The Rising Church

The Rising Church www.iamtherising.org LIVE Church (Valdese, NC) and Harvest Praise Church (Morganton, NC) have united as one fellowship, now known as The Rising Church.

09/05/2026

DAY 6-My Sheep Hear My Voice

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. … For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
JOHN 10:27; ROMANS 8:14 (KJV)

In the Middle East, shepherds still do something that sounds impossible until you see it. Several flocks will be bedded down together in one large fold overnight, all mixed in, hundreds of animals with no fences between them. In the morning each shepherd stands at the edge and simply calls. And his sheep — only his sheep — peel off from the crowd and come to him.
They do not follow a uniform. They do not follow a brand. They follow a voice they have spent time with.
Rising Family, let me say this as plainly as I know how. Hearing the voice of God is not an advanced-level gift reserved for prophets and preachers and people with a certain kind of prayer life. Jesus did not say "my leaders hear my voice." He said MY SHEEP hear my voice. If you are His, hearing Him is standard equipment. Romans 8:14 says as many as are LED by the Spirit, they are the sons of God — being led is presented as normal Christian living, not an upgrade.
So if it has gone quiet, the problem is almost never that He stopped talking. It is usually one of two things: the volume of everything else, or unfamiliarity. Those sheep could pick their shepherd's voice out of a crowd because they had been around him every single day for years. Familiarity is built in ordinary time, not in emergencies. If the only time you try to hear Him is when the wheels come off, you are trying to recognize a voice you have not spent time with.
And test what you hear — that is not unbelief, that is maturity. Does it line up with the written Word? Does it carry peace, or panic (Colossians 3:15)? What fruit does it produce? What do the seasoned believers around you say? God is never offended by a sheep that checks.
“Hearing God is not a gift for the elite. It is the birthright of a sheep.”

When was the last time you sat in silence with no agenda, no request, and no phone — just to get familiar with His voice? Put fifteen minutes on the calendar today.

09/04/2026

DAY 5-The Shepherd Who Died for the Sheep

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. … I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
JOHN 10:11, 14 (KJV)

When Jesus says "I am the GOOD shepherd," the word He uses is kalos. It does not just mean morally good or competent at the job. It carries the sense of beautiful, noble, the real thing as opposed to the counterfeit. He is not saying "I am adequate." He is saying "I am the genuine article, and I am beautiful at this."
Then He draws a line. A few verses later He describes the hireling — the hired hand who runs when the wolf shows up, because the sheep are not his and he has nothing personally at stake (John 10:12-13). Everybody has been shepherded by a hireling at some point. Somebody who was invested in you until it cost them something. Somebody who was there for the platform and gone at the first sign of a wolf. That wound is real, and if you are honest, it has made you slow to trust a Shepherd.
So look at what this Shepherd did. He did not run from the wolf. He stepped in front of it.
And here is the part that should wreck you. In every other shepherding arrangement in human history, the sheep eventually dies for the shepherd. The lamb goes on the table. The shepherd eats. This is the only Shepherd who reversed it — He laid Himself on the table so the sheep could live. John the Baptist saw Him coming and said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Shepherd and Lamb in the same body.
One more thing about safety. In that culture the shepherd would gather the flock into a stone pen at night, and the opening had no gate. So the shepherd laid his own body down in the gap and slept there. Anything coming for the sheep had to come through him. That is exactly why Jesus said in John 10:9, "I am the door." Your security is not a wall around you. It is a Person lying across the entrance.
“Every shepherd in history killed a lamb to eat. This One became the Lamb so we could live.”

Where has a hireling wounded you — and have you accidentally put that face on Jesus? Ask Him today to show you the difference.

What a great Youth Rally 2026 at The Rising Church. Powerful word from Jaden Curtis, "Whose Table are you Sitting at?" H...
09/03/2026

What a great Youth Rally 2026 at The Rising Church. Powerful word from Jaden Curtis, "Whose Table are you Sitting at?" Here are some pictures from the event.

09/03/2026

DAY 4-He Restoreth My Soul

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
PSALM 23:3; PSALM 42:5 (KJV)

There is a term shepherds use for a specific kind of emergency. They call it a cast sheep. It happens when a sheep lies down in a little hollow in the ground, rolls slightly to get comfortable, and its center of gravity shifts just enough that it ends up on its back with its legs in the air. It cannot get up. It kicks and struggles and only makes it worse. Gases build in its body, circulation to the legs starts to cut off, and in hot weather that sheep can die in a matter of hours.
Here is what gets me. That sheep did not rebel. It did not run away. It did not go looking for trouble. It laid down in what looked like a comfortable spot and lost its balance.
Somebody reading this today is a cast believer. You didn't backslide. You didn't chase sin. You just got stuck. You laid down in a comfortable hollow and now you are on your back, kicking, and the harder you fight the more tired you get. And you are ashamed, because you cannot even point to a sin that put you there.
Do you know what a good shepherd does when he counts the flock and comes up one short? He goes looking. And when he finds that cast sheep he does not stand over it and lecture it about balance. He rolls it upright, and then he sits down and rubs its legs — sometimes for a long time — until the circulation comes back and it can stand on its own. He steadies it while it wobbles. He does not let go until it walks.
That is your Shepherd. Psalm 42:5 asks, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" and the very next breath answers it: "hope thou in God." And Rising Family, this is where the Holy Spirit steps in. Jesus called Him the Comforter — in the Greek, Parakletos, the One called alongside to help. He is not a distant force. He is the One who sits down in the dirt with you and works the feeling back into your legs.
“You didn't run from God. You just got stuck. And He is already on His way.”

Where have you been stuck and silently ashamed that you can't explain why? Stop diagnosing it. Just let Him roll you over.

09/02/2026

REFLECT DAY 3-He MAKES Me Lie Down

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
PSALM 23:2 (KJV)

Shepherds will tell you that a sheep will not lie down when four things are true. It will not lie down when it is hungry. It will not lie down when it is afraid. It will not lie down when it is fighting with other sheep. And it will not lie down when it is being tormented by pests. All four have to be settled before a sheep will ever rest.
So when David says the Shepherd makes him lie down, he is saying something enormous. He is saying the Shepherd handled the hunger. He handled the fear. He handled the friction. He handled the thing that had been biting at me all day. Rest is not the absence of activity. Rest is the evidence that Somebody took care of what was keeping you up.
Now look at that word MAKETH. He maketh me. That is not gentle. Sometimes rest is not offered — sometimes rest is imposed. Some of you are reading this in a season you did not choose, off a platform you did not want to leave, in a slowdown that feels like a shutdown. Consider that it may not be an attack. It may be a Shepherd who loves you too much to let you run yourself into the ground.
Church folks are the worst at this, and ministers are the worst of the church folks. We have somehow decided that exhaustion is a spiritual gift. It is not. Elijah called fire down from heaven and then collapsed under a juniper tree, and heaven's first response was not a rebuke and not a sermon — it was a meal and a nap (1 Kings 19:5-7). If God fed and rested His prophet before He ever spoke to him, you can stop feeling guilty for sleeping.
The anointing on your life does not exempt you from the limits of your body. Green pastures are not a reward for finishing. They are provision for the journey.
“If you will not take the rest, He will schedule it for you. Ask me how I know.”

What is actually keeping you from rest — hunger, fear, conflict, or torment? Name it specifically. That is the thing you are handing the Shepherd today.

WE OFFICIALLY HOLD THE DEEDS TO THE LAND! 🙌🏼🎉What once was a prayer and a vision is now officially ours! We are so thank...
09/01/2026

WE OFFICIALLY HOLD THE DEEDS TO THE LAND! 🙌🏼🎉

What once was a prayer and a vision is now officially ours! We are so thankful for God’s faithfulness and for every person who has prayed, given, and believed with us along the way.

We know this is about so much more than land. It’s about people. It’s about souls. It’s about families. It’s about generations. It’s about expanding the Kingdom of God.

TRC this is only the beginning… LET’S GO GROW!!!

09/01/2026

DAY 2-I Shall Not Want

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. … The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
PSALM 23:1; PSALM 34:10 (KJV)

Let's clear something up right at the top, because a lot of hurting people have been beat up with this verse. "I shall not want" does not mean "I get everything I want." The word want here is the old English use of the word — it means lack. I shall not lack. There is a world of difference between a desire and a deficiency, and God has never promised to fund every desire. He has promised that you will never lack one single thing you actually need.
Look at the comparison David draws in Psalm 34. The young lions — the strongest, fastest, most equipped predator on the landscape — go hungry. The sheep, the most defenseless animal out there, does not. Why? Because provision has never been about your capability. It has always been about your covering.
Here is the part that will preach. Sheep are terrible at finding food. Left alone, a flock will eat one patch of ground down to bare dirt and then stand there, starving, on land they already stripped. They will not move themselves. Somebody has to move them.
Some of you are hungry in a place God already moved on from. You keep going back to a pasture that fed you in 2019 and wondering why nothing is growing. That restlessness you feel is not rebellion and it is not the devil — it may be the Shepherd's staff on your ribs, saying it is time to move.
This is not a promise that you will never see a hard month or an empty account. It is a promise that you will never face one unsupplied and never face one alone. Philippians 4:19 says He shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory. According to His riches. Not according to your paycheck, your industry, or your last performance review.
“The lion has claws and still goes hungry. The sheep has nothing but a Shepherd — and is full.”

Name one thing you are genuinely worried about providing for. Now ask yourself honestly: is that a lack, or is that a desire? Bring both to Him — but call them what they are.

08/31/2026

DAY 1-He Is MY Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
PSALM 23:1 (KJV)

Read that verse again and put your finger on the smallest word in it. Not "the." Not "is." Look at the word MY.
David did not write, "The LORD is a shepherd." He did not write, "The LORD is the Shepherd of Israel," even though that is gloriously true. He wrote MY. That is a possessive word. That is a personal word. That is the difference between knowing about God and knowing God.
You can grow up in church, sing every song, know every book of the Bible in order, and still be talking about somebody else's Shepherd. Religion says "the Shepherd." Relationship says "my Shepherd." One of those will hold you when the bottom falls out. The other one will not.
And notice what David does not say. He does not say, "The LORD is my Shepherd because I earned it." There is nothing in the whole animal kingdom less impressive than a sheep. Sheep don't hunt. Sheep don't defend. Sheep don't produce anything but wool, and they can't even shear themselves. You do not get a shepherd by being valuable. You get a shepherd by belonging to one.
So if you have been striving to be useful enough for God to notice you — stop. He is not looking for talent. He is looking for sheep. And the second you say yes to Him, His name goes on you and you go on His shoulders.
“You don't get a Shepherd by being impressive. You get one by being His.”

Say it out loud right now, with your own mouth: "The LORD is MY Shepherd." Did that land as a fact, or as a hope? Be honest with yourself — and then be honest with Him.

08/31/2026

Welcome to Week 37
The Good Shepherd

Rising Family, welcome to a brand new week in the Word.
For the next seven days we are walking through the most quoted chapter in the Bible — and honestly, one of the least understood. Psalm 23 has been printed on funeral programs so many times that most people only ever hear it standing beside a grave. But David didn't write it for the dead. He wrote it for the living. He wrote it for people still walking, still working, still fighting, still afraid.
David knew what he was talking about. Before he wore a crown he carried a staff. He had fought a lion and a bear with his bare hands to protect animals that could not protect themselves (1 Samuel 17:34-36). So when he picks up his pen and says, "The LORD is my shepherd," he is not writing poetry from a distance. He is saying: everything I did for those helpless sheep, God is willing to do for me.
Here is the truth about sheep, and it will sting a little. Sheep have no claws, no fangs, no speed, and no sense of direction. They will overgraze a field down to bare dirt and then stand there starving on the same ground they stripped. They will follow the sheep in front of them right off the edge of a cliff. God chose that animal, on purpose, to describe us. That is not an insult. That is a diagnosis — and a diagnosis is the first step toward being cared for.
This week we are going to learn what it means to be led, fed, found, and defended by the Good Shepherd. And Rising Family, hear me — He has not gone quiet. He still leads. He still speaks. He still comes looking. Let's walk it out together.

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