I know I know... I have missed WAYYYY too many posts. We bought a bus that needs A LOT of work-- we still don't have running water:-)-- however, no more excuses, Holy Spirit told me to write and I'll be catching up on many missed posts over the next week. Without further ado, here we go!
---------------------------- Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts (Zechariah 4:6 NASB). So many, many times I tried in my own strength, in my own power; only to fail again and again. Do you ever notice in Christian circles how we quote half of a verse? We also take verses out of context. But, many times the other half of the verse is pretty important! I think I have heard, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” over 100 times. Do you think repeating that ½ verse is helpful to your walk with the Lord? I don’t. I think it’s pretty depressing. To me, it means your spirit wants communion with God, but alas, your flesh can’t make it happen. Jesus is always more encouraging than that. Matthew 26: 41 says, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Watch and pray! Watch and pray! Jesus is inferring that if we watch and pray, He gives us the power to OVERCOME weak flesh. It’s only by us aligning ourselves with Him, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we are able to withstand the temptations of our flesh. I just met a 19 year old that is sold out for Jesus. He led us and some other families in worship and I couldn’t help but think, “Wow! I wish I was in this place at 19.” We have the saying, “The sky is the limit,” however, with our wondrous heavenly Father, the sky isn’t even the limit. This 19 year doesn’t have a limit! Oh, what God can do with a humble, willing heart! When I was 19, I had gone down the road of satisfying my own sinful desires that had grown and grown. That’s what sin does. If you make those poor decisions, if you don’t watch and pray, it always leads to death… one step at a time. It’s like you’re slowly digging your own grave! I’m getting ahead of the story, but next, I’ll be sharing about a glimmer of hope during the later part of high school. We’ll also be looking at a sovereign Father showing me what a Godly woman actually looked like. Stay tuned!
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1 year ago marks the beginning of the end for us. 1 year ago at this point in time, there was a culmination of a week of prophetic words and declarations over our family. 1 year ago, 4/18/18, we knew that we were about to embark on an adventure that would be unlike anything we had ever experienced before…
Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the favor of the Lord.” Over the course of this past year, we have learned so much about the heart of God. We have grown in love and trust as a family and God has spoken repeatedly to us about the importance and significance of FAMILY in the Church. God is impressing upon us to pursue family-living with those God puts in our lives. The theme of FAMILY is ringing out across our land and we believe God is bringing us into the fulfillment of so many promises He has given to us: promises of family; promises of doing life full-on with people; promises that this truly is the heart of a good and perfect Father, to see his children operate and live and love as a thriving family on this side of Heaven. Join us this year in proclaiming the GOOD NEWS of the Gospel of Jesus: FREEDOM and HEALING and ADOPTION into FAMILY! Josh and I continue to knock on the doors of Heaven, looking forward to a breakthrough in this area for the Church. We long to see the bride of Christ step into their destiny to love and live as true family. We believe that God has spoken so clearly that to bring in revival, He needs us to walk in this mandate of family. Please pray with us that there would be others who would catch this fire. Pray that God would continue to connect us with those He has destined us to link arms with through this life. We love you and can't wait to see you all soon 💜💜 ![]() My apologies for missing Tuesday! We have been meeting with four other families and some locals in Staunton, VA to pray and seek God's face for the future. God is doing a new thing!! We will be telling more about this story soon, but please pray with us through Wednesday next week when we'll be traveling to Washington, D.C. Here is part 6! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Hitting high school in the mid-nineties kept me from easy access to pornography via the internet. However, the TV could be almost as bad. I prided myself as being one of the only kids in my class who didn’t party on the weekends. On Saturday nights, I would go to the school gym and play volleyball with all ages from the community. But, the devil had gotten a foothold. You see, while others were out drinking and doing other dumb things, I was watching movies that were bringing sexual images into my mind. Sometimes I remember even hitting record on the VCR and going to bed. The late night shows were even worse, or at that time in my life, I thought better! I would use these late-night recordings later to feed the lust in my eyes. I don't remember having much conviction over doing this. I do remember it being secretive and exciting. I knew I didn't want my parents to find out, but I never thought about how it affected a holy God's heart. I also remember many of the shows from the 70s through the 90s -- even the ones that were considered "family" shows -- regularly had seductive women in bikinis, men who had all the women attracted to them (James Bond, Face from the A-Team, etc.), and countless other things that polluted a growing young man's mind. Thankfully, I wasn’t exposed to continual hardcore pornography, but my steps toward spiritual death were continuing down an ugly path. When a person continues taking these steps in succession, it is a slow, and many times unknowing, process toward destruction. Someone doesn’t just decide one day to commit adultery. They arrive at that awful destination one bad decision at a time. The bible says, "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)” Although Jesus said this in the context of money, I believe it applies to other lusts as well. In other words, if your eye is feasting on things that feed lust, how can you stay pure? I think 1 John 2:16 backs this up, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” The lust of the eyes goes all the way back to Eve in the garden. It absolutely applies to both money and sex. And of course, Paul’s answer to this problem is found in Romans 8:13, “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Lord, help us to walk by the Spirit! It says, “by the Spirit…” It doesn’t say by your hard work, by your diligence, or by your discipline that you will succeed. You are powerless to change some things in your life without the work of the Holy Spirit. Please go back and read that last sentence again. Seriously. OK, I’m going to type it again: You are powerless to change some things in your life without the work of the Holy Spirit. Think on that for awhile, and we’ll discuss that idea next. ![]() The Lord has been taking us on a journey like nothing I’ve ever experienced. One of the most exciting things for me as of late is the history of Christians in America. God has taken us on an unplanned pilgrimage to different sites pivotal for our faith and our country. St. Augustine, FL was one of the first places we visited after The Send. It’s noteworthy because it actually predates the pilgrims! It is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States. After several failed attempts at colonization by multiple countries, St. Augustine began in 1565. Awhile ago, God brought me to this verse, Jeremiah 6:16, “This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths: Where is the good way? Then walk in it and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it!’” This verse came alive to me. It was like God was taking us on ancient paths where others had gone before. This country, where it’s at today, and so many more things, started right there in St. Augustine when a colony finally took hold in land that would eventually be America. ![]() All of our kids are homeschooled, but Judah is considered 4th or 5th grader this year. I say that because classes overlap when you’re “roadschooling.” An awesome benefit of being a 4th grader is that Judah and his family (all of us!) can get into national parks, monuments, recreation areas and more for free! Now, we haven’t used this benefit too much, but we happened to have time near Savannah to check out an old fort on an island. We quickly found out God was going to surprise us at some of the places we went. As I looked at the map of the place, I saw “Wesley Memorial.” John Wesley, founder of Methodism, landed on Cockspur Island in 1736. He came to America to be a missionary to the Native Americans. We checked out Fort Pulaski first and then walked a little ways toward the bay to see the memorial. When we found the memorial, inscribed directly from Wesley’s journal was this, “...Mr. Oglethorpe led us through the moorish land on the shore to a rising ground,...we chose an open place surrounded with myrtles, bays, and cedars, which sheltered us from the sun and wind, and called our little flock together to prayers." Although John Wesley had much controversy in this new world, he established the first Sunday school and was the pastor of the ‘Mother Church of Georgia.’ God later used this man to travel over 250,000 miles preaching the gospel in open air settings all over the world. God sparked a revival in Wesley’s heart that eventually reached millions of people through the gospel... but I stood there looking at the ground… his first steps in America were right there. I took the hands of Mary and Judah and prayed. God had brought us to the spot where Wesley and his group first prayed in America, and I felt like it was a special moment. Our prayer is still, “Lord, do something new in America! Spark a revival in the hearts of your people like there has never been before. God, we ask for more laborers that wouldn’t be afraid to preach in parks, on campuses and anywhere you lead them.” ![]() There were many other places God took us, but one I’ll share about was the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC. I’m not sure why, but just walking towards the property from the parking lot, I started crying. Now people that know me, know this isn’t unusual, because I cry quite a bit! However, our friend Jason from Rolling Revival, summed up the experience with, “I could live here.” It was so peaceful! It was like the peace of God just rested in that place. I’ve never experienced anything like it at a library, and quickly realized it was more of a multimedia walk-through of evangelistic history. All of us knew we were there in God’s perfect timing. We learned what really launched Billy’s organization was a 3 week planned tent meeting in 1949 Los Angeles. It turned into an 8 week meeting and people heard about it all around the world. September 25th will mark exactly 70 years since that day in LA. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was launched the following year in 1950, and for the next 60+ years, that organization was used worldwide to spread the gospel of Jesus through every medium possible. I’m not going into the significance of 70 years, but us and many of the families we’ve met on the road, believe (and have seen) that God is doing a great new work in America! Many people are being called on the road to minister the gospel in traditionally unusual ways. We are so excited for the next stage of the path God has called us to walk (and drive). As we meet on April 3rd with five other families hungry for more of God in us and in America, we believe He is going to move in supernatural ways. God has lead us on ancient paths, leading us to drop everything that is meaningless and spend our short time on earth sharing the gospel with everyone we can. We wouldn’t change a thing! |
Hi! We're the Hoeckles.We're a family of six living full-time in a skoolie (aka a school bus converted into an RV). We are inviting you to join us as we live life to its fullest and empower others to do the same. Welcome to the family! Archives
October 2020
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