Good Evening, AGC Family!  

This morning in my prayer time over our church family, I found myself speaking peace over situations in your life and believing God for His manifestation of His peace to flow through you, your family, your home, and your workplace. Basically, everything you do and where ever you may go: peace. 

The definition of peace in the Greek is to join or bind together that which has been separated; a state of tranquility, security, safety, prosperity; harmonious state of the soul. But the most interesting part of this definition, begins with the first words “to join”. So, for peace to be present in your soul (mind, will and emotions) you must join with something. What is the “something” you must join with? Or I should ask, what is the “someone” you must join with to bring forth tranquility, security, safety, prosperity, harmony? The answer is the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 5:22 states, “...but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (KJV) The Holy Spirit is the vessel that you must “join with” to bring forth peace in your life. He is the one who will remind you of a rhema word that will bring you peace over your situation. He is the one who will strengthen you in the middle of the trial, therefore, bringing you peace. He is the guide who will guide you in the right direction, and He will lead you into and with His peace.
But, family, we have a part to play. In 1 Peter 3:11 the Word tells us to “turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it.” (NLT) I like this interpretation because it gives us the mind-set that peace is not going to just fall on us, but that we must first choose “to join” in with peace and then search for it! Remember the days of hunting Easter eggs?  I loved doing that so much that my brother and I would continue to hide the eggs and then hunt them again for days after Easter. We always had one special egg - the prize egg - the one we intensely searched for over all others. This is the visual image I see when I think of this scripture. I am looking for the “prize egg” joining with the Holy Spirit to bring forth this peace in my situations. Just as we did as children searching for those eggs, we must also do when seeking the peace of God in our lives. All those other eggs may be lack, no joy, strife, etc. but the “prize egg” (peace) is the one we diligently go after! After we find it, the rest of this verse tells us to maintain it! The definition  of maintain is to keep in an existing state, to continue to persevere in. In other words, we must find the “prize egg”, hold on to it, and persist in keeping it close to us! 
Now, let us take the word Pastor Chip spoke last Sunday and add this with it. (If you do not know, go to our archives of Sunday, May 16th). Choose blessings! One of the many ways we can choose blessings is to choose peace. When we choose to search out and maintain peace in our lives and through every situation, we choose the blessings to flow. Lack of peace, “clogs up” the pipe that blessings flow through. So, family, let’s choose peace by searching for it and maintaining it by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we may be a witness to others of God’s blessing of peace.

-Pastor Candace

Hello Family,

The basic core of prayer is a relationship with God.

A couple of weeks ago during a time of prayer, the Holy Spirit spoke a word to my heart that has changed my perspective on prayer. I have been called to pray, as we all are, but God has placed an assignment on my life within our church to train others to pray together corporately. This has been a positioning in God that has brought me great joy and, at the same time, stretches me greatly.

When the Holy Spirit spoke this word to my heart, it made me reevaluate the goal of my prayer life. The word below is the enlightenment that came forth:

“We too often forget that prayer, at its basic core, is all about the relationship - relationship over intercession and warfare - relationship with the Father. When we build a platform of relationship first and foremost, we set the groundwork for intercession and warfare to occur in our prayer lives. But, we must not neglect the relationship with a loving heavenly Father found in prayer.”

At the basic core of prayer, you see a gracious, merciful, heavenly Father waiting for us to spend time with Him. Sometimes in our prayer life we neglect to build the very purpose of prayer; a relationship. The foundation of prayer must be built upon a relationship with God before we can successfully move into other forms of prayer. Building that platform helps us in every other area of our life. If we do not watch it, our daily prayer will become a list of “agendas” that must be fulfilled. “Oh, we must pray over the government.” But we neglect the relationship side of prayer.

Let me ask you this: does it thrill your heart to spend time with your friends and family that you hold so dearly? It is the same with God. He desires a relationship with you. I know, as a mother of two children, my greatest blessing in life is spending time with my children. Every Mother’s Day, birthday, and Christmas my children will ask me what I want as a gift and my response is always the same - time with them. If I, as a mother, so desire to spend time with my children, how much more does God, Who operates in such a greater measure of love than I, desire to spend time with us - His children. 

Isaiah 30:18 (AMP) states,

“And, therefore, the Lord (earnestly) waits (expecting, looking, and longing) to be gracious to you: and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all THOSE who earnestly wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him (for His victory, His favor, His love, and His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship.”

The Lord earnestly waits for us to spend time with Him in an unbroken companionship. The word wait, in the Hebrew definition, means to eagerly look for, hoping in and expecting. Binding together (twisting of ropes together) so much so that you are able to linger. According to the above scripture, the Lord, as well as us, takes the position of waiting. He waits on us as we wait on Him in the prayer room! Think about that! The Lord is eagerly looking for and hoping in and expecting to spend time with us! What? The creator of the universe wants to spend time with me! That can’t be so, but it is so! And not only that, He is eagerly hoping and expecting to spend time with us! This very fact makes me want to run to the prayer room and spend time with Him.

Not only that, look at all the benefits that come with spending time with God in prayer: mercy, loving-kindness, victory, favor, love, peace, joy and companionship with a wonderful Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We will be happy and fortunate in living life daily because we have chosen to spend time developing a relationship with God through the path of prayer.

-Pastor Candace

Hello Friends!

I just felt led to share with you something that the Lord has been speaking to me all week long. On Monday morning, in a time of prayer, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Please tell them again that the Word must be applied with great confidence and assurance. It must be looked at as a vital weapon against the enemy.”

Upon hearing this, instantly my thoughts went to Ephesians 6, the armor of God. Ephesians 6 is written to the body, and it is a representation and a reality that we are in a war. That is why Paul chooses to present this message as a comparison to the armor of a Roman soldier. It is a mind-set that we must operate in daily.

Before he ends it with the act of prayer, Paul reminds us, “...and take...”

Ephesians 6:17

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

SALVATION: In the basic core of your salvation, God has placed a freedom that is found in the Spirit. The helmet of Salvation is the basic core of your weapon. None of the above weapons are yours until you are saved, but once you are, these weapons are available. Every day of your life, you put on the helmet of salvation. This is to remind you, and let the enemy know, who you are in God. Every day you must “take” the helmet of salvation. You do not need to get saved daily, but you do need to activate the salvation plan that belongs to you. 

Saved: Righteous in Him; completed once saved

Salvation Package: Shalom - nothing missing, nothing broken. Peace, joy, health, prosperity, wisdom, revelation, authority, AND THE GLORY POWER must be activated daily. 

But, the enemy will daily try to talk you out of this helmet and all it encompasses. He does not want you to daily remind yourself what belongs to you in your salvation package. 

Sword: The weapon of the Spirit is a sword - an instrument of cutting. In reality for us, the Holy Spirit Himself is a sword. God knew we were going to need help every day of our lives. So, He sent us the Holy Spirit to help us along the way. The Spirit, in His nature, has the ability to “cut through” things of this world - dividing between our soul and the Spirit, himself. He helps us recognize the difference and gives us the strength and courage to yield to Him. 

In Ephesian 6:17, the word sword comes from the Greek word machaira. Out of all three swords that a Roman soldier would use, this sword was the most brutal of them all. This sword was more like a dagger. It was used for close range combat. With razor sharp blades on both sides and the tip of the sword often turned upward; this sword would be thrust in and then turn to cause more damage than just the initial blow. This two-edged dagger was powerful when placed in the hands of a soldier. 

In Hebrews 4:12 God’s word states, “For the Word of God is quick, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

The Greek word distomos is replaced in our KJV with the words two-edged sword, but there is such a greater meaning to this word when you look at it in the original Greek. Di means two and stomo meaning mouth. So, in other words, this word means a two-mouthed sword.

It makes sense why Paul uses the macharies sword. It’s a two-edged sword. For the Word of God is a two-mouthed sword! How so? On further study, you find out that God’s Word spoken by Him and written down is one side of the sword, and the other side of the sword is us speaking His Word! God backs His Word spoken out of your mouth! Glory to God!

So friends, I encourage you today to make the words of your mouth be driven by the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. In doing so, the things that you speak become a vital weapon against the enemy. 

-Pastor Candace
(For more information on this message: please watch Wednesday, April 7th A Glorious Church Service. You can watch it here.)

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Good Friday Family!

Today, all across the world, Christians are commemorating this day as the crucifixion of Jesus and His death at Calvary. In Jewish tradition, the celebration of Passover is being observed. What a day today is! We need to be thankful that Jesus endured the cross for us, so we did not have to! We need to rejoice for the eternal life we have been blessed with! We are spending eternity with Him, and we have the presence of Him, in the form of the Holy Spirit, to guide us daily. WE ARE NOT ALONE! 

One of the last messages Jesus shares with His disciples, according to John’s gospel, is found in John 16: 32-33. 

“Indeed, the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

At that moment in time, Jesus was talking about His crucifixion and resurrection; but for us today “the hour IS coming.” Another day and time IS coming, and that “coming” is the second coming of Christ. Unlike that time, we will not be scattered! He is bringing us all together! Glory!  What a day of rejoicing that will be! This is the hope we hold onto daily as we wait for that hour coming. Glory to God!

While we wait, Jesus gave us instructions on how to wait: “These things I have spoken to you, that IN ME you may have peace.” IN HIM we will have peace every day of our lives IF we stay in Him. What does it mean to stay in Him? Stay in His Word. Didn’t Jesus just say in the first part of that sentence “these things I have spoken”? So, stay in His word and look to Him. Stay in prayer and look to Him. If you stub your toe, stay in Him and look to Him. You get a bad report - stay in Him and look to Him. You receive good news - stay in Him and look to Him. IN HIM we have peace!

Then He goes on to tell us what the world will look like (out of His great love; He is always preparing us). “In the world you will have tribulation…” The Greek definition for tribulation is pressure, persecution, affliction, anguish, burden, trouble, distress and oppression.  I bet every one of us can think of times we’ve felt one or all of those things listed. You may be going through something right now; and if so, Jesus has an answer for that in the next part of this verse. “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” Because He has overcome the world, we are standing in a position of victory IN HIM. Not in ourselves, (thank God we didn’t have to do the overcoming) but He did it! All we have to do is “be of good cheer” and stay IN HIM!

Rejoice, church family!  We belong to the risen King, and He has overcome the world so that we may stand in victory! Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you all Sunday!

-Pastor Candace