Revelation of Change

Well my 1st year of Hillsong College is done! It is totally crazy to think how fast that year has gone and how much I have grown. I still have at least another 2 years to go of college. I wanted to share with you all about a new revelation that I have had this week. 

Moments are placed in your life, Good and Bad. 
When God called me to attend Hillsong International Leadership College I decided to ignore Him 3 times (over 4month period). But it wasn’t until the 4th time in the USA - Baltimore in a Hillsong Worship night where He used some one so close to me to tell me I'm called to Hillsong College. I later then looked into the college and applied. 

So in 2015 I began this journey at Hillsong College. Before College I was not pure, I never believed in myself, would dream crazy dreams - but believed them for others so much bigger than my own. I would self doubt and re-speak words that were spoken over me by others and let it actually influence me and what/how I viewed myself. I was in a performing industry that is fast, quick, powerful and demanding, and I wasn’t called to play that way, yet I never knew that till now. I still love the industry and have such a love, a passion and a lean in towards the industry, but in 2014 God told me give it all up, to no longer pursue it professionally. So I did. 

It is now the end of 2015 and I am officially graduating my first year of college. Grad Ball was last night and it was so much fun to celebrate this crazy year it has been and to farewell many friends who are returning to their countries. My first year of Hillsong College is complete. A few of us use the term it's like "open heart surgery" without drugs (let me explain). I have felt every slice to my skin, the heavy blood loss, people feeling around the inside of my heart and chest to make sure I am good and reconnecting tubes, making sure that I don't "bleed out". 

Yet on the 25th November God sealed me up and this is my revelation. 

An opportunity was given to me outside of college to audition for a TV show in late October. I was excited and in complete shock that my trainers within the college thought of me to audition. It was exciting, it was a secret, it was scary. Yet as the 2nd and 3rd round came and I got closer I was at PEACE with the whole situation. For the first time in years, my heart, my mind, myself was happy, content with who and what I am and Who I am found in. I was able to sing my heart out and show people just a little bit of who I am now and even though I didn’t get through into the next stage I have had this massive revelation. 

GOD has worked a MIRACLE in my life. Everything that was in the old me, isn't in me anymore. This year involved being encouraged from the moment I walked into the college and the church. All the self doubt and hatred talk got removed from my mind and from my lips due to prayer and healing from that. I have been able to step forward and set into who I actually am and who God has created me to be. The fact that I got told "No" and the fact that I wouldn't be moving forward in the next stages was good news for me. I was now able to sit and recall how far I have actually come in this year. I am able to praise God and thank him for these changes, as now I am able to have a clearer mind, spirit and I am able to lead others who are also struggling. 

As I left the audition and I walked back home and sat in my room and began to type this up, I couldn't stop smiling and being thankful for the whole audition experience but also for this whole revelation of change. 

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you; Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into i without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be CHANGED from the inside out. Readily recognise what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, GOD brings the BEST out of YOU, developed well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, Praise His Holy Name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion Psalm 103:1-4 (MSG)

So we're not GIVING UP. How could we. Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without HIS unfolding GRACE. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here TODAY, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (MSG)

I AM LOVED

A few of you may know that I have started school at Hillsong International Leadership College in January this year and below is an off pour of things that God is teaching me as I journey through the ins and outs of study ministry and serving within the church.

WORDS
In our life the world likes to communicate to us that we need to look a certain way, dress this way and speak like that and for so long I have listened to the world, I have stood in front of people and let them talk negative things over my life and into my life.  I let others influence me. I would say it wouldn't bother me, but how many of us say "Oh that's ok" when really it's not? It was just slowly being repeated in my mind.
Whoever came up with "Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt me" SERIOUSLY that is the worst, as words do hurt. It makes me think back when my mum would say to me "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it at all." If we just think about that statement and place that into our daily walks with each other, how much of an impact do you think we would make?
Ephesians 4:29 - Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Proverbs 16:24 - Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

ACCEPTING ENCOURAGMENT I have found it not easy to accept encouragement and I don't understand why? But it's a process and something I am learning to accept. When people speak love, peace and light into your life they are taking time to speak to you (and that persons time is something that can not be given back.) They are also telling you how they see Jesus within you and that deserves to be acknowledged and listened to.
So when someone encourages you, listen - let them speak wisdom, love and light into you, then in your own personal time Thank Jesus for the words that have been spoken and for His love that has been shown through that person.
It is something I am still learning to do and to embrace.

Colossians 4:6 - Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Luke 11:28 - But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it"

Acts 20:32 - And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

IMAGE
So many times we focus on what's on the outside and I think this will also combine the words section. So many times we let our image be defined by what we see or hear of the world and it is hard to get a handle on, but we must know and realise that we are made in His image. God knew what he was doing when he made us all  - the little quirks, our laughter, our quiet times, the way we worship, the way we feel, the way we celebrate. He has already thought of it all and has blessed us. We are all so unique and created in Him. We must remember that.

Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female.Colossians 1:16 - For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him.

Psalm 139:14 - I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

It may sound a bit silly, but for the first time in forever I finally understand that I AM LOVED. Of course I'm loved by my parents, my family and friends but to finally understand that I AM LOVED by God, it is such a greater love.


1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part
disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.