Zoo Time!

(Andrew) Hey family hope that everyone is doing well!
 
   well today i just wanted to share with you guys about a trip we took to the Zoo this Saturday. it was a BLAST!!! me and Jami have been wanting to go check out the zoo for so long and we finally did it! we were some of the only ones there because it was over cast which rocked! we saw turtles, lions, bears, Jami petted some goats and lambs, there were so many amazing animals there. the really cool thing we saw there were family's. family there with kids!! hahaha mom's dads sisters brothers all walking together and experiencing the amazing things God created. it was special especially for me. we saw a Guy there with his little son had to be 3 or 4 years old and they were having a great time. but it was just them to having man time, father son time, it really hit me and exited me. I cant wait till i can do that, till i can take my boy/girl out and just spend time with them, use normal things in life to teach them stuff and poor love on them.

  God is so faithful family i knew this time would come but had no idea how it would feel Jami and i are parents! I'm a Dad and Jami is a mom, we did nothing to deserve it, we did nothing to earn it, all we have done is be obedient to God's spirit and submitted to His word.

              thank you guys for your prayers and for taking the time to read our blog please leave a comment, question, or even prayer request you could even send one to our email. Jami's is jamikins87@yahoo.com and mine is youth4jesusthetruth@yahoo.com i pray blessings over you and your family weather they be there with you or soon to come. may you live in the fullness of the blessing of Abraham! and my your home be full of family, joy, and love in Jesus name!

Kingdom People

(Andrew): Hey family know it's been a while since we've posted anything but there has been so much going on! God is really moving in our lives.

           So there is a specific thing I want to talk to you guys about that I have been learning at school. Powerful teachings that have been changing the way I think, believe, pray, read, feel, EVERYTHING! The subject is about being a Kingdom Person, definition: a human that lives on earth but is a citizen of Heaven. A person who's values, focus, economy, passion and priority's are all based and drawn from the Kingdom (the Kingdom of Heaven of course) that they belong to. My goodness where to begin?! There are so many things that we gained when Christ died, was burried, and rose again. As a matter of fact in Philippians 3:8-10 talks about how though Paul knew so much he counted all as rubbish! And that to know the power of the resurrection was his ultimate goal. So now I ask, how much time have we spent really asking God and seeking out His word to see what all was bought through that amazing example of true love? Things we can think of right off the top of our Heads is: 1. Salvation (Romans 1:16) 2. Freedom (John 8:32) 3. Healing (James 5:16) these are basic ones that have many scriptures backing it up. But I want to challenge you with a 4th thing and its definitely not the last thing but one that God has been showing A LOT of lately and that's Authority. Yeah I said it Jesus paid the price so that us as believers, Kingdom people have Authority over the devil, over sickness, over bondage, and here comes the big one over THIS EARTH! (John 14:12) basically covers it all! The church has not talked about our authority very much, whats up with that? How different would our lifes be if we followed Kingdom principles and started living according to the Kingdom of Heaven instead of settling for thing in this world? How many times have we prayed for God to do something He has already done for us? And all we need to do is by Faith, receive it! (Colossians 3:1) says that Jesus is SEATED at the right hand of the Father. If there is still work or things to be done why would Jesus be sitting down? What if there is nothing left for Him to do? What if all that is left is just to receive what Jesus has already done!! You know how differently we would pray? Act? LIVE!? Don't ask for Healing confess your sins, and have the elders lay hands on you and just receive it by faith! Don't beg for bread, but seek the Kingdom of Heaven first and He will take care of your needs! Don't beg for money or loans pay your Tithe (Malachi 3:6-11) and hold God to His word! Don't deal with demonic powers messing with you like fear, lust, doubt or inferiority, rebuke them in the name of Jesus and command them to leave you alone! Don't accept the deep thoughts that are inside of you saying your not good enough, no one likes you, everyone will reject you, etc. Renew your mind with the word of God. Meditate on it in the mornings and night time. If your don't understand ask the Holy Spirit to explain it to you. We don't toil any more in thought or worry! Or at least we shouldn't. We have the Holy Spirit who knows EVERYTHING. Family I don't know about you but I want the fullness of God evident in my life. Every single thing that Jesus died for me for and gave to me at salvation I want to walk in the full manifestation of that! We were not meant to blend in with the crowd or just look like another person struggling to get by. The word says we are overcomers through Christ Jesus.

       Look at your life ask yourself, "Is there any part of my life that I have just settled or accepted as being normal?" Then I want you to look up scriptures about that subject. Money, relationships, parents, imagination, creativity, health, physical body, self-image what ever it is start speaking the scriptures that you find over yourself and pray in the name of Jesus that that area would align itself with the Word of God. Isn't is the bible true or not? Is God faithful to His word or not? Does He love you with everything in His being or not? If we don't have God's promises to stand on, if His words will not remain no matter if heaven and earth fade away, then we are absolutely hopeless. But bless God I don't know about you but I have never seen the righteous forsaken or begging for bread. I thank God that no matter the storm, no matter the test, no matter the sin, He has never ever let me down.

     God bless you family I pray that this encouraged you and that you will walk in the fullness of His plan for you.... 


p.s. if you guys would like to email us privetly for prayer or just to chat or you feel you would like to sow a seed into our lifes our email/paypal is: youth4jesusthetruth@yahoo.com. please leave a comment about how your doing and what you think about the post.

WHEN PEACE PASSES UNDERSTANDING

(JAMI:)

This week at Victory Christian Center (our home church), an amazing week-long conference is happening called, "Word Explosion 2012". 

Just wanted to share a quick clip of the worship from tonight's service: 

WHEN PEACE PASSES UNDERSTANDING

Hey everyone, this just came back to my mind and I wanted to share it! We have felt a lot like Sarah & Abraham moving here to Tulsa. When we came to visit Andrew's Bible school back in May, our experience wasn't quite what we has expected. We came praying that God would show us if this what the right decision for our lives to be moving here. 

When we came to visit, it wasn't hype or some wonderful emotion that we experienced that caused us to say, "This is the place! This is it!" right away. We were thinking, "Hmm, it was ok." It just wasn't what we thought it would be. We didn't have the greatest experience to be honest. Don't get me wrong, the classes seemed good, the worship was good and it seemed like a nice place, but we didn't FEEL or SEE anything that convinced us this was IT. 

When we got into our car to leave after the weekend was over, we talked to God and each other about it and we felt this was, in fact, the place where He wanted us! We just couldn't shake it, it was so odd because we didn't FEEL it, but we knew it in our hearts! He was testing us and showing us how to walk by faith and not by sight. See, we didn't want (and God didn't want us) to be led just by our emotions on making a big decision like this. Sometimes we look for some great experience or a hyped up feeling and we let that be the deciding factor in our decision making! We didn't look to our emotions and feelings, we sought the Lord on it!

It was definitely a test of our faith but once we got here, we have loved every minute of this journey so far. God has positioned us at the right church, with the right friends, the right apartment, the right jobs and so on... If we would have judged from our feelings just that ONE day we came to visit the school, we would have missed all of these blessings God wanted to do in our life and the new glory He is taking us to. 

Everything here is amazing! This place is incredible and thank God we didn't go by our feelings in seeking to follow the Lord. 

What things are you trying to figure out in your life right now? Don't be led only by emotion, but be led by the Spirit of God who dwells richly inside of your hearts. Don't seek a feeling only or seek the things that just make you feel good and entertained at the moment... You could miss the greatest journey that God has. I'm so glad we sought God and had that knowing in our hearts. There was a great peace that really did PASS ALL OF OUR UNDERSTANDING. We didn't understand with our minds why this would be the place, but God's peace passed all of that and HE DID DIRECT OUR PATH! 

So here we are, feeling like Abraham and Sarah... going to a new place we really had no idea about, or how things would go until we arrived. Before coming here we had never even went to Victory Church, but we knew God directed us to Victory. How cool, right? We didn't know all what we would do or how it would be, but we came and obeyed God in His leading. He is faithful! 

PROVERBS 3:5&6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."

Have a great week,

Jami

A REMINDER OF THE "CALL"

(Andrew:)

When I was 12 years old I was at "Youth America" youth camp. It was an amazing time and a powerful moment in my Christian life. During one of the last services  I was up front during worship and had an encounter with Jesus. All of a sudden I felt alone although there were hundreds of people around me I had a sense of loneliness come over me and I started to pray, "God why do I feel so alone, where are you?" In my spirit God responded, "Andrew, I AM here, I promise never to leave you or forsake you." Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and was overtaken by God's love, it was an amazing moment. After this moment, the pastor on stage asked if anyone here felt called to ministry and if so to come to the front for prayer. I immediately I felt a tug on my spirit that I was called and to go get prayed for. There were probably 50 of us lined up ready for prayer. Once he prayed for me and touched my forehead it released a powerful anointing,  and I was taken away for a moment in the Spirit. From that day I knew in my heart that God was going to use me for something great. When I went back to our room for the night, I spoke with my youth pastor and as I told him what had happened he smiled and said, "I knew it from the moment you started coming here that God had a call on your life but I was not going to tell you, I was waiting on God  to tell you first and I would just confirm it to you."

         From that point on I was super involved while willing to learn and grow. As the years passed I didn't hear God affirming that call that I had felt and I drifted away. At the age of 19  Gof reminded me of the call He had on my life. God said, "Andrew it's time to stop running and start following the call of ministry I have put on your life." Now at the time of this reminder I was on summer vacation from business college and I was chasing my own goals and ambitions. After this reminder from God, I withdrew from business school and transferred to a bible college hoping that was what God wanted me to do. I eventually dropped out of bible college because I lost 1 of the 2 jobs I was working and didn't feel as if I could support myself and continue to go to school full-time.  I then started helping out with the youth group at my church and learning about ministry, preaching, and perseverance. Now I wish everything was perfect during this time and that I was free from all sin but I had issues that I was dealing with. These issues made me feel as if I was not called at all and that my feeling of being called was all just a fantasy. One day at church I was praying and I told God that I was done. I told Him that He probably really didn't call me and it was just a crazy dream that I was chasing and I was full of so much sin how could He really use me? At that moment a man sitting behind me in service put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Andrew God is telling me to tell you that He did indeed call you for His glory and He will use your life for His purpose!" Unable to speak, I just cried and thanked God for His love and affirmation. This same experience of God affirming me happened about 4 or 5 more times within a year and a half.

      As time went on, I went through a dry spell for about 3 years and started getting a little weary. I had bad theology on what a call really was and how it worked. Less than a year ago I went to a leadership conference at "Youth America" where God showed me what a call really meant. You see, I thought a "call" was me putting down my dreams and goals to follow God's dreams and goals. I figured that I would end up with the same results i would have got if i just continued to follow my own dreams. Such as a title, income, reputation, place of authority and stuff like that. God revealed to me what a true "call" was. This is what He told me:

"Andrew, a call is not an encouragement to lift up and chase your fleshly desires for being recognized or lifted high. It is not another dream to chase to replace your old selfish desires. It's an opportunity, a privilege to, while seeking My Heart and chasing after ME, I allow you to see the desires of MY Heart and the secret places I hide away and be a laborer with ME! To allow you to chase what I chase! To desire what I desire for MY CHURCH! To make your heart beat like MY HEART! Son, that is what a "call" is."

                This was a big revelation to me. I had it all wrong but Jesus is faithful to put us on the right track. After this I definitely changed my approach on this "call" and it helped for sure. Later on that year God said it’s time for me to go back to bible school and I am now. But not because I want to be trained to be a pastor or minister but because I know that I would be immersed in God's presence here. Morning, noon and night I would have opportunity to seek Him and be with Him. Through my homework, classes, tests it would all be about Him so I can honestly say I'm not here for an education, but to be away with JESUS... Now this last encounter at the leadership conference was less than a year ago and I have still not been affirmed from God that He called me but it didn't bother me as much anymore until last Tuesday, (August 7th 2012), when my wife and I were at our weekly 3D young adult service at our new church. Pastor Paul spoke a message he felt was prophetic and it was all about, "You're going to make it!" He said that there was someone there that needed to hear that God is telling them "You're going to make it!" At first I was encouraged until the alter call and I asked God, "Dad I know that I’m going to make it and that your faithful but what was I going to make it in exactly? I knew I had a "call" on my life but don't know for what. Youth pastor? to be an adult pastor? to be a missionary? traveling evangelist? couples minister? You see, He was never specific to me about what He would use me for but I chose to follow this path and live a life of strong conviction and to be ready and able to help anyone, anytime, anyplace. So while at the alter I asked this and got no response. I left there feeling discouraged, frustrated, and even confused.. I started to say selfish things like, "Well God I'm not chasing my dreams anymore, I’m chasing yours" and " I’m not here because I want to be here but because You sent me here". It was not a good place to be in but I have to be honest that's where I was. So yesterday morning after taking Jami to work I was driving around listening to worship music and broke the silence between me and Jesus with a prayer of repentance. I had to ask Him to forgive me for saying those dumb things and that I was honored that He would give me a burden for the lost and chose me to live out this amazing journey of trust and excitement. I love the will of God and I look forward to these next 2+ years in building my relationship with Jesus and continuing to share in His sufferings.This IS my dream, and I WANT TO BE A PART OF GOD'S PLAN! I want to be able to live out His dream for His Church. God is Faithful and most of all GOD IS WORTHY!!!

A FRESH START/ A NEW ADVENTURE

 Welcome to our Blog! 

  (Andrew:) A lot has been going on the past 2 years and we wanted to catch everyone up and touch base with you. July 24^th of this year, we had our 2 year anniversary and it was great. God has surely been with us these 2 years. We have both been involved with ministry in our church. My wife worked at the church we went to in Pauls Valley, OK for about 2 years as well as led the youth worship team, helped lead worship for Sunday morning service, all while doing online classes for a worship leadership program through Mid-America Christian University. I was involved with an amazing Pre-teen ministry in Pauls Valley as well. I ministered to ages 9-11 and also was the Sunday school teacher for this age group. It was such a blessing to work with the Pre-teens. It was interesting to see how "un-cultured" they were and how responsive their hearts are to the gospel. We started with about 15 Pre-teens and within 2 months we had over 45 kids packing out our room. I was a part of that ministry for 2 years and it was probably the most growth I’ve experienced in my life. As for my job, I have been an Aflac agent for around 3 years and it’s been a blast. I have been able to help people who are in very tough financial situations get the income they needed to make it through.

    Lately we have gone through some huge changes: On July 7^th, God moved us to Tulsa, Oklahoma which is 3 hours North from where we lived! While I was in prayer several months back, I asked God what the next step in our lives should be and He said that it was time for me to go back to school. So here we are now in Tulsa, OK. August 27^th I will be starting school at Victory Bible Institute for practical ministry. Since we have been here God has really opened doors and connected us with some amazing people. We are attending Victory Christian Center (the church my school was birthed from), with Pastor Sharon Daugherty as our Sr. Pastor. It is a HUGE church with over 17,000 members but they have found a way to keep the small town church feel. We are involved with some small groups, and the young adult ministry called “3D”. Victory has services about 5 times a week. It’s been quite a journey and God has been good to us. Their vision was easy to submit under. This church has such a heart for the lost and the broken; it is unlike any church I have been a part of.

    

    Recently my wife, Jami, got a job as a part time nanny which she really enjoys. I am in the process of getting my Aflac business going here as well. Although I built a nice client base where we used to live, it has been like starting over again here in Tulsa. We know that God is faithful and the business will come in the right time. Once I start school I’m not really sure how things will go because I will be a full-time student. I will do what I have to do to Glorify God in my school work and my home. My wife and I have been heavily involved with youth ministry the last 3 years or so and now that we are at a new church we have been praying and asking if God wants us to continue that or serve in a new area of ministry. There are so many different places to connect here it’s great.

   We are so happy to connect with you and catch you up on our lives and the adventure God has us on. Please email me and let me know how ya'll have been doing as it would be great to hear from you. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek God's will and follow His call.

We recently set up a PayPal account and if you feel God is leading you to sow into our lives you can easily go to our PayPal page to join us in support by clicking: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/send-money-online. 
Our e-mail is youth4jesusthetruth@yahoo.com.

 If you would rather keep in touch through letters/cards, feel free to keep in touch with us however you can and we can give you our home address.  We would love to hear from you.

All for Jesus,

Andrew & Jami Acevedo

P.S. Hey everyone this is Jami! I just wanted to put my own personal message here to you. I am so excited about all God is doing and yes, we are absolutely loving Tulsa! Can't wait to start putting up some current pics of things we are experiencing. Love you all and we'll connect with you real soon. 

A CHANGE

 There's power in seasons' change (spiritually speaking too). Fall is here now & I can't help but think also what new season we are in spiritually. The atmosphere is changing outside...it's cooler & feels better.. 

I've also felt like as the weather has been changing... so is my heart. For a while now I have put worship on the back burner. Kind of discouraged about my gifts & not seeing them blossom like I thought they would. Funny though, I know it's not about me or my timing in anything, it's God's. But I keep dreaming though & getting inspired lately to start writing music again & practicing my instruments. My dream is to record a CD in the future.

I want to encourage you as you read this to never give up, keep pressing on in what God has put in your heart to do for HIS GLORY. Keep preparing, keep working, keep sowing the seeds... and the season is coming when what you were created to do will start to unfold! This is all prep for where God is taking us.

P.s. Side note on all of this worship stuff..
I just started a Youth Worship Band & I'm training up some youth and practicing with them. Please keep us in prayer.
(Press ON) :D

HAVE an AWESOME DAY...
& USE YOUR GIFTS.

THE MORNING STRUGGLE
    Good mornig friends & family. It is a beautiful day today. Each morning Andrew & I, especially me... try to get up at 5:30 to make our protien shakes & head out of the door for our morning walk/jog. The weather is awesome for this now that Fall is finally here. Chilly, but great! Problem is: the SNOOZE button. I do what i don't want to do. I really want to get up & workout... I NEED to. Why do we do things that we know we don't need to do?
Wait a minute, the problem isn't really the snooze button is it? It's ME! So now I am finding things to motivate me to get up in the mornings.
     I've heard somewhere before that if you hate something enough you wont do it. I don't really think that is true. We all do things all the time that we hate or wish we wouldn't do. So how do we change? It's got to be a change in our minds that is set in stone first. When your thoughts change, your actions will follow. How do we change our thoughts & our minds from old ways of thinking?
Self-control is so hard to walk in. =) But it's possible!
So my verse for this day is... "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.." Today I am going to think on NEW things, possibilities and NEW ways of living and thinking for my life.
The best is yet to come.

God bless you!
Be transformed Day by Day.