Onething Conference 09

I am currently at IHOP, at the Onething Conference. It has been fantastic thus far. I feel so at home out here. Plus the Lord is beginning to pour out the fresh wine that is going to prepare the church for the end of the age. Hopefully I will post more soon, but for now it's sleep time.

P.S - there is also a ton of snow here!

Derek Loux

Derek Loux was a father of 10 children who are all part of IHOP-KC. Please remember them in your prayers as Derek passed away after a car accident. Please visit their blog for more information. This is hard time for many.

http://louxfamilyblog.com/

Offense

Mark 7:25-29 says:

A woman whose little daughter had an evil spirit heard about Jesus. She went to him and bowed down. 26 The woman was a Greek Syrophoenician by race. She wanted him to drive out the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her: Let the children be fed first. It is not proper to take the childrens bread and cast it to the dogs. 28 She answered: Yes Lord, even the dogs under the table eat from the childrens crumbs. 29 Then he replied: Thanks to your answer you may leave for the demon has gone out of your daughter.

This is such an interesting verse. Recently a friend of mine was taking about this verse and he had some profound revelation about it. If you look at it Jesus is actually calling her a dog. That is crazy! But it was a test to see her reaction. The Lord wanted to see if she was going to be offended by Him, or if she would still receive Him.

Imagine if your pastor called you a dog and didn't want to pray for you because of all the others to pray for! Well that is what happened. When we are offened by people we aren't trusting the Lords leadership in our life. So I challenge you not to be offended by people, but instead forgive them and trust the Lord.

Good Quote

Here's a good quote from a friend of mine, Peter: when you minister from the presence you wont burn out because its fun! You are just enjoying being with daddy!

Jesus

Yesterday I was in an interesting funk for a little bit and I wasn't sure what it was. So I got my bible and just went to pray a little. I was hoping to read a little bit, but then I realized that wasn't going to help much. So instead I began to meditate in Isaiah 53. Wow. It so fantastic. As I began to stare at this beautiful passage the Lord brought me back to the realization that everything is about His Son Jesus. Everything we do must come back to Him and if not then it is a waste. I just was so amazed it how overcome I was when I began to meditate on the person and character of Jesus. It such a beautiful thing that the Lord did for me.

Corey Russell is a teacher at the international House of Prayer in Kansas City, and I remember him saying one time that we need to get free from reading the bible in a year. The point behind what he is saying is that we really need to start to go deep in who Jesus actually is. I realized that I know so much about God and the bible but the real question is whether or not I actually know Him, instead of just about Him. So I would encourage you to grab a passage you like (a verse or 2) and just sit on it and ask th Lord about it for a few days, weeks, months, or even years and see what you get. I mean that is pretty much all we're going to be doing for eternity, Right?

Hey everyone! I am posting this from a text message on my phone. Pretty cool huh?

Unprecedented Move

This semester of school finished up this past Tuesday, and it was a great semester. I really began to enjoy some of my classes and will likely miss 1 or 2 of them, but I guess that will be ok. I am also looking forward to some of the classes for next semester.

Most of you may have heard of the awakening that is going on at The International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOP-KC), but if you haven't I recommend you check it out. They have been experiencing a wave of the Holy Spirit in a new and fresh way. Recently they invited Bill Johnson (Bethel Church in Redding CA) and John Arnott (Toronto Airport Fellowship) to speak into what the Lord was doing. While they were there Mike Bickle, John Arnott, and Bill Johnson along with their spouses came together on one platform in unity and agreement with what the Lord is doing.

Personally, I believe this is huge for the church. Although I doubt there was ever dissension among these men, just the fact that they came together before the nation and before the Lord is going to be significant in the church. These are 3 rivers that have a huge influence among the church, and now they are even in unity before the world.

Personally, I have watched many of the services via the free webcast and it has been a huge blessing. Not only that but my faith and expectation for the Lord to release something like that anywhere in a spontaneous way has increased tremendously. Why wouldn't the Lord want to release the Holy Spirit and power while I am eating lunch with friends? Why wouldn't he want everyone in a restaurant to get saved? He just wants a willing vessel that He can use.

Amen! Lets go after this together!


P.S - the picture was my friends Timothy with Bill Johnson at a conference we went to yesterday. I thought he was pretty bold to ask for a picture. Enjoy!

Hosea

I was studying/meditating in Hosea and decided I wanted to make a post about it. What a fantastic, but drastic book.

The book it self can be divided in two parts: 1-3 and 4-14. 1-3 can really be noticed having a 2 part story and a 3 part oracle from Yahweh. The story is found in 1:3-9 and 3:1-5 while the oracle's are 1)1:10-2:1, 2)2:10-12, 3)2:14-23. The book as a whole is about the prophet Hosea marrying a prostitute named Gomer as a comparison to Yahweh's relationship with Israel and the church. There are a few highlights that I would like to mention.

Story Part 1
1:4 - Hosea is told to name his son Jezreel. Jezebel was the one who made Jezreel famous. (Try and follow this history, it's important). God ordained the destruction of Jezebel and ordained it to happen by Jehu in the Valley of Jezreel. The problem is that Jehu enjoyed destroying Jezebel. So in Hosea, the Hebrew word Jezreel actually means, "God Sows," but because of Jehu and the blood he shed it was likely that the Jezreel was misunderstood to mean, "Blood Flows.' Imagine naming a child, Bloody. That could be equivalent to someone naming their child Columbine today. This is the severity of the prophet Hosea. Imagine the effect that had on his family.

1:6 & 8 - These veres mention his other two children who are illegitiment. The girl in v. 6 is named not loved, and is likely illegitiment. Then in v. 8 his other son is named not my people. With this being His name it is almost like the Lord undoing all of the Torah History which says, "I will be your God and you will be my people." They have been spending years trying to establish this, then the Lord says, 'you are no longer my people.'

Story Part 2
In sum, this is the Lord telling Hosea to go and buy back Gomer. She has been unfaithful, but the Lord says, "Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites," (3:1). Wow. What a crazy challenge.

The 3 Part Oracle (I'm not going to mention all 3 parts).
Basically this is the Lord saying that He is going to have mercy on His people. God has been separated from His people. Part 3 concludes in 2:12-23 by talking about the re-marriage of god and His people. He is going to take her to the vineyard (a place of Romance) and be with her again. Not only that, but the once illegitimate children will be re-adopted! So it is like a baby shower and a wedding all at once!

Part 2 - Hosea 4-14
This section goes into more detail about the Israel forsaking the Lord, then concludes with the Lord returning to His people. Here are a few highlights:

4:6 - The knowledge that He is talking about here is knowledge about God. The problem is that the children are illegitimate rather than being children of a covenantal marriage. So the knowledge is more specifically knowledge about Covenantal intimacy, which would produce children of covenant.

11:8 - This could be one of the most powerful verses. The Lord says,

"How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over Israel? How can I treat you like that Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; all my compassion is aroused."

We often think that the Old Testament only emphasizes judgement and wrath, but this shows Grace! This is one of the deepest revelations of Gods heart. The word recoil is a strong word in this context. What is it like for the Lords heart to recoil? Its almost like he's having a heart attack! This is the passions of God.


I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. In sum, we must see the faithfulness of the Lord. We are always unfaithful, but He is always faithful and will never leave us. Even if we run to other lovers 1 million times a day, He is faithful to us. He will come and buy us back, no matter the cost. He wants us, His heart recoils and his compassion is aroused for us. He longs just to be with us.

Snow in Cle-vegas!

Well, I woke up this morning (a little chilly), but opened my blinds to see Snow! Everyone said that it might, but I never believe that stuff, I mean it's december 5th, that never happens.

But here it is! The glory of God. He is so beautiful!

Well...

I guess it's been about 20 days since my last post and I'm probably due for another. Eeeeek. Sorry about that (to all my hopeful readers). Life has been incredible the past few weeks. The Lord is releasing a new thing across the earth. If you haven't heard the International House of Prayer has been experiencing a unique outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They have been having extended meetings and are continuing to have them 4 nights a week. The Lord is beginning to refresh the church and call his bride unto Himself so that in that day she will be pure and spotless!

Well, hopefully I'll make a sweet blog soon, but who knows!

P.S - I'd love to know my readers, so comment if you read! (if there are any at all...)

Nakedness

Yes, that is a very interesting title for a blog, but I just connected a few dots regarding the end of the age and decided I really wanted to write a blog about it.

Matthew 21:18-22 is the passage where the fig tree withers. Well a little while back I was with a spiritual father of my generation (Tom Tanner, the Pastor of Riverstone Church) and this is what he suggested about this passage. First, fig trees are supposed to have both leaves and fruit at the same time, but this tree did not have any fruit. If the tree is Israel God is looking at Israel and cursing them for Hypocrisy. They look great with their leaves, but at the core they cannot produce fruit and all they have is religion.

With this in mind, looking back to Genesis 3:7 we see the Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves. So could it be that they were covering themselves with a form of Religion? Did they lose the glory of God that covered them and needed something to look good before God and chose a type of religion?

While I was thinking about this I then read Revelation 3:17-18 where John is addressing the church in Laodicea. He is rebuking them for what they have been saying. Then verse 18 says, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness..." So he tells them that they have shameful nakedness. It is likely that this is close to the previous 2 passages with nakedness. It could be that he is rebuking them for the spirit of religion that they are under.

Now it is obvious that there is a religious spirit, especially today in America. Before this point I was under the assumption that it was more than likely a sign of the time, but here is scriptual evidence that says in that day people will be naked and looking for things to cover themselves, but the reality is that jesus is the only one who can give the white garments to wear.

I hope that all made sense and was encouraging. It really provoked me to fall in love with Jesus. Have a great day!

En Español

Yo he querido hacer un escritura en español porque necesito practicar mí español. Pero, ya tu no entiendes esto lo siento, pero ya tu entiendes por favor ayudarme con mis errores. Yo tomo la conversacion clasé de español y quiero obtener la lenguaje, pero para es muy deficil hablar. Cuando escribiendo yo puedo hacerlo porque puedo pensar, pero cuando tengo hablar con personas tengo miedo. Las personas en mi coligio son muy bueno en espanol.

Pero, yo aprendo hablar español ya esto es el dure cosa hacer.

Gracias por leer mi escritura. Espero que la te gusta. Adios!

Interesting

Well, I was doing pretty good for a while as far as the consistency of my blogs were going. But I decided to drop the ball. This just seems like the most logical thing to stop doing when things get a little busy. For all you readers who are out there (if any other than myself) I do apologize for letting you down. Like I said, things have been quite busy... but at the same time pretty good as well.

About a week ago I went on a retreat with a few of my Professors to Horns Creek. It was a fantastic retreat. My favorite was getting to know the professors in the Religion department of my school. There are some great people at Lee that I had no clue about, but now I do.

That is the biggest thing that has been going on. Other than that I have been longing to love Jesus in the manner that He is worthy of. Sometimes I just feel so lovesick. There are obligations that take up a lot of my day sometimes and I really just want to rest and hang with Jesus. In sum, I long for the day when we will dwell with God and He will walk amongst us in complete unity and love.

Thanks for reading!

Hunger

Wow. Life with Jesus is an interesting thing. It seems that the longer we are in this relationship and the more that it seems we should know, the less we actually feel we know. As we continue to go on it is like our capacity for hunger increases and we are never satisfied. A good friend phrase it this way, "When you ask God to fill you up He does, but at the same time he expands the capacity of what you hold." So it is like we are filled, but now we still are full because he filled our hearts, then he expanded them. (I am not sure if that makes since to you, but it did to me).

As humans we are in utter need of God to come through for us. We have to depend on Him for every little aspect of our life.

Here is one more little nugget. I have been looking at the B-Attitude in matthew 5 a good bit lately. These statements are critical in Gods Kingdom. They are things that are really precious to His heart. As I was reading them there was one thing that was really highlighted to me. First, to an extent these can happen in this age, but I feel like a big point of these is to contrast the to ages. For example, when it says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." This is primarily pointing to the age to come when we will be completely comforted. The point is that we are supposed to mourning for Jesus today because He is not with us. Jesus also says this in matthew 9:15.

I have also been seeing an interesting comparison between the prophet Jeremiah and Jesus' definition of the Kingdom. But that will be my next post, hopefully.

Have an excellent day!!!

This weekend was a big weekend at Lee University. If you know anything about me you know my heart for prayer in general, but especially massive gatherings of prayer and fasting. Well that is what happened at Lee yesterday. We had a Solemn Assembly at our school yesterday led by the students for the city of Cleveland and Lee University. By the end of the day there were probably over 600 people there. I am positive it was the start of something in this city. When you get that many people hungry for something more than food God is up to something and is opening the heavens.

Personally, I was really encouraged. When we pray we sometimes don't see immediate results, but we must keep pressing because they will come. God is moving at the sound of our voice. We will probably have a video coming to promote the next Rain soon that I will post so you can see more. But ultimately what I am trying to say is that God is on the move in this generation and he is beginning to pour out His spirit on all flesh. Keep praying!

Soliloquy about Jeremiah

On Monday I was in my Old Testament Prophets class and our teacher, Dr. Rickie Moore (an Old Testament Scholar), read to us a soliloquy that he wrote about Jeremiah. This is written as if it were Jeremiah's reflection at the end of his life. This is probably better understood read aloud, but this will have to work. It really spoke measure to me, so I wanted to share it with you and pray that it'll do the same for you.



"I remember when He first called me to be his prophet
I was young then, so young that in fear I drew back,
but so young that in ignorance I stepped forward.
Forward into that presence so strange yet so familiar,
A presence suddenly which I did not know,
but which seemed to have always known me.
I felt surrounded almost smothered,
yet more alone than I ever knew anyone could feel.

It was as if nothing else existed, only myself and His word.
And then as that word came on me it was as though even I ceased to exist.
His word filling an consuming all of me and all of the world.
So in those times when I appeared to be bold or before the crowds or the priests or the officials,
Don't be mistaken I was not bold, no more bold than a dead man,
would that God had left me there,
But each time after HIs word left me
the weaknesses of my living flesh returned with greater force than before.
I longed to be understood, to fit in, to join in the festivities, to live just a normal life,
but who could believe how abnormal life had become.
Yes who could believe, who would believe?
That was the question of my life, a question I know I ask a hundred thousand times,
Was I Gods agent to turn my people to believe,
or just a lone witness against their unwillingness, their inability to believe.
Will you tell me which?
How do you expect me to intercede for more people and at the same time proclaim their judgement.
Why don't you answer me, can't you see my crying?
Or is it you who cries?

At the first He promised that He would be with me.
How was I to know that he meant it as a warning,
How was I to know that no one could ever be prepared to be with such a God,
A God who inflict such suffering on His own, His own self.
Enough questions, my questions have brought only silence,
but it is His silence."



I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks Dr. Moore, I appreciate all you have meant in my life.

Today is Today

Well, today is today. Not sure where that came from, just felt like doing it. There have been a lot of incredible, fun, life changing, excellent things going on lately, and sometimes the only things I know to do is thank the Lord for where He has me. At the same time though this it is hard, grueling, gut wrenching sometimes. But, the Lord is Sovereign and in control.

Trusting in the Lord is a difficult thing to do, and this week I have really experienced that. It is so easy to just decide to quit everything and do what you really want to do (or what you think you really want). But then you realize then you realize that that would not be who God created you to be. We are overcomers, and if we are where the Lord wants us to be then we need to walk there in our identity as He has called us.

This is what I have been learning in a big nutshell. This applies to multiple facets of my life (especially in the past week). It is time to consciously fight for our identity. If we don't then Satan will subtly come and speak lies which we usually end up sowing. Thus, where there is a sowing of something naturally there is a reaping. If we sow lies we are reaping a false identity. I challenge you today - Fight.

Urgent Message to Pray

This is a message from Lou Engle. Please pray for America tomorrow.



"Convergence

It is critical that the church in America understands the times and what needs to be done now. The natural things speak of the invisible. Natural happenings on the earth are revealing something that is going on in the spiritual realm. There is a great spiritual conflict with a rising tide of Islamic boldness being manifested. Several happenings are converging this week. First of all, our President has recently proclaimed, honored, encouraged the Muslim holy days of prayer and fasting called Ramadan. He was very silent on the National Day of Prayer but very vocal on the support of Ramadan. Interestingly at the same time a major Christian leader of the Emergent Church called for forty days of fasting and prayer in the same Ramadan period with the goal that the church will better understand our Muslim friends. We are all for understanding but we must have spiritual discernment as to the spiritual dark powers that are being invoked into our nation.

Cause for Concern

At the same time, on the 25th of September, Muslims are calling for a Muslim Day of Prayer in Washington DC (http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com/). They are calling for 50,000 Muslims to gather and pray on the DC Mall. This is the exact word of one of the Sheikhs who is leading this historic gathering, “Muslims should march on the White House. We are going to the White House so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will become into a Muslim house.” These are not empty words. They speak of a dark spiritual intent and a coming day of great trouble to America.

A Divine Moment

Now one of these events is enough to awaken us to this significant throbbing moment, but when they all converge it becomes a massive spiritual alarm that must be responded to by the praying Church. However, I believe in this moment of divine providence God has raised up on the stage of history a little “Esther” that if we pray and fast for her she could be a major voice to expose the dark under-belly of Islam and radiate a bright hope for a day of salvation for Muslims in America.

Headlines

On Monday, Rifqa Bary, a young 17-year-old woman, will be in the headlines of US news. Four years ago, while living in a very devout and radical Muslim home, Rifqa met Jesus in a powerful way as her savior. She hid her conversion, began praying secretly, and began hiding her bible from her parents. Then, on Facebook, her love for Jesus was exposed to the radical Muslim community in Ohio. Rifqa’s father demanded that she renounce Jesus or he would kill her as is commanded by the Koran. As a radiant believer in Jesus she refused to renounce her Lord and fled to Orlando where she was taken in and cared for by a Christian Church and family. Now, the father is appealing to the courts to bring her back under his custody. Major television networks have already covered her story. How must the Church of America respond in this moment for our sister who is a part of the Body of Christ?

A Major Sign

This convergence, I believe, is urgently summoning us in the midst of the rising tide of Islamic influence in America to recognize that our God is above every god and that if we return to Him with all of our hearts and call upon Him with fasting and prayer then God could use what the enemy meant for evil to bring about a great day of salvation for Muslims in America, of which Rifqa is but a major sign.

Here is The Call

First of all, we cannot be passive as a Church to let these kinds of developments go on without being challenged in the spirit. Our fight is not against Muslims, it is against principalities, powers, and forces of darkness. We are calling the Church of America at the end of Ramadan, from September 21st through 25th, to five days of concerted prayer. On Monday, we must pray that God would grant supernatural wisdom to the courts so that the testimony of Jesus would be proclaimed and that the best situation for Rifqa and her family would take place. We must pray for Rifqa to be bold in proclaiming Jesus that even thousands of Muslims would hear and be awakened to the love of Christ. She has already said that this is not about her but about many Muslims coming to Jesus. We must pray for her lawyers who are being bullied, threatened, and challenged on every side. On Friday, September 25th, the Muslim Day of Prayer, we are calling the Church of America to fast and pray that Muslims would be moved by the Holy Spirit, convicted by the testimony of Christ, and even be visited by Jesus in dreams. We must pray that God would restrain the spiritual powers behind Islam and grant us the great awakening that we desperately need for America.

Let us hear the call to prayer and not miss this moment,

Lou Engle"

The Upside down Kingdom

This is such an intriguing topic to me. Mainly because it is totally opposite of what I want to do the majority of the time. I do not understand it, but for some reason the way of the Kingdom is to go low so you can go high. We obviously see this in the life of Jesus, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. During this message to the people Jesus did not demonstrate His power, instead He spoke about the foundations of His Kingdom. After He spoke the peoples response is seen in Matthew 7:28-29, "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teachings, because he spoke as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the Law."

This blows me away. How can you be so amazed at someone who is telling you humble yourself and forgive other. Someone who tells you that it is not all about you. But because of the power and truth on His words the Holy Spirit convicted their hearts.

I also want to point out where this is seen in Isaiah. This starts in the song seen Isaiah 42:1-4 where Isaiah is talking about the servant of the Lord (often seen as Jesus):

"Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my spirit on Him
and He will bring Justice to the Nations.
He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.
In Faithfulness he will bring forth Justice;
He will not falter or be discouraged
till He establishes justice on the earth.
In his law the islands will put their hope."

This has messed me up as I have meditated on it a tiny bit. If you look at it the main description is a servant who is weak and lowly. It says He will not cry out or raise His voice in the streets. Also it says, "A bruised reed he will not break..." etc. Now I don't claim to know what most of this stuff means, but it blows me away that Isaiah says that this is the one who will bring justice. The one who is weak and lowly; who will not be the loudest among the people, but instead the quietest and meekest.

As I have been meditating on these passages I have been wanting to put them into practice more and more. Just today I had an opportunity where something was done to me and it was probably wrong. But I heard the Lord asking me how I was going to respond. It is so easy to respond in anger and just hord up bitterness toward the person, but in the Kingdom of God we are to respond in meekness and forgive them. I don't understand it, but this releases power both in our lives and the other persons.

I hope this encourages you as you seek to live a life worthy of the calling He has given you. Cya!

Strengthening yourself in the Lord

Lately I have been realizing my great need for the Lord. So often I think I can do things on my own, but the Lord in His grace stops me in my tracts and shows me I have to rely on Him. This is a subtle thing, yet it still happens. I will just be going trough life day by day and then turn around and realize I have hardly been using the Lords strength and instead have been using my own.

Ephesians 3:16 says, "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man..."

This is what I want. I want to be strengthened with divine might in my inner man. I am tired of trying to use my own strength. We have access to everlasting strength that never grows weary or gets tired. There is so much depth in this verse that we need to tap into. I have known this verse for a while, but when it actually hit me what I was really saying it messed me up. We cannot get tired of this prayer.

Hope you all are enjoying my blog. Please comment and let me know what you would like to see me write about. I am completely open to suggestions. Right now I am just posting random thoughts. Hope to hear from you!!

Psalm 19

Hey there readers (if there are any). I realize I haven't been posting much (what else is new), but here's a few thoughts if there is anyone still reading. Today in our Chapel Dr. Cross spoke on Psalm 19. This idea is something that regularly amazes me since I found out about it. He was mainly making a distinction between the Hebrew words of "Elohim" and "Yahweh."

Both of these words are seen in this Psalm. It starts by declaring the majesty of God in His creation. The hebrew word for God here is Elohim. Then as one keeps reading to verse 7 the author uses "LORD" in our bibles, which means Yahweh. I do not just want to present this to you as an interesting difference, but instead I want to try and relate it to our hearts.

Traditionally Elohim is seen to display the majestic attributes of God (holy, worthy, mighty, powerful, etc.) whereas Yahweh is used to show the personal relationship of God (loving, always near, etc.). When we read this Psalm with this in mind it completely changes everything. Verses 7-11 are specifically talking about the law of the Yahweh and its characteristics. I want to start thinking of the law as part of my love relationship with Jesus, not just a set of rules and to do's, but something that causes me to fall more in love with Jesus.

Jesus said in John 15:10, "If you obey my commands you will remain in my love..." This is the only way to love. I have been asking the Lord to shift my paradigm (perspective) on obedience so that I would not just obey for obedience sake, but instead I would obey to fall more in love with Jesus. Those who love Him will obey His commands.

I don't understand how this works, and to be honest it sometimes offends my mind, but I want it! Looking at Psalm 19 shows us that there is something intimate about obeying the Lords commands. I hope this encourages you today, I know it has me! Cya!

"May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer. Amen."

Dreamers

If there is anyone who reads my blog you have probably already seen this video, but here it is anyway. This is a song called Dreamers, by Daniel Bashta. Every time I listen to it the Lord reminds me of how faithful He is, and that He really is calling me higher.

Lee

Well, as many of you know I am back at school now at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. So far everything has been pretty good. The Lord is stirring some interesting things at this school, and it is awesome that He has invited me to be a part of it.

Lately my heart has been longing really be what Jesus had in mind for the church to be. Honestly, I have no clue what that is, but I do know that it includes loving people. For some reason I feel like he had a little more in mind than getting together with others who believe in Jesus once a week and then hiding our faith from everyone else throughout the week. I want to feel the aches that Jesus feels for one soul who doesn't know who He is. I want my heart to burn like His.

Because of this, me and a few of my friends have been going around town just trying to love people in Cleveland. We don't want anything in return, we just want to demonstrate the love of Jesus. Last night we were praying and asking the Lord where He would have us go, and two of us heard CVS. When we got there we noticed a family that had a flat tire. Obviously, that is where the Lord was leading us. So for the next 30 minutes we just hung out with the family and helped them change their tire (and they really needed some help). It blew me away what one little act like this does to people. Afterward we were talking to the mom, and she said, "I bet yall wern't planning on changing a tire when you came out to CVS tonight."

We proceeded to look at each other and responded, "Actually, we kind of were. We were praying and asking the Lord where to go and He led us here to help you."

In the end they were really blessed by the Lords love and compassion for them. I want to challange us to really be the church as we live life. Lets demonstrate the love of Jesus to those in need. The Lord loves it when this happens!!!

Prayer Room

Check out the prayer room that we have in our dorm this year at Lee University. It is 2 doors down from my room, and I love it. You better believe that I will be spending a little bit of time in there...

Welcome

Welcome all readers, new and old! This is my (new) blog. It really is not so much new as much as it is a continuation of an old blog site. Unfortunately, I have left all my old blogs and not brought them to this site, but if you are interested in reading them please comment and let me know. I have a feeling that I am going to enjoy this much more than my previous blog (or at least for a few weeks until it becomes a burden).

I hope that you enjoy this as much as I will.