jesus is their shelter in any storm. That God does love people. That there is hope. It’s time for Christians to show that we are following Christ. In times of trouble we want to follow those who know what to do. Let’s be like the men of Issachar in the Bible, who knew what to do in troubled times.

Yours for revival,

Pastor Francis Armstrong

Turning 50

Some interesting things happened since I last blogged. For one, I turned 50, still getting used to that. I loved my 40’s which were the new 30’s so 50 will be like 40 – you know what I mean LOL. Age is what you make of it. I just want to make sure I am fulfilling my destiny.

Another interesting thing that happened was on December 21 the moon turned red. When Joel spoke of the last days he mentioned this in Acts 2:20:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

So to me, turning 50 and having a red moon means Jesus is coming soon. Sooner than we think!

Are you ready? I trust you are.

Yours for revival,

Pastor Francis Armstrong

2010

As we get ready to close out 2010 and enter 2011 some may say, “Praise the Lord! What a terrible year. Can’t wait till it’s over.”, etc. The question I have is, “Whoever said that Divine order would be easy?” It’s like God dropped a plumb line and said, “Now line up.”

So I am thankful for this year. Yes I felt like quitting, weekly sometimes. Yes, it would be easy to run but to where, and when do you stop?

So embrace this year and thank God for it. I bet you grew more than you realize. I would say more things are in order now in your life than early in the year.

So I can’t wait for 2011!

Yours for revival,

Pastor Francis Armstrong