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2013 is almost at an end and I was going to wait until closer to the end of December to post this, but I am in need of a bit of reminder for my soul of how good God has been to me this year. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Elevation Church and I can’t believe that I get to be a part of something so great. So for this post, I simply wanted to document what God has taught me this year through what I have learned at Elevation and the leadership of Pastor Steven. (It might be kind of long, but God has taught me a lot this year!)

• Trusting God is not a project, it’s a process that will take the rest of your life.
• Our God is a God of process.
• Being in process is a reason to celebrate and persevere.
• As long as you stay in the process, God will continue to change you.
• Don’t give up on yourself–you’re in process.
• The Christian life is not about finishing what you started, it’s about continuing what He has already finished!
• The Gospel wouldn’t be good news if you had to do something to receive it.
• There’s some stuff God wants us to do that we can’t do until we get what He wants us to receive.
• Achievement happens only to the level of which we receive that which God gives to us.
• Receive from the Lord and achieve for the Lord so that God may receive the glory.
• God doesn’t just give the gift of salvation, He gives every good and perfect gift.
• You cannot receive a gift with a closed hand.
• The Christian life is all about regifting.
• Walking with Jesus is about receiving His love so you can achieve His will.
• Wake up everyday with the correct perspective.
• Surround yourself with people who can encourage you and leave you refreshed.
• The death of contentment is comparison.
• Competition takes you captive in your Christian life.
• God has called you to live out your calling.
• The main ambition of a calling is not something that He wants me to do, it’s someone He wants me to be.
• The fullness of Christ given to you is the death blow to the spirit of competition.
• Freedom in Christ is nothing that needs to be proven.
• True freedom in Christ comes the moment we realize we have nothing to prove to anyone because God already approved of you.
• Realize that your calling is active, not passive.
• When you realize that your destiny is in the hands of God, it makes your decisions that much more important.
• People that God greatly uses do not always have the best of everything but they make the most of everything.
• The thing that I am a part of matters more than the part I play.
• The world will not change by what you will do one day if it is not connected to what you are doing now.
• Don’t defer your destiny.
• What can I do today to enable me tomorrow for what I cannot do today?
• God’s presence is not conditional upon your performance.
• Realize your calling is a person, not a place.
• Not only does Jesus show me my calling, He is my calling.
• The cycle of rampant sin in your life started with a doubt of God planted by the enemy.
• The way to defeat your enemy is to know your enemy and how he works.
• Deception only goes so far until God steps in and leads you back to Him.
• What God says always trumps what anyone else says or does.
• Do you treat God’s instruction as an interruption or an invitation?
• If you treat God’s instructions as interruptions, you will miss your calling.
• Your calling is what you call it and how God sees it.
• God places a calling on your life and you either embrace it or escape it.
• The grace of God works through even our human disobedience to produce divine results for His glory.
• God will redirect your route to accomplish His purposes.
• Today’s excuses are tomorrow’s regrets dressed in disguise.
• God turns our misery in to our ministry.
• Are you using God to grant your wishes and validate your opinions or are you seeking after the heart and desires of God?
• Anytime you become more concerned about your convenience over your calling, misery is inevitable.
• Sometimes God has to consume your convenience to get you consumed with your calling.
• God’s love is not based on something that I do, but on who He is.
• Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not God.
• Don’t ever let your understanding of who God is and how He is in control keep you from calling out to Him.
• Stop asking God to give you guarantees and start asking Him to give you directions.
• Sometimes God wants you to have the faith to step out on one word.
• Don’t ever let anybody criticize your small steps of faith.
• Faith comes by hearing, not by sight.
• Even when you fail, you’re not a failure to God.
• God is the only one who can turn a conclusion into an introduction.
• Heaven has already answered your “I can’t” with a “God already did!”
• Resurrection is about the end of your strength and the beginning of God’s power.
• Don’t let a barrier keep you from God that God has already removed.
• World changers don’t do the bare minimum; they go above and beyond.
• The more patterns of obedience we develop, the more we will develop the gifts God has given us.
• God wants me to wrestle with His will because it develops an ability to search the heart of God.
• Jesus identifies with us in our suffering.
• It’s not finding the right person, it’s being the right person.
• When you look at singleness as a season to be escaped, you miss the benefits of what God has for you.
• The right time to do the right thing is right now.
• Wisdom comes from humility and sometimes humiliation.
• We have to tie our identity to the truth of God’s Word because God’s Word will be there for me.
• What do you do when the God who speaks the last word doesn’t speak the word you wanted to hear?
• When someone has a different plan than you it is sometimes because they have a different perspective than you.
• We don’t always get what we want from God, but we don’t want what we really deserve.
• Jesus has a perspective different than us and priorities we often cannot see.
• I cannot change the past and I don’t control the future, but even now God is in this situation.
• If God always met my expectations, He would never have a chance to exceed them.
• When Jesus has the seat of honor, the objections of others lose their weight.
• Clearly identify Jesus as the guest of honor in every area of your life.
• When you remember what Jesus has done for you, you care less and less about what others say.
• If my Savior was killed and lived through it, there is nothing anyone can say that can destroy my confidence in Him.
• When you respond to the objection of Judas, you miss the opportunity to worship Jesus.
• When I’m at the feet of Jesus, no one else has the power to bring me down.
• We have to be willing to come to the Lord in our desolate places.
• Your greatest failure or greatest disappointment is your greatest opportunity for your greatest encounter with God.
• Our sin doesn’t change God; it changes our perspective of God.
• There is nothing you will ever do that Jesus would not come meet you in the middle.
• You are fully seen and known in all your brokenness and yet fully loved.
• Encouragement can bring life to relationships.
• What are you missing out on by not building the right relationships?
• Worship: a weapon God has given us to overcome any obstacle we may face.
• Worship cuts through the fog of our circumstances.
• Worship captivates our thoughts and transforms them to God’s perspective.
• God is not a convenience driven God.
• God is a God of freedom.
• The commands of God are in order that God may bless us.
• Every “thou shalt not” is meant to lead you to a “that you may.”
• Today’s no is simply tomorrow’s yes dressed in protective clothing.
• God’s yes is louder than hell’s no.
• How long are you going to stay in a season that is over?
• If you stay stuck in what was, you miss what is and you’ll never see what could be.
• Moving on doesn’t mean you stop caring, it just means that you can’t change it.
• Draw wisdom from the failure and move forward.
• Pursue God on the basis of His promise when something God has given you has been taken away.
• What you did does not change who God is.
• Your activity is not your identity.
• God is all about freedom, but He’s also all about protection.
• The heart of God is to keep you from things that would hurt you.
• Every believer has a ministry no matter what your vocation.
• Your relationship with your parents is always worth fighting for.
• When we realize how holy God is, we all come in needing mercy and grace.
• Focus your life more on the great object of loving Christ.
• God doesn’t desperately need what we have, we desperately need what He has.
• God wants us to be those who get to give.
• We have been blessed to be a blessing.
• Every time I give I get to grow in gratitude by documenting God’s blessing.
• Revelation is not something you measure but something or someone you meet.
• Our faith is not based in something that we know but something we believe.
• Your understanding of God’s character will challenge your circumstances when you believe in God instead of just know Him.
• What you think you know about God will always come in to question when your circumstances become challenging.
• I might not know what God is doing, but I know whom I have believed in.
• We can trust a God who is trustworthy even when He seems incomprehensible.
• We need to be careful trying to create a God we think we can figure out.
• God will take what you have and increase it when we do what is in our control to do.
• Do you want a God who is in control or a God you manipulate in to taking control?
• Sometimes we doubt God’s sovereignty because of the consequences of the decisions we have made.
• The only real way for God to prove He is in control is to put you in situations that are out of control.
• It doesn’t prove that God is in control when you can always work it out.
• God meets you in the place outside of your control.
• Whatever is surrounding you, God is surrounding it.
• Scars are proof of God’s purpose in our life.
• My scars are designed to prove God’s power and to show His strength.
• The thing that I want to hide is the thing that God wants to use.
• The same God who orders your steps is also the same God who shapes your scars.
• No matter who inflicts the scar, God can redeem the pain.
• Christ is most clearly revealed when we are weak and broken and he has to heal our scars.
• Sound teaching is about what we understand, it’s about how we live.
• The life that God has called us to live requires a certain amount of passion to endure the tests of life.
• The enemy is after your confidence.
• You have to actively decide to hold on to what God has given you in faith.
• There’s value in what God has put in you.
• Reassess your value when you feel defeated.
• We need to develop a noncircumstantial confidence.
• The enemy attacks your circumstance because he is after your confidence.
• My circumstance doesn’t have to improve for my confidence to increase.
• You are the guardian of the calling that God has placed on your life with the help of the Holy Spirit.
• No mess, no ministry.
• When Jesus makes a change, He often makes a mess. Don’t quit because it’s messy!
• Your failure becomes the fertilizer to grow your faith.
• Our perspective determines the degree to which we will experience God’s promise.
• It’s not your job to worry about the outcome; it’s your job to keep walking by faith.
• Just because your progress isn’t obvious doesn’t mean that the process is worthless.
• The link between possession and promise is perseverance.
• Put yourself in an area where you will need God or you will fall flat on your face.
• Gratitude and praise are weapons to keep the enemy out and God in.
• We don’t just praise Him for what He’s done, we praise Him for who He is.
• When you build a wall of praise in your life, it gives you the perspective of what God is doing in your life.
• Gratitude is never invisible and never silent.
• Sometimes we ask God to do things that He is already doing that we miss because we keep hitting snooze.
• Jesus isn’t shaken by your storm.
• Sometimes you can miss God’s presence in the present because you are dreaming of the past.
• You’re never too far down where God cannot raise you up out of it.
• We have been issued an invitation to rise up with Christ.
• Sometimes you’ve got to be grateful in your groaning.
• Build a throne of praise in the midst of your pain.
• Sit down in confidence and trust at the end of the day because God’s got it!
• Your attitude as a Christian is contagious.
• Carry praise in to every environment you show up in.