Skyway Church of the West Valley » Pastor Greg’s Blog

A Word From Pastor

gbrown — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:18:39 +0000

Dear Friends and Family:Thank you everyone your participation in hosting God’s awakening for children right here at Skyway.I am so excited and happy about our Kid’s Camp I can’t stop smiling. The three days of camp were likeheaven on our campus. I loved seeing kids everywhere. There were kids doing worship, kids with puppets,kids preparing to dance, kids eating, kids playing and above all kids praying! Every morning I would begreeted by all the children and they would tell me about the spiritual experiences they were having atcamp. On Tuesday evening the worship service ran way past the scheduled time because the childrenbegan praying over the microphone one after another, literally weeping in brokenness, for almost twohours. In this time the Spirit fell on our children in a powerful way to pray for the things they see in their livesthat needs God’s touch. I was equally impressed and thankful for the eighty plus adult workers who enjoyedstaying at the camp around the clock for three days. Your smiles never wavered and your strength increased asthe days went by! Words cannot express the gratitude and joy in my heart for all our workers who sacrificed forkids. Here are some statistics…202 campers • 106 volunteers • 97 kid volunteers • 16 salvations • 15 baptisms • 3 healings • 3,800 meals •15 adults serviced in healing room • $9,000.00+ raised to provide our camp for free!I would like to encourage all the parents and children to get ready and register for our SALT classes we are goingto have this fall. SALT stands for, Seven areas of life training. A brand new Kid’s SALT is going to be presentedand I would love to have parents going through similar classes at the same time. This will empower you to havefamily time based around growing as Christians. You will hear more soon! -Pastor Gret

A Word From Pastor…

Brad — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:30:47 +0000

Dear Friends and Family:
It is always a joy for me to open the emails each week that come in as testimonies of God’s grace and mercy in our lives. The miracles that take place in our services continue to increase! I believe this is because we make God’s House, a House of Prayer each week when we worship. Some testimonies are about healings and others are about finances, still others are about the deep work of God that He is doing in lives like this one… My name is Julie B… I want to thank you for the wonderful greeting you gave to my husband, daughter and me. We have grown stronger in our Faith since we started attending church a month ago. We receive so much joy and pleasure attending Skyway Church. We are very outspoken about our Faith now. We did not speak about Christianity and what it means to us until we started the church. We thank Our Heavenly Father every day for the joy and pleasure we receive for the entire church. Keep sending these in! – Pastor Greg

We Must Honor Our Marriage Commitments

gbrown — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:17:35 +0000

Leviticus 20:10 (NLT)
10 “If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death.”

Dear Friends and Family,
In our 2010 devotional study of the “10” we come to a scripture that decrees judgment of loss of life for those who fail their marriage vows. We no longer live in a day when the community imposes the death penalty to those that violate rules of civility. The Mosaic Law was written in barbaric times that brought about strict moral living when life was absent of law or civil conduct. We now have access to mercy and forgiveness for sins that could cost a person their life. Praise God for His mercy and the Blood of Jesus! But…How many people would stay faithful to their spouse if this standard was still in tact today? God created marriage to be an institution between a man and woman that lasted for their lifetime. In this structure the family would be the basic building block of community. Being faithful to our spouses is essential in keeping the family healthy. The current philosophy of the world we live has a social acceptance for being unfaithful. If the reason makes sense to the person who is cheating, then it is okay. God’s word said that it is not okay. He places the highest price on fidelity. The unraveling of modern society can be traced to the acceptance of cheating on one’s spouse. The broken lives of children and adults are the casualties of unfaithfulness in marriages today. It is time to break this curse in the Church and find the blessings God intended for marriage. Life is not better with someone else; refuse to allow your mind to start you down this treacherous path.

It is a season to distinguish the people of God

gbrown — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:25:19 +0000

Leviticus 10:9-10 (NLT) 9 “You and your descendants must never drink wine or any other alcoholic drink before going into the Tabernacle. If you do, you will die. This is a permanent law for you, and it must be observed from generation to generation. 10 You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean. As we continue our 2010 devotional study of the “10” we see God commands a perpetual commandment to distinguish from what is sacred and what is common. One of the greatest challenges we have is to do this without becoming religious or acting super spiritual. We need to be regular approachable people who live differently in a world that does not know God. How much does the Church actually look like the world that lives without God? In many regards the Church has lost the ability to live differently in actions and attitudes than those who do not belong to God. The darkness of this world is getting darker and the Lord wants his children to shine brighter. It is a season to know the difference between what is morally clean and unclean. We cannot allow the world without God set our standards of conduct. It is time to allow God’s word to differentiate what is acceptable and unacceptable conduct in our daily lives. In this way His glory can shine through a person to help others around them experience God’s goodness and grace.

Enter Into God’s Rest As You Move Into Your Destiny

gbrown — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:18:55 +0000

Exodus 20:10 (NASB) 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

Dear Church Family and Friends:
The commandment about the Sabbath is essential for living a long and healthy life. God commanded the people to stop their physical labor and devote time to worship Him one day every week. What does this mean to us who live a busy 24/7 life just to pay the bills? When you violate the principles of life, it will affect your life. The principle of the Sabbath speaks to us about taking one day each week to rest and focus on God. Even if you work on Saturday, you need one day to take a rest. In the O.T. God had the people rest on the seventh day, and in the N.T. they rested on the first day. This is a picture of how we now start our week by resting in Christ! When I am at rest, I am not living in frustration. The true rest that God has for his followers is the power to accomplish God’s plans and see his results without creating stress and anxiety. Make sure that you set a day aside to rest your natural body, worship Jesus Christ, and trust him to make everything come together in your life. This is how we practice the Sabbath today.
-Pastor Greg

Fight for your family

gbrown — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:01:02 +0000

Exodus 10:10 (NASB)
¹⁰Then he said to them, “Thus may the Lord be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Take heed, for evil is in your mind.

Dear Church family and friends. Our 2010 devotion of the 10 reveals an interesting strategy of the enemy. God had commanded Moses and Aaron to bring all the Hebrews out of Egypt to worship him. This included every member of their families. The strategy of the enemy was to allow the men to go but they must leave their families behind. Does this sound familiar to you? Pharaoh was willing to let the men go off to worship but he knew he could not let the entire family go together. He created an option for Moses that God did not tell Moses to accept. Moses saw beyond this tactic and walked away from Pharaoh rather than giving in to his plan. This is a season to prioritize your entire family serving the Lord and going to church together. Refuse to settle for less. God has promised for you and your entire household to be saved. The enemy threw a great fight, but God overcame every obstacle and in the end, the entire family unit of every Hebrew left Egypt and worshipped God. Make your family’s redemption your goal and God will back it up.

Pastor Greg

Outlast the Enemie’s Plan

gbrown — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:16:39 +0000

Exodus 1:10 (NASB) 10 “Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land.” Dear Church Family and Friends, Our 2010 devotion of the 10 brings us to the book of Exodus. Here we find that Pharaoh was afraid of the growing numbers of the Hebrews. He wanted to kill them before they became a greater threat to him. We have a spiritual enemy that is afraid of what we are about to become as well The enemy is trying to stop you before you enter into your destiny. Pharaoh saw a sleeping giant that was growing more numerous than his forces. He rallied his troops to create great pain and hardship for all the Hebrew people. This included a decree to murder the babies born at the time Moses was born. The plan we are facing from the enemy like this in our lives today. He would rather stop you from starting than face you once you are successfully moving in the will of God. Moses was sparred by his family and even raised by the daughter of Pharaoh. God uses others to help us through these tough times and he can even place us in the enemy’s camp to get us in the right place tobe a modern day deliverer. Outlast the strategy of the enemy because he knows his days are numbered! – Pastor Greg

A Word From Pastor….

gbrown — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:12:05 +0000

Put away treacherous actions and embrace God’s way of living. Genesis 20:9-11 (NLT) 9 Then Abimelech called for Abraham. “What have you done to us?” he demanded. “What crime have I committed that deserves treatment like this, making me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin? No one should ever do what you have done! 10 Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?” 11 Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘This is a godless place. They will want my wife and will kill me to get her. Dear Church family and friends, today our 2010 devotional of the 10 reminds us that God wants us to trust him with every area of our lives. Sometimes we think we need to take care of the “difficult things” for God, and when we do, we fail to follow his ways. Abraham obeyed the Lord and began on his journey with Sarah his wife. Along the way he encountered fear that king Abimelech would have him killed if he knew they were married. Abraham chose to lie to try and protect his life. God called him out by visiting Abimelech in a dream.How often do we feel we must “help God out” as we try to live by faith in our life journey? God wants us to trust him with all the details and exercise our faith to allow God to see us through the tough parts of the journey. The great news about this story was that God’s mercy was there to keep Abraham on the right path even when his flesh was temporarily in the way. Let’s trust God with everything going on in our lives. If you have been helping God out, it is time to give everything over to him. – Pastor Greg

Build Godly Foundations and Boundaries

gbrown — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:01:46 +0000

Dear Church Family and Friends,
Today we are starting our new 2010 devotion from verses of scripture that come from ten. Enjoy… Genesis 1:10 (NASB) 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. The tenth verse of scripture recorded in the Bible speaks about God’s boundaries between the earth and the sea. God created a separation between the land of the earth and the waters of the sea and he called it good. The world that does not respect God’s ways wants to create lifestyles without boundaries. When we live this way we find our life filled with trouble and we bring trouble to others around us. This is the season to rebuild godly boundaries for your life. This is a time to build or rebuild the basic foundations of godly living from the scriptures. We might be called judgmental or intolerant by others who do not want godly boundaries in their lives or for us to have them in our own lives. Stand up for what the Bible teaches you to follow. Focus on your foundations and ask God to reveal to you the proper boundaries to walk in each and every day.

Bible Study of the 10’s

Brad — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:48:54 +0000

Dear friends and family:
As I was praying about the new decade I had an inner sense to study specific verses of the bible connected to the number ten. When I did this I realized that I still must read everything in context historically and accurately. I did not read these verses to “try” to make every verse fit into something for the year of 2010. I simply obeyed the leading of the Holy Spirit and read these specific verses and allowed Him to speak to me about how these topics applied to what God is doing in the Church and in the earth as we enter into this second decade. I started reading the following chapters and verses of each book of the Bible, 1:10, 2:10, and 20:10. As I read each verse I listened to hear if there was anything specific for us in this hour from these verses. The following devotional blogs are written out of what I learned while reading these verses in this way. Some of the devotions have more than one verse because it was important to understand verse ten in context of the other verses around it. I encourage you to read these scriptures with the leading of the Holy Spirit to speak personally to you about what he is doing in your life and how you can be properly connected to the Church to work with others to advance God’s kingdom in the new decade. Stayed tuned….. -Pastor Greg