This weekend, Mosaic in Los Angeles hosted the Mosaic Conference.
Mosaic MSC led in worship with many of the songs from their new album – Glory and Wonder.
Erwin McManus spoke an inspiring and powerful message called “Breathe.”
Here are notes from Erwin’s message:
So many of us are wandering in the wilderness.
John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. He called himself “a voice in the wilderness.”
There are many examples in the Scriptures of people who were in the wilderness both metaphorically and literally and heard the voice of God.
In Ezekiel 37:1-14, God brought Ezekiel to the valley of dry bones where they came to life and became an army.
When we are trying to do something that matters we might find ourselves overwhelmed. We assumed success was guaranteed because God is on our side.
It’s easy to do great things with great people, but what do we do when what we have to work with are only dry bones.
Why does God seemingly set us up for failure?
When you decide to give your life to serve people, you will find yourself in a valley of dry bones.
And of course, we hear the stories of others who have great people.
God is calling us to thrive in the desert!
We have more fame than we have greatness. As a result, we are surprised when things get hard.
If God is going to do anything great through us, it requires our willingness to go into the dessert.
How many of us are willing to thrive in the desert? Are you willing to do what others think is impossible?
“I felt the power of the Lord on me.” Ezekiel understood that God was with Him.
We were never meant to live a life without God.
Evil regimes often kill the dreamers and the leaders and the pastors – the people who believed in a better future. Evil feels threatened by those who want to bring beauty.
We get upset with God when we think He’s made things difficult, but in reality He’s using these difficulties to make us better.
God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones. Ezekiel was asked to speak something he did not yet believe.
Prophesy means “saying what you’ve heard.”
Ezekiel had to speak before there was breath. God’s breath was in Ezekiel and came through Ezekiel to give life.
Be a conduit of life! There is so much life in you that an entire valley of dry bones will come to life.
We keep waiting for God to do something out there, but He wants to do something in here – in us.
We are to be people who speak life to a dying world.
The Church lost its way by communicating judgment and condemnation.
We were always supposed to speak life into this world!
John 3:17 Jesus did not bring condemnation to us. He took condemnation from us!
Elijah prayed it wouldn’t rain and then 3 1/2 years later prayed it would rain.
God as the Creator of the Universe gives us authority to speak in a way that makes a difference. It’s called prayer!
What if we prayed as if our prayers really made a difference?!
An encounter with a living God that is undeniable that moves out of the ordinary and into the impossible!
Our world needs life!
Our world needs breath!
Eric Gardner on July 17, 2014 called out 11 times: “I can’t breathe” until he finally died.
We live in violent and unstable times.
The world needs us to breathe the breath of God into the wilderness. This is the purpose of the Church.
We cannot create until we have something to say.
We cannot speak until we take a breath.
When we breathe deeply from God, He changes what we say because we become messengers on His behalf.
Our mission is to speak life into our world in order to raise up an army of life givers. The world needs an army that brings life rather than death.
We are the dry bones! When we realize we are dead, we are finally ready to receive life!
Humanity needs an army that believes that there can be an end of injustice, an end of poverty, and where every child can have a family, and every family have a home, and every home has a future!
The reason so many of those who follow Jesus don’t talk about Him is because they still aren’t living truly alive!
The only proof of life after death is life before death! We can prove there is life after death by allowing God to make us fully alive now!
We will suffocate if we just inhale constantly. We need to inhale AND exhale!
Receive His love and give His love!
Receive His compassion and give His compassion!
Receive Jesus and give away Jesus!
Oh my I love this message. I just did a study titled Breathe- and the Hebrew word Ruach means breath, wind or spirit. Our lives should inhale Jesus and exhale the Holy Spirit. It should be just as natural as breathing. We don’t think about breathing until we lack oxygen or we don’t have it- but when we breathe it’s like an automatic event- we are propelled and do life by the how we breathe. That’s the way it should be with the spirit of God. We inhale Jesus and exhale the Holy Spirit-and our lives should reflect the character of what we breathe in. Amen