- Good morning everyone, it's Pete T., and it's time to rise and shine. Um, the bible reminds us that a key to expansion is having a right kind of hunger for the things of God. In 2 Peter 2:2, which I referred to yesterday, the apostle wrote, "Like new born babies long for the pure milk of the word, that you may grow, and respect the salvation", and because you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, I love that. You know, we are to hunger and yearn, to see an expansion, a spiritual expansion in our life. In fact my prayer, not only for this week, but this whole year, is that there would become an expansion. An expansion, a depth, a deepening of our love for God, that would occur. The whole purpose of Rise and Shine is to increase our 2020 spiritual vision, and then to allow us to have an enlargement in our life, but I still, there's something about that phrase, that Peter uses, the idea of growing so that we may experience more of the kindness of the Lord, at work and in life. What a phrase, what a, a curious designation that is, to call us to a point of growth, and expansion, and yet see it as an invitation, to experience the kindness of God, at work in our lives. Oh, that would have the kindness of God at work in our lives. Think about that! Right? It's true God is holy, but he is kind. And he gave us his only son as living proof. May you and I experience more of Gods kindness, this day, in Jesus' name.

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- Good morning everyone, this is PT coming to you from beautiful Hawaii. Right. I'm visiting here with my family and this week, I'll be sharing again from my quasi studio with the green leaves behind me. But my desire is to see you blessed, strengthened. Both, those of you who are part of our church and those of you who may be following from a distance, you are all welcome here at this table. And again, my desire is, that as we move into this week in this month of January, that we would do so as people who are hungering for a growth and an expansion at a spiritual level in our lives. Jesus talked about the value of hungering and thirsting for what is right. He said, "Blessed are you, happy are you if you hunger and thirst for what is right." and you will be filled. Pursue that. Anybody who's listening to Rise and Shine right now is in some small way hungering and thirsting for what is right in the Lord's eyes. And I so commend you. I pray his blessings over you. I ask that God would cause an expansion to occur in your life. That there would come an increase, a noticeable shift that would flow out of the reality of Christ at work in you, through you, and around you. That the lord would safeguard you and keep you, and be your peace and your presence. That is my prayer. That is my blessing. Go into this week as one blessed in Jesus name. Expanding for him.

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- We're talking about things we need to forget. And some of us need to forget for the point of expansion. And by the way, this is PT and it's time to rise and shine. It's weekend, it's Saturday. I know tomorrow I'll see you all in the Lord's house but I wanna talk about at the Lord's house. I wanna talk about forgetting the heaviness that can sit with us. Maybe some of us feel like the heaviness like there's a weight on us. We feel very heavy. And heaviness has a way of squeezing out joy. But we've been mentioning how the Lord wants us to leave things behind. Are the things that we're supposed to leave behind that are weighing us down, burdens that we're carrying that we're not assigned to carry. We weren't assigned to carry it. We're carrying it but we weren't assigned to carry it. God didn't ask us to carry it. We're doing it because we're choosing to or because we're afraid to let go. And the Lord wants us to instead of being you know kind of hindered by heaviness, He wants us to be helped by, and healed, and put on the garment of praise. And by the way, that's one of the reasons why I love going to the Lord's house and I hope we will all be there at the Lord's house on Sunday, I do. I know some of you might be away and listening on the Livestream. Some of you may follow us on the Replay but if we can get to the Lord's house one of the things we do when we praise Him, we sing to Him, when we open up our hearts to Him, we allow Him to lift that heaviness off of our lives. We begin to set ourselves up to live as people who are healed and whole in Christ, all right? No need to be heavy and no need to be defined by it by just weighed down, beaten down. No, let's live in the victory of Jesus. Let's chose to put on the garment of praise. That's my prayer. This day is well, in Jesus' name.

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- Good morning everyone. This is PT and it's time to rise and shine. I wanna talk about forgetting the things that, we shouldn't be holding on to, and focusing on what we should be focusing on. Right? Some of us need to forget the hurt. You know, again Matthew was called to leave his past behind. And some of us, we need to let go of the hurt. Now it may be a hurt that happened long ago, a long ago hurt. Or it may be a hurt that has happened recently but it's seeking to really penetrate and define us, and God is saying "you need to leave that behind. Follow me, follow me and leave that behind. Let it go. Forget the hurt, embrace the healing." Embrace the healing of Jesus, in every level, embrace the healing. Heal us Lord, heal us of um, heal us of the things that would keep us stuck or keep us offended, or keep us in the darkness, or keep us again in grievance permanently. Don't let that thing define us. No way Lord, help us to, to embrace the healing you have for us at every level of our life. Some of us need emotional healing right now. Some of us need healing at a spiritual level, or a mental level. Maybe again from a wound that was inflicted or a wound that was self inflicted, but we need the healing of Jesus. And so as we make our way into this day Lord, I ask that you would help us to receive and live in the fullness of the healing that you have for us. We release the hurt and we embrace the healing, in Jesus name.

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- Good morning everyone, this is PT and it's time to rise and shine. As we've been thinking about expanding and we've been looking at the example of Matthew and how Jesus invited him to leave everything behind and follow him. Right, leaving his past behind and follow him. We've been talking about the things we are also to leave behind, forget and then what we're supposed to be focusing on, right. In Matthew's case he was to leave his past behind and then he was to focus on following Jesus. Now you and I will have that same opportunity. There are things of our past that we want to let go of. Some of us may have experienced enormous darkness at certain seasons in our life where things have just been really difficult. You know, darkness and difficulty can begin to seep into our lives and it just you know, quenches out our joy, just beats us down and maybe some of us right now are feeling kind of overwhelmed by darkness. It may be a spiritual darkness in our life or maybe something that's connected to an emotion or a mental state that we find ourselves in but we're just not in a good place and the Lord wants us to walk in his light. Oh, hear what I'm saying. To live in his light, to follow him, to follow the one who not only calls us to live in his light because wherever light is darkness must flee. So Lord we invite your light, we invite the light of the spirit, we invite the light of Jesus to come into the dark places and not just expose things but deliver us Lord and show us the way through. That's our prayer in Jesus name.

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- Good morning, everyone, this is PT and it's time to rise and shine. I wanna talk about where we place our focus right a lot of time we get stuck, we start thinking about you know, we're following Jesus, that's the thing we've been mentioning right, we mentioned how Matthew left everything behind and he started following Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we can still retain things from our past or we can get stuck. One of things, I think God wants us to forget, remember we talked about forgetting the bad and focusing on the good, forgetting what is wrong and focusing on the right, right? Where is our focus today? Where is our focus this day? Are we focused on the right things? Or we getting offended, grieved over stuff that maybe, either people are doing or somethings are happening in a work or in our lives. Are we allowing the grievances of life to dominate us? That's the question I have, because when we follow Jesus, we're gonna, we're called to focus on the right things so what are those right things? But his grace and his goodness at work, in our lives. how can we be stuck in a grievance? When we've been loved, so, amazingly right? How can we be stuck in a grievance when we have a love that'll never quit on us. Let's forget that, life's too short to get stuck and it get stuck in offense, no way. Let's trust the lord, let's follow him and stay full of joy, let's be a people who live in hid grace, now and always. That's my prayer this day, this day in Jesus name.

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