What A Great Week With the Holy Spirit!

Psalm 9:1-2 "I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High."

Psalm 139: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you."

Wow! Today I am just blown away by how truly Great our God is! Jesus is alive and moving on the campuses in Fargo as people are coming to know what it means to have a personal relationship with God. I'm going to share my week with you and just brag on God.

Sunday: Dean Niforatos held a Holy Spirit conference at Fargo First Assembly. The key part for me from the 10 am service is that every time to go to church, or small group, or pray, or worship it's about an encounter with Jesus. We should not leave that place until we are changed, we should never walk out the door the same way we came in. This concept has changed the way I see meetings with Jesus. The 6 pm service was all about the Holy Spirit. Dean said, "Jesus can work on us but he'd rather work in us and through us by being baptized in the Holy Spirit." During this service there was an outpouring of the Spirit and a large group of people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and we prayed in tongues in a large group it was awesome!!!


Monday: I woke up late, had night class so I couldn't go to Dean's service but even through what would be considered a poorly scheduled day the joy of the Lord was in me.


Tuesday: My night class got done an 1 1/2 early so I headed over to First Assembly to hear Dean speak on repentance. There is so much false repentance in our world; when people hide their sin, whine and complain about their situation and the consequences. True repentance is crying out to God to take your sins away and to pray for guidance that you would never commit those sins again. When you truly repent you don't want to leave the altar (or your bedroom floor) until your sinful desires are gone.


Wednesday: Small Group!!! We had the best small group of all time! We prayed together, worshiped, and moved into the lesson I had prepared "Attitudes of the Heart: Judgment." We didn't get through the lesson because as we read one verse in the Bible our discussion would blossom and we covered some very major things that we were struggling with. Morgan and I decided we are going to worship at the beginning of every small group because the Spirit just filled us with His presence!


Thursday: Chi Alpha... We had a small gathering last night because of a concert in Grand Forks but we still had an awesome meeting with Jesus. Pastor Brad spoke on wisdom in both your public and private life. Referencing James 1:5 and 1 Kings 3:5-12, 3:16-28, 10:1-13. We ask God for wisdom, He delivers! Also I had sprained my ankle earlier this week and it was really bugging me. A girl a Chi Alpha got a word from the Spirit about someone with a knee or ankle pain as well as someone with stomach issues that we were to pray over. I questioned God a little bit thinking "Oh it's not that serious" but He kept prompting me so I went forward and received prayer over my ankle and God healed it! He is so good! I have been hearing great testimonies of healing over the past couple of weeks and feel blessed to now be one of them! I don't feel any more pain or tightness in my ankle and can jump around on it, I couldn't do this before. Praise God!


This is our God, He is alive and moving and desires to move in us and through us. How awesome is our God!!! If you have any sweet testimonies or stories where God has really moved in your life over the past week or so please post them in the comments!


God bless you all! Let's praise and worship the one who gave us life!!!

Jesus Light of the World

John 8:12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

What a wonderful promise from our Savior. If we sacrifice our lives by giving up the things of this world and follow Him, He will never let us walk in darkness. That doesn't suggest that there won't be times when you face storms and trials but it means that through it all we have a light to show us the way.

What does the light do for us? "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." (Psalm 119:105) So the light is a lamp, it gives us the next step or two but not the whole path of our lives. The word provides a lamp to direct us to live like Jesus with the power of God's love shining bright. This is where our five year plans and even three month plans become irrelevant because the only direction we have now is for the present. It's great to have goals and a vision so I'm not saying we shouldn't set goals and have a purpose for our mission; instead we should not be mapping out our lives but following God's call as He leads us. Looking back the times when I've missed taking God's direction was because I had already laid out my own path in my mind and was ignoring God's call. We should not be following our path but the perfect path God has set out before us.

Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." God makes all things work together for our good! So what do we do? Read the Word, seek Him out in prayer asking for guidance, that your light would make the path clear, and give up your will for God's (easier said than done, but the reward far surpasses the instant gratification from this world). I have no place in this world, my home is in God's Kingdom in Heaven, but while I'm here I'm going to do my best to love with the love that God has given me. Because if God brings you to it... He will bring you through it!

I pray you are blessed abundantly today! That God puts His favor on you and His love overwhelms you.
~Paige Marie

New Life in Jesus Christ

Over the past couple of weeks 2 Corinthians 5:17 has been a resounding word in my heart and in my life. It reads... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" What a great promise from our God!!! As we are born again in Christ and have given our lives over to him we are made completely new. Things of our past are gone, they have been spread as far as the east is from the west and have been buried in the ocean floor. Because of the great sacrifice of Christ we never have to be the same again, every day is a brand new day! Likewise Galations 5:1 says "It is for

I just want to list some verses here that echo you are a new creation, that you are free from your past because Christ made it so by paying for your sins on the cross!


1 Peter 1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade...

Lamentations 3:22-24 Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Ezekiel 18:31 "Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit."
Ezekiel 36:25-26 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Ephesians 4:23 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.


These verses provide confirmation that we are made new in Christ Jesus! We are free from the past and free from sin! As Jesus says in Revelation 21:5, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." Let's lift our Savior up in praise and worship all the days of our lives because "To Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ! freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." This again declares freedom from our past. We are no longer slaves to sin so with the name of Jesus we can stomp down the devil and any feelings of guilt, shame, or inadequacy he has snuck into our hearts. God has healed me from brokenness from my past and is continuing to do work on my heart. Even though I praise my God in complete freedom, the devil continues to try to bring me down with thoughts of inadequacy. This has been a struggle for me recently; I have accepted a leadership role within Chi Alpha as a small group leader for next year and am currently co-leading with my small group leader. During the time of prayer and conversation surrounding this appointment to leadership I was being bogged down with thoughts of "I'm not good enough, my life isn't pure enough, why would anyone come to my small group? the other leaders are so much better." All of these are lies from the pit of Hell. God loves each of us as He knew us by name even before we came to be and He would never put us down as the devil finds it so fun to do. God has made us perfect in His image and we are completely adequate in His sight. So as the devil tries to bring up the past let's shut Him out with the name of Jesus!