Before IKE

Well Ike is about 200 miles away and we are bracing ourselves. It’s only during times like this that words such as “20’ storm surge”, “Mandatory evacuation”, “Shelter in place”, or my personal favorite, “Hunker down” used in casual conversation. Besides standing in line at Home Depot for two hours to buy plywood and chasing down grocery carts at Wal-Mart, it has been uneventful. We will be riding out the storm at my parents home on the far north side of Houston.

Check out the live cams of Galveston here.

Track Ike live here

31 Candles for me!

I finally crossed over to the darkside. They say it's all down hill from here.

A Royal Fellowship of Death pt.1

What we know of death in the natural realm can be applied to dying to self in the spiritual realm. We understand death to be the climatic conclusion of weakness in the body carried out in its matured form. The highest manifestation of weakness in the body is death. His strength (life) is perfected in our weakness (death). 2 Cor. 12:9. He was crucified through weakness, yet He lives by the power of God, we are also weak (dead) in Him but we live with Him through the
power of God. 2 Cor. 13:4 In death the spirit lives on independent of the body. The Apostle Paul declared to be absent from the body (death) was to be present with the Lord. 2Cor. 5:8. In our daily life there must be an "absence" from the flesh. Putting to death whatever belongs to the earthly nature- Col 3:5 and the misdeeds of the body, you will live Rom. 8:13

"What man considers death angels consider birth" -FB Meyer

The moments of "absence" are moments of His presence. The way to experience the presence of God is through a daily dying to self. The dead in Christ shall rise first! 1Thes. 4:14,16

What do you think?

-Steve

Cross-Moments

When the Spirit prompts you to move, to act, he is really prompting us to trust, and believe. These are opportunities to die to self. The instinctive nature of man is self-preservation and it will hinder you from dieing to self.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. –Romans 6:6,7,11

We accepted this death because we believed that God could resurrect new life within us. You had a Cross-moment. The cross is not a one-time moment.

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. –Luke 9:23

God wants us to have cross moments everyday. We need to die to self; daily.
The key to experiencing spiritual power is dieing to self. If we desire to become like Christ in His life we must become like Him in His death. The reason we do not want to die to self is because we do not believe that God raises the dead. The key to victory and defeat is in yielding. Romans 6:11-13

The Amazing Cross is even woven into our DNA structure!

Watch this. It's kind of long but wait for the "hook" it will be worth it.

The Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty - Romans 6

"The sixth chapter of Romans is the Magna Carta of spiritual liberty because it reveals God's plan of deliverance through the Cross of Christ. Every babe in Christ needs to know the truth of this passage of Scripture. Romans 6 very clearly explains the basis of deliverance...

"Only by understanding what it means to have died with Christ (Romans 6:3-8), and what it means to put to death the 'deeds of the body' (Romans 8:13), can the believer live and walk and act through the Spirit, and in this way become a spiritual man..."

-Jesse Penn-Lewis

Funny Commercial- Don't skip your breakfast!

Wanderlust

I have often told the men in our Maxman Men's ministry that "wondering eyes is a sign of a wondering heart". Have you ever wondered into a place of spiritual defeat? It's sort of the opposite side of the pendulum swing. Maybe you feel as if discouragement or uncertainty has moved in like a thick fog. Although you feel a heaviness lingering, you cannot point to a specific sin. It may be that you are experiencing the effects of a wondering heart. It could be in the form of a thought that is slightly out of line with Gods Word. Or it could be an unforgiving seed that has begun breaking skin. How do you resolve this unseen heart condition? Here is a simple suggestion. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any area of wanderlust in your heart. Ask God to realign your heart and produce the proper response in you. I have found that this simple act of humility can often be enough to realign the heart because it refocuses our faith and causes us to return to a place of dependence on Christ.

-PST

Brother where art thou?

As I write this, government has spent over $29 billion dollars fighting the war on drugs. Check out the war on drugs clock. Those same dollars in the hands of Christ-centered programs would literally reshape society, as we know it. A newspaper reporter once asked me, “Do you have any clinical professionals on staff at your recovery center?” My question for her was “Why would I want any?” Conventional wisdom would say that you need clinical professionals to treat substance abuse. Yet the hospitals and clinics that employ these high paid professionals have a 90% failure rate among patients. Now before we get to sidetracked here and start blaming the government, we should consider one thing. It has only been the past few decades since the church has stepped up and began reaching out to the addicted. Even still it is mostly Para-church organizations doing the work. So this is only one area that the tables have been turned. Government still has the church beat in most other forms of outreach. The difference is they call it “Human Resources”.

Pastor Herbert is a friend of mine who pastors a church in the slums of Uganda, Africa. He regularly experiences power outings during his church services and its not uncommon for his chairs to be stolen since his building has no walls. When his brother died of AIDS he left behind eight children. Read more

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Watchman Nee Quotes- The Crucified Life

You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death of the thieves with Him. Now what about your own death? Your crucifixion is more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the same time as the Lord but on different crosses, whereas you were crucified on the selfsame cross as He, for you were in Him when He died. How can you know? You can know for the one sufficient reason that God said so. It does not depend on your feelings. If you feel that Christ has died, He has died; and if you do not feel that He has died, He had died. If you feel that you have died, you have died; and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely died. These are divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that the two thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also. Let me tell you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The self you loathe is on the Cross of Christ. And "he that is dead is freed from sin" (Romans 6:7 Amplified). This is the Gospel for Christians.

A message by Steve Trevino on proper devotion to God.

Play Here

I feel like a Blog Slacker too.

A friend of mine Jeremy, wrote in his blog a couple of weeks ago that he felt like a blog slacker because he hadn't posted anything in a few days. I know what you mean man, I feel like one too. It's been crazy the past couple of days! I was hosting Dr. Buddy Bell and wife Kathy last week as we held a ministry of helps conference. You need to bring Buddy to your church he is awesome. I built a new website for the ministry called www.victoryfamilylive.com I am very excited to anounce that we have started streaming our church services live on the web, every week! If you go to the new website you can see the past services and check out the conference.

Doug Stringer steaks at the Texas State Convention of the Republican Party

Something Amazing has happen in the last 5o years!

There is a world wide epidemic called drug addiction that is enslaving millions of men and women. But something amazing is happening! An amazing phenomenon has quietly occurred around the world in the past 50 years.

People are being CURED FROM DRUG ADDICTION! Not in hospitals, clinics, prisons or government programs. IT’S HAPPENING IN CHURCHES! It's happening in residential Christ-centered programs like Victory Family. Drug-Addicts all over the world are TURNING TO JESUS CHRIST to be set free from their addictions! Why? There is only one name given among men whereby we can be saved! JESUS.



Congratulations to David Wilkerson and Teen Challenge on their 50th anniversary. They have truly paved the way for others like us and have made a difference in countless lives. Read about them in this months issue of Charisma Magazine.