week 1

We can't believe we have only been here a week! It feels like months with everything we have been learning & what the Lord has been doing in us!

So, the basics of what we've been learning is that the Gospel is simple. Take it as face value.  Something that really hit me was saying I will follow Jesus even if something were to happen to JR. He is WORTHY! Even if the Lord were to give me nothing.. I will follow Him. I will follow Him where He says to go. I don't need to ask why. Just go. haha. so simple, right!
Most people build their foundation on loving Jesus but that is wrong! Our foundation needs to be the revelation of God's love for US! If it isn't that then eventually our foundation will be washed away. The Lord has been stripping me away of things & it is leading up to me being in a vulnerable place with Him. I want my life to be like Mary's. Wasting my life at Jesus' feet!! How beautiful are His feet! Another thing that kinda just hit me was just gazing into His eyes & staring at His beauty! Laying my dreams & desires at His feet. Saying Jesus, I just want YOU & believing those desires will come as the overflow.

The Lord showed me this picture of me holding my heart. He said you aren't letting me fully get to your heart, you are trying to control our relationship so you won't get hurt. So, basically He is taking me out of this place of "controlling" to a place of "trusting" & of "intimacy" with Him.

--Ashley.

God is just so BIG! I've always known that, but i didn't know it like i know it now.  There are a lot of things like that that i have always known, but are just now getting actually revealed to my heart! I'm loving it!  Jesus give me more!  Some of the biggest things that i am learning are about God's true love, how even when there was not a good response.  I mean they were spitting in His face when He was trying to give His life up for them, how did I ever feel a right to be angry at someone?  He was giving the greatest sacrifice of all, in love, and i get mad when people don't appreciate something little that i do for them!

Another thing that i have been rocked with is just the fear that i have walked in.  I have always considered myself a pretty confident person, but really i have always had this fear of rejection, fear of not progressing, fear of what people are going to think. in order to live totally for Jesus we need to have no fear though, this is another thing that i have always known, but now i really know it.  In Jesus there is no fear, and i am in Jesus, so if the Bible is true we should have no fear right?  If God is real all fear should be gone from us.  Big statement, but we have a big God.

Lastly, I have been learning about intimacy with God, and evangelism/missions. They are both equally important! Spending hours at a time in prayer and intercession for the nations, getting to know (really know) Abba, Daddy, God, and seeing Him in the most intimate ways. He desires that so much! we are His children. He wants to spend time with us and teach us the things that are on His heart, but He also wants us to go out and spread the Gospel of Salvation and the Kingdom to all the nations and languages of the world. Intimacy and Impact. This is where the name Fire and Fragrance comes from, the fire from that intimacy with God that spreads it fragrance all over the world.  Its not just one or the other.  Its not either spending hours in prayer or going out into the world spreading the Gospel.  Its both and.  It is the marriage of prayer and missions.  That is what we are here for and that is what we were created for!! To be intimate with our Creator and to do all the things that He tells us to do. That is all.