NEXT

I hope you all had a great Easter! He is Risen indeed!

It is late and I had a really wacky weekend prepping church stuff for Easter, driving eight hours to Orlando to bring my sister up here to spend time with family and the like. During this crazy time God gave me this thought:

How have YOU prepared your heart for Easter? Sure you’ve served, and I love that… but what have you done to simply be near me?

I realized I had done relatively little and then I had this thought:

How am I preparing for NEXT? 

We’ve got to be proactive in setting the Cross ever before us, constantly speaking truth to ourselves. Preaching who God is and fortifying out hearts with scripture and theology,  in order to battle sin. We prep ourselves for battle, but for some reason we it seems like we forget to prepare for the banquet.

We ask God for victory over sin, prep ourselves mentally and spiritually, talk to others about it and seek God in the word when going into battle… but what about when approaching blessing? 
Sure, we will be changed by God at NEXT if we just show up, but just like any investment don’t we want to get the MOST return possible? If we want to get the most out of NEXT, we’ve got to prepare our hearts. We should be doing all we can to till the soil of our soul in recognition and faith that God plaints seed and brings fruit to fruition during this special time. NEXT is very much like a spiritual marathon. No one just shows up to a marathon and runs it. They train so they can enjoy the race and be prepared to get the most out of the experience. So we must also prepare spiritually, that we may enjoy to the fullest extent our times with God and understand the deeper aspects of the theology we will be hearing. (1 Cor. 9)

Ok with all that said above… How do we actually prepare? Here are a couple of ideas:

• Be purposeful with the music and other forms of entertainment you engage in. Not that you can’t listen to rap, pop, or non-christian music or watch fun and entertaining movies, but garbage in garbage out right? More than that it trains our minds to be purposeful and then apply that mindset in other areas of our lives.
• Be vigilant in your quiet-time! Protect those times spent with God knowing that you are not just reaping the benefits in the moment, but planting seeds for the future as well.
• Pray and FAST specifically for your time at the conference!!! This is an amazing opportunity for “getting God’s attention” or rather, placing ourselves closer to His throne. Isaiah 58:6-12 is one of the most amazing promises outside the New Testament and it specifically pertains to fasting. It is such an encouragement.

These are very simple things we should be doing every single day, and if you’re like me and need an extra excuse to make them a habit… well then prepping to get the most out of the NEXT conference is a great one. ;)

Please, please, please be purposeful in preparing yourself for NEXT! It will bless you so. Scripture guarantees us “draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)