Sometimes there is no way around it... sometimes, the law just has to be laid down. Sometimes, no matter how nicely I try and tell people something, there is a chance of a bad perception. Sometimes it’s my fault for the delivery, and sometimes the it was just received wrong, by that I mean the person receiving it didn’t get it right. I once heard the line that its better to be understanding than understood. And I try and live by that. But sometimes, no matter how it’s brought up, there is an offense brought up.
My pastoral side sometimes just wants to throw my arm around folks and encourage. And then at times the prophetic side rises up in me and then I know I have to be careful with what I say. I will say this: we as Christians are to be physicians more than cooks. With that said, its also important to say things in the right spirit/attitude and correct manner. You want to deal with each situation as you feel the Holy Spirit directs you.
I have come across a few arguments, they’re called ‘self-defeating’ arguments because followed out logically, the cancel themselves out. One’s like:
1. There are no absolute truths. Response: You sure about that?
2. Well, that’s right for you but not for me. Response: You try telling that to the cop when they pull you over for speeding, doing a 70 in a 55 (a hypothetical situation). When the officer comes up and says “I caught you doing 70 in a 55. And you say “Well, that may be true for you but not for me.” And you speed off… that just won’t work.
3. Well, I grew up in church and I’m a good person… Response: This one is my favorite one. Because it’s probably the most destructive one. In Revelation, the Laodicean church got all out rebuked for having this type of mentality. They thought they had it going for them, but they were spiritually bankrupt. Leonard Ravenhill said once “How is it that the world couldn’t get on with Jesus who was the holiest man ever to live and yet they can get on with you?”
4. You’re being judgmental! Response: thanks for judging me and thus cancelling yourself out. This is an argument that’s seemingly based out of Matt. 7. What that chapter ISN’T saying is that we’re not to use common sense and wisdom from God and make a judgment call when someone does something stupid… like stealing (just an example). What this chapter is meaning is that we’re not to judge the motives of someone’s heart. Check out this article about it http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=119940306848&h=rf8ZX&u=IP-HP&ref=mf.
Here’s the deal: Jesus had more grace and compassion on the sinners of the day than the religious folks. The woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more. He didn’t excuse or condone her sin. He judged her with love and compassion.
We also need to get a concept of what love REALLY means. True love is rough at times when it’s needed. Sometimes, loving parents have to kick their kids out of the house for being stupid. And honestly, I have more patience with a outright pagan than I do with someone who CLAIMS to be a Christian, but produces no fruit for it. They don’t know the Bible at all, there is no prayer life… stuff like that.
Sometimes, love means discipline… and yes, I believe in spanking. Spanking done in the right spirit produces fruit. I know, I was spanked as a child (and I continually thank my parents for it to this day.)
Lately, its seems like the church (talking about the body as a whole) is in this huge identity crisis. It seems more like a big social club gathering, and instead of actually addressing issues, we’ve turned a blind eye to it.
A solution to all of this: For one thing, quit giving the Lord lip service. In Jeremiah it says that we honor the Lord with our lips but our hearts are far from Him. We put on a mask and sadly, we can fool a good number of folks. Two: be honest with the Lord and with yourself. Three: it’s time to get the presence of God back into the body. We’ve traded the presence of God for our churchy programs. I’m not against programs necessarily. I teach at our Royal Rangers program once a week at my church. But more than anything, my desire is for the body of Christ to experience the manifest presence of God. Trust me when I say that 30 seconds in the presence of God can and will do the work of hours and hours of sermons/messages. And those messages aren’t a bad thing necessarily. We need good solid Biblical teaching. But just seconds in Daddy’s presence will do the work of tons of sermons.
All of this isn’t really anything new. Most of it was due to recent conversations I’ve had with folks who were very well meaning, and I just wanted to set the record straight on a couple things.
I’m not afraid to necessarily pull ideas from various sources, but just to let everyone know in reading this that the Bible is my foremost authority. I get a lot of concepts and ideas from various sources and everything is taken by to scripture and scrutinized according to Biblical principles. So I welcome your comments but be mindful that I do use discretion and if I feel the comment needs to be pulled, this is my site and I hold that right. But everything will be done in a Biblical order.
I forgot to mention some websites to check out:
www.fire-school.org
www.fire-church.org
http://www.fireonyourhead.org
http://www.fireonyourhead.com/
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
It's Been Awhile...
I know, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I just haven't been in the mood I guess to post... to take the time and do it just doesn't always happen. And it's not like I don't have anything to say. I have tons to say, but just sometimes putting it into words and then you get to deal w/ the fact that it's sometimes just too painful to think about the stuff... I mean, I could just always post just nice stuff... tickle peoples ears and do all that... but that just wouldn't be me.
Lately, a friend of mine and I have been discussing the possibility of starting up a Bible study w/ a few folks. There is a desperate need for it and people have questions. Primarily, I see a lot of youth that need to be challenged and trained up... I'm not sure what's going on w/ local ministries, but it just doesn't seem to be happening (I told you, its not always the pleasant stuff that I get to write about. If your looking for that, you picked the wrong blog to read...) So, as we continue to pray about it and see if its the timing to do something. My heart soo yearns to see people equipped. I get asked questions a lot and I seem to have fairly decent answers, I guess. Hey, i'm just reading the Bible and seeking God's heart. And He just keeps using me... its not that hard.
Just this past Saturday, our church and other local churches came together to do an outreach to the homosexual community down in Charlotte. We called it God Has A Better Way. Our goal was to reach out and resist. To show the homosexual community that we love them as God does, but we don't love the sin that they're living in (the lifestyle). But we understand that they're struggling and we want to be able to help.
One of my big interests is politics. I realized that my life is involved with probably two of the most controversial topics: religion and politics. Not religion OR politics, but religion AND politics. The last couple weeks at church we were having night classes. We called it the School of Cultural Engagement. We had speakers like Dr. John Rankin, Joe Dallas, Dr. Brown, Frank Turek, Joseph Infranco and Pat Mahoney. Each speaker took a different week and spoke on the topics that they were best at. I plan on buying all six weeks because they were just soo meaty and power-packed, so life enriching. I tried to get notes with each week, but I'm not soo good at taking notes. It's not my strong point.
God is doing something in this 'hour' that is just awesome. He is turning the hearts of His children to Him. There is a holy roar that is breaking out and people are getting hungry for the things of the Lord. They realize that government isn't going to solve the problems and that even the church isn't really providing many answers. But God is and Jesus loves them. So luckily, they're turning to Him.
Lately, a friend of mine and I have been discussing the possibility of starting up a Bible study w/ a few folks. There is a desperate need for it and people have questions. Primarily, I see a lot of youth that need to be challenged and trained up... I'm not sure what's going on w/ local ministries, but it just doesn't seem to be happening (I told you, its not always the pleasant stuff that I get to write about. If your looking for that, you picked the wrong blog to read...) So, as we continue to pray about it and see if its the timing to do something. My heart soo yearns to see people equipped. I get asked questions a lot and I seem to have fairly decent answers, I guess. Hey, i'm just reading the Bible and seeking God's heart. And He just keeps using me... its not that hard.
Just this past Saturday, our church and other local churches came together to do an outreach to the homosexual community down in Charlotte. We called it God Has A Better Way. Our goal was to reach out and resist. To show the homosexual community that we love them as God does, but we don't love the sin that they're living in (the lifestyle). But we understand that they're struggling and we want to be able to help.
One of my big interests is politics. I realized that my life is involved with probably two of the most controversial topics: religion and politics. Not religion OR politics, but religion AND politics. The last couple weeks at church we were having night classes. We called it the School of Cultural Engagement. We had speakers like Dr. John Rankin, Joe Dallas, Dr. Brown, Frank Turek, Joseph Infranco and Pat Mahoney. Each speaker took a different week and spoke on the topics that they were best at. I plan on buying all six weeks because they were just soo meaty and power-packed, so life enriching. I tried to get notes with each week, but I'm not soo good at taking notes. It's not my strong point.
God is doing something in this 'hour' that is just awesome. He is turning the hearts of His children to Him. There is a holy roar that is breaking out and people are getting hungry for the things of the Lord. They realize that government isn't going to solve the problems and that even the church isn't really providing many answers. But God is and Jesus loves them. So luckily, they're turning to Him.
Story Time!
Well, since everyone loves a good story, I wanted to share with all of you the time my roommates (Joshua and Jordan Pearson) bungee corded my door shut. I have to tell you that my initial reaction was frustration at first, but after about 5 seconds, I laughed really hard.
The layout of the how my bedroom door is helps out. If you walk direction forward after walking out of my door, you walk directly into the bathroom. And on the right side is the door to the other bedroom here. So all three doors are right close by, giving perfect opportunity for any good jokes. And I gotta hand it to the guys for coming up w/ the idea. They were thinking about seran wrapping my car, which i'm really glad they didn't because that would take a lot of seran wrap and it would take a while to clean up.
So anyways, they normally were getting up like stupid early. I mean, they were getting up before the sun gets up. And more of a night owl... relatively speaking. But the one morning, as they were getting up, i guess they were bored. So Jordan took some bungee cords and connected one to my door with the doorknob and one to the bathroom doorknob. And then he also connected one to the then spare bedroom doorknob. (I'll look into taking a picture of how its set up.) But anyways, so the boys go off to school and i'm yet to get up. At one point in time during the set up, one of the bungee cords had slipped off and made a loud snapping noise. I heard it but thought Jordan was doing something out in the garage, so i just rolled over and fell back to sleep. So I get up (and running slightly late) but I go to open my bedroom door. I open the door and let go of the door knob and the door slams shut. I was like "what the..?" Mind you, I'm still just waking up, so i'm not completely with it yet. But I open the door again and look out and see the bungee cords and I just start laughing. I really wish we could've recorded my reaction, because I would've loved for the guys to see it. I gotta hand it to them.... they did a good job
The layout of the how my bedroom door is helps out. If you walk direction forward after walking out of my door, you walk directly into the bathroom. And on the right side is the door to the other bedroom here. So all three doors are right close by, giving perfect opportunity for any good jokes. And I gotta hand it to the guys for coming up w/ the idea. They were thinking about seran wrapping my car, which i'm really glad they didn't because that would take a lot of seran wrap and it would take a while to clean up.
So anyways, they normally were getting up like stupid early. I mean, they were getting up before the sun gets up. And more of a night owl... relatively speaking. But the one morning, as they were getting up, i guess they were bored. So Jordan took some bungee cords and connected one to my door with the doorknob and one to the bathroom doorknob. And then he also connected one to the then spare bedroom doorknob. (I'll look into taking a picture of how its set up.) But anyways, so the boys go off to school and i'm yet to get up. At one point in time during the set up, one of the bungee cords had slipped off and made a loud snapping noise. I heard it but thought Jordan was doing something out in the garage, so i just rolled over and fell back to sleep. So I get up (and running slightly late) but I go to open my bedroom door. I open the door and let go of the door knob and the door slams shut. I was like "what the..?" Mind you, I'm still just waking up, so i'm not completely with it yet. But I open the door again and look out and see the bungee cords and I just start laughing. I really wish we could've recorded my reaction, because I would've loved for the guys to see it. I gotta hand it to them.... they did a good job
Friday, June 19, 2009
Guatemala, 2009
In all my excitement of writing the last note, I forgot to say what we actually did. Our actual idea for the trip was to do a "Champions for Christ" sports camp for the kids. I got to teach a bunch of 6-9 year old kids how to play baseball and soccer.
They weren't too thrilled with baseball, but they loved soccer. I'm not sure if we actually taught them anything in that arena actually. Most of these kids grow up with a soccer ball (or futbol) around. So Monday thru Thursday we did the sports camp. We started off around 9am and went until about 1pm. It may not sound like much, but remember, this is under the Guatemalan sun. But the temperatures were about like Charlotte actually. I was just amazed at my energy levels. I was only getting about 5-6 hrs asleep a night for some reason. Usually, after 2 nights of that, I would've been really tired and cranky and no fun to be around. But there was a real grace for it. And thankfully, all the fields were provided due to an anonymous donor. One of our translators and friends, Rolando, had the hook up for that. So, whomever it was, thanks a ton. Through sports, we were able to teach the kids some valuable lessons in life.
I had to keep reminding myself that they children I was dealing with were 6-9 and not youth. So I had to be really careful when addressing wrong attitudes. I didn't want to just snap at them, but I wanted to find out what was going on with them and give them something to look forward towards. All in all, i think the camp went off pretty well.
After the camp ended on Thursday, we headed up the coast to a coffee plantation somewhere in the Guatemalan hills. The place was phenomenal! It had a great view of a nearby river and cities. We ended up taking a small bus load up. Now mind you, the road to get up to this plantation was not flat by any stretch of the imagination. The bus driver literally had to get a running start up the hill or the bus may not have made it. It wasn't nicely paved roads the whole way up. This is Guatemala after all. No, the incline up the hill was pretty steep. It was probably at least a 45% incline. So we went up to the plantation and spent the night there. We also had a small worship time and water baptismals. A number of folks on our team got baptized in water and then a number of the children did as well.
After leaving the plantation, we went back to the children's home, changed clothes and repacked for a quick overnight trip to Antiqua. That was our sightseeing time. What's a missions trip without a sightseeing time? We hit various markets there and toured the Casa de Santo Domingo.
This is a brief synopsis of my trip to Guatemala. Further details available upon request.
They weren't too thrilled with baseball, but they loved soccer. I'm not sure if we actually taught them anything in that arena actually. Most of these kids grow up with a soccer ball (or futbol) around. So Monday thru Thursday we did the sports camp. We started off around 9am and went until about 1pm. It may not sound like much, but remember, this is under the Guatemalan sun. But the temperatures were about like Charlotte actually. I was just amazed at my energy levels. I was only getting about 5-6 hrs asleep a night for some reason. Usually, after 2 nights of that, I would've been really tired and cranky and no fun to be around. But there was a real grace for it. And thankfully, all the fields were provided due to an anonymous donor. One of our translators and friends, Rolando, had the hook up for that. So, whomever it was, thanks a ton. Through sports, we were able to teach the kids some valuable lessons in life.
I had to keep reminding myself that they children I was dealing with were 6-9 and not youth. So I had to be really careful when addressing wrong attitudes. I didn't want to just snap at them, but I wanted to find out what was going on with them and give them something to look forward towards. All in all, i think the camp went off pretty well.
After the camp ended on Thursday, we headed up the coast to a coffee plantation somewhere in the Guatemalan hills. The place was phenomenal! It had a great view of a nearby river and cities. We ended up taking a small bus load up. Now mind you, the road to get up to this plantation was not flat by any stretch of the imagination. The bus driver literally had to get a running start up the hill or the bus may not have made it. It wasn't nicely paved roads the whole way up. This is Guatemala after all. No, the incline up the hill was pretty steep. It was probably at least a 45% incline. So we went up to the plantation and spent the night there. We also had a small worship time and water baptismals. A number of folks on our team got baptized in water and then a number of the children did as well.
After leaving the plantation, we went back to the children's home, changed clothes and repacked for a quick overnight trip to Antiqua. That was our sightseeing time. What's a missions trip without a sightseeing time? We hit various markets there and toured the Casa de Santo Domingo.
This is a brief synopsis of my trip to Guatemala. Further details available upon request.
Guatemala 2009, Pt. 1
I want to start this note off by thanking everyone for their support for me on this missions trip. There was a lot of planning and running around that I did for this trip. It's amazing how much type of administration/ behind the scenes type of stuff goes into planning a trip. Luckily, I'm largely wired for that so to have George, who was the leader of the trip, ask me to do a lot of that was fun for me.
We started getting together and uniting as a team the end of March of this year. We started with Friday nights and then did Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. We would have a Friday night meeting for prayer/worship and take care of admin stuff w/ the group and then do sports training Saturday afternoon. we had to go over the guidelines for baseball and soccer. My family did a lot of baseball/softball and I played soccer. I knew the rules for baseball but not much practical application of it myself. I was afraid to play catch b/c i couldn't catch a baseball very easily. But soccer was always my thing.
So in any case, we would be getting together as a team and start from square one. We even did a Biblical Foundations series which was really fun. Going over just the basics and then building on that. Starting off w/ salvation and then getting into healing and baptism of the Spirit.
It's amazing how unified the team still is! Despite the fact that half of us are from different churches in the area here, the common factor is Jesus! (What a great foundation to build on!) I would often tell the team that even after the trip, I won't be able to forget about them. Which is true to date because thanks to modern technology, we still keep in contact!
So after all the training (sports, Biblical), we set off. We flew out Sat. June 6, '09 @ 6:30 am from Charlotte. All the while, i was even getting to meet the folks who lived down in Guatemala via none other than Facebook. So when I got there, I felt like i knew a lot about them already!
I knew going into this trip that I wasn't going to be doing much preaching at all, but more of just letting Father God love on me and giving me His heart for the children I would be ministering to and just loving on them as Jesus would. I did get to give a brief message the one night to a small village, but it was a quick 10 minutes. And most of them were there to receive food that we were giving out. None the less, myself and George preached for a bit and the team did some hands on ministry. Including praying for an elderly woman and seeing her getting up and walking w/o a walker! Jesus is sooo awesome! (Take that satan... in ur eye!)
I can remember the very first night of arriving at the childrens home where we were staying, we get out of the van and in under 5 seconds, we were surrounded by little kids! I loved it! Hugs all around. These kids didn't care how much we knew, they were just there to receive love from Jesus who loved them! And I was there to freely give it away! The uncle/big brother/future father in me came out! I once heard it said that people don't care how much you know until the know how much you care! I can't tell you how refreshing it was to just hold the kids and just love on them! While we were traveling around w/ the kids, they would just come and sit on your lap and sometimes just fall asleep. It totally broke my heart to think of all the broken homes and lives that these children come from. Some of them were orphans and some of them were probably more like foster kids that had to be taken from their homes b/c of bad child hoods. Just simply saying hello to them really ministered to them. My hat goes off to the volunteers who are there much more full time than we were. I was blessed to be able to help a few of them out w/ some technical difficulties they were having w/ their computers. I figured I have the skill, use it. After all they do, its the least I could do.
And the friendships that I made while being there are priceless! All our translators and everyone who helped out... impossible to forget all of them! We started off w/ a core team and that team just kept growing! By the end of the week, our team doubled in size! Let's see, there was Quikay and Carol (the leaders of Fundaninos (sorry about the bad spelling here folks), Janet, Sonja, Sonia, Carla, Carolina, Sigrid, Ana, Diego, Marco, Rolando, Vivian and Holly. (If I forgot anyone, someone will correct me.) And those are just the folks who were there that were on the team. Some of our team weren't able to go due to financial reasons... Mallory and Michael.
We have just a few pictures of the trip. Only a little more than 3,000 I think. And check out Voyager Expeditions website @ www.voyagerexpeditions.org, we're working on getting things all together. We got a lot of video as well, which we'll be putting that on the website someday.
And thanks to all those who supported me financially and w/ prayer here in the States! As always, its my joy and privilege to represent you and Jesus out there. May you be blessed abundantly.
We started getting together and uniting as a team the end of March of this year. We started with Friday nights and then did Friday nights and Saturday afternoon. We would have a Friday night meeting for prayer/worship and take care of admin stuff w/ the group and then do sports training Saturday afternoon. we had to go over the guidelines for baseball and soccer. My family did a lot of baseball/softball and I played soccer. I knew the rules for baseball but not much practical application of it myself. I was afraid to play catch b/c i couldn't catch a baseball very easily. But soccer was always my thing.
So in any case, we would be getting together as a team and start from square one. We even did a Biblical Foundations series which was really fun. Going over just the basics and then building on that. Starting off w/ salvation and then getting into healing and baptism of the Spirit.
It's amazing how unified the team still is! Despite the fact that half of us are from different churches in the area here, the common factor is Jesus! (What a great foundation to build on!) I would often tell the team that even after the trip, I won't be able to forget about them. Which is true to date because thanks to modern technology, we still keep in contact!
So after all the training (sports, Biblical), we set off. We flew out Sat. June 6, '09 @ 6:30 am from Charlotte. All the while, i was even getting to meet the folks who lived down in Guatemala via none other than Facebook. So when I got there, I felt like i knew a lot about them already!
I knew going into this trip that I wasn't going to be doing much preaching at all, but more of just letting Father God love on me and giving me His heart for the children I would be ministering to and just loving on them as Jesus would. I did get to give a brief message the one night to a small village, but it was a quick 10 minutes. And most of them were there to receive food that we were giving out. None the less, myself and George preached for a bit and the team did some hands on ministry. Including praying for an elderly woman and seeing her getting up and walking w/o a walker! Jesus is sooo awesome! (Take that satan... in ur eye!)
I can remember the very first night of arriving at the childrens home where we were staying, we get out of the van and in under 5 seconds, we were surrounded by little kids! I loved it! Hugs all around. These kids didn't care how much we knew, they were just there to receive love from Jesus who loved them! And I was there to freely give it away! The uncle/big brother/future father in me came out! I once heard it said that people don't care how much you know until the know how much you care! I can't tell you how refreshing it was to just hold the kids and just love on them! While we were traveling around w/ the kids, they would just come and sit on your lap and sometimes just fall asleep. It totally broke my heart to think of all the broken homes and lives that these children come from. Some of them were orphans and some of them were probably more like foster kids that had to be taken from their homes b/c of bad child hoods. Just simply saying hello to them really ministered to them. My hat goes off to the volunteers who are there much more full time than we were. I was blessed to be able to help a few of them out w/ some technical difficulties they were having w/ their computers. I figured I have the skill, use it. After all they do, its the least I could do.
And the friendships that I made while being there are priceless! All our translators and everyone who helped out... impossible to forget all of them! We started off w/ a core team and that team just kept growing! By the end of the week, our team doubled in size! Let's see, there was Quikay and Carol (the leaders of Fundaninos (sorry about the bad spelling here folks), Janet, Sonja, Sonia, Carla, Carolina, Sigrid, Ana, Diego, Marco, Rolando, Vivian and Holly. (If I forgot anyone, someone will correct me.) And those are just the folks who were there that were on the team. Some of our team weren't able to go due to financial reasons... Mallory and Michael.
We have just a few pictures of the trip. Only a little more than 3,000 I think. And check out Voyager Expeditions website @ www.voyagerexpeditions.org, we're working on getting things all together. We got a lot of video as well, which we'll be putting that on the website someday.
And thanks to all those who supported me financially and w/ prayer here in the States! As always, its my joy and privilege to represent you and Jesus out there. May you be blessed abundantly.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Cross Dressers Anonymous
First off, your probably thinking that with the title of this note, i'm going to be addressing issues like the homosexual agenda. And actually, that isn't the case. What I want to talk about in this note is being clothed in righteousness according to the Cross of Jesus and living a life in the Holy Spirit. After going through FIRE, I've come to realize that the more you learn about God, the more you realize how little you actually know about Him.
Lately, I've been mulling over the idea about what is holiness to the Lord, walking uprightly before God and walking in character and integrity. I'm really hoping that some of the following thoughts won't come back to haunt me, but with the way that my life goes sometimes, I won't be surprised.
I've been doing a cover to cover reading of the Bible for sometime now. One verse that keeps coming back to mind is "All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6 NASB). One thing that I'm EXTREMELY grateful for is that there is nothing in, on or around this world that I can do to become righteous, other than accepting Jesus and thereby acknowledging that my life before hand and everything I do outside of Jesus is garbage. It's worthless, trash, rubbish, feces... you get the idea.
I can remember talking with folks when doing street evangelism and I ask them things like "so, do you know Jesus?" Their response: "yeah, I go to church." wow, where did that come from? I couldn't care less whether you go to church. I ask "Have you asked Jesus into your heart?" Their response: "I prayed some prayer when I was younger..." (At this point in time, they start getting fidgety... I usually know where the conversation is going at this point in time.) It's usually at this point in time that I have to start tearing through a lot of religious junk and Christianese. Which is ok, I know the talk well. I know how to dismantle arguments and find out that when someone who is now 20 prayed a prayer at 5 but they're living like a little heathen.
I've personally done a decent amount of counseling and have discovered that so-called "Christians" have no idea what the Bible says and means. Everyone and their cousin knows John 3:16. But so often we have a wrong perception of God's love, mercy, truth, justice.... etc. We think that because God loves us, we can do whatever we want and its all just going to be ok. Luckily, that's not the case. If it were, God wouldn't be true to His word.
In reading through the New Testament, I've noted that Paul thanked God very much for the blood of Jesus that was shed and then said "Hey, check this out: there is a life in the Holy Spirit that God has for each and everyone of us to have! God gives us grace to get rid of our junk and then rely on the Holy Spirit to give us power to live without sin. And He gives us these gifts not only for me, but for you as well and to bring others into a saving knowledge of who Jesus is and what He did. But its because God loves you and He wants the best for you while your here. But you gotta stop doing the stupid stuff (sin) that your doing."
I know for myself, I like hard messages/sermons. I like messages that get under your skin in a good way. When they get you thinking. I'm a firm believer that having a 'good' church is the best counterfeit to having something much better. Because when you have a 'good' church (you know, like all sorts of ministries, but having no substance to it) you totally fake yourself and others out. Spending 1 minute in the presence of God can do what 500 sermons can't do. I've grown up in the charismaniac churches/circles all my life. Got 'saved' at like 4 or something, baptized in water @ 9 i think (I just got re-baptized over a year ago because I wanted to) and then baptized in the Spirit @ about 12 i think. And there are times when you can fake yourself out and think you know it all.
I'm soo grateful that there isn't anything I can do other than accepting Jesus and being a disciple of His that gets me into Heaven. It's not works, but it's grace through faith. As a matter of fact, after graduating FIRE, I took a good little while and pulled back from having to be at meetings (i mean, i kept serving in with FIRE) but I stopped a lot of stuff. I felt I had left my first love. It's only when your clothed in the righteousness of what Jesus paid a price for that makes you any good.
Lately, we've been having these awesome prayer meetings (we might call them slosh meetings b/c we just get 'hammered' or drunk in the Holy Spirit at times). I don't know how to explain them in such a way that might be understood without being there. But these meetings are designed to change our likeness more into Jesus. It's not just to say "hey, we're having really good prayer meetings. you should be there to make us look really good." It's more like "Come and let God touch you so that you can touch a dying hurting world."
Sometime ago, I was speaking at a youth retreat and the Lord directed me to speak directly out of John 15. That's the Abiding in the Vine chapter. And I've been repeatedly going back to that for sometime now. That and Romans 8. (When you've really been touched by the power of God, I believe that one of the fruits of it will be an increased hunger for the Word of God.) It was in preparation for this retreat that I wanted to preach a good call to start a revolution. And while that was good and all, about 2 hours before I spoke, the Lord said "well, that's a good idea, but how about what I want?" That's when He gave me John 15.
In any case, let us continually look to Jesus for our everything. He gave us His Holy Spirit for a reason and purpose. Let's take heed and be clothed in righteousness according to God's standard.
God, gives us grace to walk as You deem worthy.
Lately, I've been mulling over the idea about what is holiness to the Lord, walking uprightly before God and walking in character and integrity. I'm really hoping that some of the following thoughts won't come back to haunt me, but with the way that my life goes sometimes, I won't be surprised.
I've been doing a cover to cover reading of the Bible for sometime now. One verse that keeps coming back to mind is "All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6 NASB). One thing that I'm EXTREMELY grateful for is that there is nothing in, on or around this world that I can do to become righteous, other than accepting Jesus and thereby acknowledging that my life before hand and everything I do outside of Jesus is garbage. It's worthless, trash, rubbish, feces... you get the idea.
I can remember talking with folks when doing street evangelism and I ask them things like "so, do you know Jesus?" Their response: "yeah, I go to church." wow, where did that come from? I couldn't care less whether you go to church. I ask "Have you asked Jesus into your heart?" Their response: "I prayed some prayer when I was younger..." (At this point in time, they start getting fidgety... I usually know where the conversation is going at this point in time.) It's usually at this point in time that I have to start tearing through a lot of religious junk and Christianese. Which is ok, I know the talk well. I know how to dismantle arguments and find out that when someone who is now 20 prayed a prayer at 5 but they're living like a little heathen.
I've personally done a decent amount of counseling and have discovered that so-called "Christians" have no idea what the Bible says and means. Everyone and their cousin knows John 3:16. But so often we have a wrong perception of God's love, mercy, truth, justice.... etc. We think that because God loves us, we can do whatever we want and its all just going to be ok. Luckily, that's not the case. If it were, God wouldn't be true to His word.
In reading through the New Testament, I've noted that Paul thanked God very much for the blood of Jesus that was shed and then said "Hey, check this out: there is a life in the Holy Spirit that God has for each and everyone of us to have! God gives us grace to get rid of our junk and then rely on the Holy Spirit to give us power to live without sin. And He gives us these gifts not only for me, but for you as well and to bring others into a saving knowledge of who Jesus is and what He did. But its because God loves you and He wants the best for you while your here. But you gotta stop doing the stupid stuff (sin) that your doing."
I know for myself, I like hard messages/sermons. I like messages that get under your skin in a good way. When they get you thinking. I'm a firm believer that having a 'good' church is the best counterfeit to having something much better. Because when you have a 'good' church (you know, like all sorts of ministries, but having no substance to it) you totally fake yourself and others out. Spending 1 minute in the presence of God can do what 500 sermons can't do. I've grown up in the charismaniac churches/circles all my life. Got 'saved' at like 4 or something, baptized in water @ 9 i think (I just got re-baptized over a year ago because I wanted to) and then baptized in the Spirit @ about 12 i think. And there are times when you can fake yourself out and think you know it all.
I'm soo grateful that there isn't anything I can do other than accepting Jesus and being a disciple of His that gets me into Heaven. It's not works, but it's grace through faith. As a matter of fact, after graduating FIRE, I took a good little while and pulled back from having to be at meetings (i mean, i kept serving in with FIRE) but I stopped a lot of stuff. I felt I had left my first love. It's only when your clothed in the righteousness of what Jesus paid a price for that makes you any good.
Lately, we've been having these awesome prayer meetings (we might call them slosh meetings b/c we just get 'hammered' or drunk in the Holy Spirit at times). I don't know how to explain them in such a way that might be understood without being there. But these meetings are designed to change our likeness more into Jesus. It's not just to say "hey, we're having really good prayer meetings. you should be there to make us look really good." It's more like "Come and let God touch you so that you can touch a dying hurting world."
Sometime ago, I was speaking at a youth retreat and the Lord directed me to speak directly out of John 15. That's the Abiding in the Vine chapter. And I've been repeatedly going back to that for sometime now. That and Romans 8. (When you've really been touched by the power of God, I believe that one of the fruits of it will be an increased hunger for the Word of God.) It was in preparation for this retreat that I wanted to preach a good call to start a revolution. And while that was good and all, about 2 hours before I spoke, the Lord said "well, that's a good idea, but how about what I want?" That's when He gave me John 15.
In any case, let us continually look to Jesus for our everything. He gave us His Holy Spirit for a reason and purpose. Let's take heed and be clothed in righteousness according to God's standard.
God, gives us grace to walk as You deem worthy.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Some Reflections on Current Happenings
In writing this, I want to be careful about what I say and how I say it. I'm grateful that I live in a country where we are to have freedom of speech and soo many other wonderful freedoms. Those are in the documents written by the Founding Fathers and they're essentially at the core of what makes America a great nation. But lately, it seems that some of these freedoms are coming under fire. According to some recent articles coming down the pike from our government. It seems that some of my activities and beliefs might be labeled as a 'right wing extremist' or a 'domestic terrorist". Life could get interesting, considering I'm not a supporter of tyranny, I've never once attended any sort of anti-government rallies (I actually have a lot of interest in government, you can ask a lot of my friends about that.)
But I also realize how important it is to pray for our nations leaders. I'm not a supporter of our current nations leaders (I don't support genocide or the homosexual or 'alternative' lifestyle to name a few), but I don't vehemently hate these folks either. I don't support living a lifestyle contrary to the Bible. But I'm not going to force someone into living how I live.
I say all this because I get emails all the time about how ungodly beliefs are continually being forced upon me. I continually get emails about how when I go to the store, money that I'm paying for goods and services is automatically being given to people who do things that I don't agree with. Meaning that un-Godly lifestyles are being ENCOURAGED financially by businesses and governments that I have to use. President Obama has recently lifted a ban on federal funding for overseas abortion. Great, now the money that I would be making is going towards supporting something that I whole heartedly disagree with.
Sometimes, I get into discussions with folks about the issues. And sometimes, it doesn't go too far. Often times, people don't want to talk about it because the picture is just too painful. Could previous generations could've done more to prevent it? Perhaps... In any case, it seems that it is now up to my generation to fix the mistakes.
In any case, I guess you could say that I'm just a little peeved right now at things that are happening. Big Brother is supposed to be representing me, but more and more it seems that he just doesn't care. He's got the power to change things and they're changing things alright... just not how I want them to be changed.
But I also realize how important it is to pray for our nations leaders. I'm not a supporter of our current nations leaders (I don't support genocide or the homosexual or 'alternative' lifestyle to name a few), but I don't vehemently hate these folks either. I don't support living a lifestyle contrary to the Bible. But I'm not going to force someone into living how I live.
I say all this because I get emails all the time about how ungodly beliefs are continually being forced upon me. I continually get emails about how when I go to the store, money that I'm paying for goods and services is automatically being given to people who do things that I don't agree with. Meaning that un-Godly lifestyles are being ENCOURAGED financially by businesses and governments that I have to use. President Obama has recently lifted a ban on federal funding for overseas abortion. Great, now the money that I would be making is going towards supporting something that I whole heartedly disagree with.
Sometimes, I get into discussions with folks about the issues. And sometimes, it doesn't go too far. Often times, people don't want to talk about it because the picture is just too painful. Could previous generations could've done more to prevent it? Perhaps... In any case, it seems that it is now up to my generation to fix the mistakes.
In any case, I guess you could say that I'm just a little peeved right now at things that are happening. Big Brother is supposed to be representing me, but more and more it seems that he just doesn't care. He's got the power to change things and they're changing things alright... just not how I want them to be changed.
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