REVERSAL: Giving away what God gave to you.

If Christ is relevant in your life, you should then experience reversal.

This week, Phil Ogilvie taught us how it is better to give away what God gave to you than to keep it yourself: REVERSAL.

God makes a functional faith possible.

He is doing good works within you and it is He who gives you the desire to make a difference in the world and to glorify Him along the way. Philippians 2:13, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” God has equipped you with everything good, all the tools to act out His will and to fulfill his purpose, but the question remains: Are you allowing God to work through you? Are you listening and fulfilling the yearning desire within you, given to you by Him?

The first step is to live out the Kingdom, His word, within your life. By doing so, you will fulfill that desire within you to make a difference in the world. You will be glorifying Him. This defines a functional faith, made possible by God.

Give away what God gave you.

Be a light.“Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless,” Philippians 2:14-16. Listen to God and live out his commands, without complaining or questioning.

Your functional faith will function as a light unto others--they will notice something different within you. In this, you will be giving away what God gave you.  Give out the Kingdom, His word, His promise of life. Be a light.


Phil noted that although Paul was in prison, he still sent the Philippians two of this best men to preach the word of God. What inspired him to be so generous, while he was behind bars? Why do you think he said,“Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear,” Philippians 2:12.Paul knew the importance of having a functional faith and giving it away. Regardless of his circumstances, he continued to live out and give out his faith and to obey God.

God sent his only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins--to save us. He gave us a special opportunity to live, but only by the grace of God. Don’t harbor this information, this precious gift. Give it away. We were saved, not to make our lives more comfortable, but to live out and give out the word, to pass it on, to serve.

It is not about us. It is about glorifying God and serving others.

Thank you, Phil, for a wonderful message on Reversal. Join us at the Awakening next week @ 7!

In Him, 


Kendall Johnson



To listen to Phil's message in full, click here. Or hit play below! 

"Community Speaks": Danielle Cody

This past weekend we had a blast on the Veritas Retreat!! Danielle Cody shares a little about what she learned…

Truth. 

1 Peter 3:15-16: "But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you..."

Why do we pursue truth? In order to expose the truth to those who oppose it, we must understand truth. Our worship is affected by our knowledge and understanding of who God is and who man is in light of God. As we seek the truth, our worship becomes more meaningful and glorifying to God. 

We first took a look at the characteristics and nature of God. God is three divine persons that make up one divine being. This is also called the Trinity.  Each divine person has unique characteristics and different responsibilities.  Our Father is all-powerful but all good and loving at the same time. Jesus is the perfect example to believers of humility as he became fully man and walked this earth just as we do.  The Holy Spirit convicts, empowers and strengthens believers to live as Jesus did. Each one is God, yet each one plays a specific role. Christians tend to emphasize only one or two forms of God without giving full recognition to all three. It's important for us to recognize each divine being and the role that they play in our lives. 

Next we took a look at who man is in light of who God is. Genesis tells us that man is made in the image of God. What does this mean exactly? Well it can mean a lot of things. Being made in God's image affects our desire for community, our ability to reason and choose good over evil, it causes us to take on the qualities of God. Most importantly, being made in God's image means we were created sinless. Because of the Fall through Adam and Eve, suddenly we were faced with the inability to not sin. We became sinful--in need of a sinless Savior.  Through Jesus Christ (taking on the role of our Savior and Redeemer), we suddenly are given the ability to not sin. You may ask why, since even as Christians we still fall into sin and you're right. Just as we have nothing to do with our salvation, we have no ability to overcome sin--at least on our own. This is where the role of the Holy Spirit comes in. Essentially if we aren't taking full advantage of the Spirit, then we aren't fulfilling our purpose. How do we walk by the Spirit though? 

Our desire and purpose is to live in obedience to God and live a life imitating Jesus. Ultimately we're created to glorify God and enjoy him. This is accomplished by walking by the Spirit, BUT first we must know that we are children of God. How do we know this? 1 John 5 tells us that in order to be born of God, we must believe that Jesus is the Christ. Not only that, we must love his children. How do we grow to love God's children? We already know it can't be done on our own, yet it IS possible. This passage also tells us "by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe his commandments". In order to love the children of God, we must love God first. In order to love God, we must grow in knowledge and understanding of who God is. This brings us full circle. This is why we pursue truth. Not only does knowledge of our Lord make us ready to make a defense and give an account of the hope that is in us, but also it develops a love for God.  As we grow in love for God, we grow in love for his children and observe his commandments by walking in the Spirit. This is how we know we are a child of God. This is how we "overcome the world" (1 John 5:5). Understand your faith. Understand the God you serve. Pursue truth.

By Danielle Cody

"Community Speaks" - Bobby Anderson

Occasionally, we hear stories from within the Awakening that allow us to see God's hand at work within the community.  This is a great opportunity to hear the "Community Speak." This post is told by Bobby Anderson who has been attending the Awakening for a couple months and works in the financial industry.

It was the week after I heard Phil speak about living life with purpose.  What especially hit me was when he was talking about doing your job with purpose even if it is something that you don’t particularly want to do.  Friday that week around 4:30 in the afternoon I was on a conference call with my boss and he told me that I needed to change the format of our internally prepared screening memo that our committees use to make decisions.  The kicker was that I had to completely re-do the entire document by Monday morning. 

What this meant was I was going to have to spend my whole weekend re-doing something that I had already created six months earlier.  Needless to say I was not looking forward to it.   As I started to work on this project I found myself angry with the fact that I was given this task and had to give up my weekend for something I thought was pointless.  Then I looked up and saw the posted note that I had put on my computer screen that read With Purpose.  It hit me that if I was to follow God with purpose I needed to follow through with this project and do the best possible job that I could.  I worked through the entire weekend only breaking for sleeping, eating and going to church.  After I completed the new screening memo I was very proud of what I did and it was honestly some of the best work I have ever done.

The next week I was very excited to show my boss and our committee what I created over the weekend.   To my surprise when we were going through a couple of transactions using the new screening memo our committee and my boss informed me that they were going to scrap my screening memo for another one that our team on the East coast was working on.  Their news completely deflated me and I was very discouraged.  Here I was pouring my heart and soul into my work and truly doing it was purpose just to be told it was for nothing.
At the same time I had been interviewing for a new position outside of my company.  The guy recruiting me asked me to provide two writing samples and a financial analysis document I had built in excel.  I ended up sending him the new screening memo and the two transactions that I had worked so hard on over the weekend and that my company scraped. These documents were exactly what the new company had been trying to develop internally and were one of the main reasons that they offered me the job.

Following God with purpose and applying that to everything we do is done whether or not you know what his plan is for you.  His plan for me in this situation was completely off my radar and unexpected.  Point being that is I am not always know what his plan is for me or why I am put into certain situations.  The only thing I can control is that I continue to do things with purpose and trust the God ultimately has plan for me.     

 By Bobby Anderson  

Reversal: What is Unity?

What does it mean as Christians to be truly unified in Christ?

Get ready to have a complete reversal of what you think the answer be as you listen to Sam Tyson's message from The Awakening this past Tuesday.

Reversal: The Relevant Christ

Last week, a new series kicked off at The Awakening. 

Over the next few weeks, we'll study the book of Philippians to discover what a Christ-centered life is all about. And that life is often the reversal of what the world tells us life should be about. As Christian, a life that pursues Christ should be our first and foremost desire.

Below is the audio for the first installment of this six-week series. Join us at The Awakening for the remaining five weeks to see Christ be made relevant to your daily life, and why a reversal my be exactly what you need. 

Questions on Marriage: Phil & Shannon in the Hot Seat

This past Tuesday night at the Awakening, Pastor Phil and his wife Shannon opened themselves up to be interviewed by the rest of us. During Phil's message we got to write down some questions and then Sam Tyson was a moderator in the interview session.

As you will notice in the audio file below, it got really authentic as they shared the realities and difficulties of their first year of marriage, the challenges and growth that happened while they where missionaries in Costa Rica, and the great joy they have as they've raised their son Matthew, who is two and a half years old. Phil and Shannon have been married for six and a half years and look forward to learning from each other for many more years to come.



To download the clip, please click here.

Investing in Your Marriage

Four weeks ago, The Awakening started a new series called Ruth & Relationships. It began with the subject of singleness, moving on to dating, then engagement, and finally marriage.

Now, I was all pumped during Singleness week. It's the stage I'm at right now, and while I'm pretty content in this stage, I'm always interested in learning how I can best serve God and honor Him in my singleness. The night offered a lot of encouragement, as well as some confirmation that I'm on the right track!

I was equally excited about the Dating lesson. I mean, I want to date someday, you know? And if that someday were to be tomorrow, I wouldn't be turning down the opportunity! Haha. But on a serious note, whenever I do get to that stage, I want to make sure I'm equally serving and honoring God as I did when I was single. And that could get tough when you have another person to worry about. So it was another great night of enlightenment.

The Engagement session... was good. But, my table of single ladies kind of checked out during the discussion aspect of it. For most of us at the table, it was like, we're not even dating why are we worried about engagement? And knowing that marriage was coming up the next week, well... you can just imagine where our minds are.

So, I walked into this week's Awakening with a kind of detached. I actually almost didn't show up (horrible, I know!). But show up I did, and I couldn't have made a better choice!

Phil took a different angle on talking about marriage--one that's rarely looked at. A lot of people see marriage as an adventure. And for singles, a lot of us think, "Once I get married, I won't be lonely, life will be better, etc." But you know what's worse than being single and alone? Being married and numb.

Having a good marriage comes from participating in the bigger story--God's story--as a couple. And as singles we can begin investing in our marriage now, the same way we invest in a retirement fund or something (although, the dividends, I hope will be much more valuable and rewarding). No matter what stage of the relationship spectrum we're in we can begin that investment by actively participating in HIS story. And as we're participating in His story, we'll end up living the greatest adventure. And who doesn't want marriage to be one great adventure?

You can listen to the full message below, or simply click here.