heart on my sleeve

renewal

2006-06-23T01:47:00.000-07:00

I think in the hustle and bustle of our lives and even in the well-intentioned effort to be used by the Lord we frequently lose sight or perspective on the very basic concept that allows us to even be used by the Lord. That concept, though frequently heard but rarely received fully, is the truth of our identity and relationship to Him. Yes, this is another blog about our identity, and yes, I am going to talk about who we are in Christ, and I would suggest that if you are tempted to quit reading now for cause of having heard this then you just might be the very person that needs to hear it- which is exactly what the Lord convicted me of recently.

Our place in Him or our position relative to Him shouldn't be something that we approach casually and receive as a spiritual Advil to whatever aches or pains we are feeling. It shouldn't be a band-aid or even a spiritual energy drink. It should be the very thing we live FROM. As soon as we lose perspective and start living outside of identity and inside our own realm of ability, then we unplug ourselves from the very outlet which supplies the life of our lives.

The importance you place on this perspective stems a lot on your expectations or your perspective on what your life should look like. I know just in my experience when I am content to live the comfortable Christian life where I am nice to people and I walk in joy (not that that is a bad thing), the truth about who I am is just a periphery idea that makes me feel good. That pool of complacency is one I frequent occasionaly. But when I consecrate myself to Him and declare in song "Here I am I, all of me. Take my life, its all for the," there is a prodding in my Spirit of a deeper level intimacy and annointing the Lord has called us to. I mean this Christian complacency, when matched up with the intensity of Jesus saying "these things I do you shall do also and greater works than these," just does not compare. And it seems that no matter how much we like to reason our way into justifying something short of His perfect calling there is still something in our spirits that cries "THERE IS MORE!"

I believe this is where identity comes in. Who are we really? If our hearts confirm that there is more then something must be out of place in our reflections of ourselves. Well let's look at what the Word says! It says we are ambassadors, sons, new creations, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we have an annointing from the Holy One! This is the identity that matches the Father's commands to "lay hands on the sick and they shall recover," speak to the mountain, declare the Word with boldness, to live supernaturally, to look for sick people to pray for, to boldly rebuke the devil, and to boldly declare what the Word has said about you.

And as our hearts begin to long for this, to strongly desire the Lord to be completely the Lord in our lives, His response to our searching hearts is "that is what I've already done for you!" We don't have to DO anything to become more spiritual so the Lord will make us into that vessel. He has given us a picture of who we really are and all we have to do is become familiar with it! And this is not some self-empowering I-am-my-own-God thing. This is COMPLETE SUBMISSION, complete humility and the place where you say "Lord none of this is because of me, be YOU in me!" Then we must really examine what we mean by "YOU in me," and take Him out of the box of our small expectations! THIS IS GLORIFICATION TO HIS NAME!

2006-05-03T16:13:00.000-07:00

REST IN IDENTITY

Where the Spirit of the Lord is....

2006-02-25T18:20:00.000-08:00

I'm writing now in sheer amazement of Him.

I feel as if I'm being overtaken by a tidal wave of sorts.

Right now I"m sitting in a room of people being swept away by the glory of the Lord. We are actually in between sessions(the morning one lasted for 2 hours and the afternoon one lasted for 3), but people just don't want to leave the presence of the Lord. I brought my computer in here just so I could sit in it. And how can I describe it in words? How can you express the power of God in the small words that we have?

I have truly been in awe. Oh how we think we know what it means for His glory to manifest. We were in the afternoon session having a Q & A time and a lady stood up and said she had a heart for the deaf community. After she shared and the speaker answered her question, he spoke out and asked if anyone in the place had hearing problems. A man sitting in front of me raised his hand. The whole place soon erupted in prayer and praise. The speaker spoke to the man and said "be healed." I watched the man as he turned to the right and the left in amazement. The Lord had opened up his ear. And yes it surprised me. It surprised me. Why? In His presence is healing. Even now this place is thick with the presence of the Lord. There is healing here, there is deliverence here. God is healing. That's who HE IS. He said "I am the Lord who healeth thee..." Oh what a testimony to His glory! Oh I pray that we would all taste and see that He is good! Things HAPPEN when we are in HIS PRESENCE!

Oh what places we have gone in prayer this weekend. There are actual places in the Spirit the Lord wants to take us in prayer. Things happen in prayer. Revival happens in prayer, not just when you see it. And it takes pressing in. Paul said to "pray without ceasing." The Lord has placed such a purpose in me to spend more time in prayer. Prayer for Auburn. Prayer for His glory to fall. Prayer for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I'm looking at possibly starting a prayer meeting in the middle of the week for anyone who is interested. Pray about it....

Well its almost time for the next service.... and the music is still playing.....

Dispensers of Glory

2006-02-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Well I am sitting here with a lovely genetics test awaiting my attention, but there is something I must release off of my spirit before I do anything else.

I unfortunately had to leave Encounter after worship in order to study, but in that time of worship the Lord illuminated something so powerful in my heart that all I could do was stand there and breathe. At the very beginning, as I began to silently meditate and fix my gaze on Him He began to speak to me about glory. This proved very timely as the next few choruses were filled with praises of His glory. But in standing there just praying in the Spirit and letting Him guide my spirit He began to unfold something. Now when I say "guide" and "unfold" I am referring to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as someONE who "leads us and guides us into all truth" and who "shows us things to come." So I began to listen to Him as He spoke to me about GLORY.

First of all, He reminded me again of the uniformity of focus in the body concerning His glory. It has been talked about almost everywhere I go. It has excited an anticipation in the hearts of many including myself. He confirmed the certainty that I have inside of me that His glory is about to be poured out in greater measure upon His church. Now this usually excites me and gets me rejoicing but this time my response was marked with almost a heaviness. This heaviness was actually more like a burden in that instead of feeling incredibly joyful I felt an overwhelming urgency. It is that same urgency that you get when you know someone is coming over and you aren't prepared. And that is exactly what He began to tell me.

What then began to rise in my spirit was a vision of the role we will play in this outpouring. The word He gave me was "dispense." We are to be dispensers of His glory on this earth. We aren't just vessels for our own satisfaction. The burden of this came from a realization that we as a church are not ready for this. Yes, the Lord is the author and finisher of our faith, and yes, He is the potter and we are the clay. But all over scripture that truth is complemented by a charge for us to press on, to renew our minds, to build ourselves up on our faith, to speak right, to put action to our faith, to seek Him, to ask Him, to consecrate ourselves, to walk in the light, to put on Christ, to put on the same mind as Christ, to humble ourselves, and to be led by the spirit of God. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." It is time that we realize that the decisions we make or don't make impact our ability to conduct His glory. And we do all of this by His grace and for His glory, not out of our own strength. WE MUST PRESS INTO HIM. We must grow in intimacy with Him! We must learn to be led. We must expand our minds and begin to think about His glory and expect His glory. We must stretch our thinking to expect what His glory can do in our lives. What are you expecting? How big is God to you? How big is His glory to you? How much can His glory do in your life right now?

So that is what the Lord impressed upon me tonight. I didn't hear anything in an audible voice but my spirit bears witness that it was the voice of the Lord. So what are we thinking? What are we believing? How big do we make His glory in our lives? Jesus, when He healed people frequently said, "your faith has made you whole," and "according to your faith be it done unto you." According to your faith. He is looking for faith ("without faith it is impossible to please Him"). Just begin to fathom the implications of you being a dispenser of HIS GLORY on this earth. Jesus was a dispenser of His glory and even He said, "these things I do you shall do also, and greater [in quantity] works than these."

dispense

And you shall know the Truth...

2006-01-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

"Likewise you also, reckon (consider) yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (WEAPONS) of RIGHTEOUSNESS to God!" -- Romans 6:11-13

Do not consider yourself to be anything but ALIVE! Conform your words and your thoughts to this. This should completely change our perceptions of ourselves. We are not weak, unworthy, failures, addicted, lost, alone,etc.... WE ARE ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD!! Rejoice in that despite what you feel! Rejoice and ignore your mind telling you that you are defined by the mistakes you may have made 5 minutes ago or by the feelings of weakness and insecurity that are pervading your mind. THIS IS TRUTH... and it will set you free.

just thought i would share my re-revelation

from chisel to wrecking ball

2005-11-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

Wow its been a while... A lot has happen but nothing to big to note, except WAR EAGLE!! Thanksgiving with the fam was good as well. Now i'm just kind of gearing up for exams.

So I've been somewhat apathetic lately. I think it originated we me seeing Thanksgiving as just a do nothing time, because do nothing i did. Unfortunately, the "do nothing" carried over to me spending time with the Lord, which carries its effects. Praise the Lord His Grace is always there and His love is just as strong no matter how much time we spend with Him but it takes its toll on your focus and what is real in your life. So, as a result I've been refocusing on how amazing He is and how much more real His glory is than those trifle things we worry about.

The highlight of this refocusing occured in the shower this morning. I was having a conversation with the Lord, which is always amazing because He lets me spill my side of the story even though it's totally off the wall, then with the utmost patience He gently corrects me. So I was asking the Lord about this "blah" and the Holy Spirit just quickened me to praise. Of course being the somewhat stubborn person that i sometimes am I responded with a "but that can't be it it must be something deeper" type answer. So when I was done wasting my own time with my dumb solution I just began to praise. Hello blah. It was pretty much like trying to knock down a concrete wall with a tiny chisel. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of Jericho and about Paul and Silas in jail. Suddenly the chisel became a wrecking ball as I just began to take my small mind and try to wrap it around how incredibly huge and amazing He is. And my walls fell down faster than Brodie Croyle in the iron bowl! Then on top of that the Lord completely confirmed His moving by a word from one of my amazing friends that He has blessed me with.

How in the world can we walk around and not be busting at the seams with the joy of the Lord?? There is such power in our praise! Oh how much do we limit God's power in our lives by our small view of Him? Look at who the Word says we are! We are the righteousness of God in Christ! Why do we identify ourselves with our struggles so many times? Why in our minds does our potential to sin so many times outway the potential for God's glory to overcome in our lives?

Thats all I got.... you stay classy

grace and peace

the praise of our lips...

2005-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

Life is amazing. Well actually He is amazing, which makes life amazing. I've had to really bring myself back to that this week, due to some events that really tried to shake my focus and reliability on Him. I tend to overanalyse things and every second I spend doing it is a second not focusing and trusting on the Lord. But praise the Lord He is faithful and He reminded me that He knows what He's doing and doesn't need my advice! But this week has been good. Monday night Bible studies were rockin as usual. The Lord has been so faithful with those. Then we had Harvest Hoedown on Tuesday night which was a lot of fun.
(this is long but worth it)
I try not to post until the Lord places something in my spirit to get out, because I tend to just throw out a lot of idle words. He has been stirring something in me this morning and I'm going to attempt to get it out. I pray it comes out with the magnitude that is felt in my spirit.
Why are we supposed to praise the Lord at all times? To rejoice in the Lord always? I love worship music, playing worship music, leading worship, etc... anything to do with worship, but the Lord has been dealing with me about some aspects of worship lately. I think we need to reassess our worship. I know I've needed to. I don't think I sang but half of a song at encounter last week because it wasn't coming from my spirit ("they shall worship Me in Spirit and in Truth"). Instead I spent the time just in meditation and praying in the spirit. I have said before that I feel in my spirit a move of God about to take place. I believe it is going to be ushered in by a new level of worship.
"In Spirit and in Truth"- Prepositions are very interesting in the Bible. This "IN the Spirit" is a nugget in itself. The "in" is denoting a place, just like i am IN my house right now and later I will be IN class. There is a place from which we pray, a place from which we worship and that is IN the Spirit. The simplest definition that I've heard about being "in the Spirit" is "being more conscious of spiritual things than natural things." Oh and what a place it is. What a place of sweet saturation. There are answers there. There is direction there. It's as though your spirit is plugged directly into the Spirit of God and you are being charged. This is where prayer needs to come from (Ephesians 6:18). This is where worship needs to come from. I can't count how many times I have sung or have even led worship without doing anything more than reciting words from memory. But praise the Lord for Grace! Thank God He puts up with our weaknesses! But there is a point, if we want to move on to maturity as Paul talks about, that we have to grow in these things. We have to press on in our worship...
And why do we praise anyways? Well for one we praise because that's what we were made to do. We were made to bring glory to God. We praise to magnify God and to make much of Him. But there is also a bi-product of praise that we need. We praise God so that He becomes more exalted and more magnified in our minds than the problems and circumstances we face. So when we praise, especially in trials and tribulation (Romans 5:3), we are saying God You are bigger! So as we praise, He is magnified and we are encouraged as well because making much of Him is saying "God You are so big that there is nothing You can't do in my life!"
Praise is also an activation of our faith. According to Mark 11:23-24, "Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Now assuming that we pray according to God's Word (which the "whatever things you ask" is contained in... and you have to be led by the Spirit in what you pray for), when we pray and believe we receive we will have. No if and or buts about it! So what is left to do after that? PRAISE! Praise God that you have the answer! You have what you've prayed for! "But I don't see it..."- We don't praise because we see it with our natural eyes; we praise because we see it with our spiritual eyes!!! It already exists even if we can't see it yet!!
Well thanks for reading this far. I didn't intend for it to be this long, but praise the Lord! It's all good!
Oh and p.s. I'm looking for a Georgia ticket if anybody has one! (334)398-1345... thanks!

speaking of glory...

2005-11-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well I just wanted to testify at how incredible Jesus is. Some of you might have heard me share a testimony about the drummer at our church but I'll recap. Hennan (the drummer) was diagnosed with cancer (i'm not sure which kind) about a year and a half ago and doctors didn't give him any chance of living. They basically did treatment just to go through the motions. Well praise the Lord Hennan didn't accept that report!!!! Just like Joshua and Caleb believed the report of the Lord despite the giants they saw Hennan stood on the Word and claimed his healing! Well because lies and sickness have to conform to the truth and healing power of God's Word Hennan was healed! He went back to the doctor and the doctor told him that he couldn't believe what had happened. He was stunned! Hennan wasn't though because God's Word "won't return unto Him void!" Well even with that great testimony they did a blood test and discovered that cancer cells were still growing, even though the tumor they found was gone. Again we as a church body hooked up with his faith and believed that that would change. And yes, you guessed it, it did! I talked to my cousin last night and he said that the blood count had reversed and the cancer cells were dying! Praise His name!!!! That is God being glorified in us and in our body!!! He is so good!!! I'm about to run around the computer lab! He is doing so many amazing things! His Word is alive and active!!! Well now i have to go take a stupid test! blah.... But I rejoice in You Lord, You are good and Your mercy endures forever!!

glory

2005-11-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

Glory to God. What does it mean when we say this. What is glory? I would be ignorant if I assumed that there was a simple Webster's dictionary definition of this word. It's something that our English language really can't hold. I could go to the Greek and find that it means "doxa" and look at all of the definitions for that, but still there is something. The most fitting definition I can give to glory is that it is something indescribably perfect, something that reaches down to my spirit and satisfies a part of me that I don't even understand. There is something about that word "glory." I liken it to a prism, which seems so simple at first glance but when light it shed on it it is an array of splendor.
This all came up as I was reading John 17:22-23, which is Jesus' prayer to God right before His arrest: "And the glory which You gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
At the point I read this my spirit immediately jumped. The phrase "the glory which You gave me I have given them" sparked something. All of a sudden my spirit took hold of my imagination as I meditated on the implications of this verse. "That they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
The very glory, the very substance that God gave to Jesus to make them one and to enable Jesus to walk the life He walked was given to us. So now we have a glory that will make us one with each other and one with Christ, a glory that will transform our lives, causing us to be conformed to His likeness. This is a glory that affects our lives so much that the world recognizes and acknowledges that we are loved by God.
This is a glory where we are totally transparent. The moment we try to take credit for anything, we are substituting our glory for Christ's glory. It is when we allow ourselves to be vessels that the riches of His glory and in turn He is glorified. That is why it matters what happens in our lives. It matters what we feed ourselves with. It matters what we let stay in our lives. May it be nothing that makes little of the glory of God in our lives.
I could keep going for hours, but read Romans 9:23, Philipians 3:21, and Philipians 4:19!

Feel free to comment!

grace and peace

sea-bound mountains

2005-10-30T22:52:00.000-08:00

I need to bust loose of some stuff, and I've decided that I'm going to make a post out of it, mostly because some other people might be experiencing the same thing. So here we go. This is basically going to be the Holy Spirit straightening me out.

I have, for whatever reason, been allowing a spirit of anxiety, heaviness and condemnation to rest over me. I've been feeling overwhelmed by what I see in the natural- basically things that look contrary to what I am praying for. I've been focussing on the wind and the waves and what I can do about them. I've been feeling like what I say just goes through one ear and out the other. I've been feeling like I haven't been used.

Well blah with that. I just needed to get that out. So that's what I've been feeling.... now here is truth!

Praise the Lord for truth! Things that we don't see are so much more permanant than things we see! I praise the Lord for Mark 11:22-24!

"And Jesus answering saith unto them, 'Have faith in God.' For verily I say unto you. That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and ye shall have them."

Glory to God! I thank God that I can speak to mountains in my life and tell them to move and they have to move because MY GOD IS BIGGER! Jesus said "whosoever" and I am a whosoever!!!! Praise God! That spirit of heaviness has to go in the name of Jesus! That spirit is a mountain, a lie that has to conform to the truth that God has given me "a spirit of power, love and of a sound mind!" Praise the Lord we can stand on His Word and know that He will bring it to pass! I will not be moved by what I see, feel or hear because all of that is temporary compared to the Word. I have acted on the Word and I "believe that I receive." Now I expect change because God's Word never fails. I may not see it right away in the natural but my spiritual eyes of faith see it and that's all that matters! When Jesus spoke to the fig tree it didn't wither right away but that didn't phase Jesus! He believed what He said would come to pass! Then He told us that we could do the same thing! Praise His name!

What can shake us when we have a passage of scripture like this? What can steal our joy? What can get us down? What weapon of the enemy can affect us? What mountain is big enough? I think I know the answer...

Well I realize that this was a very vulnerable to do on a blog but it's what I felt led to do. I just typed myself happy! If no one else got anything out of it, I did. Praise God that I have a spirit of power, love and of a sound mind. No weapon formed against me shall prosper! I have the mind of Christ! Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world! I am more than a conqueror in Christ! I will not look at the wind and the waves but at the one who gave His life for me because He is my hope!

"Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." -- II Corinthians 2:14

grace and peace

faithful

2005-10-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Yes it has been a while... I've been meaning to post but haven't really been sure what I want to say. That's one reason. The other is that I had four tests last week.... but the three I've gotten back I've made A's on! Praise the Lord!

The Lord is so faithful. Take last night for instance. Some things had been weighing on me for a while and so finally I just told the Lord yesterday that I needed to talk to someone about them. Well a funny thing happened... I called a friend of mine wanting to play guitar with him but my cousin from Samford picked up the phone... kinda random but incredible considering that she's like my sister. So I ended up going over to where she was and we talked with another one of her friends for almost 3 hours. It is so amazing to see how the Lord works. In sharing with each other, we all three voiced things that the Lord had been placing on our hearts. It's one of the coolest things in the world to know that even though you feel isolated sometimes the same Spirit works in everyone, so it should be no surprise that we were sensing the same things.

Something good's about to happen. I'm not talking about Auburn winning a national championship either (even though that would be nice). It seems as though the Lord is stirring something and I can't wait to see what it is. I feel like some things are just too huge to post on a blog so I won't share everything, but it has been impressed upon my spirit (and the spirits of the two people I was talking with last night, and many other people I've talked to) that the church is reaching a turning point. The time is coming when people will have to decide what they believe, and there won't be any more hanging on the fence. The world will get darker but the church will grow stronger and brighter and we will see some things we have never seen. Some things in the Bible about the end-times will become clearer. Deeper revelations will be had and the eyes of people's understandings will be opened wider.

That may sound wierd to you but that is the burning impression on my Spirit. That might have been too deep for a blog but oh well! Praise the Lord for what He is doing!

grace and peace

chase

glory in tribulation

2005-10-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm convinced that when hunger, nakedness, physical abuse and imprisonment couldn't shake Paul and the early Christians, Satan decided to come up with something else, a tribulation so vile and monstrous that people quivered at the sound of it..... and here we have the origin of ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. Yes, I know I'm being overly dramatic, and yes, I know I've brought a lot of my bad grade on myself but still.... its hard. Oh and as if an organic test on wednesday weren't enough, I have 3 more tests Thursday and Friday. You're probably thinking "why is he posting on his blog then?" Hmm... and to that i say.... nothing at all because you are stinking right... you always are.... thats why I come up here... ahh will ferrell.

Speaking of Saturday night live they had the best of David Spade on Saturday and it was ohh so good, except for the fact that I couldn't really enjoy it because I was studying organic chemistry... i can't escape. But hey, Auburn won, so its cool.

I'm really trying to stay focused on the ministry aspects of my life right now (this is just a random thought post in case you can't tell). I have pledge Bible study and Encounter small groups tonight, both of which are going really well. I have loved every minute of it. I feel so alive when I talk about the Word of God. Something in me just lights up and my spirit just clings to it. I know that ministry is going to have some part in my future (and it should with everybody, I just mean one of the five-fold operations- apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers as in Eph. 4:11). To what degree, I'm not sure. I could eventually just drop the med school pursuit and go to Bible school. Hey, it could happen... ah angels in the outfield.

Well thats probably enough for now... here's a discussion question for a future post:

What is "fruit" in the sense of "you shall know them by their fruits," and what is the difference between that and "do not judge?"

Comment!

chase

Hakuna Matata

2005-10-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ohhh what a wonderful phrase. Yes I went to see the Lion King in B'ham last night and yes it was oh so good. I took my sister and we met my two cousins who go to samford, and it's always great to spend time with them. We didn't get to go to Cheesecake Factory like I had hoped but oh well.
So this week has been awesome, a calm before the storm of my 4 tests next week you might say. Pledge Bible study went really well Monday night, which is huge because I've been praying about it for a long time. I received a lot of awesome feedback so that was good. It gave me a huge confirmation that I was being led by the Spirit as far as the direction of our study goes.

Being "led by the Spirit" has always been an intriguing statement to me. Of course if you know me, you know that the Holy Spirit is probably one of my favorite things to talk about, so naturally I love learning and seeking more about Him. But that phrase just seems to take our relationship with the Lord one step deeper. It moves it beyond just text written on a page (which I'm not demeaning because that's the holy Word of God) to something more intangible, something alive and active in our lives. Something "now." And if you think about it, it magnifies the Word all the more because the Holy Spirit is what makes the Word alive and "now" to us (i.e. "He will lead you and guide you into all truth").
But phrases like "led by the Spirit" and especially "pray in the Spirit" really just grab my Spirit. I think there is something to the preposition "in." It doesn't say "by the Spirit" or "with the Spirit" but it says "in the Spirit." It's almost as if "in the Spirit" were a place- a certain place of prayer where we are "in" the Spirit. Wow. That just kind of hit me when I was typing. Think about it, how many times is prayer just something we do? How many times is prayer just one person activating his spirit while everyone else's minds just wander (i know because it happens to me!)? How many times does prayer seem like a chore, like everyone can't wait for the prayer to be over? This happens because we pray so many times with our own minds, and we pray "in knowledge" instead of praying "in the Spirit." I believe we could pray "in the Spirit" all day long, because then its not our own selves praying but the Spirit of God praying through us! We can't afford NOT to pray this way! There are things the Lord wants to do on this earth but His vessels clog themselves with their own head knowledge, and things that need to be prayed out and spoken out aren't because we aren't being led. The Word says "you have not because you ask not." Lord forgive me of that.
Wow, that got deep really fast... I think I might have to digest that one myself for a while because that was not me speaking. I think I might do a follow-up later.

Feel free to respond

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing"

2005-10-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

Wow this is like two posts in one day... thats probably a little wierd but I'm just in the mood.....

So I've been thinking a lot lately about my wife. It's a funny paradox actually, because I've never felt this inadequate in being a boyfriend or even the "h" word but I've also never felt more confident and at peace about my relationship with my future wife and who she will be. I have a deeper peace that the Lord has somebody very specific for me than I've ever had before.
A while back I started praying for my wife. I pray that the Lord would bless her that day and that He would allow her to experience something cool that she could tell me about one day. Back when I started, the prayer seemed kind of empty, like I was praying for something that didn't exist, which of course it didn't. Then all of a sudden it started to seem like I was actually praying for a living breathing person that exists and the more and more I pray the more I feel like I know this person. It is one of the coolest things ever. I can't really see her face in my spirit but it's like I know her spirit.

So here is my wife: she has a confident assurance that marks her countenance because she has a genuine relationship with the Lord and she knows who she is in Christ. She is fun-loving but knows when to be serious. She loves to have deep conversation and could talk about the Lord all night long. She respects people but also respects herself enough to not be satisfied with any less treatment than she deserves. She is loving but bold. She is sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

This is just a small glimpse of the person that I pray for. Even still, I am completely trusting the Lord as to who I am supposed to be with and I trust Him to place me with the person I need to be, but I really believe this is the girl, whoever she may be.

If you think about it, the fact that there is substance to my prayer is scripture. In essence I'm believing by faith for my wife, and Hebrews 11 says "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." So in other words, there is a substance of faith on the inside of me which gives me evidence of my wife that I do not see yet. Kinda cool.

And for all you guys who are making fun of me right now you just wait and see how incredible this girl is..... then we'll see who's laughing.... and yes i'm a hopeless romantic... but not really

oh and feel free to leave comments, i'd like to know who reads...

grace and peace

life hidden

2005-10-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

"My life is now hidden in Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me."

I don't think we fully understand the implications of that. I don't think we can understand fully. I mean to try and wrap your mind around the concept that the savior of the world, the Living Word lives through me is quite impossible. I've been thinking about what it means to have Christ live in you. Now obviously we can take the reigns from Christ in our lives and shove him to the background, but what would it look like for us to totally allow Christ to live in us. Thankfully we have the Word to turn to, so that we can get a glimpse of what our lives should look like, or what His life should look like in us. So let's think about that.....
Christ's character is essentially described in the fruits of the spirit, which would make sense seeing as how the Holy Spirit lived on the inside of Him. Jesus truly portrayed what it meant to be in the world but not of the world. We see this by His command over the elements of the earth, and consequently His command over Satan's perversion of God's creation (i.e. sickness, disaster, death, etc.). We see Jesus never being moved by any troubling situation. When things rose up against Him He spoke to it and told it to go. We see Jesus patient in affliction because He fully knew that the Lord would deliver Him.

So now what is the implication of "Christ lives in me"? Yeah there's where my mind is blown.

My mind is basically blown from seeing everything I just listed about Christ and comparing it to me. My tendency is to say that that is impossible. My spirit always catches me though and forces me to see that that is the potential God sees in us.....yeah another wow....... So am I saying that because Christ lives in us we can exemplify His character in our lives? Yes. Am I saying that God has given us the name of Jesus and the power to speak in faith and situations and mountains actually move just as in Jesus' life? Right again. Why do we shy away from that though? Could it be that we have not moved up higher as a church because we have seen our potential IN CHRIST as something unattainable, and we have seen the life of Christ as something to just be in awe of and not as something that should be seen in our own lives? Could be.

grace and peace

i've been sucked in

2005-10-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ahh you've got to love peer pressure. I've been telling myself "no I am not getting a blog, I'm just not doing it." Funny how things work. I guess its what I get for quitely sitting back and reading other people's blogs while not actually writing anything myself. Whatever it is, here I am with my very own blog, something that I hope will be a tool for the Lord to use.

Well I just wanted to kind of get the ball rolling tonight, but I'm going biking in the morning so I need sleep. But be prepared for mind boggling entries later....ha