We’ve all heard the mantra “Love is Love.” The world has redefined what love is and it didn’t come from the Bible. The Bible says God is love and God defined love. It’s time we take a stand and take back the truth according to theWord of God.

Our world has redefined what God created, love, gender, freedom even!

We were all born into sin, BUT we all have a choice to walk away from that and be willing to change and transform our hearts and mind to the things of God! We alone can’t make anything righteous! GOD alone is righteous!

1 John 4:16b –“God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.”

We see the phrase “Love is love” and it makes us stop and think – has that phrase encompassed loving everything, including sin? And if we take a stand against sin and calling it out, does that make us hateful?? Judgmental?

1 Corinthians 2:15– “But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.”

We have become a generation so laxed in the things of God that we have turned a blind eye and somehow have an obligation to make sure everyone is included and accepted, even if that compromises Godliness.

Lust of the flesh, abortion…So many of these issues have become tolerated in our society because we go by the phrase “Love is Love,” and that has enabled us to somehow feel “right” about allowing some sin in so others won’t feel left out. But what does God say about these things and why have we become so afraid to voice them?

I think the first step is we need to be clear about what Love is by the Creator of Love! The famous verse:

John 3:16 -17– “ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

I John 4:7-8– “Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love.”

Our society confuses love and lust.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7-Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.”

Life Application Study Bible Concordance

“Our society confuses love and lust. Unlike lust, God’s kind of  love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations. It is possible to practice this kind of love only if God helps us set aside our own desires and instincts, so that we can give love while expecting nothing in return. Thus the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.”

Yes, God is love and we are called to love everyone and we do!! But we are not called to love sin! We are called to spread the love of Jesus so that everyone who knows is accountable for their own walk. Unfortunately, there is a heaven and a hell. God never created hell for people! Hell was solely created for Satan and his demons. But by our own selfish desire to choose life contrary to the Word of God, we submit ourselves to hell.

When looking at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7– we see that love isn’t a feeling. Love is an action! It’s all about DOING something, not “feeling” something! First you CHOOSE, then you act!

Love isn’t a feeling and that’s where we get it wrong sometimes. We think it’s our right to love who and what we want to, what we feel like. Our generation is all about rights- we demand more rights, more freedom to do what WE want! We believe women have the “right” to choose over their own bodies! But don’t you know our bodies belong to Christ if you dwell in Christ? It’s not our choice, it’s God’s!! God is the one who chooses life and death, yet we have become little god’s choosing for ourselves and then wondering why everything is going wrong! We have become so self focused, that we are not God focused! We were not created to live according to our flesh – in fact we are instructed to kill our fleshly desires!! However, we have taken the liberties of God and sacrificed them for lies.

Love is a choice! It’s hard, often painful even. We don’t always want to choose what is right because it doesn’t feel good! If we all walked around serving our fleshly desires and demanding to live life as WE want and feel, we would be in such a dangerous position. Love is longevity in a world of temporal. And Jesus was our greatest example of choosing love for us as He chose to die on the cross and take on our sins. That didn’t “feel” good!

Love actually isn’t all romance and rainbows. We see love displayed contrary to the Word of God and we just say, “Well let them be happy!” It’s all about what we want! We have turned God’s selfless love into something so selfish. God created love and He created it to free us, not enslave us to sin.

1 Peter 1:13-16So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvelous grace that is coming to you. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled a greater measure of grace will be released to you. As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better.Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you. For Scripture says:

“You are to be holy, because I am holy.”

John 14:15– “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

We can’t pick and choose what we want from the bible. We can’t take only the things we agree with and disregard the rest.

Revelations 22:18– “I testify to everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone subtracts from the prophetic words of this book, God will remove his portion from the Tree of Life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

The problem we have in our world is we look at people as the enemy. We have only one enemy – satan and his demons. We fight with weapons of this world, accomplishing nothing because our war is not with flesh and blood. Our war is not against people, but against sin…

Ephesians 6:13-15– “Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage. Because of this, you must wear all the armor that God provides so you’re protected as you confront the slander for you are destined for all things and will rise victorious.”

We are a divided nation. We point fingers and are hateful with people who don’t agree with us. The bible tells us to be angry, but do not sin. We have spoken truth but with out love. Jesus was our example of love, in action, not feeling! Like scripture says, we don’t judge people! We love everyone – yes!! But we hate the sin!!

Love is not about accepting all things and compromising, sacrificing God’s Word so that people feel good in their sin. The Word is going to rub us the wrong way. It can even feel offensive, but the Word says below:

1 Corinthians 2:14– “Someone living on an entirely human level rejects the revelations of God’s Spirit, for they make no sense to him. He can’t understand the revelations of the Spirit because they are only discovered by the illumination of the Spirit.”

Romans 8:7-9– “In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction, because it cannot!  For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh. But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction because it cannot! For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh. But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. And if you are not joined to the Spirit of the Anointed One, you are not of him. And if you are not joined to the Spirit of the Anointed One, you are not of him.”

The time is now more than ever to walk in truth, reliant on the Holy Spirit, not our flesh. We must be willing to sacrifice and endure persecution for the sake of the gospel. We must take a stand for righteousness with boldness and courage, fearing only God and not man!

This isn’t an easy topic to talk about, but one we feel needs to be addressed.  For so long, we have allowed sin to creep in little by little. How did we allow this? How did we get here? We believe two reasons –  We lost the fear/reverence of God and the Holy Spirit. Without the two, we lack Godly wisdom and have been unable to speak up with boldness without the power backing us.

Over time, we started to feel the pressures and ideologies of the world make sense. At first, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. But, over time, little by little, we failed to recognize that the more we accepted societal norms, the further away we were getting from God’s Word until it didn’t even convict us anymore. Some of us look at the things we stand for now and wonder how we got here. Little by little… Some of us have become so conditioned to the things of the world, we don’t even realize we have walked away from God’s principles. Sure, we may still be going to Church and claiming Christianity, but are we really taking a stand for Godly principles?

Romans 12:2– “Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.”

1 Timothy 4:1-2– “The Holy Spirit has explicitly revealed. At the end of this age, many will depart from the true faith one after another, devoting themselves to spirits of deception and following demon-inspired revelations and theories. Hypocritical liars will deceive many, and their consciences won’t bother them at all!”

* Deception – we don’t even have the conviction anymore to understand that we’re not right. We believe lies to be true

We are trying to be so politically correct that we’ve sacrificed being spiritually correct. We have a greater fear of man’s disapproval than we do a reverence for God and it is a dangerous place to become hard-hearted to the things of God because when we are, we don’t even feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit guiding truth anymore. The enemy’s plan is to completely distract us from the things of God because then God can’t use us.

We are so afraid of offending people, wanted to be accepted and liked, not wanting to cause confrontation, that we compromise who we are and what our beliefs are to be liked and accepted. That fear of man has so debilitated us that we go along with the sin.

We read this on a blog called Desiring God by John Bloom and we just loved it – “Fear of man can immobilize us when we should take action and gag us into silence when we should speak. It feels powerful, but its power is deceptive.”

Prov. 29:25– “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.”

We have become a nation where sin is literally not just accepted, but applauded. Wrong has become right and right has become wrong. As children of God, we believe it’s time our generation steps up and redefine the Word of God in today’s society.

We have slowly turned away from our faith, allowing things to creep in until we believed them to be true. The media, social media, everything around us has clouded what we knew to be true. We have stepped away from spending more time in our Word and spend more time on social media, watching the News, feeding on everything the world is pouring into us. It is a cunning craft of the enemy to turn our hearts away from the things of God and believe we have to accept the things of the world.

1 John 2:15-17– “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

A lot of these issues we are talking about are controversial. Sure, we have ALL sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! But do we keep walking in sin taking advantage of grace?

Romans 6:15– “Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!”

Why are girls who were born boys allowed to change in the same locker room as our daughters? Why when I take my kids shopping are there gay pride flags hanging in department stores? Why has this become so common and accepted that we aren’t taking a stand for holiness?

Why are we murdering children in the womb? Do we not remember that, not matter how conception happened that God beautifully and wonderfully created us in our mother’s womb?? Not some of us, depending on how the circumstances were, but ALL of us?

1 Corin. 6:9-11– “Surely you must know that people who practice evil cannot possess God’s kingdom realm. Stop being deceived! People who continue to engage in sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, homosexuality, fraud, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, or extortion—these will not inherit God’s kingdom realm. It’s true that some of you once lived in those lifestyles, but now you have been purified from sin, made holy, and given a perfect standing before God—all because of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and through our union with the Spirit of our God.”

Matthew 10:28– “Don’t be in fear of those who can kill only the body but not your soul. Fear only God, who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Hebrews 13:6– “I know the Lord is for me and I will never be afraid of what people may do to me.”

It’s time to stop accepting and allowing ungodliness to rein our nation.

Revelation 3:16– “But because you are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, I am about to spit you from my mouth.”

We need to CHOOSE whom we will serve, God or the World. We can’t serve both. Either all of the Bible is true, or none of it is true! We can’t take what we want and see what fits our society best! We need to take the Word and change our society!

1 Corinthians 6:12 – 13– “ It’s true that our freedom allows us to do anything, but that doesn’t mean that everything we do is good for us. I’m free to do as I choose, but I choose to never be enslaved to anything. Some have said, “I eat to live and I live to eat!” But God will do away with it all. The body was not created for illicit sex, but to serve and worship our Lord Jesus, who can fill the body with himself.”

(Life Application Study Bible, Concordance)

“Apparently the Church had been quoting and misapplying the words, “everything is permissible for me.” Some Christians in Corinth were excusing their sins by saying that (1) Christ had taken away all sin, and so they had complete freedom to live as they pleased, or (2) what they were doing was not strictly forbidden by Scripture. Paul answered both of these excuses. (1) While Christ has taken away our sin, this does not give us freedom to go on doing what we know is wrong. The New Testament specifically forbids many sins that were originally prohibited in the Old Testament. (2) Some actions are not sinful themselves, but they are not appropriate because they can control our lives and lead us away from God. (3) Some actions may hurt others. Anything we do that hurts rather than helps others is not right.

Joshua 24:15– “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

“What are we thinking America? Are the men and women of our nation ready to kill a newborn because we have a new right to murder our unwanted children in their 9th month? Are we truly so demented that we can redefine our bodies which determine if we are men or women? Do we think we are wiser, more just, and greater than our Creator? Has man finally fallen into such darkness of soul that wrong becomes right and right becomes wrong? If we do not speak up and speak out truth – our salt will soon lose its flavor and be thrown out,”

Pastor Deborah Cobrae

 

Delving deeper into the importance and how we all need an inner circle, we know that Jesus had a multitude and many followed him and probably wanted to be close to him. However, it’s impossible to have many close intimate friends. Its not about more, but few! We have said it before and we will say it again – its not about quantity but quality friends!

Who you take and bring along your journey will determine where you end up.

When we look at Jesus, he wasn’t concerned about impressing or pleasing the crowd. He didn’t allow the multitudes to continue to follow him, but he selected out of the hundreds, 12 to train up.

Now we want to focus in even more on Jesus’ 3, Peter, James and John.  Even Jesus needed and an inner circle that he could trust and be vulnerable with.

We want to take a look again at the scriptures we used in the last blog, but point out something important that God showed us.

The first one is found in Matthew 17:1-12 (Read)

1. They were given special revelation that not everyone else received

We cannot share and give to many. We have to be selective in who we share our battles and victories with. There are moments in our lives that are special to us, and we want to share that, but not everyone can appreciate it. How many times have you shared with the wrong person and they were unable to rejoice with you? That is why it’s not for everyone to share and open up to. We see that the moment Jesus’ appearance was transformed and Moses and Elijah began talking with Jesus, the reaction of Peter was “Lord its wonderful for us to be here.” He showed appreciation and then he asked Jesus if he wanted him to build a memorial. Then God spoke and the disciples were afraid and fell face down. They didn’t understand yet, but we see it was the beginning of worship. I love how it goes on to say that Jesus went over to them and touched them and said “ get up, don’t be afraid” He didn’t just speak to them but he went over and touched them. We see a very special bond between these 3.

2. They were allowed into a intimate conversation amongst God, Moses and Elijah.

Matthew 17:1-2– “Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.”

We can also see that not everyone is invited into deep conversations. We need to at least have one that we can have intimate conversations with. One we             can open up with and be vulnerable with.

3. Jesus tells them not to tell anyone what they had seen

Matthew 17:9– “As they all hiked down the mountain together, Jesus ordered them, “Don’t tell anyone of the divine appearance you just witnessed. Wait until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

Here we see something very important and that’s trust. Jesus in a sense let them in on a secret and trusted them not to say anything yet. We can learn from this example that we cannot trust everyone with our heart and things we share. He must have knew these 3 could be trusted not to go back and tell the other disciples what had happened.

The next scripture we want to take a look at is Mark 5:37 (it can also be found in Luke 8:51)

We know the story of Jesus going to heal Jairus’ daughter. We wanted to point out that when he got to the house, the crowd was weeping and mourning her death and Jesus replied, “she is not dead. She is sleeping.” The crowd laughed at him, but he made them all leave, except the parents, Peter, James and John.

We can see from here that there will be those that laugh at your belief; those that think you are crazy. Jesus was not moved. He didn’t break down and ask why they were laughing at him. He told them to go, get out! When you are believing for something, you may have to remove people. Don’t allow them to hinder what you do. Jesus knew he was about to raise her from the dead and he didn’t need any unbelief. He only allowed his 3 inner-circle of friends to be with him!

Mark 5:43– “Jesus had them bring her something to eat. And he repeatedly cautioned them that they were to tell no one about what had happened.”

We also see again here Jesus told them do not tell anyone what had happened. Again he had trust in them to keep it with them.

The last scripture is Matt 26:36 (also found in Mark 14:32-34)

What we want to point out here is when Jesus went to go pray at the Garden of Gethsemane, He took again Peter James and John. He was at such a vulnerable moment. He was distressed and anguished. He told the 3 “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” Jesus showed vulnerability and opened up his truest feelings to the 3.

If you read down a little further, we see that the disciples fell asleep and Jesus stopped praying and went to them and found them asleep. Jesus didn’t get angry and say forget it, let me go get someone else. Instead he taught them something even in his weakest moment. He told them the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and weren’t back to pray. This happened 3 times.

Understand, that we will be let down and disappointed. Even your inner circle will fail, but remember it’s about the heart. Even though the disciples failed Jesus, Jesus knew their heart, He knew their flesh was weak and instead of being angry with them, He taught them!

Matthew 26:40– “Later, he came back to his three disciples and found them all sound asleep. He awakened Peter and said to him, “Do you lack the strength to stay awake with me for even just an hour?”

Sissy and I let each other down, but we are committed to each other and don’t exchange the other for someone else when we fail each other. We know each other’s hearts and I know my sister has me!

1 Corinthians 13:5– “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

“The world may not understand our bond, but as long as we stick together, that’s all that matters,” Anonymous

Who do you take with you on your faith journey? Not everyone can go with you. Who you take and allow to speak into you, will either guide you to your destination or deter you from it.

When you are believing God for something out of the realm of normal, whom do you trust with that God vision? Who can you take on that journey with you to stand and believe with you for the things that seem out of the ordinary, the things that are hard sometimes to believe for? Not everyone you call friend will be able to go where God is taking you, or have the ability to see what you are seeing.

We take the life of Jesus and we see how He chose His friends wisely, how He chose His select carefully and in our lives today, we tend to be pretty casual with choosing our friends. We have talked a lot about some of this in our Covenant blogs, but this goes hand in hand with whom that person will be to walk out your God dreams with you and continue to stand for you even when you get weak.

Jesus had the multitude that he taught. He had the 70 that he organized, then the 12 disciples he tookunder Him, and 3 that were his inner most circle.

There are three types of friendships – the outter court (aquaintances), inner court (closer friends) and the holy of holies (inner circle; the closest who you can trust with your heart).

Read Mark 3:13-19as it describes Jesus’s choosing of His disciples.

A disciple is simply one who accepts and assists in the spreading of the doctrines of another. In other words, for us as Christians – one who follows and spreads the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That would mean Jesus definitely had more than 12 disciples following Him, but He chose 12 to train up to go out and spread His ministry, to do the work He was doing and to be His hands and feet, to be in His inner circle so to speak. Not everyone you hang around with can be in your inner circle.

Mark 3:13-15– “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him.He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.”

We see here that Jesus went on a Mountainside and already knew whom He was going to choose. He doesn’t specify in scripture WHY He chose these particular 12, but we can see throughout the New Testament different encounters Jesus had with them and they were all so very diverse –a fisherman, a tax collector and more.

The number 12 can be related to the 12 tribes of Israel in the following verse:

Matthew 19:28– “Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

So from there, we derive why the number 12 was so significant in the Ministry of Jesus.

But, my sister and I want to take this even further. While Jesus specifically chose 12 disciples to mentor and train, He couldn’t possibly have them all in sync, following His every move together. They were human. They doubted at times, rebelled, wavered, questioned like most of us at times. Jesus didn’t fire them or give up on them because of that. He continued to love and teach them because it’s us –just like them, imperfect and sometimes wavering, BUT with a heart for God and that’s what He can use!

That being said, we can all probably say we have friends we can ask to pray for us, friends we can have fun and laugh with and trust to hold us up when our faith is tested…But what about those times God gives you something or tells you to do something that is so far fetched that you can barely believe it yourself!! In those times, you can’t always turn to your 12. In those times, you have to see the select one or ones out of that even to trust with that God vision. Even Moses formed an inner circle, as it was Aaron who was his High Priest.

Everyone wanted to be close to Jesus but he didn’t allow access to everyone, but Jesus had his 3 that were allowed intimate insights… Out of His 12, there were 3 that were especially close to His heart: Peter, James and his brother John. These 3 were key to Jesus’s Ministry. These were the 3 Jesus saw something more in. When an extraordinary manifestation of Jesus’s glory occurred, it was Peter, James and John that Jesus took with Him.

1. The raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37) “So they left for his home, but Jesus didn’t allow anyone to go with them except Peter and the two brothers, Jamesand John.”

2. The Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1)“Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and hiked up a high mountain to be alone.”

3. Jesus needing strength in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33) “He took Peter, James, and John with him. An intense feeling of great horror plunged his soul into deep sorrow and agony.And he said to them,“My heart is overwhelmed with anguish and crushed with grief. It feels as though I’m dying. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

These 3 walked closely with Jesus and showed more maturity in their faith when their calling was still so new to them.

These 3 were dear to Jesus and they got to see and behold things that others did not.

What did the other 9 disciples think? Did they think Jesus showed favoritism? The bible doesn’t tell us, but I wonder if there was any complaining going on among the 9. Was there talk amongst them about why Jesus didn’t take anyone else.

Don’t worry about what others may say. Don’t worry about trying to please everyone. It’s your journey and you get to choose who is in it with you.

Jesus did not worry what the other 9 would think; He knew the importance and value of close knitted friends. He knew in order to go and do certain things in ministry, He needed his inner circle.

Why Peter? It could be many reasons, but scripture tells us that Peters loved Jesus more than any of the other Apostles. John 21:15shows us that Jesus asked Peter 3 times if He loved Him and Peter replied that he had a burning love for Jesus.

In Matthew 16:16– Peter confessed His belief in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God and that was something even the disciples were still struggling with. It was here we get the verse:

Matthew 16:18-19– “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that soon after, Peter was one of the 3 Jesus chose to experience the Transfiguration. In fact, Jesus called Peter blessed because His confession of Jesus as the Messiah had not yet been revealed by humans means. Peter still showed weakness in His ministry, denying Jesus 3 times; however even in His weaknesses He was still one of the most prominent Apostles, evangelizing the Word of God.

James and John were brothers that were very close to each other and very close to Jesus. Again, imperfect, though.

Luke 9:51-56– “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.”

As we see here, James and John were a bit harsh. You can almost say they reveled in their authority as Jesus’s elect. There was even a situation where these brothers, along with their “momager” asked Jesus if they could sit at His right and left sides in His Kingdom because they could surely endure the same cup and baptism Jesus was about to experience. BUT with all that, they had hearts for Jesus that truly stood out amongst the other disciples, allowing them to hold a special place with Jesus to be trusted more securely with His Ministry. These brothers loved Jesus and as Jesus was dying on the cross, it was John He entrusted His mother to. James was the first apostle to die – he was the first martyr. John was the last apostle to die and the only non-martyr. These brothers, though a bit harsh at times, endured intense suffering for their commitment to Jesus and the Ministry.

We can all have a group of friends. We can all have an Army on our side, but when push comes to shove and you need those who’s hearts are one with yours, who see your visions and will come along side you – it’s impossible to entrust many. They may not be perfect – they may not always agree, BUT they are willing to trust the God that is speaking to you and come in unity with your vision to help you believe and encourage you along the way.