salvation | Revelations From The Road

Raise Me Up

July 9, 2019 by Bill Leave a Comment

I have two playlists on my phone, one of “Oldies but Goodies” and the other, Christian favorites. I was listening to the Christian list recently to a song I’d heard many times, “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban, and, just like with scripture, this time something jumped out at me. The lyric proclaims. “You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.”, and I thought, “Yes, how great for God to raise me up and set me on the mountaintop but I’m not so sure about trying to walk on a stormy sea.” Then the next line gave me the answer, “I am strong when I am on your shoulders.” I got the revelation of what that meant to me: Yes, God will raise me up to the mountaintop and He will take me to the stormy sea BUT…He will do it while I’m on His shoulders. I could see God appearing on the mountaintop and the stormy sea with me raised up on His shoulders. What a beautiful and encouraging picture that was. “I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20).

Maybe you feel tired today from trying to climb up that mountain. Zach Williams’ song, “Old Church Choir” says, “When the valleys that I wander, turn to mountains that I can’t climb, Oh, you are with me, never leave me,”, Get up on His shoulders. Or if you feel you’re about to sink on that stormy sea, cry out to Him and grab ahold of His hand and let Him raise you up. Do it and you will find that, “You raise me up to more than I can be.”

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, You who have been borne by Me from birth And have been carried from the womb; Even to your old age I will be the same, And even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and I will deliver you.” (Isaiah 46:3-4).

Thank You Lord

May 29, 2019 by Bill Leave a Comment

I was driving and praying recently and was thanking God for all He has done for me. I listed several things in my prayer but then I thought, “Yes God I thank You for all these things but really, I thank You for You!” He is the great I AM! Then the idea hit me that this topic would make a good song or poem. So, I started writing it last evening and here it is:

I Thank You Lord
May 2019

I thank You Lord, You sent your Son,
The Holy Spirit, three in one.
Thank You for my salvation free,
My Savior, Jesus, died for me.

I thank You for Your love so true,
Forgiveness and a life made new.
Thank You for being here with me,
Protection from my enemy.

I thank You for Your word that’s true,
I hear when I’m alone with You.
Thank You for mercy and for grace,
And peace that comes when fear I face.

I thank You for my daily bread,
You give me wisdom, like You said.
Thank You for patience when I stray,
You lead me in the narrow way.

I thank You for my gifts to share,
With those in need, make me aware.
Thank You for training, all things are new,
But all the glory, God, goes to You.

I thank You for these things and more.
You have great plans for me in store.
Past, my present and future too.
But most of all, I thank You for Y O U!

Bill Dotson

The Past?

January 31, 2019 by Bill Leave a Comment

Recently our Pastor, Wayne Hager at Zion Family Ministries, preached on “The Past” and how our past is in the past, over, done with. But what does our enemy the devil keep bringing up to our remembrance? Yep, our past. We all have a past, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23). We’ve all done things we’re not proud of but it’s in the past. If we’ve accepted Jesus as our Savior and Lord, He has covered our past with His blood of forgiveness. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 1:7). So why do we keep listening to the devil and grieving over our past? We can’t be looking back and be successful in going forward. Now, granted, there are things in our past that are good that we should remember. When we got saved, when God brought us through a trial, when we accomplished something good, when someone was kind to us or we were kind to them. These are things we can be encouraged by but God wants us to know, “Yes, those things were good but I’ve got some great new things planned for you.” “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

So as I’m listening to Pastor Wayne, I get this image of what he’s preaching. See if you can #pictureit: We’re standing on a long narrow path with God. It’s out in the country near the sea and on our left, toward the sea, sits all the bad things we have done in our past; the things the devil keeps bring up. God turns to you and says, “Do you want to keep dealing with all that stuff or do you want to move on?” To which you reply, “No Lord, I’m sorry for all that.” Then, nodding His head, He says, “Okay, I’ll take care of it.” Then He goes over and begins tearing down all the mess of our past, loads it up and takes it and dumps it in the sea! He comes back and we ask, “Lord, where’d it all go?” And He replies, “Where’d what go?” “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12). Thank you God!

But that’s not the end of it in this vision. God then goes over to the right and begins bringing out all these building materials and sets them in the path. We ask, “God, what’s all that for?” He says, “These are the building materials for your new life.” “Are you ready to get started?” “If so, get your work gloves on and let’s go.” Now, can you imagine someone, at this time, who would ask God to wait a minute while they go back to the sea and try to bring up something from their past? Certainly not! Don’t do that! The apostle Paul said it this way: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14). We all have that prize waiting up ahead and God has called us to go for it. He’ll go with us all the way and we WILL achieve His goals for us. But we can’t go forward with God if we’re always stopping and looking or going back. Your past? Forget about it!

Come to the Table

June 11, 2018 by Bill Leave a Comment

Given June 7, 2018

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;” Ephesians 2:19

The other day I heard the song on the Christian radio station K-Love, “Come to the Table” by Sidewalk Prophets and it brought to my mind a vision. The chorus says: “He said come to the table. Come join the sinners who have been redeemed. Take your place beside the Savior now, sit down and be set free. Come to the table.”

In this vision, I saw a family having a reunion. It was outside and all the family members were sitting around a large, long table eating, talking, laughing and enjoying each other. Then there was a person who had walked up nearby and was observing this scene; all these people having a good time, loving each other and feeling the special bond only family can have. This person did not have that connection to a family and felt sad but smiled as they saw the good times the people were having.

With their head down, the person started to walk away when the head of the family noticed them and said to the rest, “Excuse me for a minute.” He went to the person and asked them if they would like to come and join the festivities. They said, “No, I’m not a part of your family.” But the head of the family replied, “You can be, come to the table, join us and be part of the family.” The person was overjoyed at the invitation and agreed to come to the table. The family offered a seat for them and began to serve them and treat them as one of their own.

We’re all a family, we all were sinners but we have been redeemed. If you’re like the person looking in on this reunion today, you can join our family…come to the table. If you’ve been a family member before but have wandered away, we welcome you back…come to the table. We’ve got a seat saved for you up front. Come to the table! Contact me or another member of the Family of God if you want to come to the table or have questions.

Revelations from Prayer Week – January 2018

January 22, 2018 by Bill Leave a Comment

This past week, we had a Week of Prayer at our church, Zion Family Ministries, where a group of us met each morning and evening for an hour to pray for a prescribed list of topics. Following are some things the Lord spoke to me as I prayed. The first night was Repentance.

I asked, “Lord, what does it mean to repent?” I was reminded of 1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care on Him for He cares for you.” The image I got was not of someone gently handing over their cares to God but of someone quickly, forcefully throwing their cares to God like they were a snake or something awful they didn’t even want to touch. The idea was, don’t wait, don’t put up with it any longer and don’t be gentle with your cares, get rid of them!

After repenting of my own sins, I asked if I could ask for repentance and forgiveness for others based on what Jesus did. I was reminded that several times, Jesus was asked to do something for someone else and He responded. Lazarus was sick and word was sent by someone else for Jesus to come heal him, and He did. (John 11). The centurion asked for his servant (Matthew 8) and Jairus asked for his daughter to be healed (Mark 5), and Jesus responded. So I got from those scriptures that I could ask repentance for others and God would bring about the circumstances for them to respond.

On another night, we were praying for Our church. The scripture that immediately came to me was 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” First, Humble ourselves. Quit thinking you’re all that, (Romans 12:3), get rid of all that egotistical trash and then… Second, “Let’s talk.”, Pray. Talk to God, and not the usual asking for all these things, whining and crying because of what the world has done to you but have a good…Three, Face to Face talk with God; Seek His Face! Now here, I got the image of someone coming to God with all these problems, crying, looking around at all the mess they’re in and trying to talk to God about it. He says, like a parent would to a whimpering child, “Hey, look at me, right here, look at me!” “Quit crying and look at me!” Seek His face and nothing else. And Fourth, Turn from your wicked ways. “Well God, what is that?” “Hey, look at me again. Your wicked ways are…” and He lists them to your Spirit. You might say, “But Lord, the devil…” “Listen, look at me, you speak to the devil and say, ‘Devil, the Spirit of God is in me. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, the Spirit that created the Heavens and the earth and the same Spirit that kicked you out of Heaven!’” “So, get outta here, get out of my face, you can’t bully me!”

So if God’s people will do those four things, He will hear them, forgive them and heal their land, or in my case, heal our church.

On the last night of prayer, we were praying for Revival. I asked, “How do we have revival?” You first have to have a group of people seriously calling for it. So I started praying the characteristics of those of us who were praying: “Lord, we come humble, repentant, asking, seeking, knocking, hungry bowing, surrendering, crying out, praising, worshiping, expecting, hopeful, prepared and passionate.” That must be the beginning of revival.

So what is revival? It’s not a series of meetings held once a year but revival must begin in each of us. It’s not just confined to the inside of the church building but is to go with God’s people outside the church in their daily business. Evidence of revival would be when we see miracles, healings, salvations, and transformations. And, these things would not be something special in our church services but the norm! Again, these things would not be limited to inside the church walls but would happen at the store, at the ball game, in our homes, at the hospital anywhere God’s people, filled with His Spirit, would take action. I prayed then, that revival would start here, and I pointed to the floor, meaning I wanted revival to begin here at Zion Family Ministries. Immediately, God reminded me that revival must begin in the hearts of those seeking it. So, I went around and pointed to each person praying that night saying, “Lord, may revival start in them.”

I then thought of what the word “revival” meant and I got the image of someone who was down and the emergency medical people were attempting to “revive” them. They were having CPR done on them. So I thought, CPR – Called People who are Radical and Christ Providing Resuscitation. CPR. That’s what we need for revival in ourselves, our church and our region.

Finally, I asked God to renew our minds, (Romans 12:2) so we would be in the right position for revival to begin in us. Again, God spoke to me, “Hey, look right here, as I’ve told you many times before, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.’” (Matthew 6:33). I truly believe this verse, this command from Jesus, could be the answer to everything. Surely it is for revival.

We expect a lot of good things to come out of our Week of Prayer but prayer certainly cannot be limited to one week of concentrated action. Each of God’s people must be praying daily and even several times a day, (pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17), in order for God to act powerfully in our individual lives and in our church. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, AMEN!