Mediocrity

Passion brings mediocrity to light. In mediocrity everything around you (people, circumstances, and your environment) effects you. Mediocrity is one big blame game. Never taking responsibility for it's self, it has thoughts like: "No one understands me," "People always reject me." Another common mediocre thought is: "If my living situation was different I'd really be fulfilling my calling." Mediocrity means: Average or ordinary. Average or ordinary living normally comes about by average or ordinary thinking. Strongholds are in the mind.

That's why in Romans 12:2 it says,"Do not be conformed to this world, but be TRANSFORMED by the RENEWAL of your mind. . . "

Being transformed by the renewal of your mind is more then just reading some scriptures and listening to the right kind of music. Scripture memorization is not what Paul is talking about here. He's talking about a total mind change, a total change in thought patterns. When you have a certain way of thinking they say you actually carve pathways in your brain. Breaking out of those pathways is supernatural. Paul is saying, "Jesus wants to give you brain surgery." The renewal in the mind Paul is talking about here isn't some cerebral concept or mental assent. This is a raw and real renewal from His presence. As he "changes our minds" we literally are transformed from the inside out. Bill Johnson says: "It's not just that our thoughts are different, but that our way of thinking is transformed because we think from a different reality - from heaven toward earth!" and "Renewal comes as revelation leads you into a new experience with God"

While mediocrity is average and ordinary, in the Kingdom God calls us to be extraordinary (EXTRA ORDINARY). With mediocrity everything around you effects you; on the other hand, in the kingdom everything around you bows and is influenced by what's in you. Like Apostolic catalysts, the culture and atmosphere of the kingdom of heaven (which is within you) invades the culture and atmosphere of the kingdoms of the earth.

In Matthew 13: 33 Jesus said "The Kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a women took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened." Leaven is a catalyst. Anything it touches gets influenced by it. Nothing in this world or my environment can shake what's in me. That's good news. That's why Jesus could hang around prostitutes, drunkards and the rest and not be shaken or altered. Instead everything and everyone was shaken and altered by Him. Because what was in His core spilled out of Him. Jesus could only speak peace to the storm because He had peace within Him. Awesome! My environment won't affect my calling, it won't alter passion. Instead my calling and passion effects my environment. Being around the mediocrities doesn't change us from being extraordinary!

- Micah Level

Testimony!

"Last Friday I was working out at the Gary Lutz Goffer Dome when one of the guys who was in the gym walked into the weight room. It was only him and I in there and he immediately started telling me that he wished his ankle would shop hurting so he could play basketball, and that he had rolled it earlier that day on his front steps. I told Him that I believed God wanted to heal him and asked if I could pray for his ankle. He accepted my offer and so after i asked him his name I commanded the pain to leave in Jesus name and then I had him check it out. I asked him if he felt anything when I prayed and he said yes, so I asked him what he felt and he said all of the pain was gone! I then cheerfully asked him if he wanted to workout with me but he quickly responded, "no I'm going to play basketball!"

After my workout I went out to the basketball court and he was running full speed and cutting to the basket. I shared the testimony with Roger Sparks who was working there at the time and we both rejoiced at God's kindness."

- Tyler Worley 

"The idea of asking God to give us things like longer or shorter legs seemed useless to me when I first heard about it.. of course I knew God COULD do it, I asked, "what's the purpose?" It took me a while to embrace and understand that God is our Papa who likes to give us things just because He can. There doesn't have to be a need for Him to do something; part of being His children means we get to have awesome gifts from our Father. I had been trying to grow my hair out for 2 years, and at a certain point, it just stopped growing. I had always dreamed of having super long hair, so when I heard that God would do "useless" things like this, I asked him to grow my hair out. The whole Level clan and Meredith and Jessica laid hands on my head and prayed in Jesus Name for my hair to start growing. Instantaneously, my head felt hot and tingly. My hair has been dyed blond, so it was apparent when my hair started growing, because it was coming out brown -- my hair grew 1/4 of an inch right then and there! And my hair has been continuing to get longer and longer since then!!

I went to my friend Maria's house about a week ago, and she kept periodically bringing up that she had lower back pain. At one point later in the night, when she mentioned it, I received a word of knowledge about one of her legs being shorter than the other, so I shared that with her and sat her against the wall to check. She was unable to flex her feet completely, but I could see from the placement of her ankles that her left leg was about 1/4 inch shorter than her left. I commanded the left leg to even out with the right in the Name of Jesus, and it grew! I had told Maria about when my legs were grown out and we shared laughs about how weird the pulling feeling felt on our legs! After this, she was able to flex her feet upwards,and she said her back felt a little better but it still hurt. So then I declared her body to be the temple of God, where no pain is allowed to reside and commanded in Christ's name for the pain to leave. Maria then tested her pain level by laying flat on the floor and sat straight up with no pain -- something she was not able to do in months! Praise Jesus!! THIS IS OUR GOD!!"

- Aly Todd 

"Two months ago I wasn't sure where I stood in my beliefs regarding healing and miracles.  I was wrestling with them, afraid to really believe in them, but not sure why.  As I began to be exposed to them more and hear people's testimonies, the conclusion I came to was that God certainly was powerful enough to do those things, that, sure, He used people to heal and perform miracles, and He healed many people.  But He would never do that for me.  I wasn't special enough... I didn't have enough faith... I couldn't hear His voice.  I didn't even realize the lies I was believing!  But two months ago I was challenged by my own lack of faith.  What if God wasn't healing because I wasn't asking?  What if I was so afraid of Him saying no that I wasn't giving Him a chance to say yes?  What if He wanted to heal me and wanted to use me to heal others, but I was allowing fear to stand in His way?  Why was I afraid to ask? 

Then God started healing my heart.  He started revealing things in my life that had caused certain thought patterns, hurts, lies, fears.  He started showing me how my relationship with Him had been damaged by hurt in relationships with other people because the more others hurt me, the more I believed God must be the same and He might hurt me too.  When I realized that was what I believing with my heart and with my life, even though I absolutely knew it to be untrue, I could do nothing but cry and pray.  God was so gracious to me and came near.  He began to reveal more and more of His heart for me, showing me who He is and how much He loves me.  He began to affirm and validate me.  I stopped looking to people for my validation and gave God alone that authority in my life.  He has been so wonderful with it!  And part of my journey was beginning again to wrestle with what I believed about healing. 

While I believed God was powerful and COULD heal and HAD healed many people, what it came down to was that I didn't believe God would heal ME.  So I started asking Him.  For the first time I started allowing Him full access to my heart, being honest with how I felt, even when I knew my emotions weren't consistent with truth.  I openly acknowledged where I was emotionally, giving Him the opportunity to meet me there and draw me to Himself.  I allowed myself to admit my own brokenness and I started to allow His love to be the balm to those wounds and stopped trying to heal my own heart.  He swept me off my feet.  He pursued my heart with abandon.  He poured His love over me and into me. A huge way that He did this was through healing.

I scheduled a footscan for Tuesday, 2/14/12.  Valentines Day.  I prayed the entire week before for healing, wrestling with my faith, or lack thereof.  I asked for courage to ask people to pray for me.  That Saturday before He didn't let my faithless fear stop me from receiving what I had asked for.  Two people received a word of knowledge that someone needed healing in their feet.  I was singled out.  I shyly allowed them to sit me down in the center of the crowded room, desperately praying that SOMETHING, anything, would happen.  “I just want to know You see me Lord!”  And did He ever!  My leg length was checked and one leg was shorter than the other.  In simple faith, Stephen and Micah prayed over me, commanding my leg to grow out, to be even.  It did immediately.  Then they prayed for my feet, that God would restore the arches and they would be made whole.  That was a little harder to gauge.  There was not a visible difference.  A foot pretty much just looks like a foot, especially when you're not putting weight on it.  I couldn't feel much of a difference.  But I was trying with everything in me to cling to the faith that God was my healer and He would do it.  Those next three days were hard!  I was fighting a constant battle for faith.  On Tuesday I went in for my footscan.  To my amazement my numbers were down 16 points!  I went from extreme severe pronation (turning of the ankles and flattening of the feet) to a high moderate.  You could physically see the difference in the pictures of the bottoms of my feet.  AND my feet were even, no longer throwing my body off kilter.  My hips and shoulders were no longer rotated and unbalanced.  My faith level rose drastically.  

I continued to pray for healing.  Another footscan only a month later revealed even more drastic results, although now my body is rotated the opposite direction.  I continue to be under the care of my chiropractic doctors and therapist as they monitor my progress that they are unable to explain and give me regular adjustments and therapy to help my body keep up with the changes that are happening.  They are amazed at what is happening!  My unbelieving doctor told me that this is a miracle because things like this do not happen!  People's feet never regain arches once they are flat.  It's simply a fact of life they have to live with.  Unless God Himself intervenes.  And God is intervening.  That same unbelieving doctor even teased me and said “you need to stop praying 'cause if you keep this up, you're going to put me out of business!”  Hahaha!  Yes!  Thank You Jesus for Your heart of healing, not just for my feet, but for my heart!"

- Sarah King