Acts 2: No reason to fear.

“Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” – Acts 2:24 

The medical definition of death is “the irreversible cessation of all vital functions especially as indicated by permanent stoppage of the heart, respiration, and brain activity.” However, Isaiah 25:8 declares that “He will swallow up death forever…” Scripture says that it was impossible for death to hold Christ; it was literally impossible for Jesus to stay dead. What an incredible insight this is into God’s love, sovereignty, and power.

Psalm 68:20 says, “Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, The Lord, belong deliverances from death.” Our salvation and faith come from our personal deliverance from the death we deserve by not merely Jesus’ death on the Cross, but His resurrection as well. 1 Corinthians 15: 14-20 says, “and if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty… For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile… But now Christ is risen from the dead.”

We can take courage in that Jesus resurrected from the dead, and by this, we know our faith is not in vain. If we are to be confident in anything, we have to be confident in the fact that Jesus is more powerful than death itself and all that power rests within us.

This may seem morbid, but death is quite scary to some people. It is actually one of the things most people are afraid of. Even King David at one point in his life was afraid of death: “My heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me” Psalm 55:4-5. However, the point I’m trying to make is that God is bigger than all those pains, terrors, fears, or horrors; He is much more powerful than that.

Yet I can’t help but ask why I find myself being scared all the time; not of dying because I know I have eternal life in Christ, but just about life in general. If the Holy Spirit resides in me with such power, why am I afraid of approaching a stranger to share the Gospel? Why am I afraid of putting myself in unknown situations for Jesus’ sake? Why am I afraid to let God shine as brightly as possible in my life? The God who could not be held by death lives inside of you and me and we don’t allow Him to reveal the full extent of His power in our lives because we’re… afraid. Yet another proof of just how short we fall of the glory of God.

Psalm 56:3-4, right after David had mentioned how much pain he was going through and how overwhelmed by fear he felt, he declares that “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?”

That is a penetrating question. And it makes you search yourself.

What can flesh do to us if the Son of God who could not be held down by the power of death itself lives in us? We need to stop being afraid and take courage in Christ’s resurrection from the dead in order to do His will and fulfill the calling to which He has called us.

Full Circle

“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

Deuteronomy 8:2

I started this blog because God changed my life in Peru in June of 2014. He used that trip to bring me back to Him, to redeem and restore my life, to guide me back into a sweet relationship with Him.

Since then, I have constantly had to go out of my comfort zone, and it has been so rewarding every time. I have had to speak on stage with no prior warning, approach strangers and make friends with them (I scared a few of them away, sorry!), camp in the Bahamas in pretty horrible camping conditions, jump off a cliff (okay, that was just for fun), teach for the first time ever and in front of a panel of women, and now be part of a flashmob as I get ready to return to Peru in about a week.

This past year has been nothing short of adventurous and full of unknowns. But as I meditate on that verse above, I cannot help but see how God has led me from one situation to the next. I did not know where each step was leading, but I was willing to follow His lead.

As I became part of a discipleship group, I desired to be humbled and tested. I wanted God to reveal what was in my heart. I wanted to become a woman who follows His commandments out of joy, and not out of fear or indifference. And oh did He answer those prayers! The humbling came, the tests, the searching, the exposure of hidden things in my life, and the tears came. SO many tears. Tears of sorrow, tears of repentance, tears of yearning, and tears of joy.

I feel joy because It has been a year of letting God take the lead and seeing the difference it has made in my life. My first blog post starts out:

“If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?” Galatians 2:14

 A hypocrite. That’s what I was.”

But because of HIS never ending love and grace towards me, I can stand here, one year later, and write a blog that starts out:

“…For I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the Lord; I shall not slip. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, And I have walked in Your truth.” Psalm 26:1-3

Your life CAN be redeemed, my friends. He is a builder and repairer. Want to know the best part? He wants to. (Read Ezra and Nehemiah!)

Jeremiah 29:13 says “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Just as He has been faithful with me, He is with you, even when you and I are not.

Seek him. Ask him to search you out. Repent from your sins and ask him to redeem you and build you up in Him. But don’t forget to also actually receive His forgiveness and His love. Accept it. Take it. Embrace it.

It is worth it.

#shamelessplug: If you’d like to donate any amount for my trip to help me finish fundraising, you may go here and click on my name, Gaby Herrera. It would mean the world to me, as all I want is to go and be used to transform lives as I myself am radically transformed into a woman who brings glory to God.  

When He searches you out

“Will it be well with you when He searches you out?”

Job 13:9

This is what Job asked his friends as he was going through the darkest time in his life. His friends had taken their God given wisdom and applied it deceitfully to reason away the things that were happening to him. Instead of believing them, Job tells them that God will judge them for their sins.

I can’t help but ask what would God find in me when He examines me.

In Luke 11, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders at the time. They were powerful and educated. They knew the Torah, and lived their lives according to it. But they also thought they were better than the rest, judged everyone who didn’t live up to their standards or have a lifestyle they approved of, and always looked for ways to humiliate and shame those outside their Pharisee bubble. They lived by a checklist and believed that was good enough. Anyone else who didn’t comply with the checklist was a target for them. It’s easy for us to look at them and criticize all their flaws, faults, and sins. But wouldn’t be we doing the same thing then?

You see, the Pharisees looked perfect on the outside: They went to temple, gave money, prayed, etc. But Jesus saw their hearts and knew they were rotten on the inside. He tells them “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil.” (Luke 11:39)

Their checklist was not good enough for Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus explains to the disciples that “every plant My heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted” (15:13). God will search you out, and He will point out things in your life which need to go, whether it is greed, pride, a judgmental mind, or a gambling problem. He does this because He doesn’t want you to have a dirty heart, He longs for us to be clean.

Once we accept His gift of grace and allow Jesus to come into our heart and we become His children, we are clean in His eyes. But we are still imperfect humans, and only over time and obediently giving our hearts to God every day for Him to point out things in our lives that need to be cleaned out, will we be able to be clean on the inside.

I encourage you to ask yourself the same thing I have been asking myself lately, ‘what are the things in my heart that need to go? what would Jesus say to me about my cups and dishes? would it be well with me when He searches me, or am I afraid of what He’ll find?’ Guys, He already knows. He doesn’t want you to do anything on your own, He wants to do it for us. He’s just waiting for us to be willing to have that conversation with Him.

“casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you”

1 Peter 5:7

“Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us”

Psalm 62:8

Just Do It

“Pray without ceasing”

1 Thessalonians 5:17

“But you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”

Jude 1:20-21

That’s all the first verse says. Pray. all. the. time. But when you do, pray IN the Holy Spirit.

What does that mean? Pray for God to do His will, regardless of your personal wishes.

After a tough teaching from Jud Heald in Peru, I think  everyone on the team learned how powerful prayer is, how important it is for us to rely on His power, and to have faith that He listens and answers when we call to Him. Once we were rebuked by our lack of faith in the power of prayer and exhorted to expect things to happen when we do pray, our eyes were opened.

It was by faithful prayer that Angel, a seven year old boy from a small village in the mountains who had never spoken in his life, received a voice and we were there to witness him say his name for the first time.

It was in that same Spirit that some of our guys prayed over my friend Rogan’s ankle and he was able to run back to the basketball court to keep playing and ministering to the boys, a few minutes after he had hurt his bad ankle.

It was the innocent heart of an eight year old, Nolber, who believed God would listen to him, that my friend Siria and I prayed in the middle of the street for his family and for his dad, that he would come back home.

It was by faith in the Holy Spirit that I prayed for Nolber’s family, and felt God call me to knock on their door. In faith, my friends Lupo and Michelle came with me to witness to Nolber’s family. And in the middle of the night, in a deserted basketball court in the rain, all four of them prayed and were saved by faith in Jesus Christ.

It was through a desire to keep praying in the Holy Spirit, that Michelle, Deborah, Rogan, Jacob, Lupo, and I walked the streets of Lima to evangelize one night and were able to meet people we wouldn’t have otherwise, and share God’s love with them.

God listens. We can’t pray wholeheartedly and not expect things to change. And if we don’t pray wholeheartedly, we’re praying without faith and belittling God’s power.

Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s give it our all. Don’t let the enemy or you mind tell you that God would be annoyed. He wants to hear from us all day long.

“Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us”

Psalm 62:8