Recent Events

Here's a brief update (and a random picture I took in Israel).

This semester has been difficult but great. I don't think there has been a time in my life where I have grown and learned more spiritually, practically, and academically. I was stretched more than I knew I could handle, but (of course) the Lord showed me His faithfulness. He helped me when I was in need.

In May I moved in with 3 guys who have grown to be my closest friends (John Bush, Caleb Hughes, and Steve Gilliam). We have had a blast living together, but more than that we started a home group type meeting on Monday nights that has been really powerful for our campus. Each week we have close to 60 students pack into our house and worship the Lord together. It was a great opportunity to learn about the Lord and discipleship. I also think I might have started doing something that is part of my future/calling... Teaching.

I taught 2 of our meetings and realized that it really is something that I love. I had a couple opportunities to teach when I was in high school, but at the time I didn't realize it was a gift/talent that I had, I was just doing it because of the role I was in. The Lord has given me a passion to teach/preach the bible and see people fall in love with Him. I am looking forward to more opportunities in the coming months.

Another recent update (that not many people know) is that I am actually finishing school a YEAR early. I will graduate with my Undergraduate in Theology in May! That's exciting. I have some thoughts about what I will do afterwards, but nothing definite yet. In the end there are 2 things I have on my heart to do: 1) minister to the Lord in some sort of House of Prayer setting (not necessarily IHOP), and 2) teach the bible. Right now I do not know the steps that the Lord will use to get me to those two desires, but He put them in my heart close to 5 years ago, and after waiting, the desire to do them has only grown. This proverb describes it best:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

This verse has vast eternal implications, but practically in my life I have hope to one day sit defore the Lord and gaze at His beauty night and day praying for His justice on the earth. For the past few years this hope has been deferred, but I am believing and trusting the Lord to bring it to pass as a tree of life.

One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. Psalm 27:4

My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Psalm 84:2

Eternity

Recently I have been reading one of my textbooks for my Systematic Theology class and the Lord really began to grip my heart with some things. It seems like today most of the church is usually focused on this present evil age that we are living in and we loose site of what is coming. I noticed this so much that when I started to hear things about eternity I began to wonder if what I was hearing was even biblical. Yet, as I continue to dig in the word and read many top theologians, or any christian writers for that matter, I am seeing that this eternal perspective is not a new thing. In fact, the restoration of all things is the longing in Gods heart and the point of all of scripture. God wants to have His dwelling with man. Although it seems as if this stream of thinking has been limited to the elite and the theologians and is not very common among regular church attenders. I hate that and really want to change it!

In fact, this seems like a tragedy. This problem is not the fault of either the leaders of the regular church attender, but it is likely the fault of both of these groups. When you ask a christian what the Kingdom of God is the common answer is, “Love, Joy, Peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit.” And that is an incredible answer! But it is only one side of a two sided coin. We are living in what can be called the present evil age and are eagerly awaiting for the age to come. In this current age the primary manifestation of the Kingdom of God is love, joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit, but the point is that this expression is incomplete and fallen. We do experience this now to an extent, but if that is our end goal it is depressing! Because the reality is that there is an age coming where that will be the continual sense and emotion of what we are feeling.

I would continue to rant on this, but let me briefly discuss my point in all of this. I have not been doing this very long, but personally, as the Lord has given me the grace to have an eternal perspective it has strengthened me tons more than any other type of teaching or self-help message. It seems like we are so busy trying to help people in the temporal life (which I think is completely valid, and I am not discrediting) that we are not looking beyond to what is coming. My personal experience has shown that when I see the greater glory of the coming age then my pain in suffering in this age is minimized to an extent to where it hardly even matters. Ultimately, I want to start communicating to people the Coming Kingdom instead of trying to give them practical advice of how to live their lives, because if we could just have a vision of God and eternity everything in life would start to fall together.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul is talking about the Resurrection from the dead and how Christ is only the first-fruits. It is evident through Paul’s life that He was waiting for the Immanent return of Jesus, but it did not happen in His life. When I think of this I want to live in the same way. Whether Jesus is coming back in 50 years or 500 I want to live with an urgency on my heart just as Paul did. Paul had a vision of heaven and was excitedly looking forward to the resurrection. In light of the easter season, lets rejoice that Jesus has conquered death, but more than that, that He is only the first-fruits of all of us who believe. Meaning that we will one day be raised with Him!

Revelation 1:1

I began reading some notes that a friends of mine (Samuel Clough) has on the book of revelation and I was struck by his notes on the first verse as He began to expound on Revelation 1:1. I have not spent much time meditating on this verse until today and the spirit of revelation came and struck me. In the past I usually skip over this verse thinking I want to get to the meat of the Book, but I have just realized there is no meat without this verse. It says:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.”

I am used to hear people say that the book of Revelation is not primarily about getting a sequence of events, but I never really believed them. Today I was struck with this reality. It is not given in order to reveal a sequence of events, but to reveal the attributes of God and show who Jesus really is.

The word ‘soon,’ in the first verse is incredibly significant. Obviously, in the natural it has been 2,000 years since this was written and since the word ‘soon’ was scribed. So is it still coming soon? The reality is that for God 2,000 years is a blip on the map in the span of eternity. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that for God one day is 1,000 years and 1,000 years is one day. So God is outside of time. If this is true than why would He use the word ‘soon’ if it was more than 2,000 years away for humans inside of time? I began to meditate on what Samuel Clough suggests which is that this word primarily describes the urgency that is Gods heart for that hour.

This is a profound reality and my heart has been pricked by the Lord. It could have just said, ‘to show his servants what must take place,’ and omit the word soon. But instead He included it. This shows the deep desire and passion in Gods heart for Jesus to receive the reward of His suffering as described in Eph 1:18. God desires for the earth to return to the way it was with Adam in Gen 1-3. He longs for us, as humans, to dwell in fellowship without any hindrance of sin. The problem is that we are so fallen we have no clue what we are missing. We do not know what it was like when God dwelt with man. But the reality is that this is the ultimate end in Gods heart and it is where the end of all things is going. He wants this so much that we desires that Jesus be revealed soon. He longs for men to dwell with Him again.

I hope this encourages you to ask the Lord for a spirit of Revelation into His word. Sometimes I think I have things figured out, but then the something like this strikes me and I realize I hardly know anything. This book is so profound and it reveals the heart of God. Bob Sorge says, “The more time you spend in the ‘logos’ (written word), the greater your chances of receiving a ‘rhema’ (spoken word).” We usually ask for the thunder and lightning encounter with the Lord and don’t realize that He has given us an incredible way to encounter Him in His word. Yes the dramatic encounter will come, but until then I am going to encounter Him as much as I can in the written word!

Strangers

I have a book called, The Valley Of Vision. This is a book of Puritan prayers and devotions. I picked it up to read this morning and the one I turned to is called "The Saviour." Towards the end it goes,

"May I feel that I am a stranger and pilgrim on the earth,
Declaring plainly that I seek a country,
My title to it becoming daily more clear,
My meetness for it more perfect,
My foretaste of it more abundant."

These few lines are incredibly rich with deep revelation of scripture. Hebrews tells us that we really are pilgrims searching for a city who's builder and maker is God. The reality is that we will never be fully satisfied in this age, but only partially. Our actual inheritance and glory is in the age to come where we will dwell in fullness with God on the earth in the New Jerusalem.

As we are here on earth we begin to get little pieces of it where the Lord will touch us, but in reality this is just a foretaste of the coming kingdom when we will live in communion with God. In Mark 14:25 Jesus says, "truly I say to you, you will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until you drink it new in the kingdom." Jesus is telling us that our ultimate fulfillment will be in the Coming Kingdom, but even now there are tastes of this wine and kingdom which is evidence of heaven touching earth.

I would encourage you to watch this video of one of the songs that has come out of the IHOPU Student Awakening. This is exactly what they are singing of, that in that day we will drink of the marriage wine for real! Enjoy!

Patience

This morning I was praying through Colossians 1:11 which says,

"That you may be strengthened will all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience."

And also 2 Thessolonians 3:5,

"May the Lord direct your hearts into the patience of Christ..."

Each of these verses should have profound impact on us. I realize sometimes that I get really excited about certain things and don't want to wait very long for them. In these times we must look to Jesus. We really need to see how patient He has actually been. He died on a cross 2,000 years ago for His bride who is still ugly and divided. We as the church often fight with each other and don't love each other, but Jesus is still waiting in all His glory for a bride who is pure and spotless. When this happens, then He will return.

As I begin to meditate on the patience of Christ it gives my soul great rest to realize that He has been waiting much longer than I have for anything. He wants to give us some of His strength as seen in the Colossians passage. He who has an abundance of might wants to strengthen us with might.

As you are anxious I encourage you to pray through these passages.

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!

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!

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."