Character of God

Hey everybody! This past week was awesome. Our speaker, Blake Mattocks is a pastor at a local church here in Arvada. He taught us on the character of God. Everything Blake said he backed up with scripture which was really cool! I learned so much from the things he taught on. God is so awesome and revelead so many things about His character and how my character should look as well. On Friday, we had a lady named Simmone talk to us about our identity. We made "self boxes" that reflected how we looked on the outside and how we felt on the inside. Although I'm not very creative, this was a really cool exercie and God actually showed me a lot through doing it! Here are some main points from Blake's teaching:

*The goal of Christianity is transformation (Romans 12:1-2)
*Courage is choosing convictin over compromise
*Courage is focusing on God, NOT your situation
*Forgiveness brings freedom
*Forgiveness is a GIFT
*Hearing God's voice requires TIME. Trust-Invest-Meditate-Exercise your faith
*We have to learn to enjoy the process of walking with God, to be CONTENT
*If you love God, you are obedient to Him ALWAYS
*Obedience is costly. It is MANDATORY not OPTIONAL
*My thoughts must be 1. captured 2. challenged 3. changed
*We cannot outgrow our "monsters" we must CONFRONT them.
*Only with the TRUTH and the LIGHT can we confront our monsters and get rid of them

Awesome verses that stuck out to me:
"I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every sitation whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."
-Phillipians 4:12
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is- His good, pleasig and perfect will."
-Romans 12:2
"He has showed you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord reqire of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God"
-Micah 6:8

God is so good!! He is rocking my world! I have learned so much in the past week about how God wants me to live. He is changing my character to match His and He is teaching me new things everyday! I now have a relationship with God like I never did before and it is so beautiful the things that He reveals to me!
Thank you for all your prayers! I appreciate everything! Prayer request for this week:
- Saftey as we comute back and forth to Eagle Rock for teachings. (Eagle rock is 30 minutes up the mountain.)
-God would be stirring in the hearts of people living in Denver as we get ready for outreach on Wednesday.
-Churches in Thailand..for unity and for saftey and boldness

PS. I HAD A WONDERFUL WEEKEND WITH MARLANA, MISSY AND JENNY!! WE HAD SO MUCH FUN AND THEY ARE SUCH A HUGE BLESSING IN MY LIFE! THANK YOU JESUS FOR AMAZING FRIENDS!!

"Father Heart of God"

Hey everybody! I hope everyone had a good week and a great weekend! Wow, the teaching this week was incredible. We had a very well-known speaker, Jeff Pratt. He taught on the “Father Heart of God.” I learned so much but I will try to hit the main points of his teachings!

*God’s love for us is so immense and so great; we will never fully comprehend how much God loves us.

*Jesus took all the pain and the suffering for ME, so I wouldn’t have to feel that pain. HE LOVES US THAT MUCH!! I had such a revelation of God’s love for me this week. It was amazing and it’s still blowing my mind!!!

*”If loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength is the greatest commandment, then NOT dong it is the greatest sin”

*Jesus is LONGING to do LIFE with us, to be our FRIEND!!

*God loves us as we are RIGHT NOW, not as we think we should be!

*Brokenness is not a bad thing…it is knowing what our sins still do to the heart of God…

*What is your need for mercy?? What are the bricks around your heart separating you from feeling God’s love? We talked a lot about the different “bricks” around our hearts. A few are bitterness, pride, hurt and pain, guilt and shame and many more. We had a day where we completely “tore down” our bricks and cleansed our hearts. To say the least, it was amazing!

*Jesus’s blood can only cover what’s been UNCOVERED…when we humble ourselves in front of God and others and stretch out the “ugly parts” of our lives

*In dark seasons there are treasures to be found if we KEEP PURSING HIM!

*The greatest blessing of all is us DECREASING and GOD INCREASING.

Jeff Pratt was an amazing speaker and I could probably go on for a long time about what I learned this week! Here are a few verses that stuck out to me:

“If we are faithless, HE remains faithful, for HE cannot disown himself”

-2 TIMOTHY 2:13

“HE was pierced for our transgressions, HE was crushed for our inequities, the punishment that brought US peace was on HIM, by His wounds WE ARE HEALED”

-ISAIAH 53:5

--This week has been amazing. On Monday, we had our community outreach. My group went to an old peoples home. We played cards and talked to them, it was a lot of fun! On Wednesday, our downtown Denver evangelism got cancelled due to snow. On Friday, my small group tye dyed shirts and had a girls day! It was awesome!  I’m so looking forward to next week! I know God is going to keep transforming my mind and my heart!! Thanks for your prayers and support, it means so much to me!

God bless you,

-Amy

Front of the base

View of the base from the back

Hiking a few weeks ago overlooking Arvada!

A piece of God's handiwork (:

Fear of the Lord!

Hey Guys!!

Wow this second week was totally amazing! The teaching was so awesome (which I’ll get into later). For now, I’ll give you guys some background info about my DTS (discipleship training school).

-My DTS is a Compassion DTS. It is basically the exact same as a “regular” DTS. The only difference with Compassion is that in the weeks leading up to our outreach we focus a lot on injustice issues, how God sees them, and what we can do to help.

-There are 31 people in my school. 25 girls and 6 guys!

-There are three other schools that are in session right now as well.

-Every student does ten hours of “work duties” a week. My work duties are from 3:30-5:30pm every day. I am on the housekeeping crew so we do a lot of the cleaning on base.

-There are two locations for Denver, YWAM. The one I am at is the “town” base located in Arvada. The second base is twenty minutes up the mountain that houses the “borders DTS” which is called “Eagle Rock.”

-There are two options for outreach. One is China and the other Mozambique, Africa. I am 95% sure that the Lord is calling me to Africa!!

-The lecture phase of school ends near the end of March and we will be leaving for outreach around March 27. (More details to come!!)

Ok, so every week we have a new teacher and a new topic that he/she will teach on. This week we had Mark Davies as our teacher. He is an awesome person with an amazing family and a crazy awesome faith as well! Mark taught on “The Fear of the Lord.” God showed me so incredibly much this week. Here a few main points that God really showed me this week:

-Are we living in the fear of MAN or in the fear of GOD??

-God does not judge, He pardons and restores.

-There are absolutes and there are relatives in the Bible. The absolutes are the things that cannot be changed and the relatives are things that are governed by our conscience.

-Even when we don’t agree completely with somebody else’s “relatives” we still are called to be HUMBLE and SUBMIT.

-God has called us to live radically for Him, no more of the “lukewarm Christian.”

-We hear God more clearly when we come to Him with a CLEAN heart.

-We need to respect God’s opinions, desires and His character.

-One quote that really stuck out to me was this:

“Sow a thought, reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a character, reap a destiny.” Sin starts with our THOUGHTS in our MINDS.

-As Christians, we are SANCTIFIED. We are DEAD to ourselves and are now ALIVE in Christ!!

Some verses that really stuck out to me this week:

“If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you”

-PSALM 130:3-4

“Fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked will be cut short.”

-PROVERBS 10:27

“We are those who have DIED to sin, how can we live in it any longer?”

-ROMANS 6:2

Thank you guys so much for your continued prayers and your support! Please keep my school and the staff members here in your prayers. Pray for continued guidance and thank God for there willingness to serve us! Thanks again everyone! Have a great weekend and an amazing next week!

-Amy

Wow first week!!!

Hey Guys!!

Wow so its crazy to think that its already Saturday morning! It seems like just yesterday I was getting on a plane and saying goodbye to friends and family! Well so far, this journey has been nothing less than incredible. I flew out of the Philly airport on Monday, January 3. I arrived in Kansas City where I was supposed to catch my connecting flight to Denver, Colorado. I found out that my flight had already left so I ended up having a 3 hour layover in KC! I arrived at the Denver airport around 9:00 pm. Wow, talk about the biggest airport I've ever seen!! I was running around for 45 minutes trying to find my luggage. I was getting very frustrated and super tired! Then two guys came up to me and asked if I was Amy Hoover. They were holding a YWAM Denver sign, I was never so relieved! I arrived at my base in Arvada, Colorado around 1:30 am. The next morning the girls in my room introduced themselves and we hit it off right away! I room with 6 other girls from Canada, California, Ohio, New York, Colorado and Minnesota! They are all such a blessing and we are having so much fun learning and growing together! So this week was basically just a bonding week, getting to know our other classmates and such. We did a lot of rules and instructions and working on assignments and basic stuff like that. We went ice skating yesterday afternoon to downtown Denver! It was so much fun and we were laughing like crazy! We now have the weekend off to kind of just un-wind from our busy week. So that is a very brief overview of how my week has been going. It has been so amazing so far. I cant wait to dig into our lessons and really get to know God's heart. He is so gracious and merciful, and I am learning so much already!! As I was reading and doing devotions, this verse and quote really stuck out to me and I hope they can be an encouragement to you as well! Thank you so much for your continued prayers! May God bless you!
-Amy Hoover
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me"
-Mark 8:34
"Until you have given yourself up to Christ, you will never have a real self"
-C.S. Lewis

Just a few pictures :]

These are my roommates and I in our room! (from left to right)
Amanda, Sierra, Rachael, Sarah, myself, Erica and Chelsea


Chelsea, Sarah and I ice skating on Friday!